“Good morning, recruits. It is currently 07:15, and it is time to…”
My eyes snapped open. I’d never been a deep sleeper — wouldn’t have survived long if I were — and now, to the sound of the ship-wide transmission, I was wide awake in an instant.
That message should never have been able to come through. I’d disconnected the tablet from the carrier’s network.
I nearly pulled all of the bed sheets with me as I slipped out of bed, the morning call still playing as I hurried over to the desk where the tablet lay.
I minimized the feed, and began frantically searching through the device, my pulse racing quicker by the second.
It was gone. That file I’d began to download last night was gone. The cache I’d left to receive the download was empty, and worse still, at some point during the night, the tablet had reconnected to my UI and the ship’s network.
Something had taken remote control of the device, circumventing every shield I’d put in place. Something which knew every grade-3 security code I used by heart.
How in the Void…?
Able to feel the cold sweat that’d broken down my back, I was distracted by the noise of the other kids of the unit moving outside my door. It was less deadly silent this morning compared to yesterday.
Last evening, they’d been talking about what’d happened during that morning’s lecture until they nearly passed out in their seats, and no one had really protested as curfew forced them to go to bed. They were already adapting to their new life, making friends, and learning what rules were best to follow.
I knew, too.
Unless I wanted to be one of the kids dragged out of my room screaming by the guards, there was no time to check my tablet right now. I tucked it under my arm, thoughts still storming as I made my way towards breakfast.
𐫰 𐫰 𐫰
I didn’t listen to a single word of that morning’s lessons. I was too busy scanning my tablet for potential spyware or corruption.
None of which I could find, no matter how hard I looked.
No matter what codes or programs I ran, there were no tangible changes to that tablet. Discounting the fact that it’d somehow reconnected to the ship’s network, and that the file was gone, it was as if nothing had happened at all. As if it’d all been a dream…
It was a head scratcher, and an extremely frustrating one at that. I was just lucky that there was no one present to annoy me that morning.
From the quiet discussions I’d picked up surrounding yesterday’s events, Chunky and his gang had spent the entire night in the infirmary. And as my single scan of the classroom didn’t detect the nuisances, I assumed they were still there.
They’re still alive, right?
My worry was shallow at best. Unless they were made of paper, there was no way they’d gotten hurt. The program I’d ran on them was meant as physical therapy.
At worst, their egos had taken a hit, and they were spooked. Which only seemed fitting. Not worthy of concern.
My mind was busy elsewhere. Especially as, halfway through that class, an unsolicited ping had appeared on my tablet.
By the end of it, there were three.
Unwilling as I was to click unknown pop-ups when I was dealing with potential viruses, curiosity got the better of me as we trickled off to lunch.
The three of them read:
Abilities Added To List:
>History
>Scan Electronics
>Mental
I wasn’t sure what they meant, but during physical education in the afternoon, another five of them appeared:
>Physical
>Strength
>Endurance
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
>Running
>Dexterity
𐫰 𐫰 𐫰
That evening, I spent within the common room of our unit.
It was just after dinner, and curfew had made us return either here or to our rooms. Yesterday, I’d been too confused and conflicted to enjoy the space. Now, however, I preferred the quiet activity surrounding me.
Most kids had already gone to bed, too drained by the day’s classes to socialize. Only a handful of them were out here, drowsily occupying a couch to watch a large screen TV or poking around various games and books without any enthusiasm.
I could tell they didn’t want to be alone either, even if only a few of them had started to make friends.
The show playing on the screen was some colorful propaganda video barely disguised as a children’s show.
It was a necessary evil. Although ages had passed since the last Expansion, the empire needed endless, unquestioning soldiers to keep our borders against the Void. This, just like our forced conscription, was a sacrifice we all had to make to live in peace; to protect our families.
The games weren’t much different.
There were playing cards that depicted mankind’s great leaders, and the board games usually had rules that made sure humanity were the good guys.
It was shallow, but it was the kind of unity that helped an army function. Maybe it would’ve worked on me as well, if not for my lukewarm memories of the academy and my subsequent superiors.
My loyalty had always been to the Triumvirate and civilization at large. They were the ones that’d taken me in.
Raising my tablet to align it with the room, however, I could already see a few allegiances begin to shift as, upon that TV screen, brave Stratos Apolytos had just landed on a hostile planet, eradicating the ugly aliens to claim it for the glory of mankind.
