Good Friend

Alexander met Laurent at a Sector 12 bar. This was infinitely better than the one at which he'd gotten drunk, and was one of the most high-class bars in Paris.

Alexander had needed to postpone their original meeting time, but only mentioned that a personal problem had come up. "Let's go to Sector 12 instead of Sector 5," he'd said as an apology. "I'll buy the drinks!"

During the extra time, Alexander took an expensive hangover cure pill and drank a lot of water. The pill wasn't perfectly effective, but it dulled most of the pain and gave him some mental clarity. By the time Alexander arrived in the bar, he looked confident and composed once again.

Laurent was one of Alexander's oldest friends. They'd known each other since primary school and had always shared a passion for video games, especially MMOs. Laurent's parents had always limited him to playing one hour during weekdays and two hours per day on weekends, which had always limited his progress... but things were about to change!

After the two friends shook hands, ordered some of the finest beers available on Earth, and sat at the table, Alexander spoke up. "I'm really sorry I didn't answer you earlier, but Horus just took up all of my time. But here, I've got your helmet."

Alexander held out the VRI helmet Laurent had lent him all those months ago, which had allowed him to restart his life in this new world.

The advantage of the VRI helmet over the old, standard VR helmets was that it scanned its user's face and brain, thereby tying user accounts to the actual person wearing them. This solved many problems which had plagued MMOs in the past, such as botting and hacking.

If you were banned from a game using a VRI helmet, then you couldn't fool the brain scanner into letting you make a new account… not without hiring a skilled hacker to modify the helmet, which was quite expensive!

Best of all, of course, this technology allowed for instant and secure connectivity to game servers. VRI helmets had truly created a renaissance of MMORPGs.

Laurent examined his helmet, making sure it wasn't damaged. Though this bar was much more expensive than the ones he and Alexander used to visit, he didn't seem very intimidated by his surroundings. Nor did he seem self-conscious about caring so much about the condition of a helmet which might have been inexpensive to many others in the bar.

Though scalping prices had dropped since Horus's launch, VRI helmets were still very expensive, nearly 20,000 credits new. For a middle-class student like Laurent, this was an enormous sum, and he found no shame in this.

However, the helmet was intact, despite the intensive use by Alexander and his father. Their family was very accustomed to taking good care of their belongings, since they had little to spend on repairing careless mistakes! And, of course, most of the time spent using the helmet left the user completely motionless.

Laurent finally said, "Thank you! Honestly, I was starting to think I'd never see it again. As for me, I successfully finished my Computer Science studies and have started looking for a job. Until I land one, I'll have plenty of time to start Horus! Sure feels good to not be the only person I know who isn't playing it. Pro-Streamer was saying it finally broke 400,000,000 players at once. Isn't that insane? You're so lucky to have started right away! How far are you? Did you manage to join a good guild and make some money?"

Alexander knew Laurent was a skilled MMO player, as well as a generous and faithful human being, so he intended to invite his friend to join Eclipse. With that in mind, there was no point in hiding his identity. "Yes, I guess you could say I've had a good start. I'm LvL 26 in the Eclipse guild. My in-game name is Apophis. Don't know if you've heard of me."

Those last words were spoken with a tinge of ironic arrogance, of course. Laurent recognized the infamous name of Apophis, as Alexander had known he would. Of course, Alexander had never been a pro gamer in any other MMO, so this claim was ridiculous, and Laurent took it as a joke.

"Well," he said with a grin, "I'm hiding my secret identity too! My real name is William Woke, AKA Lucifer. You know, the best player in the world. I have a billion credits, thirty-eight houses, and eighteen flying cars—and I sleep with Josephine Portman every night!"

The two men burst out laughing and Laurent added, "Seriously, what's your in-game name?"

Alexander knew he couldn't convince him with words. He'd lied to Laurent many times in the past, and this was quite the incredible story, regardless of his reputation.

So Alexander put his holo-watch into projection mode. A 3D web page appeared, displaying his bank account with its unmistakable balance of 14,500,000 credits.