William
It took twice as long to reach the arena where real Siege matches were held. The skylanes were crowded as traffic was devertited away from the protests which had continued on and off on Karthmere. The whole city and most the world was in non stop grid lock, which felt odd in an aircraft which could go anywhere short of into orbit around the world itself.
It also felt odd to play in the real world instead of VR. In VR William was among the to ranked on Karthmere. Captain of the college team at Greendowns, and he knew each map like the back of his hand.
In VR William reacted as soon as he thought. He knew what to do and did it. In real life he knew what to do and his body tripped over himself, or his reflexes were too slow. On top of it, the area was always changing, and he also found that odd. He always thought it would make more sense for VR maps to change than it was for real structures to be replaced and changed by Bots.
His father enjoyed real matches, and William liked the live atmosphere that they had, but his skill was half in half, at least when he played on a real arena. Still, it was a different experience to witness live, and something that he and his father had in common, and one of the few things he didn’t catch shit over.
William had been looking forward to playing a round with his friends though. Some fun, and not competition. Samantha rarely played, but he enjoyed the odd live game. She was one of those which did not enjoy VR. She was worried about Mind Blend, that VR sickness which was known to affect many throughout the Commonwealth, and other nations of Fabian Space.
Furse worlds in the Commonwealth still relied on more advanced A.I., although illegal by Fabian Law, the Commonwealth had rejected enforcing those laws too strictly in fear of fresh rebellions. There was no self aware A.I. in Commonwealth space anymore. William always regretted that. He had heard legends and stories from both his mother and father about thos self aware A.I. in Furse Space.
Those self aware A.I. in Furse Space meant that VR and the cyber world were almost non-exsistant. William couldn’t imgaine not spending time with one of his game, one of the dozens outside of Siege, in VR. Even his father enjoyed time in those simulations. It was another thing they had in common, and bonded over.
William made it to the arena, where he met up with Samantha, and other friends for a fun filled day of relaxing, and goofing around. It was fun not to take life too serious, and that seemed to happen less and less each day.