Chapter 2: Briefing

Giddeon’s ears still rang slightly as he was wheeled into the briefing room. Motorized wheelchairs filled the space, occupied by other participants. Unlike the rigid armored contraption from the day before, these were standard corporate models operated via voice command or armrest joysticks. He could have commanded the unit himself, but every candidate had been assigned an assistant. He was no different.

“Do you have a preference for where you want to sit?”

Giddeon looked up at his caretaker, offering a faint smile. “I don’t care where I sit. Just maybe not behind someone taller than me.” He winked. “Thanks for asking.”

Ophelia, a slim woman in her late twenties with short brown hair, flushed slightly at the cheeks. She wasn’t his usual type, but the reaction was charming.

“It’s no trouble, Mr. Seres,” she replied.

As they waited for a gathering line of wheelchairs ahead to clear, Giddeon flexed his fingers, marveling at how fast his strength was returning. Not bad for someone fresh out of brain surgery.

“Hemozin?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t know,” Ophelia answered modestly. “I’m just an assistant, but I’ve heard rumor there’s a large stock on the ship.”

“One ounce of that would cost me an actual arm and a leg back home,” Giddeon murmured, his gaze sweeping the room “You haven’t seen a man named Edggen, have you?” he asked. “Hard to miss—late forties, receding hairline. Got a nice smile, though.”

“Hmm,” she murmured, scanning the rows. “Not that I recall. Most are much younger here. Not many in their forties.”

“I see.” A slight frown tugged at his lips. “Well, if you happen upon him, please, let me know.”

“Of course.”

The crowd passed, and Ophelia guided his chair deeper into the hall, positioning him within a neat row of candidates. Like him, they all wore thick white bandages wrapped around their heads. Most remained silent—either naturally shy or too disoriented from their recent operation to converse.

The room was vast, dominated by a raised stage at the front. The walls were clinically bare, painted in bright white and dull gray. Giddeon performed a quick headcount, calculating the rows across the combined groups. One hundred and seven. Forty-three were missing.

“Thank you, Aiges assistants,” a masculine voice reverberated through hidden speakers.

A man in his early fifties strode onto the platform from a side door. His silver-grey hair was meticulously parted, his jawline perfectly clean-shaven. He wore a tailored beige suit featuring a long-cut jacket and slim trousers, paired with a crisp cerulean shirt and a silver-beige tie. The entire ensemble was crafted from the finest, high-grade Plithium money could buy. On Earth Two, there was a common saying: “One suit is all you’ll ever need.” Given the material’s notorious durability, the phrase was less of a proverb and more of a lifelong promise.

He approached a silver-stained podium, gripping its sleek sides, then looked out over the crowd with a broad smile. “You may take your leave now,” he said, his voice elegant and clear. “We’ll call you back when the briefing concludes.”

The assistants filed out.

What a smile, Giddeon thought. He’d dealt with men like this before—smooth, charming, and about as honest as a stacked deck.

“Welcome, Aiges!” the man greeted, his arms spreading wide to encompass the room. “Artificial Intelligence Guidance for the Enivia System, if you were wondering. That is what you are now. Or rather, what we implanted in your heads. Suffice it to say, you’re all worth substantially more today than you were yesterday!”

Chuckles rose up from several candidates spaced throughout the room. Enhancements were far too expensive for the average citizen, let alone a state-of-the-art chip produced by a frontline tech conglomerate.

“And who made all this possible?” His eyes roamed the room, lingering briefly on the front row. “You all applied to Viztech Corporation, but you might be surprised to learn that is merely a subsidiary owned by a much larger entity.” He paused, his smile sharpening as the crowd shifted in anticipation. “My name is Ereos Vibane. I suspect you’ve heard of me. Or at the very least, my empire.”

A heavy silence fell over the hall, rapidly dissolving into a wave of stunned whispers. People stared at one another, a sharp, excited realization settling behind their eyes. Everyone knew Vibane. It was a planetary titan with its fingers in everything: life-saving pharmaceuticals, Triumvirate weapons manufacturing, and the very seeds that birthed terraformed worlds. If you could name it, they owned it.

Unfortunately, the company’s history was equally tainted by decades of scandals—whispers of bribes, political manipulation, human experimentation, and engineered disappearances.

