When he woke up a moment later, Jake was shocked to see that lines of text were unfurling in front of his very eyes. They were so numerous in fact, that he didn’t have time to read the text before it disappeared out of sight, replaced by new lines over and over again.
After a few dizzying seconds, the text finally stopped appearing in front of him, and he could see the room again. He was about to get up when a strong and scaly hand pressed down on his chest, and he fell back in his chair.
“Easy, kid. Stay down for a bit.” Officer Neilr muttered.
He looked up at the Kreigen, who still looked just as pissed as he’d looked when they’d met moments before. Jake’s head was pounding like crazy, and almost on instinct, he brought up a hand to his right temple, where he felt the familiar texture of a bandage.
“Your operation was a success, and you’ve now been granted access to the full functionalities of your neuroimplant,” He said with a particularly loud sigh.
“Now listen to me kid, and listen well because I ain’t repeating a word of this a second time.”
“To the corner of your field of view, you can see a small semi-transparent circle, I want you to focus on that and think about expanding it. Doing so will activate your implant for the first time and initiate the tutorial. I have a few other implants to take care of tonight, so if you need anything just ask one of the receptionists. Once you’re done with the tutorial, you better go get settled in your dorm right away.”
The Kreigen turned on his heels, and he had barely taken a step toward the door when he suddenly stopped in his tracks. He seemed to hesitate, but a moment later, he spoke up.
“One more thing, cadet. This implant is by far the most valuable thing you’ll receive during your time at this academy, except maybe the awakening. If you listen to your implant, you’re going to be just fine. Remember that.”
And just like that, he rushed back toward the door and stepped out of the room.
Jake looked at the door before he focused back on the small semi-transparent circle in the corner of his eye, and it expanded into some sort of holographic interface. Before he could analyze the screen, however, a voice echoed in his ears.
[Howdy, partner!]
The small voice was robotic by nature, although he couldn’t pinpoint exactly where it had come from as he looked all around the room.
“What the fuck? Who’s here?” Logan said as he looked around the room furiously.
[Ah shit, why did I get stuck with the dumbass. I’m the implant idiot, nobody’s “here”.] The implant responded, and the way it said the word “here” almost seemed condescending.
Jake’s eyes widened for a moment, and he sat on the examination table for a moment, mouth agape, without knowing how to respond to the asshole that was now stuck in his brain.
[Well, are you ready for that tutorial or not?]
Jake sighed before he finally spoke up.
“Hum… sure?”
[Wonderful! My name is ED1427B089, but you can call me Ed!]
He was taken aback by the sudden change in expression. Moments ago, the implant had been condescending and irritated, while it was now cheerful and enthusiastic.
[Now the first thing you must know is that you do not need to speak aloud to communicate with me, as I am in your head and can hear your thoughts. I mean it, the other cadets will literally bully you if they hear you speaking to me out loud, and I’ll be damned if I let myself get stitched up inside a loser’s head.]
Almost feeling embarrassed at the AI’s remark, he simply shrugged and waited for the implant to continue.
[Now, the second most important thing you need to know is that I am by definition an extension of your mind, which means I can stock information and memories for you, kinda like extra storage space on a tablet, but I can also perform calculations or analysis, among a ton of other things. I also have access to the Alliance’s Central Database to look up any information your clearance level allows you to access, as well as the internet, for more general information.]
Awesome, Jake thought.
[Now, let’s take a look at some other functionalities, starting with the status screen.]
At that moment, a holographic screen appeared right in front of him. It looked a lot like the type of holograms they used in classrooms to display the lectures to students, although something felt a little different this time.
Status
Name: Jake Hawkins
Rank: Cadet
Biotic Energy Capacity: xx
Biotic Energy Recovery: xx
Base attributes
Strength: 3
Dexterity: 6
Constitution: 3
Recovery: 3
Perception: 7
Cognition: 12
Specs
[ None ]
Skills
[ None ]
He looked at the screen for a while. He’d heard some rumours on the forums, but to think that it was even better than he’d imagined, he almost wondered if this was all a dream.
[For now, the only thing worth mentioning about your status screen is that each attribute listed acts as a measure of your capabilities. The rest should be pretty self-explanatory, even for you.]
Jake ignored the implant’s snarky comment and then looked at the screen for a second before he silently asked Ed to elaborate on the role of attributes.
[Strenght | Measure of your physical strength and power]
[Dexterity | Measure of your agility and reflexes]
[Constitution | Measure of your damage resistance and stamina]
[Recovery | Measure of your body’s regeneration and recovery]
[Perception | Measure of your perception and insight]
[Cognition | Measure of your overall mental faculties]
[Biotic Energy Capacity | Measure of your core’s maximum capacity]
[Biotic Energy Recovery | Measure of the recovery speed of your core]
After he’d read through everything in under half a minute, he still took a moment to absorb the information, and as soon as he’d wrapped his head around the whole attributes thing, the implant spoke up again inside his mind.
