Hey everyone! This is more of a prologue chapter than anything, so don't expect anything too exciting to happen ^^' It's just here to 'introduce' things to you, i.e. 2 characters and where this all takes place. A lot of people have done the 'sucked into the console' or 'stumble upon a teleporter' thing, so thought I'd attempt something different. I know getting stuck inside the game is a cliche by now, and I'm sorry for running low on originality in that department. I still hope you can enjoy it, and I promise something slightly more exciting will happen in the next chapter!~
"Round 3 and he has the Ray Gun already? Lucky shit!"
"It's his 6th go on the map; it's taken him this long to get a decent gun!"
"And he just got downed by George. What a twat."
Louisa stopped eaves-dropping on the group next to her and began glancing around for Joe again. Of course, she kept it to herself, making it seem as if she were just simply switching between which screens she wanted to watch. The first time she'd been down here was to look for her cousin, Francis. He was a big fan of gaming, and he'd been entrenched in playing Nazi Zombies for quite a while. These Virtual Reality Gaming Machines, dubbed as ViRGaMs or ViRGaM for a singular, were the latest craze, and of course, he'd been first in line to try one.
They'd been set up on the bottom floor of the shopping centre in the centre of town; near the entrance to a few clothing stores and a coffee shop. Several things had been set up here before, such as dance contests and a few trampolines. There had even been a small fashion show a few months ago. She sensed the queue that she had been waiting in behind her had moved as she leant on the railing.
"It's alright, I'm just waiting for someone." She chirped with a smile, moving forwards a little to let the people passed. A few awkward smiles and quiet apologies later, and she was back to staring at the machines. They looked like a mechanical cross-breed between an armchair and a throne. The back rests were angled back a little, and slightly padded so your bum didn't go numb after ten minutes. On the arm rests were hand slots; a few straps with five finger-tip sensors that could be adjusted to fit your hand size, and a larger palm sensor underneath them.
The foot sensor was more of a foot rest, with an adjustable foot hole that stopped your feet from slipping off. Each of the seats had a helmet with a headset and set of vir-goggles that were wired to them. She didn't really understand the mechanics behind how they worked; she'd spaced out when Joe had first explained to her, and she'd been too proud to ask him to explain again. 'If only he wasn't so pretty' she thought, 'then maybe I wouldn't feel so silly about asking him'. He had called it a headset, but it looked more like a respirator. It covered the wearer's mouth, transmitting whatever they said to the other people in their game, but not to the spectators watching them.
The failsafe for that was there were always at least two attendants at each booth listening in with their own headset. So if something went horribly wrong say, somebody was having an asthma attack while playing, they could end the game, get the person out and have one of the on-site medics to attend to them while an ambulance was called; if it got that bad. There were small hooks on the left side of each seat for hydration packs and 'food' packs. These games were so popular that a tournament had been held recently, and people were in games for over two hours at times, and so keeping them alive and well was a major concern. They still had quite a few of the volunteer medics working here now.
Every time she came down here, she always relayed that information to herself. It was a good way to waste ten minutes she figured, while she waited to catch a glimpse of either Joe or her cousin. She watched someone buy a Quick Revive and then get downed within ten seconds of drinking it before surveying the room again. Her eyes didn't stop when she spotted him; instead she just continued to scan the room, making it look as if she was looking for someone else.
"Louisa!" somehow, his smooth American accent carried over the din of the surrounding spectators. Then again, the human body is trained to hear our own name, so that might be why she heard it. She stared at the screen to her right for another moment, waiting for him to call her name again before glancing around, feigning ignorance.
"Louisa, over here!" Joseph was waving to her, grinning as he gestured for her to come over.
"Joe, there's a little thing called a queue." She shouted over to him, pointing to the railing she'd been leaning on for the past ten minutes, her soft English accent contrasting his. The smile on his face grew into a grin as he shook his head. He turned to the monitor beside him, still chuckling to himself. After a few button presses he jogged up to her and moved the railing aside, letting her through.
"If you're already booked, then you just go up to the front desk and tell them." She opened her mouth to say something, but instead frowned and glanced around taking a few steps forward so he could close the railing.