“But I’m not here to talk about Vibane Corp,” Ereos continued, stepping away from the podium to pace the lip of the stage. “I’m here to talk about why you’re here, why we wanted you here, and what your mission entails.”

He paused, scanning the rows, his gaze locking on individual candidates.

“We are currently orbiting the most amazing planet ever discovered in human history,” he said, reversing his stride. “Ten years, and no one knows what’s down there. Ten years, and the truth has been kept a tight-lipped secret from all but a few select individuals.” He grinned. “Yours truly is one of them.”

He waved a hand toward the side door. “I won’t spoil too much. I’ll let our leading tech developer do that. Please welcome the CEO of Kawaii Worlds, Taka Ushi.”

Excited chatter spread through the crowd. Giddeon, however, frowned. Ushi was famous for creating virtual engines, specifically immersive video games. To Giddeon’s knowledge, the programmer had no public affiliation with Vibane, nor did his entertainment background explain his presence on a black-budget expedition.

A middle-aged Asian man shuffled onto the stage, waving awkwardly toward the rows. He was short, pudgy-faced, with square-rimmed glasses and a stubbled goatee. His attire followed the latest Earth Two trend: red and green woolen threads stitched together with random grey patches. Moving toward Ereos with his hands shoved deep in his pockets, his slouched posture betrayed his discomfort with public appearances.

Ereos gestured to the crowd. “Mr. Ushi, will you please present AIGES to our associates?”

“Oh. Um, yes,” Taka murmured, shuffling to the lectern as Ereos stepped away.

“I…uh…I’m Taka. Taka Ushi,” he began. “I build world engines. Well, develop them really. Other technicians execute the coding, but I’m fully involved in every algorithmic milestone!”

He offered a brief smile that quickly faded when the room remained completely silent.

“You—you may be asking yourself what a simulation designer has to do with Mr. Vibane here, or this mission,” Taka continued, his voice amplifying through the sound system. “I’m here to explain the wonders of what you’re about to experience.”

Taka pressed a button on the lectern. The wall behind him dissolved into a high-resolution picture, displaying the planet they had all come to see.

“Enivia!” Taka announced excitedly. “A planet fully capable of sustaining human life without the need for terraforming. And it’s already inhabited.”

“Humans have already colonized the planet?” a tall man with a shaved head near the front demanded. He was large, his muscular frame straining against the thin, plain-white medical uniform they had all been issued. His short sleeves exposed tattooed bands of black ink snaking down his forearms. “From where?”

A tiny, jagged mark on the speaker’s neck caught Giddeon’s eye. To everyone else, it appeared as a smudge or random scar, but Giddeon recognized the viper immediately—the mark of an Alpha Asp member. His teeth ground together, pulse quickening as his hands instinctively gripped the armrests so tightly his knuckles burned white. It took a long, steady break to force himself calm.

Taka looked down at his display console, tapping a key. “Mr.…Graks. Humans? Some. Colonized? No, not by our definition. I also see you were a—” He paused again to consult the lectern. Looking back up, he eyed the man with a questioning frown. “—a trader in the game Grand Space Hijacker Seven?”

Graks glared up at the stage. “Yeah, so what?”

“What do you mean by ‘humans, some’ if it isn’t colonized?” a blonde woman in the middle row cut in. She was tall, built like a runner, with a rigid posture.

Taka consulted his display, his lips moving silently before he looked up. “Mrs. Redler,” he said. “Let me expand upon my statement. Enivia has what appears to be small pockets of primitive humans. From our observations, their technological advancements extend little beyond making a fire. Our ancestors referred to them as cavemen.”

He waved his hand dismissively. “There’s also the local fauna. They can be dangerous, if provoked, but for the most part they’re simple participants in the planet’s ecology.”

A short, wiry man with sandy-brown hair and a patchy beard spoke up from the left aisle. “Participants?”

“Thank you, Mrs. Redler, for playing as a healer in one of my personal favorite games, The Circle of Eternity,” Taka acknowledged quickly, before pivoting smoothly to the new speaker. “And Mr….Kilner, yes, like an interconnected ecosystem: a fish eats a minnow, which is eaten by a bird, then is caught by a snake. A baseline predator-prey loop.”

He pushed his glasses higher up his nose. “If our schedule permits later, I’d like to discuss your experience playing Lords of Time. I never got around to playing it, but the resource-loop mechanics are highly regarded. I’m looking for some fresh ideas for my next project.”

