Chapter 2:  Trial Run (written by Michael Keens/ Exodus)  

“Bye Mom, gotta go!” shouted James as he dashed out the house, papers flying out 
the open bag.  
“What is happening to me?...  My schedule’s been falling apart and I’ve been 
getting real clumsy.”  
Kyla had been acting like a brat again and locked up James’s room to play for 
longer, and after all that James had done for her yesterday.  
James ended up sleeping on the sofa and unable to get his homework finished.  
He would have a lot to shout at her about when he got back.  
Dane had wrote his report by hand thanks to his sister and would have to type it 
up as requested, but at the school.  
“I’m missing one paper, where-”  
He saw it at the edge, one of the corners being lifted by the wind, he made a 
grab for it but the wind pulled the paper away totally and it spiralled off the 
terrace and fell to the floor.  
“Oh shoot!” shouted Dane charging down the stairs, “I can’t lose that, it took 
all night to write it!”  
He charged outside and a pleasant face smiled as she held the paper.  
“Oh thank you lots, if I can ever repay you...”  
“No problem.”  
The girl was Black and had short dark shoulder length hair, she wore smart blue 
outfit with white trousers.  
“You can start by walking me to the college, I’m new in town.”  
Lightly taking the paper and zipping up the bag this time, James spoke out 
feeling somewhat comfortable with the new student.  
“I’m in the Art and Computer Classes, you?”  
“Psychology and Journalism.”  
“I know where those are, if you ever need help with directions or computers, 
just come to me.”  
“All this gratitude, and we don’t even know each other’s names.”  
“I’m James.” he said extending a hand.  
“Beverly Turner.”  
They shook hands just as they made it to the college.  
“Well I’ve gotta go type this stuff up, I’ll see you around, okay?”  
“Sure, goodbye...”  

Dane entered the library and turned on the computer.  
As he waited for it to load up, he saw another DataGate, it was slightly smoking 
and a technician was working on it.  
“It should be okay now.  Call if you have any more problems.”  
“Well the phones are out all over the college.”  
“I’m afraid we can’t help you with that.  Its happening all over the general 
area, so who knows when the workers’ll be finished.”  
“Thanks anyway.” said the librarian.  
“Mr Roberts, what happened to your DataGate?” asked James to the smart dressed 
man in purple.  
“Crashed out suddenly, started smoking.  No one was playing it at the time 
though.”  
“Is it safe?” inquired James, a tad worried.  
“Don’t worry, the instructions say the Safety Guards will eject the person from 
the game if anything goes wrong.”  
“That’s good, I was worried for a sec.”  

Meanwhile in the game world, the castle had taken a new shape to suit 
Sovereign’s new form.  
It now stood as a huge monstrous structure, jagged edges to all the walls so 
climbing it was near impossible, the sharp rocky roofs were too complex for 
anyone to get by from above and the castle was surrounded by a huge chasm and a 
long wide bridge served as the only entrance into the castle, and of course, it 
was well guarded.  
Sovereign strolled down the halls towards his throne room.  
He had a lot of power in manipulating and changing certain factors of the game, 
but even for he it was limited to small changes, and the transformation of his 
castle had taken all of his greatest efforts.  
Factors like large landscapes, the weather system and the transformation of game 
characters were outside his manipulation, this was because the whole game, world 
and characters were programmed by a team of 98 along with Karsten and Sinclair, 
and as such were coded in different ways to how Karsten did it.  
Even if Karsten rounded up all the programmers, he couldn’t change any 
characteristics of the Players, when they entered the game world, their minds 
became information, but more complex than that of a game character.  
If he devoted all of his attention to it, Karsten/ Sovereign might be able to 
change the information of a Player, but that would take well over 100 years.  

Karsten believed he was Sovereign more than most Players would believe in or 
associate themselves with their characters, Sovereign knew that Karsten was 
always a part of him and he was a part of Karsten.  
The virus that had corrupted, transformed and then linked Karsten with his other 
self had affected the entire game world of Beyond Existence, and although hadn’t 
done too much damage to the world and characters itself, the Safety Guards that 
would have protected the Players from damage and ejected them at any given time 
had been shut down.  
Usually Players would be able to leave by saying they wanted to along with the 
option to click certain buttons on the DataGate headset to exit, but since the 
first option had disappeared and they could be harmed physically and mentally, 
if they were too busy to physically reach their DataGate in their mind, they 
couldn’t leave, and the seekers that Sovereign had given his five appointed 
generals revealed a second ability to block out the option to leave, trapping 
the minds of Players in the game world while leaving their real bodies as empty 
shells in the real world.  
Sovereign had received word from Reaper, Fortress and Harrier that many Players 
in their designated lands had been captured.  
He had yet to hear from Ariel, and Kormaand, who had only reported news of 
resistance to the North.  
Sovereign hated Players, and even more after a male hero called Nebulus had 
jumped him while he was redesigning the castle.  
He stood no chance against him and had simply been hurled into the chasm 
surrounding Sovereign’s castle.  
Now he was certain that he wanted the little creeps to pay by remaining captive 
in his world and either remaining as prisoners, slaves, or if the possibility 
came up, controlled warriors serving him.  

