Chapter 41: Streamer

With the Nexus skyline as a backdrop, Hugh spent almost two hours talking on his game feed. It felt strange to be standing up and moving around where he'd usually spent his feeds in his computer chair with his face a tiny little afterthought in the corner of the screen. It helped to remind himself that he also moved around while playing VR. This wasn't too much different, except he wasn't wearing a vizuband or holding comsticks.

At first, he was talking to no one at all, merely putting things on record for when people watched the full video in playback. He started by saying, "Hello world, this is EXP Honey streaming Live from Thrive."

He described what it'd been like when he first logged in, then used his Shortcut Binds to make stuff appear and disappear so people could see for themselves he wasn't streaming from the real world. Of course, there would be people who thought he was faking, but screw them. The truth would be undeniable soon enough.

Twenty minutes into the feed, the first few lurkers showed up to watch without commenting in the feed's chatroom. Hugh did his best to engage them, telling them he was happy to answer any questions they had, but no one took the bait. He spent another ten minutes showing off his Book and explaining some of the features of the system menu, being careful not to give away anything he intended to use as gaming tactics, before the first person dared to speak up.

MarkyMargretMayhem asked, "Are you for real?"

Hugh grinned. "I'm as real as anyone who logged into Thrive. It's crazy, right? Games work hard to make their models realistic, but this is the first time something digital could truly be mistaken for live action. I don't even want to guess how powerful the Thrive servers are for the experience to be this immersive, but I honestly can't tell a difference between being in this body and being out in the real world. The movement of my hands and feet, the smells in the air, and the goosebumps you get when you feel a chill—my senses are telling me this is completely real. But I know it's not that easy to convince everyone and I'm not going to try. What I will say is, why not suspend your disbelief and take this chance to ask me questions you really want answered? I'm here. You're here. Take this chance to get some intel."

Channel57DNetNewsLive asked, "What was it like to log in?"

"Whoa," Hugh said in awe. "I got a reporter in the house. Nice. Well, to answer your question, you start out in this big void with an entire planet in front of you. You're like a god, which is what the NPCs on the planet will see you as—a minor godling. I only had one section of the planet unlocked, but that gave me enough territory to mold a continent the size of Australia."

Hugh spent an hour walking everyone through his first few hours of gameplay, pushing the importance of getting acquainted with their Book and using their Navigators as the guides they were intended to be. More and more news reporters showed up to ask detailed questions and players came along with them, filling the feed until the text in the chatroom was flowing too fast for him to keep up.

Hugh took the opportunity to hold up his Map and show everyone the layout of Nexus, then unashamedly plugged the fact he'd rented out three buildings in the Food Court with the intention of flipping them to the highest bidder.

Eventually, he interrupted himself with a wide yawn. He glanced out the window behind him to find the sun had already set while he'd been talking. "Holy shit, it's late. I know I logged in at midnight, but it was the crack of dawn when I first spawned on my world. How long have I actually been awake?"

"I'm unsure since I don't know how long you were awake prior to logging in," Dex replied. "I can tell you eleven hours have elapsed since then and you've only had a twenty minute nap."

"And I did a lot today. I think this means it's time for me to end the feed, check my email, and log off the Net so I can get some sleep." Turning back to his feed, he gave them a wave goodbye and said, "That's all for tonight. Think of some good questions for me for tomorrow night. I intend to log in at least once more, but afterward it might be a while before I have the spare time to chat with everyone. From here on out, don't expect regular updates, either. There's way too much to see and I—Holy mother of God, that's not the moon. Is that Earth?"

Hugh only noticed it out of the corner of his eye as the planet slowly rose over the city's horizon. He stood there gaping for nearly ten minutes, watching as Earth's unmistakable features filled the sky on top of a clear backdrop of stars.

"How is this possible?" Hugh asked. "Are we floating in space? Wait, why was the sky blue earlier if we're in space? This doesn't make sense."

"It won't always be Earth up there," Dex said. "If you dig into the story written for Nexus, this entire city is a colony ship searching for a new home for humanity. Once a month, we'll land on a new planet. Some will be Earth-like. Some won't. Some might be completely devoid of life and require special outerwear to navigate. Others will be like paradise, rich in either plants, animals, or raw minerals.

Players will have a chance to explore and harvest at will on these worlds, but each new stop will come with what you'd call a World Raid. This will include puzzle challenges, platforming and exploration, dialogue with NPCs, and so on. If you manage to complete the entire Raid before Nexus takes off to a new world, you'll have the chance to win a Unique item. Anyone who wants to save Earth should aim for those."

"Why is that?" Hugh asked, unable to take his eyes off the Earth rising up in the sky.

"The Navigator system will be designing the tasks of each world around the different possible causes for the destruction of Earth's atmosphere. There were too many chain reactions for the World Council and any human scientist to unravel the main source. Their only option is to go through scenarios one at a time and collect data on environmental cause and effects, then allow Navigator to correlate and piece it all together for them. It's believed how players choose to deal with these issues will provide possible solutions on how to fix the problem once it's identified or, in the event of total catastrophe, provide alternatives necessary for humanity to return to a real world existence."

"Like terraforming," I said, pulling my gaze away to look at him. "If you can't save the atmosphere on Earth, you might be able to create a new one on one of Saturn's moons. We couldn't seem to get it done, but maybe you Navigators can figure it out."

"It's one possibility the Navigator Core is considering," Dex said. "As to your question about the sky being blue, that's because Nexus rests inside a Climate Controlled Safe Zone set to reflect the climate of its country. Here on the American Shard, there might be days when it rains or even snows, but the climate within Nexus will never exceed human limitations nor will weather events ever last long enough to seriously impede human mobility. On sunny, cloudless days, the sky will always appear blue, even if the environment outside Nexus lacks an atmosphere, such as the moonscape currently surrounding the city. This is to protect the mental health of Nexus residents who are disinterested in playing the game."

"What happens if I were to go out there beyond the walls?" Hugh asked. "Will I get to bounce around the moon and collect moon dirt?"

"You can," he replied with a crooked grin. "The climate controlled safe zone, or Green Zone, extends for half a mile in every direction. However, I don't suggest you go beyond there without a protective suit, as you'll instantly be subjected to the vacuum of space. I'm told it's not a pleasant way to die. Regolith is considered an environmental hazard, as well, so I'd be careful if you collect any. What you find in the safe zone has been rendered inert. Outside the Green Zone? You'll find it can be more dangerous than sandpaper crafted out of diamonds."

"We're definitely going out there at some point this month," Hugh said. "But we already have tomorrow all booked up with my sponsor and I need to spend the day after with Macro and my NPCs."

"Maybe the day after?"

"Maybe." Turning back to his Net feed, which was still running, Hugh said goodbye once more and shut it down. He took a moment to check his statistics, grinning when he saw he'd gotten nearly eleven times more viewers than he'd ever gotten before, meaning his bank account would be flush by morning. He just had to navigate the page and set the resulting ad revenue to automatically transfer to his bank account. Surprisingly, it already had the option to pay out in Zettabits, so he wouldn't have to worry about exchanging cash for Thrive currency.