Haven

Chapter One

Charlotte Hellstrom sat at the head of an ornately carved wooden desk, a luxury few could afford, but the Council controlled nearly limitless wealth. She listened as the other council members made proposals or requests, and she would voice her own opinion and the others would usually follow her lead. After all she was undeniably the most powerful human being on the planet. Today Elliot had fought back hard when she dismissed his proposal to fund a video game.

"Charlotte, listen to me. It is not just the game. This kid does not know what he has. This is start-up level stuff. The kind of technology that will change the world. We need to get him. We make the game. But it's the tech we need." Elliot looked around the room to make sure he had everyone's attention. "Just because we have choked out competition world wide does not mean it is not still a free market. The right technology in the wrong hands could unseat someone from this committee. This is that tech. We help him make his game, and we can secure the patents to the hardware."

"Very well, I trust your opinion on this matter. I'll second the proposal. All in favor?" She asked the room sternly, daring someone to challenge her again on the same day.

She was the controlling owner of Global Defense Inc. GDI was every weapons manufacturer, police force, and military all rolled into one pseudo-government entity, replacing the government's of most nations with leadership by a committee of corporate giants.

Benjamin Haddock was about to be introduced to Elliot Harris, founder of DigitalDynamics. Elliot would give him the funding he needs.

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Benjamin awoke to find his glowing monitor cutting through the darkness of his workspace. He had fallen asleep at his keyboard again. Even at 23, these long nights have been taking their toll on him; but deadlines are deadlines. They have already been pushed back twice. A third delay would surely hurt DigitalDynamics stock prices.

That was really no concern of his. Let the suits worry about the money. All he wanted to do was get this released and see his hard work finished. He took a swig from a half-empty energy drink and rubbed his eyes. A message flashed on his screen.

"I need a word with you. -Damien"

Shit. He had completely forgotten to send him his report on the latest bugs pointed out by their team of testers. Again. The suits won't like that. Ah well. It wasn't the first time and it won't be the last.

The board of directors has been hounding him. Reports. Deadlines. Profit. Loss. These are things he worried very little about. But in today's world that was all anyone seemed to care about. All he wanted to do was bring some entertainment back into people's lives and all they talk about is money and numbers. 

He needed DigitalDynamics, as little as he cared to admit it. They have resources. A team of programmers and designers. It bothered him that he had to give up the rights to the proprietary hardware he had invented to make this project possible in the first place. But with a project this ambitious it takes an army of testers and designers and programmers. Yes, he could code everything himself. He could even test it all himself. But the amount of time that would take is hard to calculate. Maybe a lifetime, maybe longer.

They did let him keep creative control of the game itself. They wanted to go with a more modern theme. Lasers and spaceships and advanced tech. But Ben demanded a fantasy theme. He dreamed of a simpler life. An escape from the modern world. We live in science fiction. Fantasy is a frontier he wanted people to be able to explore. And Haven had plenty to explore. A fully realized fantasy universe with a planet larger than Earth. A full ecosystem and food chain, physics as close to the real world as imaginable, and an AI system that adapts to the players. Haven was going to blow people's hair back. With ten million copies already pre-ordered, it was sure to be the largest video game debut in history.

The first of its kind. A fully VR game world.
The hardware sold with the game was simply a helmet with a visor and a few built-in electrodes to send and receive signals with your brain. The user dons their equipment and gets comfortable in bed or in a chair and their thoughts are transported to the world of Haven in a dizzying swirl of colorful patterns until their view melts into the cinematic landscapes of the game world.

Developers have been working on VR for year's, but it always seemed to feel like you were looking through a window into another world. The way Havens VR worked it actually felt like you were there. Sight, smell, taste, touch. All the senses, slightly tuned down, are stimulated by the headsets manipulation of your neural pathways. The pain was felt as more of a rumbling effect reminiscent of old-school gaming controllers. No menus. No maps you can't fold up and put away. And you can only carry what your character can reasonably carry with them.

Haven. No games. Just reality.

At least that's what the marketing guys decided to say in the ad campaigns. An escape from your dreary life in the real world to a land of magic and true exploration. Ben shook off the sleep and walked to his small bathroom in his office to wash his face. His messy brown curls bounced as he splashed water onto his face. His usual cold water shower would have to wait. He slept far longer than he should have. 

The time flashed in his offices holo-display. 10:47 a.m.
"Damn, " Ben cursed out loud.

The message from Damien was time-stamped at 8:05. And the daily board meeting he was supposed to attend this morning was probably just wrapping up. He grabbed a fresh shirt and pulled off yesterdays. The past two yesterdays, he admitted to himself. With a quick spray of his deodorant, he dashed down the hall leading to the main lobby where he could catch an elevator to the top floor and Damien's massive office adjacent to the DigitalDynamics boardroom.

They offered him an office near the top floor but he opted for a more conservative one on the ground level with a single small square window, concrete floors and a small cot in the corner that he rarely made it to after his long days of work. Working for such a large corporation made Ben feel uneasy. He simply wouldn't be able to do this without them. The energy demands of the servers alone are enough to power a country.

DigitalDynamics had its fingers in nearly every tech sector. They had long ago bought out media companies and software developers until they were one of the only media or tech companies left. Their size secured them a seat on the Corporate Council. A body of corporations that replaced the governments of most industrialized nations after the Great Collapse. They recruited Ben right out of college after word got out in the tech world of what he was working on. The applications of the hardware go beyond Haven.

There are possible uses in manufacturing, defense, energy, medicine. Any industry that requires hard labor could use his hardware as an extremely adaptable interface to control any machinery they need to. He didn't like to think about all that. His life's ambition has been to give people a break. But part of the deal with DigitalDynamics was to release the patents to them. All he kept control of was Haven itself. A decision he was hoping would not come with too many regrets. No time to worry about that now. It was necessary to keep the suits happy.