Chapter One:
Celestia shut the door behind her, making sure the electronic lock engaged. Now that final testing was about to be done it was even more important to keep everything secret. Celestia wasn’t worried about her technology being stolen. In the past ten years no one had ever managed to hack into her computer programs and no one had been able to duplicate the holographic program either. No she was more worried about someone taking her story and using it. Celestia could easily use another story line, but for some reason this one seemed special and personal. So she had been extra careful to keep it under wraps. She had even made other simple story lines for the new game to hide the true storyline.
If all the tests went well Celestia’s newest technological breakthrough would revolutionize the gaming industry. Her holographic programs were already widely used but they lacked substance. The new energy and light configurations would make images feel solid and real. Sometimes Celestia wondered how she knew how to write programs that could do what they did. Or how she just knew what was needed for the hardware to support it. She had actually tried to explain to people how to do what she did, but it was like trying to explain what colors were to a blind person.
“Kendra, begin startup sequence for Silver One.” Celestia said.
“Understood Celestia, starting Silver One, sequence will be complete in ten minutes.” The computer responded. All across the room screens flicked on.
Celestia turned and went into the changing room. She pulled out the black jumpsuit from the locker and quickly changed into the form-fitting suit. Jason would be arriving soon and Celestia wanted everything to be ready. He would be monitoring her from inside the control room while she tested the game Silver One. Celestia finished dressing by adding some hiking boots, shorts and a shirt. She pulled out the belt and holster for holding the laser pistol and fastened it around her waist. Celestia closed the locker and turned to leave the changing room.
Celestia paused briefly to look at herself in the mirror. She reached up and ran her hand through her shoulder length strawberry blonde hair. With her blue eyes, heart shaped face and slender build she knew she was quite attractive. The form-fitting jumpsuit also clearly showed how athletic she was. Being just under six feet tall helped as well. She opened the door to find Jason sitting at the main computer logging in.
Jason was also quite gook looking with his dark black hair, brown eyes and medium athletic build. He was just over six feet tall and she knew that they looked quite striking together. People had even made the comment that he was hired for his good looks, but Celestia was never swayed by a person’s appearance. Jason was almost as good a programmer as she was, and highly intelligent. He had been hired more for his technological abilities than what he looked like. In fact few people knew it, but she selected who she was going to interview based off their information, before she actually saw what they looked like. She closed the door and walked over to where Jason was sitting.
“Good morning Celestia,” Jason said. He turned around to face her, “Ah, I see you are ready, here,” he handed her the proto type laser for the game, “I figured you were in there changing.” Jason smiled. Celestia took the gun and placed it in the holster.
“Kendra, what’s our status,” Celestia asked.
“Silver One is complete,” the computer responded.
Celestia looked at the screens to see that the game had finished loading. The people were motionless, waiting for her command for the game to begin. Celestia went over to the main control and opened a drawer and pulled out a headset. She fastened it on her right ear and positioned the mike so she could clearly speak into it.
“Jason, do you copy?” Celestia asked.
“Loud and clear,” Jason responded.
Celestia took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Alright, time to get this show on the road, begin recording,” she said.
“Understood, begin recording Kendra,” Jason said.
“Recording started,” the computer replied.
Celestia went over and entered the main game room. She shut the door and watched as the door was covered by the electrical energy turning it into a wall. Celestia reached over and ran her hand along the wall. It felt so real that unless you knew there was a door there, you wouldn’t even be able to tell the difference. Celestia smiled to herself. So far everything was working perfectly.
“Kendra, begin Silver One,” she said.
“Understood, starting Silver One,” Kendra (the computer) replied.
All around her the images came to life as the people began to move around. It was surprisingly realistic with all the sounds and people talking. The whole building was built with special computer equipment so that you could change the environment by holographic imagery. So basically the halls and rooms would look different based upon which game you loaded. Each and every room had many doors and so did the hallways.
When you ran the program, the holographic images would actually make it where you couldn’t see any of the other doors unless it was part of the game. So even if a room had four or more doors only one would be visible, creating the illusion that you were in a room with only one exit. This way you could change the path and appearance of where the person playing the game went without having to create each and every place separately.
The player could be directed through several rooms and yet if they came full circle the starting place could become a completely different location with the holographic imagery. With four floors to this building it was possible to build a game world that was surprisingly realistic.
Celestia began to move cautiously through the game, in this particular game Earth was being invaded by aliens that looked human. The only way to tell if someone was an alien was by the silver color of his or her eyes. The eyes looked normal except where a human would have blue, green or brown they would have silver instead. Your job in the game was to stop the aliens from invading Earth. The proto type laser gun would actually shot out a ray of light making it easier to see if you hit your target and make it more fun as you had a chance to dodge if you were shot at.
If you were hit by one of the beams of light your gun would change color, after 3 hits the gun would turn red indicating that one more hit would mean you had been stunned by the aliens and captured and therefore the game was over. As Celestia ran down the different hallways and up and down stairs avoiding the aliens as well as shooting them down the thought occurred to her that she was glad she was in good shape or the game would have worn her out by now.
“Jason, how’s the data recording?” Celestia asked.
“Everything is looking good here,” Jason replied.
“Good, I’m going to continue until either I win or lose the game,” she replied.
“Understood,” Jason replied.
