Haley “Charis” Nickel emerged from her VR terminal feeling tired but excited. She and her friends had spent the last few hours relaxing after talking everything out, and it seemed like everyone was on the same page. The prospect of fighting in a tournament thrilled her, and the fact that she would be fighting for Gage provided extra motivation. Part of her worried about the inherent danger of such a competition, but she resolved to postpone those concerns until after she and the others had consulted with Milan. Right now, she had to arrange for a way to discreetly disappear for a week or so, and she knew just the thing.

With the press of a button, the pod-like VR terminal folded back into the wall, leaving a pristine corner in her otherwise messy room. With all the excitement going on in Perfect Dimension, she had neglected to tidy up the place in a while. Luckily, she had a single – how she kept her living space was her business and hers alone. Still, it spoke volumes about her priorities when her room in a video game was cleaner than her room in real life. Haley ignored the ever-growing piles of laundry scattered throughout the dorm and sat down at her desk before making a call.

“Hello?” The face of another college co-ed appeared on the screen.

“Hey, Christine, it’s Haley.”

“Haley! Where’ve you been? You’ve been a ghost this whole term!”

With a sheepish expression, Haley tried to explain without sounding like a total nerd. “I’ve been really trying to buckle down with school lately,” she said, figuring that was better than saying she played a computer game for hours a day.

But Christine gave her a knowing look. “That’s not what I’ve heard… I’ve heard you’ve been playing that ridiculous game pretty much non-stop.” Haley didn’t immediately respond, so Christine pressed on. “It’s obvious that I can’t convince you to stop… but if you ever get tired of playing… well, let’s just say that me and the other girls miss you, ok?”

“Thanks, Christine,” Haley said finally. While the conversation made her uncomfortable, she could appreciate that her sorority sister was trying to be there for her.

“Now what did you want to talk about?”

“Well, I was wondering about that service trip you were making off-planet…”

…

The pressure of Rima’s entire body pushed down on him as she pressed him into the floor with her foot. Despite her loud objections, he insisted that she ramp up the intensity of his training. Therefore, he once again found himself under the oppressive weight and stench of Rima’s sole.

“Gage, are you all right under there?” asked Rima, her voice concerned. He didn’t respond, and instead pressed upwards with all of his might. Covered in sweat – only some of it his own – Gage gritted his teeth and tried to force his concentration into razor-like focus.

“What, no love for me?” spat Alicia sarcastically. From the corner of his eye, Gage could see her struggling against Rima’s other foot, although she was making even less progress than him, if that was possible. She looked considerably worse for the wear after hours of mistreatment at the hands of Rima and Charis’s vengeful feet, although Gage thought Alicia she could herself lucky that neither of them had the stomach to abuse her in the more sexual manner that Alicia had put Rima through.

In any case, Alicia had surprised both of them when she had volunteered to participate in Rima’s training. “You’ve been stomping on me all day anyway; I might as well try to learn something from it,” she said, sounding both derisive and resigned. “Plus, if I can help Charis win this tournament, that’s helping myself out too, right?” She took a huge risk by speaking to Rima so bluntly, but Gage admired her boldness, as well as her shrewd judgment of character. If she had confronted Charis in the same way…

In the end, Rima had relented with a shrug. Alicia was right, after all; Rima wasn’t going to stop punishing the little bitch – but Gage definitely sensed a paradigm shift upon her acquiescence.

“I’ve heard about this process before,” said Alicia after Charis had explained to her the theoretical extent of her jailbroken abilities. “I read it was called ‘Willing.’”

“Willing?” Gage mused. “Sounds appropriate.” That’s when he had gotten the idea to go all out with the training. If he could somehow tap into the primal part of him that refused to back down, maybe he could channel that energy towards unlocking his jailbroken abilities.

This eventually led to Rima standing on top of the two shrunken players with all of her crushing weight, alternately standing and stomping on them with her bare feet. She had offered to wash the foot Gage would be under beforehand, but when he realized that Alicia would be afforded no such luxury, he declined. The more uncomfortable – the more strenuous – the better.

“Gage?” Rima asked again. This time, she sounded concerned, but there was also something else. Was that pity? Suddenly, irrational anger flared up in Gage’s mind. How must she view him? He probably looked like a pathetic bug underneath her foot, struggling pointlessly against weight. He had been shrunk for so long – she must think of him as subhuman – all because of his fucking size.

His fury boiled white-hot. The sheer unfairness of it all goaded him, stoking his rage to the point of mindlessness. And it felt good. On impulse, he let that emotion carry him, flow through him like a great wave. The wave grew and grew, expanded until it felt like his head literally burned.

