Video games

You decide to start with something simple to get a feel for it. You just want to go to a simulated empty world to walk around and see how good the simulation is before you add in other people or game play elements.

Cerve has been busy since getting the setup installed 3D printing gadgets, controllers and tools, most of which you don't recognize and suspect won't make sense until they have holograms giving them context. Some things you do recognize are the pieces of high end haptic feedback gear. they work by stimulating your nervous system in addition to traditional techniques like gloves that become rigid to simulate gripping. The nerve stimulation would make it so that you would feel like virtual walls were solid even if trying to lean on one would inevitably cause you to fall through it, the source of a whole genre of internet video.

put on the collar belt and elbow nerve stimulators and then the haptic gloves and socks. The socks had thick padding on the bottom to simulate standing on surfaces other than your wooden floor.

You walk to the center of the room.

Cerve : "Are you ready?"

You nod but soon find that it was a pointless question, there was no way to be ready for this. The sensation feels like falling upwards in a way difficult to describe. Like you had jumped without moving your legs and the very ceiling above your head gives way to the infinity of an open sky while the walls disintegrate around you. You have kinship with a chick who has just cracked through the shell that was once their entire universe to find in a potent mix of awe, terror and excitement that the world is more than you could possibly know.

In the future you think it would be a good idea to have your eyes closed for that chick and egg part and you close them now while your stomach settles. Slowly you gather your bearings and allow yourself to query your senses again.

You take a deep breath. The smell of damp earth and new growth meets your nostrils. It reminds you of dew covered mornings visiting your grandparents when you were young.

At first you are sure it is as silent here as in your basement but as you will yourself to listen you hear the chattering of nature. Birds chirping as they gather and court. Insects chittering and buzzing.

you begin to feel. There is a slight breeze across your whole body and you become aware that it's a little chilly out. You're not sure if this is from the gear you're wearing or if Cerve has the simulation hooked up to the AC system. beneath your feet you can feel mud and a something hard, you must be standing on a half submerged stone or tile.

You finally feel grounded enough to open your eyes and are not disappointed. The view is seamless. Even knowing better it was tempting to believe that this was reality and the idea that you were in some far off basement was the fiction. You are in the middle of a long abandoned urban core, seemingly years or decades after humanity was abruptly evicted. A personal favorite science fiction setting of yours which Cerve would certainly have known.

Still a little unsteady you decide to brave a walk and set off towards the opening. After making it twenty or so paces something occurs to you that was the bane of your days messing around with early generation virtual reality goggles.

Alex : "hey Cerve why haven't I walked into a wall yet? I know my basement is rather large but I'm sure I've covered more than the twenty-five feet I have at the longest"

Cerve : "that's one of my little tricks honey, the simulation uses many gentle visual tricks in tandem with the nerve stimulation to get you to actually be walking in circles when you think you're walking straight"

The idea that you hadn't actually been walking straight makes your head spin a little, trying to imagine yourself in the basement doesn't feel real in the oddest way.