[Secondly, I have been linked to a newly created banking account under your name with IABanking Solutions, and you will be able to manage, invest and use your credits just like with any other client account.]
[There is also a messaging and communication functionality within the implant, as well as a GPS device that will work anywhere inside IA colonized territory.]
Jake looked through the holographic screens that kept popping up in front of him, mouth still agape at the situation, until the door suddenly swung wide open, revealing a tall woman, dressed in very stylish business attire.
“I’m Miss Abrahams, cadet. I’m part of the school’s administrative staff, but today I’ll simply be guiding you back to your dorm.” She said, smiling.
She gestured at him to follow her, and they made their way toward the dorms. According to Miss Abrahams, there were ten first-year dorms, each housed by five cadets who would be sharing living space for the entire year.
He couldn’t help but be slightly nervous at the thought of living with four other cadets, as he wasn’t exactly great at socializing, he instead preferred to keep to himself. Still, when they finally arrived in front of his dorm’s metal door, his heart was pounding with excitement, and he sheepishly opened the door after mumbling his thanks to the lady.
While he had expected the room to look somewhat like a high-class luxury suite with multiple bedrooms, he’d instead entered some kind of empty open area, with a few couches spread sparsely here and there. The room was made from sleek-looking grayish metal that covered every inch of the ground and walls, which gave the common area a warehouse vibe like most buildings' interiors he’d seen back on Nenov.
Five doors were spread evenly across the walls, and Logan could tell these were the individual rooms they’d be staying in. He didn’t get much more time to have more than a glance, however, before a high-pitched voice echoed inside the room.
“WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?” The voice shouted.
“Do they really expect us to live like we’re from the fucking slums for sixteen weeks? Wait until my mom hears about this!”
Next to her, two other cadets shook their heads in agreement, echoing the girl’s thoughts. A small distance away stood another cadet, who looked at the trio with an indifferent expression.
Now, if there was one thing Logan was good at — at least according to Grandma Al — it was getting in trouble. So when he heard the girl, a tall 5’10 blonde girl with ocean-blue eyes complaining like a bitchy princess over the dorms, he let out a small chuckle he’d in vain tried to keep in, and four pair of eyes turned on him.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Hum… Hi?” He said to the room, hesitantly.
“What the fuck does that mean?” The blonde girl said after having turned around, revealing pristine features hidden under a very angry frown.
Jake was taken by surprise for a moment, and he struggled to find the words as all hopes of the girl having mistaken his laugh for anything else than an insult were blown away by her annoyingly high-pitched voice.
“I mean it’s not that bad, there’s couches we can sit on and there's even a giant holographic display facing them — ” But he didn’t even get to finish before the girl interrupted him with a rageful cry.
“And who are you exactly?” She asked, although it sounded more like an insult than an actual question, Logan still answered.
“My name is Jake Hawkins, it’s nice to meet you. I guess we’ll be roommates for the next four months.” He said hesitantly, but instead of replying to him by introducing herself like any normal human being — or normal living being — the girl simply gave him a condescending smirk and ignored him.
What the actual fuck is wrong with that girl?
[If that was you trying to charm the lady I can deduce with 99,8% certainty that you failed. You know what, screw the numbers you definitely did not impress her.]
With a sigh, Jake simply made his way toward one of the couches and fell into it. Not only was he as socially inept as a worm, but at least three of his roommates were condescending garbage, and he realized his first interaction at the Academy had gone way worse than in the nightmares he’d had thinking about it the previous night.
Suddenly, a small chuckle made him realize he wasn’t alone in the common room, and he shot a glance to his left, where a girl was looking at him, laughing. Even sat down on the couch, it was clear she was almost as tall as he was, and she had long curly brown hair awkwardly stuck in a messy bun, along with piercing brown eyes and a dashing smile.
She must have been the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, and by far, although she still carried herself with the distinct grace and strength of a soldier, when she spoke up to him his heart almost exploded out of his chest.
“You’re funny, Hawkins.” She said with a smile. “Basic training hasn’t even started yet and you’re already mortal enemies with the Laura King.”
“Laura King? As in the King Conglomerate?” Jake asked.
“Precisely.” The girl answered with a smile, and he grimaced.
I am so fucked.
He couldn’t help but despair at his own rotten luck when the girl who was sitting near him spoke up again. Even though he came from the slums of some pisspoor planet 3 whole sectors over, even he knew how powerful the King Conglomerate was.
“My name’s Noelle Owens. It’s nice to meet you.”
He looked at her for a few seconds. After a moment, he simply shrugged his shoulders and answered.
“It’s nice to meet you too,” Jake said, visibly uncomfortable, before he tried changing the subject as he grew progressively more awkward.
