Winter, it's a nice and cold season. Staying indoors, watching the snow fall from the sky and drinking all sorts of hot beverages. It's a perfect day to sleep in and spend time with those who you cared about the most... but that isn't the case, no... not for this young man.

This was someone who suffered a lot in less than three months. This man was Axle Ryder. He was only a seventeen year old teenager when we last saw him and now he's twenty one years old. He still lives the life of a loner but for different reasons than when he started, and right now he was getting ready to go to work since he got a job.

It was his first day and he just had to learn about what was going to happen which was as simple as it sounded. His clothing style had changed drastically since four years ago. He usually wore black jeans with a red jacket and t-shirt but now he wore cobalt blue jeans, a silver long sleeved shirt with a gray tie to match and a long cobalt blue coat that had grey fake fur at the sleeves and at the collar.

His hair was spiked up and the rows of spikes travelled to the back and he wore a pair of white leather gloves.

Axle's outfit
(SAO fans, thank you if you recognise this)

He took out his trusty phone and looked at the time on it. He just let out a sigh, a habit he developed, and chose to leave before he'd be late for his first day at work. He didn't need that at all on his first day, in fact... nobody needed it because that would just leave a terrible impression on the employer.

He opened to the front door and he, almost, immediately felt the cold air rushing in the house and hitting him all over his face. "Winter." He quietly said. Yet another thing about him that changed. "I love the cold air." He muttered to himself before going out and closing the door behind him.

He walked off wondering what would happen and if this job paid as much money as the scientists said it would. That's right, you didn't misread. Axle's employers are scientists.
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"Axle?" Someone called out. It was a female and she had black hair and silver eyes. She stood at five feet tall and she was looking around the house for Axle. She wore a red jacket, black jeans, black winter boots and black earmuffs. Funny that she wears black and red because that used to be Axle's clothing colours.

This person was someone who had suffered just as much as Axle four years ago, if not then a lot more. She was no plain human, she was a CyberHuman. Her name was Carla Evans, also known as CyberHuman Eight Thirty One but Carly Kyber was the name she currently went with.

She was currently looking for Axle in the house but she had no idea that he was gone. She pressed two of her fingers against her temple and started massaging them before she started looking for him in all directions.

"No sign of Axle." She pouted before she took out her phone. "Now where is he?" She asked herself as she scrolled through her contacts so that she could send him a text message.

She waited for about three minutes before got a reply from him saying that he was on his way to work. All she did after that was slap her forehead for forgetting that Axle had gotten a job and today was his first day.
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Axle was currently on a subway car closing in on his destination when he got a new message on his phone. He looked at the device and saw that Carly sent him a message. He wondered what she wanted so he looked at what she sent him.

C: Where are you?

A: On my way to work Carly... did you already forget😐

C: Oops, sorry my bad I completely forgot. 😅

A: it's okay Carly, I'll try to come back soon okay.

C: okay, bye Axle.

A: See ya later.

He shook his head with a light smile before he put his phone away.  "Next stop, White Ice Street." That was Axle's stop.

He quickly made his way to the door as soon as the subway car stopped. He walked out of the car and proceeded to exit the subway and move on to the streets. He started walking and he kept on walking until he found a warehouse that was guarded by some soldiers. One of them immediately recognised Axle and let him in. He looked around and the place didn't look like some dumb old warehouse. There was a lot of tech, computers and it looked exactly like a high level science lab. You didn't have to be a genius to see that the technology was cutting edge.

"Welcome Mr Ryder, professor Blake will see you now." A random scientist welcomed him after he entered the lab. The scientist then proceeded to lead Axle to the professor that hired him. That was the one part of the job he was never looking forward to.

"Axle! How's my favorite nephew? Liking the lab already I see?" The head scientist greeted as she approached the young man. This woman had long auburn hair and she wore the standardized lab coat. She stood at the height of 5'8 and she wasn't the type of person you'd picture being a scientist. "Adopted nephew." Axle corrected her. This was Wyatt's older sister Rebecca Blake.

Married obviously...

"So... You and Carly finally tie the knot?" She asked with much enthusiasm. "No... we're just friends... She made it very clear back then that she didn't want to be anything more than that." Axle said obviously referring to the many times he asked her out when he was still seventeen. "That's sad... so, anything else new in your life?" She asked feeling awkward for reminding Axle about his constant rejections.

"No... and besides, wasn't I hired to be a guinea pig for your experiment?" He asked as he wanted to get straight to the point of why he was here. He wasn't one to beat around the bush and he really needed to avoid as many awkward conversation topics as he could. Rebecca meant well but she sometimes forgot when to keep quiet in a conversation.

"Oh right." She face changed in demeanor. In a second she went from enthusiastic and bubbly to strict and serious. It's what makes Wyatt, Eddie and Axle fear her. They knew that she could change gears at the drop of a hat and they knew when there was a time for jokes and when they would have to be serious.

"Okay, what you'll be testing is something similar to the CyberHuman program." Rebecca said told him. "How so?" Axle asked out of curiosity and that curiosity made him wonder why Rebecca would even try to start something as horrific as Project Cyber.

"Instead of putting a human brain inside a cybernetic body, we decided to put a human mind in a virtual world, no... On the internet." She answered his question as she started feeling elated with her work.

"Great, and somehow you managed to turn the Matrix, Tron and Sword Art Online into a real life thing... so where's my NerveGear?" He said while joking in the last sentence.

"Sword Art Online?" She asked in confusion. "Eddie got me into anime when I got bored of reading and explaining it is gonna take time, time we don't have." He said. "And again... NerveGear?" She asked once more before Axle said, "It was a Sword Art Online reference."

"Okay then... now onto the point, the virtual world is a program called CyberSpace... You can think of it as the internet's successor. It's meant become a new means of communication and you have to test it out so that we can have a successful trial run. That's where you and the other four hundred and ninety nine beta testers come in."

"Oh, and pray tell what this virtual world is for?" Axle asked he did not feel so welcoming towards this idea, and how could he not be. This would make even the smartest of people skeptical toward the idea.

"A new step in communication... and before you ask, this is not a game. You'll live in a virtual world and you'll test if it's successful.

Should the tests be successful, you can kiss cellphones, video chats and smart watches along with laptops and the internet goodbye."

"Sounds interesting." Axle said as he was impressed with the idea. Although it seemed risky, this sounded like it was going to be worth the risk. "So when do the tests start?" He asked. "They begin tomorrow, eight am sharp... Don't be late okay and I hope you have a big breakfast before then because you're going to spend the whole day in there." Rebecca said with a big smile.

CyberSpace... this does seem interesting. Axle thought for a moment. This better be worth the money.