"But, I'm not-" she started, pointing to the crowd as he turned away from them and winked at her.
"Less talking, more walking." He grinned as he led her away from the queue, towards the monitor he'd been fiddling with earlier.
"No seriously, I'm not-"
"You are now, so just shush and enjoy it." He laughed at her confusion, pressing a few more buttons on the keypad below the monitor. Louisa began fiddling with her scarf, trying to someway disguise her blushing and pretend that she was just too warm in her clothes.
"So, I see you decided to dye your hair then." She managed to say after a moment of silence, pointing to the tips of his now dark brown hair. "The blonde suits you."
"Why thank you. I see you carried out your end of the bargain as well." His smile never faltered as he observed her dark purple hair. "Though I see you were far more adventurous than me."
"Well I didn't think you'd make your fringe and part of the back blonde."
"They were complete accidents There wasn't enough dye." His smile faded for a moment as he concentrated on what he was typing before looking back at her, smiling. "There, we're all set up, let's go." Speaking while walking, he opened the small security gate, waiting for her to follow.
"Did you just book me into a game?"
"Hell yeah. Is that a problem?"
"Uhm…aren't you supposed to be working?"
"Not really, I mean my shift ended" he fumbled in his pocket for a second before pulling out a phone and squinting at the screen "twenty…three minutes ago, so I can do what I want until all the machines close."
She stared at him for a few seconds, butterflies in her stomach as she opened her mouth.
"Wait, did you…wait for me?" raising an eyebrow, she followed him through the gate, taking her scarf off.
"Well not really. Me and some of my friends have been planning to do as many of the easter eggs as possible, but we needed four players. One of our guys dropped out at the last minute, so I've been here trying to find someone else and then bam, you showed up." She chuckled with him, hiding her slight disappointment as he took her coat. "I saw you and thought 'Hey, she's here a lot, and I haven't had a game with her yet, so I'll ask her.', so I got your attention and, well, here we are."
The frown on her face hid her embarrassment as she checked her phone, sighing through her nose. "But you haven't asked me yet."
"Are you telling me my tale of woe hasn't convinced you?!" with a over dramatic voice, his expression changed to one of horror as he crouched down near her, drawing her hazel eyes to his blue ones. It only took a few seconds before she burst out laughing, leaning on the gate as he stood up straight.
"Fine, I'll help!" she managed to giggle out, her grin matching his. 'Plus, it'd be a great chance to spend some proper time with him' she giggled in her head as she followed him to her seat.
"Awesome! Well then, allow me to help you set up." He chirped as he began pottering around her seat, sorting out most of the fiddly bits for her. She glanced over to the other two seats, seeing two black haired boys already in a game.
"Are they the ones we're playing with?" she indicated to the two seats with her head as he looked up at her.
"Yep. There in the middle of a game right now, so you and I will have a little warm up game before we all join up for the proper matches."
When he was out of earshot, she let out a rather audible shuddered sigh. Her stomach was doing back flips as she felt the machine softly hum into life. It wasn't the fact that she hadn't used one of these machines before that was worrying her so much. It was the fact that she had never played a game of Nazi Zombies in her life that was getting to her. The most she'd done was watched Frankie play at home, but that usually only lasted five minutes before he asked her to leave due to her distracting him with questions.
"So, are you ready?" Joe's voice seemed distant, but it was enough to get her out of her day dreaming.
"Huh? Oh, yeah, sorry." She giggled, smiling at him as she put the goggles on, placing the ear pieces in her ears before placing the mouth piece over her mouth.
"Remember, this is only a warm up, so don't worry about fucking up a bunch, ok?" the volume of the ear phones were rather low, so she tapped around a bit before finding the volume setting and putting it somewhere in the middle.
"You got it."
"Good good. I thought Nacht would be good to warm up on, cuz y'know, it's pretty small and all. And it'll help you get used to the controls."
"Go for it, I don't mind." She feigned indifference as she tried her hardest to remember what map Nacht was and if she'd seen Frankie play on it.
"Heh, ok. Here we go."