The bus was late. Again. Frustrating really, how it never seemed on time to pick me up from work, but arrived on time every morning to take me to work. It was maddening really, staring at my phone as the minutes clicked over. 5:52 PM. Seven minutes late, and still not in sight.
I couldn't keep the sigh from leaving my lips. The springtime evening air was pleasant enough, and the blue windbreaker kept the mild chill from me, but the sounds and smells of the city ruined any hope of enjoying the season. Wasn't spring supposed to be a time of growth and renewal? And yet.... I felt so stagnant.
Footsteps clacked close to me, and I turned my head to see my coworker coming up. We were dressed similarly enough. Both in slacks and buttondown shirts. We were both wearing windbreakers, but where I had added a green knit beanie to keep my ears warm, Ian here had decided to let his ear length chestnut hair free. The constant wind seemed eager to tease it up into loose strands that flowed around his face.
“Niles! Glad I caught you! Someone at reception wanted me to give this to you. Apparently it was dropped off at the office with the mail, but didn't make it to you.” Ian rolled his eyes as he handed me a thick padded envelope.
“Hiring really needs to get a second desk clerk for the front. Poor Shannon seems to be drowning in work lately.” I tried to crack a smile, but really, my heart just wasn't in it. And we both knew that reception did jack squat all day long. Shannon didn't like to work, and put things off as much as possible. She likely wouldn't be staying long term, but the c suite didn't want to bother paying enough for someone to be properly invested in the work, so nobody in the office expected much anyways.
“Either way, thanks Ian. I appreciate it. Glad you caught me before the bus came at least. I'll check it out when I get home.” Ian nodded, and we said our goodbyes as the sound of a diesel engine started making its way towards us. We both glanced down the street and watched the big front end of the bus slowly pulling up. Ian left, headed to the car park across the street, and I got on for the hour-long ride home.
The bus was packed, standing room only. It was hot, and smelled like B.O. and stress. the sounds of several dozen tightly packed people all talking, playing on their phones, and moving about were cacophoneous. On a normal day, I'd have put in earbuds just to drown it out. Sadly, I had forgotten those this morning. Still, it was going to be a long ride, I might as well see what was in the package.
The envelope ripped easily enough, the paper and plastic bubblewrap inside tearing with a satsifying sound. I took a small moment to satisfy my inner child and popped a few more of the little air bubbles that had been cushioning the package before pulling out what was inside before stuffing the packaging into a pocket.
“What in the world?” The whispered words slipped out as I pulled out what was inside. It appeared to be a cell phone, one of those new foldable models that had a thin front screen but opened up into a small tablet. There was even a case included in the packaging. There was no port for headphones or charging, but the back of the phone and the case both had what appeared to be solar panels.
Curiousity got the better of me rather quickly, and I slotted the phone into the case, found the power button, and pushed. The screen lit up a faint green, with an unfamiliar logo and a progress bar appearing. The logo itself was strange, a 3D styled cube with a pair of wings inside the box. Nothing I had ever seen before at least. While I waited for the thing to boot up, I opened it up into tablet mode for a moment, and found a small white piece of cardstock, roughly the size of a business card. It had a single line of text. The Choice is Yours. I flipped the card over, checking out the back to see if there was anything more, but all the card had was that cryptic note. That got stuffed into my pocket as well.
I folded the phone back down and stared at the screen as the progress bar filled up. The screen glowed brighter for a moment, then turned black. Simple white text appeared on the screen.
> Starting Demo Mode.....
> Paradigm Shift Device V1.012
>
>
> Welcome to the Paradigm Shift Device (PSD) closed testing platform. You will be given access to limited features during the demo. At any time, you may accept full ownership of the PSD, at which point you will be granted access to all features.
>
> Please press your thumb to the circle at the bottom of the screen. This will lock the PSD to your unique signature.
Curiosity won out over caution. After all, what harm could a phone really do? I didn't really understand why I had recieved this, or who made it. I even pulled out my real phone and searched up a couple of things, trying to find out more about this 'PSD' thing. But nothing I searched gave any results.
I pressed my thumb into the tiny circle and waited as the screen under my thumb glowed white. It pulsed a few times, and then a sharp pain jabbed into my thumb. “Son of a Bi-!” I started to swear. But I was still on the bus. I waved off a few looks, and looked at my thumb. A drop of blood was welling from the center of the pad. Another was on the screen, but it quickly disappeared, soaking into the screen until it vanished. I examined the screen carefully, but couldn't find whatever it was that had stabbed my thumb.
“Stranger and stranger...” I was a little freaked out now, but the screen was still changing.
> Soul Imprint Accepted. Designated Owner: Niles Thatcher
Now that was terrifying. I had no idea what a soul imprint was, but the device knew my name. Either someone had programmed it specificially for me or... No, it had to just be an elaborate prank, right? A friend with too much money perhaps?
The screen started to fill out. It became more like a traditional phone screen, with a bunch of widgets on it. I could swipe to the left or right to change pages, and the very few apps it had opened with just a tap. The PSD was fast and responsive, ready to go. Up along the top, in the status bar, it had the time and a battery percent, currently reading 45%.
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The home page of the phone showed an outline of a human body, in green lines. There were two progress bars underneath. A blue one, which appeared to be an empty outline, and a yellow one, which hovered at about 90% full. It seemed to very slowly be going down over time. Below that was a heading that read Active Effects however there was nothing listed below that. I swiped to the next page, which simply read Abilities along the top. The rest of the page was entirely blank.