“So, any idea which room’s mine?” He added, motioning at the large bag he was carrying on his back. The thing was extremely heavy as it was filled with everything he owned, and he couldn’t wait to drop it off somewhere.
[Wow, you got a chance to talk to a pretty lady here and you go back to your room for a wank? Pathetic.]
Shut up, Ed.
With a finger, she pointed to the door that was on the immediate right from the entrance, and he got up and walked over to the door, which he opened. As he’d expected, his room consisted of a very small bedroom, with one bed, a nightstand and a closet full of Academy uniforms. To the farthest wall next to his bed, a small entranceway led to a toilet, shower and sink. He dropped his bag on the edge of his bed before he walked back inside the common area, which was now empty.
He looked around the room, realizing he was now alone, and sat back on one of the couches. He sat there for a few minutes, going over the functionalities of his new neuroimplant while arguing with Ed when the door swung wide open, which gave Jake a start, and a huge Akari stepped inside the area, and she stayed immobile for a few seconds before she suddenly shouted.
“CADETS, GET THE HELL OUT OF YOUR ROOMS.” She shouted at the top of her lungs, and Jake shot up to his feet with record speed. An instant later, the other four were standing in line right next to him, unmoving.
The Akari were a tall alien species that looked almost identical to humans, except for the fact that they had talons instead of feet and a gigantic pair of black wings fixed to their back, along with a set of pitch-black ram horns glued to their heads. They kind of looked like a weird mix of an eagle, a human and a ram, although comparing them to a ram to their face was akin to declaring war on their entire species, according to the rumours.
The officer looked them all up and down for a moment before she let out a dissatisfied sigh and spoke up.
“I am First Lieutenant Gwyra, and I will be in charge of your cohort for the next three years.” She said, looking at every one of them furiously.
“We will begin basic training tomorrow at 0700 sharp. Be sure to be at the first-year training hall by then. Now, you are free to go to the cafeteria if you are hungry but know that there is a curfew in place at 2200. You DON’T want to find out what happens when you get caught outside of your room after curfew.” She finished, menacingly, and then she left.
Clara gave him a glance for a second, and he was glad to see she was as confused as she was, but they both started making their way toward the cafeteria moments later. As for their three roommates, none of them even spared them a glance, so they knew it’d be futile to ask them to join.
They’d barely taken a few steps outside their dorms before a small notification appeared in his line of sight.
[Destination set to Dining Hall]
He gave the text a puzzled expression for a second, and he was about to ask Ed for clarifications when he looked in front of him, where a giant blue arrow at the very top of his line of sight looked to be pointing to his right, and that's when he understood what was happening. That GPS function was pretty cool.
They made their way across the giant hallway of the dormitory before they stepped outside the building through the main gate. Once more, Jake was taken aback by the beauty of the giant outdoor compound, and he couldn’t help but look all around as they walked and he made small talk with Noelle.
A minute or so later, they stepped inside the dining hall. While he’d already caught a glimpse of the dining hall from afar a few minutes earlier when Mrs. Abrahams had brought him from the infirmary to his room, he was still as shocked as he’d been the first time when he’d entered the dome-like greenhouse that was littered with so many trees and plants that one could have believed this was a park instead of a cafeteria. A glance at Owens told him she too was extremely amazed to see such a sight.
The whole building was akin to a giant greenhouse and was almost entirely made out of glass to allow for a maximum of natural light, and the insides were filled with various fruit trees, vegetables, and other comestible plants. Almost everything except the biggest trees seemed to be grown out of the same, giant hydroponic system and the whole thing was one of the most impressive things he’d ever witnessed, as the area offered the perfect blend of nature and technology.
To his right, a small area was filled with students who formed a straight line and both of them made their way to the end of the queue. It only took about two minutes for them to be left standing in front of a small counter, behind which a robot with more arms than he could count stood, soundlessly.
Suddenly, Jake’s neuroimplant flared up and he heard Ed’s voice inside his mind.
[Don’t just stand there you idiot, take your plate and eat!]
He was taken aback for a moment, but he glanced back at the small counter in front of him and realized trays were now standing in front of him and Cadet Owens respectively.
They grabbed their trays and made their way to the nearest table before finally sitting down right next to a beautiful flowering tree, growing right next to a patch of lettuce. The whole time they’d walked from the counter to their seats, their eyes had been glued to the trees, flowers and plants that surrounded them, but once they finally glanced at their plate, Jake hadn’t managed to keep his voice down.
“An entire fucking chicken, veggies, two entire bowls of rice AND a whole litre of water? What the hell?” He almost shouted, and he looked at Owens’ plate next.