He was due for a break, his real body needed some food and rest, and he had 
spent some time reformatting his castle.  
He exited the game through the special button on his V.R helmet and for the 
first time since the change, he returned to the real world.  
“Come quick.” said a familiar voice, “Something terrible has...”  
Sinclair opened the door, behind him was the board of executives, he saw Karsten 
and stopped talking.  
“President Karsten, you’re alive, I was so afraid...”  
“Afraid of what, Sinclair?” questioned Karsten darkly, the difference in his 
character was clear.  
“I thought that a virus had entered your computer and killed you, you weren’t 
moving.” Sinclair lied.  
“That’s quite strange Sinclair, I recall a sudden virus but I managed to take 
care of it, now how do you suppose it got there?” asked Karsten calmly but 
accusingly.  
Karsten picked up a device and a screen was raised, revealing several security 
monitors that Sinclair was never aware of, the Rewind symbol was on and it only 
showed Karsten sitting still with his DataGate, occasionally typing buttons on 
the keyboard as it zoomed backwards, up until last night where Sinclair was 
tampering with it.  
“I suppose you’d like to tell the dear executives who that is feeding a virus 
into my computer?...”  
Sinclair suddenly felt very uneasy.  
“You’re probably thinking that I’ll fire you now, and that much is correct.” 
said Karsten confidently walking to a chest of drawers.  
“But since you tried to assassinate me, you can also expect the same.”  
Karsten now had a handgun with a silencer and aimed it at Sinclair.  
“You feeble-minded fools!” screamed Sinclair desperately, attempting to get some 
support, “A child should not run such a powerful company! I did it for everyone! 
I-”  
The bullet fired, and blood scattered into the air before dropping, Sinclair’s 
arm had blocked the shot that would have otherwise hit him between the eyes, he 
pushed the executives out of the way as tried to escape the room but a second 
bullet hit him in the back, sending him flying to one side and through a large 
glass window.  
The executives crowded around it and Karsten stepped up slowly to admire what 
he’d done.  
Sinclair was nowhere to be seen and with the meeting room being up on the 
twentieth floor, he was done for.  
“Let that be a lesson to all that seek to betray me.  Not a word of this leaves 
the room...”  
Karsten put the gun in an inside pocket of his suit and left the room, with all 
the eyes of the executives focused on him.  
“... And call someone in to fix that window and replace the carpet.”  

