Fantasy Justice: Incarceration
Chapter 4

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2060

Wichita, Kansas, USA

Clare Ward sat on the bed of her tiny holding cell. The windowless room contained a toilet, a light in the ceiling, and an air vent. There was also a metal door.

She had lost track of time, but Clare guessed it had been three hours since she had been escorted from the cell, stripped naked, and scanned by a body-enclosing machine. This had been done to create her character model for her insertion into Fantasy Justice. Afterward, she had dressed once more in her orange jumpsuit and shock collar. Her voice had then been recorded and analyzed at length. After all of this, she had returned without resistance to this restrictive place.

She still had trouble believing that she had been found guilty at her court martial. No one had accepted what had really happened. She knew that her childhood dream was dead—but somehow none of this felt real. She kept expecting to wake up and go about her usual fitness and training regimen.

The door opened. Two guards stood outside the cell, one of them holding restraints. Clare stood passively and waited for the chains to be affixed. The guards led her through the sterile white corridors of the Incarceration Center. There was nothing to be heard but their footfalls, and a small cleaning robot that rolled by.

This walk ended with a turn into a short hallway. At the end of it was a door marked Processing, with a red light overhead. Also present was another inmate and two more guards.

Clare could not help but notice how beautiful the other prisoner was. A pale, East Asian woman around her own age, she had pretty, feminine features and gorgeous hair. It was black, silky, and straight, falling down the entire length of her back. She also had level bangs at her eyebrows and cheek-length sidelocks. Her eyes were dark brown. Although her body was concealed by her jumpsuit, it was clear that she had a thin and delicate figure. To be sure, her fellow prisoner also showed signs of dishevelment—she had a nasty bruise on her face, and an air of fatigue about her.

Clare pushed this unproductive train of thought out of her head. Why was she thinking favorably of a woman who was guilty of who knows what crime, based on a bunch of irrelevant physical qualities?

The pair of captives stood beside each other for a moment, until finally the other woman addressed Clare. “Hi. I’m Sara.” She had a soft and melodious voice.

The guards had no reaction to this, and Clare decided that it was safe to answer. Though she was not sure what conversation was going to accomplish. “Clare Ward.”

“Do you have any plans for the game?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve heard raiders are at the top of the pecking order, so I may do that.”

“I’m hoping to heal for raids. What role are you after?”

“Role? I don’t watch Fantasy Justice. ...I’m not actually clear on just what raiders do.” Clare hated to admit her lack of knowledge, but maybe she could use this woman to learn something.

“Basically, raiders fight the game’s most dangerous challenges in groups of fifty. They bring in a majority of the gold entering the economy, despite only making up a small fraction of the inmate population.

“There are three roles you can take in a raid—tank, healer, and damage. A tank uses spells that draw extra threat from monsters and reduce the damage she takes from their attacks. A healer keeps everyone alive with spells that restore health. As for damage, they kill monsters as quickly as possible without taking threat from the tank.” Clare’s confusion must have been obvious by her expression. “Doing damage to a monster creates threat. The monster tries to attack whomever has the most threat.”

Clare was surprised at how easily she spoke about all this. The guards were still not paying attention. But then, they moved prisoners all day long.

“By the way, what player race are you going with?” Sara continued.

“I don’t know what that is. You seem to have a talent for exposing my ignorance,” Clare said with a hint of annoyance.

“Sorry,” she said with an apologetic grin. “I take it you don’t have a plea agreement then?”

Clare hesitated, reluctant to share any further information about herself. “No.”

“Then I’m afraid you’re stuck with human. They have a health and stamina bonus, which is less useful than what the other races receive. At the raid level, they’re only considered acceptable for tanking. And there are only two tanks per raid, so there’s fierce competition.”

“It sounds like tanking is my only viable option regardless.”

Sara nodded. “When you reach weapon selection you should pick a one-handed weapon, like the regular sword. Then you can buy a shield later—you need to have one to tank.

“I doubt we have much more time, but I can explain about it more once we’re inside.”

Clare frowned slightly. “There isn’t any reason for me to trust anything you have to say. I have no idea what you’re guilty of.”

“I could say the same thing. All I’m suggesting is that we finish our conversation—if we decide to go our separate ways afterward, there’s no harm done besides the time wasted.”