I wasn’t sure if the soft brainwashing or the fact that I could see it working worried me more. Then again, everything that my tablet had been showing me throughout the day had jumbled my mind.
Now, from where I sat upon a cushion in the corner, I could see every kid within the room marked by a dot and a name tag upon the tablet. Some of those tags had only popped up when I heard them introduce themselves, while others carried nicknames or other vague descriptors such as “Backwater Loner,” or “Shy Kid”.
Only on a handful of them could I see information such as age, height, weight, blood type, and emotional state being updated in real time. And now, also allegiances.
They were the ones whose uplinks I’d gradually been accessing from the corner.
I’d first gotten the idea as one of yesterday’s victims had returned, pale and a bit shaky, and the information had already been readily accessible.
Even now, I wasn’t sure what to think about it.
It wasn’t my tablet that was uploading the information, it was only telling me what my UI already knew. By the time I’d realized as much, the rest of the connection wasn’t hard to make.
I’d at last found that missing file.
It was currently deeply integrated into my UI and System, leaving every worst case scenario to constantly flash through my mind.
Then again, although I’d downloaded an unknown file straight into my body and soul, nothing “bad” had happened yet. The senders of the files hadn’t even tried to contact me, making me suspect that, maybe, this change to my UI came from the same place as the Grand Simulation had.
Not that I could do anything with that information.
Even if I was just playing around in someone’s palm at this point, this was the life and the UI they’d given me. I couldn’t really give them back.
No, if they were going to use me, I might as well use them, too. That was the conclusion I’d come to, and for now, I’d made myself busy trying to learn every intricacy of this new layout they’d forced upon me.
Which was easier said than done.
The program was ancient and archaic, lacking even the most basic user-friendly functions I’d hope for. There were layers upon layers of data with no real way of sorting it, and it felt as if I was only scratching the surface.
Simply zooming in on a fidgeting kid that sat on a chair away from the rest, rapidly wiggling his right leg as his restless eyes once darted towards the others in the sofa, and then down the hallway, columns of new information appeared.
Scanning…
“Nervous Kid”
Age: 10 years, 9 months, 14 days
Height: 131.318 cm (51.7")
Weight: 31.9 kg (70.5 lb)
Blood type: A-
Allegiance(s): Stratos Apolytos (7%), Ferada-1109 (39%), Unknown (54%)
Emotional State: Urge To Pee (92%), Can’t…
Error…
Missing Skills/Classes/Status Condition: People Reading, Body Language, Psychology, Seer, Parent, Friend, Detective, Charmer…
I stopped the program as the blocks of text began crowding the screen. Thousands upon thousands of skills and classes had flashed by in a mere few seconds, none of which I recognized.
I only knew the basic classes of the Stratos Apolytos available through their carefully curated gene molds. The ones I knew most intimately were the Soldier, Technician, and Officer classes which I’d ended up pursuing in my previous life. Or rather, the barely-functioning amalgamation of the three.
The classes I saw here, however, were nothing like those. There was something more going on here, and the mere fact that the shitty hardware of my current UI had just managed a more advanced scan than my old overlay…
Well, it was food for thought.
All of this was food for thought, and I’d yet to decide whether it was gourmet or garbage.
Should I…
To the hiss of our unit’s doors hissing open, I raised my eyes just in time to see a guard shove four kids inside to complete our unit’s forty.
Chunky had returned, and from the way he was glaring everywhere expect back at that guard, I could tell that he was itching for a fight. His eyes seemed to dare anyone to mention what’d happened yesterday, and his clenched fists seemed to boil with frustration.
Not that I blamed them.
Yesterday’s shrill screams hadn’t really gone with their ‘larger than the rest of you’ persona. In fact, they’d been quite weak and wimpy, just what you’d expect from some eleven year old kid.
Or rather, twelve year old.
Powly “Chunky” Brate
Age: 12 years, 7 months, 9 days
Height: 162.3 cm (63.9")
Weight: 61.1 kg (134.7 lb)
Blood type: O+
Allegiance(s): Ferada-1109 (23%), Unknown (77%)
Emotional State: Anger (87%), Embarrassment (?%), Seeking…
Error…
Missing Skills/Classes/Status Condition: People Reading, Body Language, Psychology, Seer, Parent, Friend, Detective, Animal Tamer…
Before I could switch off the program this time, another message had popped up over it.
Warning!
Hostile Target, Detected
Threat Level, Assessing…