October 19, 2022
Day 0
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System Message
Integration of Planet Earth is now underway. Welcome denizens of the earth.
Welcome to the multiverse.
The tutorial stage of the integration will begin in 24 hours. Please align yourself to a bastion and elect a representative. All sentient life forms that fail to align themselves will cease to exist in their current form and will be used as resources to fuel the integration of the planet.
Rahul lost all awareness of his surroundings and was greeted with these words on a prompt window that occupied his vision. At the same time, he heard a toneless metallic voice recite the words, not in his ears but directly into his mind. The moment it finished speaking, he regained awareness.
And panicked as he found himself rocketing through the air at dizzying speeds.
Looking around, Rahul noticed his colleagues waking up, as confused as him and pale as death. More than a few had woken up, only to pass out from the shock immediately. Not feeling any better himself, he continued looking around, trying to gather his wits.
Then he made the mistake of looking down.
Rahul's stomach lurched and his limbs started flailing uncontrollably.
Trying to swim in the air? As if that would save me.
All conscious thoughts departed to give way to a primal fear that took root in Rahul's heart and mind. He immediately vomited, and his bile started hovering in the air, floating ever so slowly, and he stared at it incredulously.
Outer space?
He thought incoherently, dazed.
Then the pool of liquid crossed an invisible barrier and immediately flew behind him at a ridiculous speed.
That’s when the absurdity of it all hit Rahul, and a disbelieving chuckle escaped his mouth right before he passed out.
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When he woke up, Rahul had no idea how much time had passed. He looked around and saw that many people were awake and looking around by now.
He figured that a good amount of time must have passed if that many people were at least somewhat comfortable with their situation. Comfortable enough to stay conscious at least. Or maybe he was a wuss and everyone else was dealing with the situation much better than him.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
It's the former, Rahul's ego insisted.
He was still terrified, but the fatalist realization that there was nothing he could do about his current situation took the edge off. Rahul decided it would be best to close his eyes and take stock. Setting aside the concern for his well-being and being objective did not come easy. It took many deep breaths and some of the longest minutes of his life before he was thinking clearly. For reasons unknown to him, he felt it appropriate to cross his legs and sit in a meditative pose as he began cataloging what he knew.
The first thing I know is that I was traveling in an airplane and then it just disappeared. That makes no sense, but don’t panic, Rahul. There is a logical explanation, you just need to find it.
Second, I appear to be going at the same speed as before, but I don’t feel any wind on my skin, nor can I hear the sound of it passing. With my eyes closed, I can't feel anything at all. If I didn’t know any better I would’ve bet I was stationary. This is just as baffling as the disappearing airplane! But there must be an explanation for this too.
Finally, when I puked, the bile was immune to the effects of gravity and the passing wind. Like me I guess. But it was only immune until it crossed a threshold and then it felt all the forces at once and got blown away.
While he did not understand how any of it was possible, Rahul still put his three observations together and arrived at certain conclusions.
- I am surrounded by some protective layer that isolates me from the force of the wind and the pull of gravity.
- The bubble makes sure I am not falling but does nothing to reduce my original speed.
- I am still rushing through the sky at the speed of a cruising airplane, but am safe for now.
With some trepidation, he opened his eyes and confirmed that the bubble was still keeping him safe. Then he spent a few minutes taking more deep breaths. The breathing made him wonder about the air pressure at that height, but Rahul abandoned that thought as soon as it manifested. He had enough unanswered questions already.
After adding in a few last calming breaths for good measure, Rahul recalled the prompt he had seen. He was still not entirely at ease, but was functioning. Helpfully, just thinking about it caused the prompt to reappear again, though this time it wasn’t as imposing and did not mute his awareness.
There was a lot to cover, and Rahul decided not to go down the rabbit hole of trying to understand all the implications of the existence of the multiverse, a seemingly sapient system, and the tutorial.
And when he re-read the part about "All sentient life forms that fail to align themselves will cease to exist", he deliberately chose to ignore the ominous implications that may have for the wildlife on Earth.
He would proceed one step at a time.
As a software engineer, Rahul knew how to solve problems that were too complex to be understood completely by one person. 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic' was a quote he had heard many times, and in this case, he had a feeling that this bubble might actually be magic. Regardless, he didn't need to understand everything about the bubble in order to use it.
Rahul considered the example of smartphones, a technological marvel and a ubiquitous device present in every hand. He was sure there wasn’t even a single person on this earth with the complete know-how of manufacturing and assembling all the parts of a smartphone, leave alone knowing every nuance of how the firmware and operating system on the phone worked.
Thousands of engineers working together, however, were somehow able to build, maintain and consistently upgrade these smartphones - at scale. No one knew all the pieces, but everyone involved in the process knew enough about their respective domains - be it hardware components or code modules. And they knew the contracts that governed their system's interactions with adjacent systems.
A bird's-eye view of the larger goal, and an intricate understanding of the pieces you are responsible for, that’s all an engineer needed. Everything else was a black box. An abstraction. You didn't need to know how the other components worked, only that they did.
And then you could modify it, suit it to your requirements, work on it, and most importantly, use it.
So for now, Rahul would just accept the premise of an all-powerful system, and wouldn't try to figure out the how or the why.
Next, he needed to find the component that was his responsibility. So, he focused on the one actionable item in the entire information - find a bastion and elect a representative. Yeah, that part is important, urgent, and hopefully manageable.
Rahul hazarded a guess that the election part was contingent on finding a bastion first, so that’s what he prioritized. Now, the bastion could either be a physical structure like a fort or merely the concept of a safe haven. The word align was very vague. Was there a possibility that people could just get together, team up, and form a bastion?
Perhaps, but he couldn’t see how. Too many open-ended questions.
Concluding that he had done enough thinking, Rahul decided not to waste time on further conjecture and did what felt most natural to him.
He looked for help.
To be more precise, he looked for his manager.