James Dane finished his lesson fairly early and with the Art teachers grading 
work from yesterday, he had the rest of the day free and an easy computer exam 
to revise for over the weekend.  
Since something else would probably take away his free time tomorrow, Dane made 
a move home, there was nothing else to do but test out what Sis had used half 
his savings for.  
He passed by Will and Amy, a well known couple in the school, locked in another 
kiss, and managed to get by Oscar and his gang without any problems for once.  
He arrived home, found no one in, and went up to his room.  
The internet cable was already plugged in, surely he’d get the blame because 
Kyla had forgotten the rules about using the internet, and hadn’t replaced it 
with the phone cable when she was done.  
He set up the game and put on the helmet after some few minutes looking for it, 
it had ended up under the bed, Kyla must have hidden it there so that their 
parents didn’t find it.  
“Since this is such a big fad around the school, I might as well see what its 
all about so I can know what people’ll be talking about.”  
Everything went black and a screen appeared in front of him.  
“Please type in the requested information and select your type to create your 
character.” said a female computer voice, and then a long holographic screen 
with several options and a keyboard underneath it appeared.  
James read out loud as he typed in the data, he chose a codename to go by and 
would fight on the side of good, he kept his skin colour roughly the same but 
wanted to see what he’d look like with brown eyes instead of blue, and gave his 
character turquoise spiky hair, with a look of sternness yet kindness, along 
with well built muscles all over his body.  
On the side of the screen was a long vertical list of available types and 
professions along with default clothing they came with, by highlighting them, 
the weapons, abilities and starting point of the character could be seen.  
James looked through all of them before reaching a decision:  “Ranger:  
New-Age.”  
Next he customised his armour, and chose colours of yellows and gold, black 
protective leather around the limbs, and an energy rifle and laser-sword as his 
weapons.  
No magic was issued but James tweaked a few options to give his character the 
ability to fire energy pulses from his wrists.  
Other details included being great in terms of fighting skills, and the 
technical knowledge needed to repair or modify his suit and to house new 
abilities.  
James had been thinking about his character since last night and throughout 
school, he wouldn’t leave anything to chance by not mentioning something, so it 
took nearly a full hour just to get his character exactly the way he wanted it, 
it was finally finished, and James looked at a diagram of the character, which 
had all the features and options complete and available to view on it, he 
pressed the confirm button, and things got started.  
“Registration Complete, you are now Player:  Excel.”  
The screen faded and he suddenly appeared in futuristic city, most groups of 
buildings were located in huge domes, all of which were connected by long 
see-through pipes.  
As Excel looked himself over and saw he was now Excel in appearance, and the 
abilities he’d chosen were now a part of his mind and could be used at will, he 
drew his sword, a small piece of metal, and with a click in the right place, out 
of the end shot out a glowing sword blade that hummed with power, with another 
click, the blade vanished from where it came.  
Excel then lifted the rifle connected to the side of his belt, and performed a 
few experimental spins, he wouldn’t properly test it out in a public area, even 
if the majority of people weren’t real.  
Suddenly, a female android floated down and hovered in front of him, it had a 
cute female face and a futuristic turquoise dress.  
“Welcome to the world of Verdan.  I am Data, your guide in this world.  If you 
run into any problems, game-related or technical, then do not hesitate to 
contact me by simply calling my name.” it explained in the same female computer 
voice as the one that had welcomed him.  
“So, er...  What do I do here?”  
“This is your chosen home.  The futuristic city of Keslak.  Perhaps you should 
familiarise yourself with this place.  As for your mission, you may do as you 
please, but note that should you put yourself in danger and be destroyed, you 
shall be ejected from the game and you’ll have to create a new character.”  
“Can’t you be a little more specific on the missions?”  
“You and anyone else located in this city can report to the Academy for 
missions.”  
An explosion suddenly ripped through the high rooftops in a neighbouring dome 
and a couple of futuristic ships could be seen flying around it having shattered 
part of the dome.  
“That is strange,I do not recall any villains around this particular city.” 
pondered Data.  
“So what do I do?” questioned Excel in relation to Data’s verbal thoughts.  
“The adventure is what you make it.” said Data before leaving.  
Excel chased after the villains and the jet packs burst out the back of his suit 
with a certain click and formed into a secure mode of transport, it didn’t take 
much effort to do it.  
Excel flew through an access tube to reach the other dome and then shot into the 
sky and loaded up the gun with what felt like instinct, it was strange for him 
to suddenly have this knowledge but cool none-the-less.  
As Excel, he felt strong and courageous but retained the kindness that Dane had.  
In reality, Dane was too withdrawn to show off certain traits of himself in real 
life but here he felt different since it was a different place from real life 
and Dane could become someone else, much like people did when playing games of 
this nature and acting differently.  
Though he hadn’t known this city for long, Excel was willing to protect it.  
“I’ve got to stop this.  There may be other Players in trouble, and I wouldn’t 
want any of them to die before I can meet them.” Excel thought.  
Excel floated to the level of the ships and fired, the shot busted through the 
screen and hit the pilot sending him unconscious.  
“I’ve gotta save him, and stop him from hurting someone by crashing!”  
Excel flew forward and landed on the front of the ship and dragged the pilot 
out.  
Laser fire dragged across the ship, causing it to explode and hurl Excel and the 
pilot off.  
“I’ve got one of your men here, don’t you care about him?!” shouted Excel to the 
other pilot.  
“No, not really.” he replied on a loudspeaker, shooting forward.  
Excel turned away so that the blast hit his back and not the fallen pilot.  
“Shoot, he’s not even a real person and I’m taking hits for him after he tried 
to gun me down...  I’m just too kind for my own good.” he muttered, crashing to 
the floor.  
In the moment he’d forgotten that the pilot was just a fictional and made-up 
character, but for a strange reason, the pain when crashing seemed real to him.  
There were men dressed in a similar futuristic uniforms to Excel, waiting down 
below.  
“Policemen of the city...” Excel said, recognising them somehow and pushing the 
defeated pilot forward.  
He shielded his eyes as more lasers rained down followed by the remaining ship.  
“You’re not fit to live in this kingdom!” shouted Excel drawing the sabre, 
activating its blade and holding it up and piercing the ship, letting its 
movement do the rest, to tear a long line through the bottom of it, the ship 
fell to the floor and exploded.  
“No!”  Excel ran forward but the flames forced him back, “I shouldn’t have let 
rage take over...”  
That action had come to James/ Excel because he usually hid his anger, as this 
character, he felt different enough to let it out, but similar things happened 
to other people in this sort of environment.  
“Don’t worry Excel, he would have hurt the innocent if you hadn’t stopped him.” 
said one of the policemen.  
“How do you know who I am?” asked Excel without thinking.  
“Why wouldn’t I? You’re a hero and the best in the Academy.” replied the man.  
“I said Excel was a well known trained ranger, and the computer did a good job 
at making that happen...” he pondered.  
“Excel, please report to the Admiral.” said a ranger dressed similar to Excel.  
“Sure thing.”  
The jet packs came out but sparked a little and stopped functioning.  
“They must have been damaged in the battle.”  
“We shall escort you to the Academy Sir, where you can have your suit fixed.”  
“I think I’m gonna like it here.” said Excel happily stepping into an armoured 
vehicle with the soldier.  