And then… release.

Suddenly, the weight disappeared, followed by a loud yelp. Instead of Rima’s leg rising up over him, her toes framing his vision on either side, Gage had a clear view of the ceiling. Some furniture stood out in his periphery. Lifting his head from the floor, he saw Rima a few yards away. She wore a stunned expression as she regained her footing.

“Hey.” Gage turned his head on saw Alicia, herself panting and covered in sweat.

“Yeah?” He asked weakly, the stench of sweat permeating the air around him and invading his sinuses. He heaved a massive sigh, his anger replaced by a profound weariness.

“Nice one.”

…

Haley stood outside of a nondescript, gray building just off of the highway in a nondescript, Midwestern town. She had already made all of the necessary arrangements: she had told her parents that she was going on a school-sponsored trip to the moon, and therefore would be out of communications range for a couple of weeks. Of course she had also pulled out at the last minute from said trip, and now stood in front of the main office of Cryogenics, Inc., where no one would look to find her for a few weeks. While she didn’t expect for her stay in Perfect Dimension to last for that long, she knew she could just extend her stay by messaging her parents in-game. She didn’t like to betray their trust like this, but she assuaged her guilt by reminding herself that this was all for Gage. He would do the same for her.

As she walked into the building, she ruminated on her transformation from Haley to Charis. She had never been a very social girl, and although she grew into an objectively attractive person, which of course led to all kinds of attention, she had found that attention to be tiresome more than anything. Over the course of her life, the world had always seemed sort of dull and gray to her. For a time she experienced a low-level sense of misery and pointlessness that grew and grew, even after she started college. She staved off the negativity with books and movies – any kind of story, really – but it wasn’t until she had started playing Perfect Dimension that she finally felt she was part of an adventure, that she could escape the daily grind, and not just be a cog in some great machine.

Naturally, she took the roleplay aspect of the game very seriously, and she found the perfect companion for that in Gage, a like-minded recent college graduate. At this point, she considered him to be her closest friend. Whether or not there was a romantic aspect to her affection was something that she needed to sort out, but for now she felt content to just be his friend. In fact, she was about to take a big stride in their friendship: she was going to see what he looked like in real life.

“Welcome to Cryogenics, Inc., how can I help you?” greeted a pretty lady sitting behind a kiosk at the entry. As she walked up to the counter, Charis couldn’t help but admire building’s modern, slick sheen, something the outside lacked completely.

“Hi,” she began. “My name is Cha – err, Haley Nickel, and I’m here for your two week Stasis Package.”

“Ah yes, Ms. Nickel,” smiled the lady, “we’ve been expecting you. Come on back.” Haley nodded and followed the lady, whose business heels clacked loudly against the tile floor. “It says here that you’ve filled out all of the necessary documentation, and that you’re familiar with the procedure,” said the lady, pointing to the screen on her data pad. When Haley nodded her assent, the lady smiled broadly. “All right then, we can just move right along then, unless you have any other questions.”

“Actually,” said Haley, “I do have one quick question.”

“Yes?”

“I was hoping to see a close friend of mine. His name is Gage.”

“I’d be happy to accommodate you,” replied the lady. She tapped away at her data pad before leading her in another direction. “Right this way.”

Haley followed excitedly, wondering inwardly if Gage was as handsome in real life as in the game. He kept the same name, so it wouldn’t be so crazy for him to also have the same appearance, right? A short walk later led them to another room, this one lined with the pod-like VR terminals. The lady went immediately towards one.

“Here he is,” she said brightly.

Haley slowed down, suddenly feeling a little anxious. For some reason, she felt like an intruder on a private event. She pushed those feelings aside, however, and watched as a panel slid down.

Haley’s breath caught, and her hand went reflexively to her mouth.

“Is something wrong?” asked the lady.

“Uh… no, nothing,” she stammered, turning away. Haley couldn’t believe what she had just seen. It wasn’t that Gage was some gruesome ogre; far from it – his features roughly approximated his avatar’s in real life. It was something else entirely.

“It is a bit sad for someone like him to insist on a Lifetime Package,” admitted the lady, her hand on Haley’s shoulder comfortingly.

Haley moved back to the VR Terminal once more, and began to read off some of the identification information displayed on a side panel. Her eyes came to a stop at one line in particular, and she had to look away and back again just to confirm that she read it right – but there was no denying what it said.

Name: Gage Riley

Age: 42