I was sitting on the bunk and were the crew cabins, after a long night of not sleeping. I’ve been thinking about all the changes in my life. I can’t stop thinking about the fact that I would have given all the money I had, all my earthly possessions, for even a chance at life like this. So the idea that I get to do this with my two best friends, has me ecstatic. The problem, is that I still need to learn all the new things that are important in this universe.
The real cream to this, the topper if you will, is that my body works now. I have no way to quantify to somebody else how this has changed everything for me. The only way I can think to describe it is if you were to imagine you are in pain all the time, always achy in some way or another. In constant fear your body would betray itself, that you would get some kind of sickness out of nowhere.
Now imagine that all that just disappears, your whole entire world changes. You get better, don’t hurt, and you’re not afraid of your body failing. It’s the only way I can think to describe it, because it’s the way it is. That’s how my life has been for the last 24 years and I can remember. After me and Shawn spoke last night I came back to my room, well my room for now. On the way to the room I had realized I’m actually already moving more easily. I’m not instinctually hunching forward, not measuring my steps to make sure I don’t pull ligaments too far out of place. Once I lay down and realized how big of a change that was from before I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
I had only managed to get a couple hours of sleep. Even those hours amaze me because I didn’t wake up a few times with any type of pains from rolling over wrong. I’ve been awake for about twenty maybe thirty minutes when Shawn comes into the room.
“Alright man time to learn some new stuff follow me.” Shawn doesn’t seem surprised I’m awake already, I’ve always been an early riser. He doesn’t even wait for me to get up and follow he expects me to do it, and I do.
Following him into the hall I ask “Are you going to teach me to fly the ship? Maybe how some of the systems work?” I can’t help but be excited.
I see the corner of his mouth quirk up little bit “No, today you learn about how the new world works. Well, your new world. You’re in for a very pleasant surprise.” He’s excited about it, seems pretty vague to me though.
We walk back through the cargo room into the dining area and grabs a quick bite to eat. The whole time we’re eating I’m asking questions and he’s refusing to answer me. Giving nothing but a smile as an answer.
After we finish eating and the trays are taken care of Sean walks over to the wall and puts his hand on a glowing white circle at about chest level. Giving it a quarter turn a 4 x 8 square on the lower part of the wall flashes bright blue and then a panel slides out.
Once the panel has completely slid out I see that it has four seats sitting back to back facing away from one another. They look surprisingly comfortable, like giant lazy boys. They are all slightly laid back with a quirk that there is what looks like a helmet above the headrest. The gap between where the base of the skull is and top of the shoulders should be. That area is recessed and there are some wires sticking out, almost like USB connections.
“This is where the magic happens. Go and pick a seat, sit in it the lean back and put your arms on the rest. Try and relax, the first time hurts a little bit but there is anesthetic.” Shawn says with a mischievous look in his eye.
The last part he said causes a little bit of trepidation, but not enough to stop me from sitting down in the chair and trying to get comfortable. Once I'm sat down and comfortable I feel a pressure on my body that is comforting and frightening at the same time, before I can ask Sean what’s going on he gives me an answer.
“The seat has micro sensors, once it realizes that you’re comfortable in a good position that you can sit for a long period of time a gravity fields takes effect. The one reason it does that is that any movement your body makes when you’re in the simulation won’t be able to push you out of the seat. The second reason is that these double as an installation device. Once you give the command I’m about to teach you in a moment the gravity field on the seat is going to push down hard enough so you can’t wiggle around, then apply a local anesthetic and install a port into the nerve cluster at the back of your skull.” He says all that with the voice of a teacher, a tone to convey information.
I scrunch up my eyes and look at them “why would I need a port installed in the nerve cluster at the back of my skull?”
“Because it’s the first thing you’re need to learn how to use. Everyone has one out here, and you would be at a disadvantage if you did not. Any more questions?” He asked moving over the seat next to me.
I shake my head no.
“All right then, I’ll teach you the words you need to say. ‘Initiate protocol port installation, clearance level: Alpha-Romeo-453’. Once you say those words the gravity field will increase to hold you down and the anesthetic will be administered once the process is started it can’t stop until it’s finished. On the upside, the only thing that really hurts is the anesthetic, but it really doesn’t hurt that bad.” I want to believe the part about the anesthetic, but honestly it doesn’t sound like he believes that either.
Deciding I might as well it get over with, I go ahead and say the phrase “initiate protocol port installation, clearance level: Alpha-Romeo-453.” As soon as I finish the initiation command a tinny voice from the wall says “Initiating port installation suite. Capitalize level: Royal family.”
The pressure I felt before increases pushing me down in the seat and I think it’s going to crush me but let’s up enough that I can still breathe comfortably but not move. I hear the cables behind me rustle bit, and then feel little pinch at the base of my skull.