Back in the real world, a meeting was called at PerTec Central.  
“I’ve called this meeting to discuss what you just saw.” explained Karsten, 
“Carl Sinclair was a threat towards my life and indeed the whole of this 
company, action had to be taken.  I’m certain that he would have wormed his way 
out of any kind of trial with his wealth and endangered all of you until he got 
what he wanted, I had no choice to do what I did.  Can I trust all of you to 
keep quiet about this?”  
They all nodded with a nervous expression on their faces, after what he had done 
to Sinclair, the people had started to fear Karsten.  
“Good.”  
There was an uneasy silence about the board room until Sylla spoke up.  
“Sir...  Perhaps we should regroup later to discuss who we allow to build games 
to work with the DataGate.”  
“No Sylla, we must allow Beyond Existence to be a unique game and attract more 
Players, the internet companies pay us a large sum because of the amount of 
people that will use the internet solely to play our game, and to turn people’s 
attention to a different one at this stage would be unprofiting.  Now Sylla, 
bearing in mind what we just talked about, I’d like you to take care of all the 
decisions for a while.”  
“Why Sir, where are you going?”  
“I am needed in the game world, if I don’t visit regularly, then it could all 
fall apart.”  
“Perhaps we could hire someone to do this job for you...”  
“No!” Karsten shouted, making all the executives jump, “I mean, no, that’s not a 
good idea, its hard to find honest people who won’t sabotage all my hard work, 
and it would cost too much to pay them and teach them all the programming.  Its 
much easier this way and I’m okay with this extra job.”  
“If you say so Sir.”  
“Make me proud Sylla.”  
With that he returned to his room and locked himself in.  

Excel had just finished observing the Academy, a huge fortress that trained 
rangers like himself, but since he’d created a warrior at the top of his 
abilities, the computer had obviously designed it so that he was one of the best 
that had trained here.  
He’d joined up with a soldier showing some new rangers around so that he could 
properly know his home, if he was going to play the role of someone else then he 
may as well do it properly, he thought.  
He saw a confident woman in similar armour walking by, she caught him looking 
and made eye contact but Excel immediately turned away and spoke to the soldier.  
“Who is that?”  
“Stop kidding around Excel, surely you remember Turbine, she’s the best ranger 
in the Academy, after you of course.”  
“Okay then.”  
Excel decided that he shouldn’t be surprised by things that these people said 
about him and just go with the flow of this character.  
“Excel, the Admiral is ready to see you now, sorry for the wait.” said a 
different soldier who had just approached Excel.  
“Don’t worry about it, I passed the time well and learned a few new things.” 
Excel replied.  