“That’s acceptable. ...But you don’t know anything about me. Why are you being helpful?”

“If you want an ulterior motive, I’m going to need a tank to adventure with if I want to reach maximum experience and start raiding.”

“Do you really think this conversation will factor into my decision of who to work with?”

“I suppose not. But there’s no reason not to help you.” To Clare, that was a bizarre way of looking at the situation.

There was a buzzing sound, and the light above the door turned green. One of the guards opened the door and the inmates walked through.

The room they entered was large and covered almost entirely in white tiles. There were drains in the floor, and there was a door on each wall. Besides the one they had come through, there was one labeled Surgical Bay 1-20, then 21-60 of the same, and finally 61-80. There were chairs, hoses, and two showering alcoves at the far corners.

Eight new guards waited in this room—maybe this was the point where some inmates got frightened and tried to resist. Clare and Sara had their restraints and collars removed by their guards.

“Remove your clothes.”

They wordlessly complied with the guard’s order. Clare felt deeply humiliated, even more so when one of the new guards whistled. Several of his coworkers laughed. The original guards left with their clothes and restraints.

“Be seated.” They sat where indicated, and their heads were shaved.

“Step into the showers.” Once inside Clare was blasted from all sides with hot, soapy water, then a cold rinse, and finally a drying barrage of uncomfortably hot air.

Once all this was over, each of the women was surrounded by half the guards. Clare was determined not to show weakness, and to her credit her fellow inmate also looked undaunted. The guards escorted them out of the room through separate doors. At her last glimpse of the other woman, Clare wondered how someone so seemingly mild and polite could have gotten herself thrown into a place like this.

Clare was now in another sterile corridor, which went off to the left and right. On both sides were the many doors into the individual surgical bays. The guards escorted her into room number twenty-one.

Inside was a mobile operating table, a surgical team in scrubs and masks, medical robots, and a wide variety of other equipment. There was also a large hole in one wall, covered by metal bars, with the word Incinerator painted above it. At the far end of the room was a conveyor belt that entered and exited the area on each side. Resting on it was a large machine that contained a window to a vat. Suspended in the liquid of the vat was a human brain, with various sensors and tubes attached to it. Above the machine’s control panel, there was a label which read Superior Medical Solutions — Brain Jar Model 3.

“Next customer,” the surgeon said. The conveyor activated, and it carried the brain jar off to the right. From the opposite side, an identical machine arrived sans brain. Clare felt a moment of panic at the thought that she would be spending the remainder of her life inside the thing. She pushed the emotion down.

“Onto the table,” one of the guards said. She numbly complied. As Clare’s limbs were strapped down, the guard addressed the surgeon. “Hell of a day to be cooped up inside, isn’t it?”

“You’re telling me. We still on for the titty bar this Sunday?”

“Can’t make it. I forgot about my goddamn kid’s birthday.”

The surgeon laughed. “You’d forget your head if it weren’t attached. Gas.”

At this last, an anesthetic mask was affixed to Clare’s face. “Breathe deeply,” the surgeon told her. She soon slipped into unconsciousness.

Clare awoke and opened her eyes, replaceing only a white void before her. She was laying on her back, and moved to stand. The featureless white plane she stood on, and the void above it, extended as far as she could see in every direction.

She recalled where she must be, and was surprised that her fake body responded so naturally. Clare was dressed in a medieval peasant outfit that was slightly threadbare and predominantly gray in color. It included a loose skirt that fell to her knees and cloth bags tied to her feet. She guessed that this was the Fantasy Justice equivalent of an orange jumpsuit.

After touching her head, Clare found that she had her hair once more—she was now as she had been when she was scanned into the system.

A pleasant, feminine voice that seemed to come from no direction spoke. “Welcome to the Fantasy Justice calibration process. Your neural impulses will be mapped to actions within the game. Lack of cooperation will be met with increasing levels of pain. Body calibration will now begin.” Clare knew that there was nothing to be gained by delay, so she resolved not to replace out how much pain the system could inflict.

The process began with various instructions to move her body in different ways. She was then told to speak several phrases. She complied with each command in turn.

After all this was completed, the voice continued. “If your simulated body was unresponsive or behaved in an unexpected way, say ‘help.’ Otherwise, say ‘next’ to continue.”