Although she also had roasted chicken as the main dish, her plate only contained two fist-sized amounts of it with a bowl of rice with veggies and potatoes. It was still a lot — too much even — but his plate was simply ridiculous by comparison. He didn’t have to wonder for long, however, before a notification appeared in the corner of his eye.
[I’ve taken the liberty of starting you on a new dietary protocol, I call it: Bulking season baby!]
Jake stared at the text, his mind going a thousand miles a minute before he finally spoke up.
“But why?” He said aloud, and he saw from the corner of his eye that Owens was cracking herself up at the sight.
[Because you look like a skinny little bitch, and I can’t have that. Now eat up or it’ll get cold.]
Jake stared at the text for a second once more, and he thought back to the words of First Lieutenant Neilr, who’d told him word-for-word to just do whatever his implant told him to do from now on.
He let out another exasperated sigh, and he grabbed his fork and knife before he finally dug in. Even if he had been extremely hungry at the start, he had only been halfway through his plate when he’d started feeling full. In fact, he’d only kept going due to another notification flaring up in the corner of his eye.
[Skinny bitch. Don’t forget I have full control over your brain functions. In simpler words: don’t finish your plate and I’ll make your life hell, bro.]
“That damn AI is starting to get on my fucking nerves” Luke muttered between two spoonfuls of rice.
He looked back to Owens in front of him, who was almost done with her meal and had started attacking the jug of water next to her plate.
“First time with a neuroimplant?” She asked, but she didn’t even wait for an answer before she continued.
“I’ve had one my whole life, or at least as long as I remember… didn’t like it at first, but there’s a reason they say the implant alone is worth going through basic training. What’s more, the Alliance-issued models are miles above even the best ones that are available through civilian markets.”
[She’s not wrong.]
Jake ignored the text, instead trying his hardest to make small talk with Owens. He would probably be spending at least an hour and a half in the cafeteria to finish this mountain of a meal, so might as well kill the time and talk with the beautiful girl. Furthermore, after his interaction with King earlier, he was pretty sure she’d be the only roommate to ever speak to him during the 16 weeks they’d be stuck here together.
Unsurprisingly, Clara Owens’ parents were part of a family which had a long history of birthing high-ranked military officers and pretty much all of her family members were either on active duty or retired from active duty. Her family’s reputation in the Alliance was above that of King’s although she was by far much more humble than the blonde. Most of her family lived on Mars — one of the most populated planets of sector 1, along with Earth — and had arranged to send her to the academy before she’d even been born. Still, even though she knew she’d never had much of a choice, she still insisted she was here out of her own accord.
Jake had listened to her talk about her upbringing for almost an hour, even asking her multiple questions at times. He was amazed at how different their lives had been until now. She’d grown up being tutored by the best teachers in the sector, surrounded by family members who invested large amounts of time and resources in her education so she could one day join the army and make them proud. Jake, on the other hand, had only ever known Grandma Al and had never really been spared a thought by the rest of the world. She was the rising star of an all-powerful family, while he was invisible.
When she’d asked about where he grew up, he’d been intentionally vague, simply saying he was from Ender, as he didn’t want the girl to know he was from the slums. After a while, however, Ed finally spoke up through his mind.
[She’s weird as hell, although you’re by far weirder. I’ll keep an eye on her though.]
He wasn’t exactly sure what the implant meant by “keeping an eye on her”, but he still thanked Ed for his service while making a mental note to stop by the infirmary and have his implant double-checked by the Kreigen.
Still, Jake ended up having a great time and after two entire hours spent talking at the cafeteria since he hadn’t been able to eat his meal any faster for fear of throwing up, they’d both made their way back to their dorm.
As soon as they got back, Jake said his goodbyes to Owens before he went back inside his room and prepared himself to sleep.
[Kid, you really suck at girls. It’s painful to watch, if I had eyes and ears I’d close them every time a girl is in your vicinity. Unfortunately, I don't, and I am forced to endure this torture.]
He ignored the implant and entered the small shower before brushing his teeth and putting on clean underwear. He’d barely reached his bed when a notification came into view again.
[Time to go to sleep]
“What? I can’t sleep now; it's not even 2000!” Jake almost shouted in disgust. A small countdown appeared in the upper right corner of his field of view. He’d initially wanted to ask the implant about any other functionalities he had, but when the countdown had gone from ten to five, another notification appeared.
[ Might want to get into bed now, kiddo. Unless you’re fine with sleeping on the floor, it’s your call.]
Jake’s heart sank. He had no way to know for sure but he suddenly had a very bad feeling about this whole countdown thing, and he jumped onto his bed as fast as he could, slid into his covers before one final message came into view.
[Goodnight.]
And then the fatigue hit, and Jake finally understood what Ed had meant by the fact that he had access to his brain functions in their totality. Gone were the days of having trouble falling asleep, he thought, as he realized the neuroimplant had put him to sleep.