When I swiped to the third page, there were a few app icons with labels under them. Map, Skills, Status, Contacts, Scanner, Bestiary, and Encyclopedia were all listed, however each of them was greyed out, and attempted to tap on any of them simply resulted in a pop up that read Not available in demo mode.
The last icon was not greyed out. It took up the rest of the screen, and read in big letters Begin Trial. What exactly was the point of this damn thing? It looked like a user interface for a game. But there was nothing in it. No way to buy skills, no way to earn experience, and I couldn't even try out any of the functions in the regular demo mode. Was this some augmented reality device for a new game, and the game itself was just not made yet? So why start shipping devices, and why to me? “Ah fuck it.” I shrugged and pressed on the trial button. Another text box appeared on the screen.
> Are you sure you would like to begin the trial of the Paradigm Shift Device's full functions? The trial will last for 48 hours. Choosing No will cause the device to stop functioning.
> [Yes] [No]
And there it was. So. I either accept and see what this trial was, or the PSD would end up a useless lump, if I was reading it right. My curiosity burned, and it was a friday. Its not like I had anything else to do this weekend either, right? No plans, no animals to take care of.... Maybe it would be like pokemon go and I could just walk around town killing virtual monsters through the camera or something. It would at least burn some time.
I hit [Yes] on the screen.
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The silence was deafening. I don't know if you've ever gone from a place thats loud enough to make it difficult to think to almost absolute silence before. But the absence of all that auditory information can be just as unsettling as noise so loud it hurts your ears. I looked up from the phone in my hand. And looked back down. No way. Nope. I was not seeing this shit, no way in hell.
> Paradigm Shift Complete. Remaining time: 47 hours, 59 minutes.
I swallowed the lump that formed in my throat as I looked around myself. The world was entirely alien. Instead of the familiar, if inpersonal feeling of tall buildings surrounding me, and people walking about, I was in a forest now. The air was colder than before, and many of the trees seemed to just be growing new leaves. A few fresh growths of plants pushed out from the ground, and drops of water hung off the tips of branches, as if it had just rained. I took a few steps, noticing only now that my clothes were gone. In fact, everything was gone, except for the damn phone-like device in my hand.
“You've got the be fucking kidding me...” I whispered, looking around. I hadn't died in a bus crash, right? I'd probably remember that, yeah? “Did I just get fucking isekai-ed?” I groaned, hanging my head. How was that even possible? How did a phone fucking teleport me? I had to be going insane, or maybe I really did get in an accident while in the bus, and I was now having a very vivid coma dream. Yeah. That had to be it, right?
Not that that was any better... “Well, no point in treating it like a coma dream at least.” It took me a long moment to think that through. Even if I was insane, dead, hallucinating, or in a coma dream, pretending none of THIS was real was pointless. Best to go along with whatever insanity my mind cooked up and at least try to get back. I glanced at the phone again, and scrolled through the screens. Nothing had changed for the most part. The big icon that had said 'trial' on it now just had a timer, and the icons that had been greyed out before were usable now, and I played with them a bit.
Skills, Contacts, Bestiary and Encyclopedia were all empty. A few headings to mess around with, but they didn't contain anything actually interesting. And there wasn't even a help function to try and figure out what they did. When I opened the Map it showed me the surrounding area that I was able to see in detail. I could zoom in and out, move the map around, and even inspect areas apparently, but the map was almost entirely empty still.
I clicked on the button for Status next. I'm not really sure what I expected though.
> Status
> Name: Niles Thatcher
> Race: Human
> Age: 27
> Focus Core: None
> Level: 0
>
>
> Attributes
> -Body: 3
> -Mind: 4
> -Spirit: 3
It was underwhelming for a status page, and it didn't seem to explain anything at all. I could guess at what the body attribute meant, but the rest of it seemed..... vague at best. And why was my level 0? Shouldn't everyone start at level 1?
The last thing I did was open up the scanner application. It looked like a camera on a phone. If I centered an object in the camera, a circle would form and slowly begin to fill up. Once the circle filled up, it would display information on the object. It seemed that I could access the stored information inside the bestiary or encyclopedia at any time later, if I wanted.
> Scanning..... Scan Complete. [Pinecone] has been added to the encyclopedia.
> [Pinecone] - The seed carrier of a non-magical connifier tree.
Frankly, the information seemed basic, almost useless even. But there wasn't anything particularly interesting nearby to scan, and everything I tried gave similarly lackluster results.
I shivered suddenly. It was cold. I was naked. The sun was in the sky and I desperatley needed to try and find a way to get warm. Make a fire or something. I wished I had somewhere to put the PSD away, but without pockets.....
And that was when the first openly magical thing happened. As if reacting to my thoughts, the phone glowed brightly for a brief moment. Then, it wrapped around my wrist, bending in a way that phones shouldn't be able to bend, forming a skin tight wrist band. If I thought about any of the features of the phone, the band would light up, showing me that feature. “Well that's convenient....” I tried considering what time it was, and a basic digital watch screen popped up. 12:07. “Well. I guess I have some time....” I checked the battery readout as well. 22% I wondered why it got so low, but just didn't have the information to take more than a haphazard guess.
Of course. That's when I heard the squelching footsteps behind me, and felt something hard smack me in the back of the head. My vision turned black before I hit the ground.