It doesn’t start out that bad, but the needle stays injected I can feel it slowly sliding in deeper and deeper. After what feels like hours, but is probably only seconds, the back of my head goes numb.
After that I can’t really tell what was going on, loosely feeling pressure on the back of my neck whirring sounds and sucking sounds but I don’t have much idea what’s going on. At one point, I go blind for about half a second, it comes right back though. I’m not completion sure how long the process takes but during the entire thing I feel different parts my muscles tense and relax, there’s even a point where I stop hearing for a few seconds. Throughout the whole process I don’t have any control over my body. I initially thought it was the gravity but came to realize that I didn’t have access to my bodily functions.
A few seconds after realize I don’t have any control of my body I start feeling sensations in my fingertips that move up my arms moving into the core of my chest. Once the gravity restraint finally starts releasing I realize that Shawn isn’t there anymore, he must’ve moved off at some point while I was going through the process.
After the gravity is Release completely I reach back and touch the back of my neck without thinking. Just a graze of my finger shoots fire through the back of my neck and causes me to cringe down into my chest. It felt like the time I get a third-degree burn on my arm and I just had to touch it.
As I’m recovering from touching the back of my neck Shawn walks in and sees me cringing down into my chest.
“Ha, touched it didn’t you?” He says with a smile.
“I didn’t mean to, it just kind of happened without me thinking about it. I thought there was supposed to be a port back there it didn’t feel like that, I just felt raw skin.” I say they little confused.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
He gives a nod “Yeah the port parts a bit misleading. It’s a contact plate. Port is a throwback to the old days when it was an actual port. Now we just need a neural interface. Unfortunately, I forgot that you got the Royal suite so you are going to need some time to recover. We can’t start your training right now. You should be good in a couple of hours. I guess I can probably explain what will happen though.” Reaching up with his left hand he puts it on the wall and turns a half spin to the left, counterclockwise the four seats that are sitting back to back stretch out sliding next to each other against the wall.
Shawn takes a seat next to me so we can see each other’s we talk “So you were big on those RPG games right? The ones we got the select your attributes and there were skills and all those other things.”
I lightly shake my head “yeah I was really into WoW, guild wars, and a few of the other ones. Why?”
“Then you’re going to love this next part. The earth we just left is in a pocket dimension, it’s an offshoot, cut off from the rest of the universe and probably the most important part: the universal-soul. The universal-soul is a lot like the RPG’s from that earth, it’s actually where it comes from. Some people think they’re clever writing stories, making up imaginings. But that’s not what it is, most of the ones that are doing that are remembering. Most things like skills, attributes, levels are things that actually happen out here once we get past the veil. Don’t get me wrong it’s not exactly like the RPG’s of earth there are some very large differences in how stats work. But we’ll get to that later.” It’s hard to believe the things he’s saying, it all sounds insane. But honestly everything up to this point is been fucking crazy.
“So you’re telling me we are going to a universe where I’ll be able to learn quantifiable skills, I’ll be able to follow the exact percentage amount I know? Are there respawns?” it seems a great idea to me.
He shakes his head “No, no respawn. At least not the way of the games, there is a way to clone bodies and move retained memories that are saved to new clones if they have been set to the data point. Most people can’t do that though, you’ll be able to, and most of the guard can. It’s almost prohibitively expensive, as if you can get the money to do it are almost immortal to a point.”
“This is a lot to learn, huh?” Living in the new universes isn’t going to be quite as easy as I thought it was going to be, it’s a good thing I have friends and resources.
“We can’t access that inside the white-shift zone. The training seats are connected to the ships computer mainframe and have stored simulations specifically for this. We wanted to be able to train you to operate inside of the real universe once you got extracted so the next couple of days you’ll be learning inside of those. Once inside it the time will flow faster for us, technically, it will equalize between how fast the two of us think. It won’t help us rest or anything like that, but you can learn faster and once some of the upgrades the link has activated assimilate data better.” After he finishes the last part he pushes back in the seat and I see it turns into a recliner.
“What do you mean activated?” It sounds like these things are already inside of me.
“A lot of the stuff inside your body was enhanced before you were taken. Bones, muscles, ligaments, you name it. On top of that you have nanites inside of you, the highest tech available at the time. The problem at this point is a lot of it is dormant and has never been used. You’re also lacking the interface software, which is our next move after you are healed up enough. Most people are stuck with what they’re born with, as a royal you were given the best chances available with some upgrades. There also a few quirks you’ll be able to get into, changing stats on the fly.”
The last part has me very interested “what do you mean?”
