"Immercenary" is set in 2004. During the 1990s, Dr. Marcus Rand was experimenting in astral projection through time and space, and encountered a woman in the future who was able to sense his astral form. The woman (later identified as simply "Raven") told him that in her time, all of humanity is jacked into a virtual reality network called Perfect, and cannot jack out, leaving them to wither and die as their physical needs are left unattended. Determined to answer Raven's plea for help, Rand focuses his research on projecting a person's mind to Perfect. When two test subjects died using his experimental technology, Rand's project was terminated and the use of the technology forbidden. Undeterred, Rand continued research using himself as the test subject. However, during his experimentation he received a near-fatal "psi feedback"; when found in his lab three days later, conscious but unable to move or communicate, he was committed to a rehabilitation institution.