“What’s your next project?” a voice called out from center-row.

A faint smile touched Taka’s mouth. “I was thinking of calling it Enivia, basing it on what we discover here. More specifically, on what you discover. Who knows? I might even make NPCs out of everyone here.”

The room erupted into applause and excited chatter. Candidates clapped and whistled, clearly energized by the possibility of virtual immortality. Giddeon found the display entirely trivial.

“Can I have a statue of myself in the center of the main city?” a young, athletic man with blonde hair called out, drawing laughs from the surrounding rows.

Taka’s grin widened. “As the local god of modesty? Or something like that?”

More laughter rippled through the hall.

As Taka prepared to continue, Giddeon decided it was time to dig. “Why were we all picked based on our participation in video games?” he asked, his voice cutting clear through the room.

Taka blinked, caught off guard. He glanced down at the lectern, then looked up, his brow furrowing. “Mr. Seres,” he began, checking the console again, frowning. “Giddeon? That’s an odd name. I haven’t heard it before.”

“It’s an ancient Earth One name,” Giddeon replied.

The crowd stirred, the temperature in the room instantly plummeting.

“A One-er?” someone sneered from a couple of rows behind him.

“Disgusting,” another muttered as a wildfire of whispers erupted through the room.

Ereos stepped forward, his eyes narrowing as he read the data from the console. He looked up, his corporate charm vanishing into an icy stare. “How did you get here?”

Giddeon shrugged. “Your people picked me up from Cincinnati Port.”

Ereos froze, tilting his head. “Cincinnati Port?”

“Los Angeles Port was decimated by the Monger Faction twelve years ago. Cincinnati was built because no other ports remained on the mainland.”

Ereos quickly regained his composure. “I see,” he replied. “We hadn’t anticipated someone from Earth One applying—let alone being approved.”

“Probably because your site was jamming signals from Earth One.” Giddeon watched him intently.

A look of intrigue crossed the man’s face. “Yes, probably so.” He glanced back at the screen, running his finger down it before looking up. “I trust your skills are not fabricated, Mr. Seres?”

“Call me Gid. Mr. Seres was what everyone called my father.”

“Gid…GidSeres?” a voice gasped from the front row.

Murmurs rippled through the crowd as the name bounced around like an alarm.

“Some used to call me that.” Giddeon nodded. “Some still do.”

“GidSeres … from Asteria?” Taka stared at him, his mouth slightly open.

“I did use that name, yes.”

The whispers escalated into open chatter, his name repeated as a curse, or a legend.

“You!” A middle-aged man with a neat bowl cut and a rotund belly surged out of his wheelchair. His jowls shook with rage as he pointed a finger at Giddeon. “You caused my whole guild to rage quit! I won’t work with someone like him! I refuse to!”

The room dissolved into chaos. Some laughed; others hurled old rumors regarding GidSeres, the Night Warrior. A few stood up, pointing and shouting accusations of cheating. Through the noise, half the crowd remained perfectly still—quiet observers who had never played the game, watching the madness unfold.

“There’s no way you could have killed three of us by yourself!” a man shouted, pushing himself up from his wheelchair. “We were decked out in full Illunian gear! One of us was an eighth-tier Life Warden!”

Unable to keep his balance, the man dropped heavily back into his seat. “Tell us, GidSeres. Which dev were you friends with? Let me guess, Doom Daylor?”

Giddeon chuckled.

“Calm down, everyone. Calm down!” Ereos shouted, his voice booming through the speakers. He lowered his hands, gesturing for silence. Most went quiet and slowly sat back down, some red-cheeked in embarrassment.

“Please, take a seat,” Ereos repeated, his gaze locking onto those still standing.

The room quieted, save for the chubby man with the bowl cut who stayed on his feet, spewing insults at Giddeon.

Ereos suddenly slammed his fist against the lectern.

“I said, sit down!”

This time, his voice cracked like a whip inside their heads. The sound didn’t hit their ears—it seized their spines. Giddeon’s breath trapped in his throat as a cold, phantom current violently locked his muscles, forcing him back against his headrest. Across the aisle, the chubby man’s knees buckled instantly, dropping him into his seat; those already sitting slumped as if their bones had turned to lead. In the sudden, ringing silence, they could only stare at one another.

“Did you just use voice command on us?” Redler’s voice was jagged, cutting through the stillness.