“Ho ho ho.” laughed the Admiral in his gruff voice, Excel found it hard not to 
compare the fat old man to Santa Claus in a futuristic uniform and tall silly 
hat.  
“Good job at protecting the town Excel, it was your first time was it not?”  
Excel just agreed, “Of course Sir.”  
“And I’m told that one of the enemy pilots died in battle.  Well at least no 
innocent were hurt.”  
Excel had heard that sort of thing already, the people in this city didn’t seem 
to mind too much about fatalities to bad people.  
Good thing really or he’d be in trouble, but Excel still felt a little bad for 
not saving that pilot, even if he wasn’t real, he looked and sounded realistic 
to feel like he was.  
“Sir, I’d like to have a mission arranged for me to undergo.” Excel requested.  
“Well, there’s a desert base north of the city that seems suspicious, we think 
whoever started attacking our city could be operating there, but...” he yawned, 
“It is getting late and you’ve had a long day, perhaps you should retire for the 
night and I’ll explain in more detail tomorrow.”  
“Thank you Sir but I think I’d rather keep watch for any more enemies...” said 
Excel, not wanting to mention that he’d sleep after exiting the game, before 
thinking “I guess since this is a real-time game, by turning it off, the 
character should disappear temporarily and most probably appear to have gone for 
rest to non-playable characters...”  
While Excel stood on the roof of the Academy fixing his suit, another figure 
approached him, “Excel...”  
Excel looked up and down the lady in similar armour he’d seen earlier.  
Hers was red and green, she had Black skin and green alluring eyes, her hair was 
dark red and spiky and shot outwards from the back of her head.  
“Turbine...” he said slowly.  
“Stop staring at me like that, still, its a first from you.  You’ve always 
concentrated on being the best ranger, and hardly ever give any time towards 
enjoyment or love.”  
Excel turned to her at the mention of this but Turbine turned away, it was 
similar to real life, Carmen was currently trying to get to know him but James 
usually used the excuse of genuinely being too busy with work, James had 
inadvertedly brought that trait of himself into this world, could it have been 
his desire to do the best he could with studies which made him blind to those 
that may have liked him?  
“Even though you’ve always left me behind in training and were considered the 
Admiral’s favourite child, I’ve never been able to hold it against you because 
you intrigue me...”  
He never specified any parents so he figured the Admiral was a father figure, 
and figured that by becoming a ranger, it probably overwrote original data in 
which Turbine was the best ranger since game character history could be altered 
by the smallest things.  
“Turbine, what are you getting at?” asked Excel.  
“I’m saying Excel...  That despite all this, I love you, I respect your skills, 
and because of this I’m asking you to come away with me.  Leave the Academy and 
join the team I’ve formed, with you on my side, no one would be able to beat 
us.” suggested Turbine strangely.  
“I, er...  I’m sorry Turbine.” he hesitated, “But I don’t feel that way about 
you, nor can I abandon the Academy after all they’ve done.” he answered, 
something about this didn’t feel right.  
“Excel, the Academy is disorganised and weak, you’d be better off with my 
rangers, please reconsider...” pleaded Turbine, through a calm expression.  
“My answer’s still no.” he said nervously, he didn’t want to step into this sort 
of unknown territory and was unnerved by this whole love thing, he chose not to 
mention the fact that she was a game character while he was a real person, it 
would be too weird doing anything of this nature with something that wasn’t 
real.  
“Then in that case, goodbye Excel.” she said running forward and leaping off the 
edge.  
Excel looked down to see her floating away with a rocket pack sticking out her 
suit.  
Excel felt a little bad but he was acting as the character he’d always wanted to 
be and a relationship with a fictional character would be too awkward.  
“I didn’t mean to hurt her, I just-”  
A huge explosion ripped through the whole of the Academy catapulting Excel far, 
he activated the jet pack quickly.  
It was a good thing he’d fixed the suit or he’d have taken a fall and the 
character Excel would be no more.  
His hearing came back to him after a few seconds.  
“Admiral!... and everyone in the Academy...  I’ve failed them...  Who could have 
done this?!...” shouted Excel, before gasping, “Turbine...” he muttered, but she 
was long gone.  

Excel landed and, unsure of what to do next, clicked on the helmet and a clock 
display came up.  
“Has it been that long? I’d better stop and get some food.”  
With a couple of clicks on the helmet, a menu screen appeared right in front of 
him, he scrolled down to the exit game button, and reality came back to James.  
“That was unreal...  It felt so good... and so believable...  I’ve got to go 
back there soon.”  
He leaned against the window and stared out into the afternoon skies.  
“I’ll be back and I’ll show the game world just how good a hero Excel can be.”  

End of Chapter 2  

Chapter 1
Chapter 3
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