Rift Station: Open Worlds
The instructor's advice seemed sensible, so you enjoyed a quiet dinner of passable Earth-style cuisine, watched a popular new holomovie (which was bad enough to make you glad you were about to leave all civilization behind) and had a restful night's sleep.
A rectangular device about the length of your hand is strapped securely around your chest. It's far more durable than you are, and so regardless of what happens to you it will perform a number of scans while transmitting info back live in the ten to twenty seconds they can be received before the rift changes its signature again. There's also a small wrist camera which the scientists beg you to try and remember to use usefully and intelligently during that time. You gather that most people don't.
You have your 50lb pack weighing you down. Either one packed by the staff here with useful survival items and instant meals, or one you packed yourself that had the same amount of mass. And finally, they make you go through a replica of a rift chamber like the one from the holoprojector earlier. All you do is go into a small circular room bristling with sensors and recording equipment, wait for the portal to open once the energy signals from the rift enter the correct range, than jump through. And don't hesitate, because waiting around even ten extra seconds could send you somewhere completely different that might kill you. (You wonder how many people have managed to do this, the way they keep hammering it in...)
The core facility that contains the rift is heavily guarded, and you're ushered past security checkpoint after security checkpoint.
"Godspeed, and good luck," a scientist tells you, as you reach the entrance to the corridors at the very heart of the facilities that encircles the rift itself. "You're on your own now." These may be the last words you ever hear from another person. You'll be continuing on your own after this, to choose from a set of airlocked chambers.
The corridor curves around in a circle, split at each end with a short landing and sets of stairs leading up and down.
A rectangular device about the length of your hand is strapped securely around your chest. It's far more durable than you are, and so regardless of what happens to you it will perform a number of scans while transmitting info back live in the ten to twenty seconds they can be received before the rift changes its signature again. There's also a small wrist camera which the scientists beg you to try and remember to use usefully and intelligently during that time. You gather that most people don't.
You have your 50lb pack weighing you down. Either one packed by the staff here with useful survival items and instant meals, or one you packed yourself that had the same amount of mass. And finally, they make you go through a replica of a rift chamber like the one from the holoprojector earlier. All you do is go into a small circular room bristling with sensors and recording equipment, wait for the portal to open once the energy signals from the rift enter the correct range, than jump through. And don't hesitate, because waiting around even ten extra seconds could send you somewhere completely different that might kill you. (You wonder how many people have managed to do this, the way they keep hammering it in...)
The core facility that contains the rift is heavily guarded, and you're ushered past security checkpoint after security checkpoint.
"Godspeed, and good luck," a scientist tells you, as you reach the entrance to the corridors at the very heart of the facilities that encircles the rift itself. "You're on your own now." These may be the last words you ever hear from another person. You'll be continuing on your own after this, to choose from a set of airlocked chambers.
The corridor curves around in a circle, split at each end with a short landing and sets of stairs leading up and down.