“Next.”

“Body calibration confirmed. Heads up display calibration will now begin.

“Notice a small black dot in the extreme upper right hand corner of your field of vision.”

Clare was confused for a moment, but when she moved her eyes in that direction she found the dot. She turned her head slightly, but the dot moved with her. The voice continued. “Imagine the dot expanding to cover your entire field of vision.”

She pictured this in her head, and her vision was overlaid by the semitransparent images of the heads up display. There were various grayed out buttons near the right and bottom of her field of vision. In the upper left hand corner was a map and a time display. Below that was written 0% XP, and there was also a pair of bars in red and blue. The red bar also had a gray line in it.

“This is the heads up display. Imagine the HUD returning to the dot.”

Clare pictured this, and the display was replaced by the original dot.

“Repeatedly activate and deactivate the HUD until you feel at ease with these actions. If you have difficulty, say ‘help.’ Otherwise, say ‘next’ to continue.”

This was a very different setup than her combat exoskeleton training. Those machines had a helmet with a HUD, but all the controls were still manipulated manually. After opening and closing the display several more times, Clare was confident she could easily do so at will. “Next.”

The process continued in a similar way, and with instructions she learned to press two buttons at the bottom of the HUD—Inventory and Help. They were no longer grayed out after she finished. She also learned how to manipulate a list, as well as a yes / no dialog box.

After all this, the voice continued. “All other controls on the HUD may be calibrated in-game via the Help button. Heads up display calibration confirmed. Weapon selection will now begin. Take the weapon of your choice.”

Eight weapons, all made of the same dark gray metal, suddenly floated in the air before her. Each had its name hovering beside it in black lettering. Dagger, Short Sword, Sword, Two-Handed Sword... Clare stopped there, remembering what Sara had said. Even if she had no reason to trust the other inmate, her choice was between that information and a random guess. Clare grabbed the hilt of the regular sword. Below the straight blade was a hand guard, and the hilt was wrapped in black leather. It ended with a round metal pommel.

The other weapons disappeared. Clare swung the sword around a few times and found it to be much lighter than she had expected given its length. Of course, this reality did not have to conform to actual physics.

The voice taught her how to use the inventory controls to vanish the sword into her inventory, and to then materialize it to her hand. She nearly dropped the sword the first time she summoned it, but learned to hold her hand correctly so that this would not happen. Soon, with the sword stowed in her inventory, it was again time to say “next.”

“Weapon selection confirmed. Note that you may not be attacked without your consent within the inmate capital of Felorius or the safe questing zone. However, this and other player vs. player rules do not apply to hunters on Invasion Day.

“If your health reaches zero outside of a battle designated a non-lethal contest, you will be executed. Your health with be set to zero if you are struck in the brain or the heart by an opposing player during melee combat.

“The report button may be used to call for Game Master assistance under the following circumstances: bug reports, abuse of the trade system, abuse of the PvP system to avoid or interfere with combat, and becoming restrained from free movement outside of combat. You may also inquire about the inmate work program. Misuse of the report function may result in penalties.”

Clare’s inventory button flashed. “A copy of the Official Fantasy Justice Strategy Guide and one hundred gold have been placed in your inventory. However, the gold will be removed upon entering the game to make your first sustenance payment. This payment will be extracted at the same time each day, and entitles you to twenty-four hours of survival in your brain jar. This includes oxygen, nutrients, waste extraction, hormonal regulation, and Chronomil. If you miss a sustenance payment, you will be executed.”

Clare was familiar with Chronomil—in fact, she was already on the drug from her brief time in the military. Originally developed as an Alzheimer’s treatment, it greatly improved reaction time and hand-eye coordination. She could see why it was included—fights could involve something more than ordinary humans awkwardly swinging swords at one another.

The voice continued. “The Fantasy Justice calibration process is complete. You will now enter the game.”

Without warning, Clare was thrown into total sensory deprivation. She realized that she could not even see blackness or feel her body. She had a brief moment to ponder how horrible it might be to remain this way, until she heard rising orchestral music.

Her vision returned, and she witnessed text floating against a black background:

Fantasy Justice

Where sword and sorcery meets crime and punishment!