“Just to be clear about this from the beginning, you’re not going to be able to put all your points in the strength and suddenly be superman. Most of that stuff has to be built up through practice and training. The biggest difference for you is going to be that you will have of base stats, but you also have stats you can allocate at will.” He must’ve seen the confused look on my face because he tried to explain better. “Okay, think it about like this. Let’s say you have a ten points in strength, depending on your programming and the level of nanites in your body at the time you’ll be able to shift points over to a stat for a boost. As far as I know most Royals have their base stat, and then anywhere from five to ten points they can allocate at any time. I’m sorry that doesn’t make sense it’s the best example I can think of.”
“No, I think I’ve got it. If I have a base stat of five, with a decent set of nanites I’ll have extra points to move around and boost those stats?” He shakes his head affirmative.
Oh man, depending on how big the boost the nanites give me that’s a game changer. I wonder if better nanites give me more boosted points or if there’s a ceiling to how many boosted points I can have.
“Will I have a status screen, skill menu or any of that stuff?” And then a HUGE question hits me.
“Is there magic?” He barks out a laugh.
“I was wondering when you would come to this part. There is magic, it’s actually a fairly large part of the over-verse. But just so you know most of it is not spells, it’s affinities and imagination is the limit.” Putting his hands behind his head he lets me process the information he just gave me.
Damn. This just keeps getting better and better. Spaceships futuristic technology and magic. If it gets any better I might make a mess in my pants.
“So we can access any of the stuff in here, is that all white-shift space?”
“No, just this white-space. Here and in between a few other dimensions. Most dimensions, and between them we will be able to access the universal-soul. It’s only between dimensions that don’t have access to the universal-soul, and those that touch them. Luckily, there aren’t very many dimensions that don’t have access to the universal-soul. That was a double-edged sword of being in the pocket dimension we were in. On the one hand, not having access to the universal soul, and magic was almost like a vacation didn’t have to worry about superpowered people, or entities with magic. On the other side of that, though, we didn’t have access to our abilities or magic. So, it’s hard to gauge how far we deteriorated in the twelve years we’ve been in the pocket dimension.” As he same last part his face squishes like he licked lemon.
With that last part I realize just how much they have given up maintaining my safety. Must’ve been horrible to go to a place where you lose everything you have been used to your entire life, restricted from doing most the things you do a daily basis. A lot of them probably not even missed until you realize you were relying on the system.
Clapping his hands, he says “Enough of that. Let’s run some diagnostics. Not everything is super crazy. You have some things that just needed to be initialized but don’t need software to test. Some of that should have initiated your communications network integration. Along with enhancing a few of your senses. First were going to test out the communications network integration.” He looks over the wall “Marla, connect Baron to the ship wide communications network.”
The tinny voice I heard earlier says “connecting... Testing”
A smooth, slightly British woman’s voice pops into my head you now have access to the ship wide communications network. Access level: unrestricted. I don’t physically hear the voice, but I know it’s there. I decide to try something.
Marla, can you understand me? I think at the ship.
Yes Baron. I would prefer you interacted with me in this manner going forward, as it is easier and more efficient. The ship says.
“Aw man, this is freaking awesome. I can nonverbally communicate with the ship, can I do that with everybody else?” I asked Shawn.
“Not yet, the ship is easy because it has targeted thoughts. You don’t have to filter out the stray stuff. Once your contact port is finished with healing we’ll be able to get you your first batch of programming, and updates. Depending on how fast your body adapts to everything coming online we might be able to get you trained up for your AI by the time we make it to the main ship.” He says offhandedly.
I feel like my brain is an overload with all the new information, and possibilities of my new reality.
“Let’s go ahead and test out your sense of touch,” he says opening the arm rest and pulling a piece of paper out of it.
It’s the shape of an index card, blank except for a blue line running down the middle. “This is a reactive testing strip. Run your finger down the blue strip, and tell me what you feel.”
He hands me the card and I run my finger from left to right down the blue line. I slide my finger slowly down the line and realize it isn’t a constant line, it feels broken in some places. It’s a bit strange just to my sight it appears like an unbroken line. I’m not sure how I can feel the differences. “It’s weird, it looks like one continuous line but I’m sure that it’s broken in some places.”
Reaching out for the card he slides it back into the armrest, and pulls out a black one with a bright green line, “try this one.”
Taking the card from him I slowly do the exact same thing I did with the last one. This time I feel the breaks are much more frequent. After about the third time running my fingers down the card I realize they’re words. “They are words! How do I even know that?”
He reaches over and puts the card back into the armrest “once we finish all the update you should be able to read what you feel. It’s kind of amazing you can tell that without the firmware, maybe your parents give you a higher level of augments than anybody knows about, most Royals have a high-level set but not a lot are as in tune as you are without the firmware.”
Closing the armrest, he stands up, and rubs his hands together “all right, let’s grab some food. Maybe you can go get cleaned up and changed. Then we can get to the good stuff.”