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  Stage four terminal cancer in 2130 is the same as it was at any time in history. Unless you have the money or a miracle handy, the end is near. Darwen Kennon stared at his Aunt. She had taken him in when his parents had died. Darwen had enjoyed hang gliding and was a decent guitar player, but the same car accident that claimed his parents also took his right hand. The cancer was found while he was recovering in the hospital. Muri Tyler was his mom's older sister; she waited until the doctor left before she sat down.

  "Darwen..." She glanced at the door to make sure no one was close by. "I think it might be time for you to stop fighting this."

  The rail-thin, twenty-year-old who had spent five years battling cancer, stared at his Aunt in disbelief. "Stop fighting? Aren't there more treatments we can try?"

  Muri sighed heavily, "I'd have to sell some of the stocks your parents left me in order to pay for more treatments."

  "The stocks my parents left me, you mean!" Darwen's face was expressionless; he was too tired to frown. He rubbed the stump of his right hand over his bald head.

  "Technically, you signed them over to me when you signed the Power of Attorney." The middle-aged woman lay a thin hand on his shoulder. "We are family, right? I'm going to need that money to live on after you are gone."

  A dull throbbing pain filled his ears; this is my life, he thought. "Push the table over here before you leave. I want to use the Heads up Display

Hud

."

  Muri nodded, "just relax and let it happen, Darwen. You are going to a better place." She pushed the wheeled table over to the bed.

  "What if it's worse?" Darwen watched her leave and then activated the Hud. "Looks like Grand Virtual Station

GVS

is in the news again."

  WNN Report

  Today former U.S. President Mitch Yonder became the 77th person to undergo the consciousness transfer technique. The procedure was developed by PHENIX corporation while using Live Test subjects as guinea pigs. After PHENIX was shut down, Lazar Media took over the technology, streamlining the process while setting up stringent guidelines. At this time, the procedure is mostly for the wealthy. The common person has no chance to take part.

  "Bastards... I don't want to die. I DON'T WANT TO DIE!" He shoved the table away from him, sending it crashing into the wall.

  A few minutes later, a nurse came in, "you are being moved, Darwen."

  Darwen lay back on his pillow, "sounds good; I'm tired of this room." They moved him every few weeks. "Back to the third floor?"

  "Not this time, fourth floor." The nurse helped him get into the wheelchair that she had brought in. She wheeled him into the hallway and paused next to the elevator. "Be right back, Darwen; I forgot your paperwork." She walked down the hall toward the nurse's station.

  The elevator dinged and opened a moment later. An old man wearing a brown suit and carrying an old briefcase held the door. "Going down, young man?"

  Darwen shook his head, "the fourth floor, actually."

  The old man stared at him for a moment and then stepped out of the elevator. "That's the hospice floor."

  Darwen felt a chill run down his back... no more treatments.

  The old man looked down the hall toward the nurse's station and then abruptly moved behind Darwen and started wheeling him down a side hall.

  "Hey... What are you doing?" Darwen reached down to try and grab the wheel with his hand; he was incredibly weak nowadays, the wheelchair barely slowed.

  The old man pushed him into an empty room and closed the door behind them. He stepped away from Darwen. "Don't be alarmed. I have an offer to make you."

  Darwen stared at the old man, "go ahead, but if it is something crazy, I still have enough left to kick your old ass."

  The old man laughed as he sat on the bed. "Have you heard of Gaia?"

  Darwen nodded, "yes, a lame name for an even lamer game."

  He thought back to what he remembered; it had been five years ago. Gaia had been a virtual world. A massive undertaking that cost billions of dollars. It was to be the next big VRMMO, like Front Line or even Tundra King. The world was breathtakingly beautiful, the attention to detail while world-building was showcased in every preview video that was made public. Tens of millions of people joined the first day with high hopes. It was over inside of a month. The inhabitants of the world were all hybrid-animals, part man and part beast. That wouldn't be bad in itself, but they looked like stuffed children's toys.

  Gaia had been the brainchild of Michael Bentz, a genius developer and a collector of stuffed animals. It was so bad that GVS disconnected it from their platform, relegating it to a Virtual Wasteland forever. The gaming world had laughed long and hard over Gaia. It was still a punchline in many jokes today.

  "Michael Bentz was my grandson. He killed himself eighteen months after release." The old man's eyes were shiny. Darwen could tell that this old man had loved his grandson.

  "I'm sorry, sir, I meant no disrespect." Darwen knew that no one would feel this way when he died.

  "The world is still developing and evolving. I've put aside a vast amount of capital to ensure that it never shuts down." The old man looked at Darwen shrewdly, "you don't want to die."

  "No... I don't want to die."

  "Then listen to my offer. One time deal, I will have your consciousness transferred to Gaia." The old man stopped after the sentence, glancing at the young man for a reaction.

  "Are there any users still playing?" As Darwen understood it, it was no longer a playable game.

  The old man shook his head. "No, only the LAIs that were developed as NPCs."

  Darwen knew the term; Front Line used something similar. It stood for Low Artificial Intelligence. It meant that each LAI had a similar capacity for intelligence as a normal person. Some would be smart, some funny, others mean or nice. It had revolutionized the Virtual World and caused the LAI virtual rights movement. The world had recognized the rights of LAIs.

  "I accept." Darwen didn't hesitate; he was heading to hospice. That was code for, keep you medicated until you die. A world full of teddy bears might have sucked ass, but it was a step up from the deep, dark abyss.

  The old man's name was Karl Bentz, and he was ridiculously wealthy. He paid off Darwen's Aunt, who happily never came to see him again. A few days later, a private ambulance picked him and drove him to a facility in upstate New York.

  "Keep in mind; my grandson made sweeping changes in an attempt to improve the visuals. He also removed much of the gameplay element so that the world would evolve properly."

  Darwen was lying comfortably on a hospital bed; all sorts of unidentified electrodes were hooked up to him. "What does that mean?"

  "For starters, the time has been accelerated. Since everything in a Virtual World is math-based, speeding up or slowing down progress is easily done. Michael mentioned that he adjusted it to three thousand scales."

  "Meaning that in the last five years of real-time, 15 thousand years of evolution has occurred in Gaia?"

  Karl nodded at him, "yes, my Techie will slow it down to real-time divided by six."

  "So standard GVS time, a day in Gaia would equal four hours in the real world." Darwen had always wanted to play any of the GVS games; his parents had promised him an account when he was a bit older.

  "Also, the streaming element still works; there is a server that will stream the videos. But let's not kid ourselves; no one cares about Gaia." The old man looked at his team of doctors; they were all giving him the thumbs up.

  "I'll figure it out. Any chance of others joining me?" Darwen wasn't about to back down; in the three weeks, since the offer had been made, his health had been steadily deteriorating.

  "No, the Virtual Storage is locked away underground in the middle of two thousand acres of forest land that I donated to the Federal government. It's entirely run on geothermal power and completely self-sufficient. I've made sure that no one will ever disturb you."

  "Okay, Sir..." Darwen closed his eyes and steeled his nerves. "Ready."

  "Best of luck to you, young man. We will start the transfer after you finish the Character generation screen." Mike signaled his team to get ready.

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