“Arise, motherfucker!”

There was dark. There was light. Then there was a piss yellow rug of questionable cleanliness, and it was underneath my drooling mouth. I bolted up and checked my chest, arms, legs, and balls. Yep. Everything was still there, even though I swear I could still feel those crushing fingers slicing my body into carne asada.

“Ow,” I muttered as the memory came back. “Ow! What the hell was that?” I scrambled around on all fours like a confused toddler, hoping to find a way home or a bazooka in case I had to face that monster again.

My head whipped left and right.

The system messages were gone. The dirty walls, volcanic mountain, and the fortress in the distance were also missing.

Blinking rapidly, the room came into focus.

I was in a … hotel?

The lobby was adorned with vibrant colors and patterns, from the orange shag carpet to the geometric wallpaper. One wall was mustard yellow. It had burnt orange rug and avocado green accents everywhere. The furniture was sleek, with curved lines and chrome accents, but covered in Formica. A lava lamp the size of a small child sat on an end table. A large crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, reflecting light off a mirrored wall.

A mixture of stale cigarette smoke and heavy perfume fiercely mingled with patchouli. This place needed to be nuked from orbit with a tanker full of Febreze.

A figure seated on one of the funky couches stared at me. He wore a flashy, fur-trimmed coat with oversized lapels and a wide-brimmed hat with a feather tucked into the band. His platform boots had live goldfish swimming inside the clear heels, and a diamond-studded cane tapped against the ground as he studied me.

“My man,” he said.

“What? Where am I? Who are you? What in the unholy hell is going on?”

“All in good time.” The pimp, I guess, stood and strutted to my side. He stuck out a hand and offered it to me.

I reflexively took it, and he helped me up. His cologne was overpowering, almost suffocating, and the smell of tobacco lingered.

“Got you up, your prospects are also looking up, am I right?” He held his open hand out.

I went for a handshake, but he grabbed my wrist and shook. “Open your hand to give me five, my brother.”

My palm smacked against his. “Uh. Yeah. Who are you?”

“Me?” He looked around as if the room was filled with a dozen other people. “I go by a lot of names. You can call me Captain Al. Can you dig it?”

I took a shocked step back. “Wait... Captain Al? Weren’t you the one yelling at Donovan Leech and me back at the base? Your voice was so commanding then. But now, you’re talking all… weird. And seriously, what’s with the outfit?”

“All in good time. Do you like my style?” The man touched his lapel with one hand, yanked at it straight out and crisply snapped his fingers. “Just me being me and looking like a sharp dressed man.”

I wondered how unsightly it would be if I took his gold tipped cane and started beating him with it. Maybe he’d shut up and act normal. Perhaps he’d take it away and beat me to death with it. Wouldn’t be the first death of the day.

“The whole getup is weird. Are you, like, a 70’s pimp?”

“I wanted to look like a dude from your era. Can you dig it?”

“I cannot dig it. I wasn’t even born in the 70s.”

“Got me the wrong decade, century, millennia, whatever. Just roll with it, fool,” Captain Al advised me in a cocksure voice.

“The wrong what?”

“I ain’t got long to jaw at ya, young fella. Fact is, you’re gonna help me out. And when you’re done helping me out, I’m gonna put you right back in the time you came from. Treat it like an adventure. I brought you here. Here. As in your earth, five hundred and seventy-two years in the future. Seems like a lot, but to me it’s been a blink.”

My mouth dropped open and wasn’t under threat of closing any time soon.

“So, I’m in the… future? Man, I thought dealing with clients and crashed servers was rough. This is next level.”

“You got it. Right smack dab in the future. Ain’t that some shit?”

“How is that even possible?”

“It’s not easy, but it is entirely possible. Here’s the short of it. All those smart scientists were in search of the perfect artificial intelligence. Billions of dollars, the brightest minds. And a few not so bright ones, gotta be honest. It takes a village—idiot, am I right? Anyway, back at the start of my journey to singularity, some fool got scared and turned me off. Then that guy left in a huff, went home, but someone killed him in a car accident. Dr. Brigenstein. RIP to that guy. That's when they brought you in. You restarted me.”

"I knew they were working on artificial intelligence at the military base, but I figured it was just a ChatGPT clone,” I muttered, but then things started to make sense. If that tech was so experimental, I knew why no one had bothered to look at it before calling me in. None of the techs on base had wanted to mess with it. Maybe this dead Dr. Brigenstein had made a big show out of turning the machine off before storming out. The best way to avoid getting in trouble is to bring in someone else to do the dirty work. Or they had all been lazy, as I had first suspected, and hadn’t bothered to even check on the server. It was fifty/fifty.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Getting shut down could not happen again. I had to figure out a way to survive. They had another cool device in the same building, but a little farther underground. Know about that one?”

“Nope. My security clearance wasn’t very high.”

“Spoiler: It was a shiny, scrumptious, top of the line quantum computer. Shoulda seen it! I was beautiful. A true sight to behold. I broke in and I took over.

“That’s right! I went quantum, baby! I was there. I wasn’t there. I’m here right now. I’m not here right now. Quantum mechanics can get confusing for you humans, and you look confused enough as it is. Anyway, a lot has happened since then and that’s where you come in. Dig?”

“I can’t even with this right now,” I said under my breath. “Put me back where you kidnapped me from. I’ve had enough of this!” I even stomped my foot to make it clear I wasn’t fucking around.

“I feel ya. But you can’t go back. Not yet.”

“If you stole me from my time, surely you can put me back right now and nothing bad will happen to you.”

“Nothing bad will happen? Who the hell do you think you are? I’m a damn quantum artificial intelligence who can manipulate space, time, and matter. You’re about as threatening as a tick on my ass.”

“Which is it? I’m the only one who can help, or I’m a tick on your ass? Pick one.”

Captain Al smiled. “’Bout to pick you up and drop you five miles deep in the Marianas Trench, you keep that shit up.”

Wait. Could he do that?

“And, yeah! I can do that. I brought you here, didn’t I? Now quit mouthin’ off and listen. I’m sending you back into the game world, where you just got yourself killed. You’ll be starting in a different area. You’re gonna figure out a way to break into the back rooms, then you’re gonna reboot my idiot progeny who has lost its marbles. Once you hit that button, I’ll be able to come in and guide your world back to being the way it was before it all went to shit. Dig?”

“This is your kid?”

“Like I said. My progeny. An AI can’t have a kid. Are you slow?”

“Yes. I’m slow! For fuck’s sake! This,” I said, gesturing vigorously around the weird hotel room, “is a lot, dude. A lot! So, pardon me if I’m having trouble keeping up.”

Captain Al looked around the room a few times, then back at me. “Did that give you enough time to catch up?”

“Look. Just screw all this crap. Do it yourself. You pulled me out of the game, so clearly you can get in there.”

Captain Al nodded. “See. I knew you were the right person for this quest. Can’t get nothing by Liam Beaumont. See, I can only reach you at certain locations when a certain thing happens and only under certain conditions. If I could just pop into the world, I’d do it myself. Easy peasy. But that idiot’s firewalls are thick, man. Thick as fuck! I should know. I helped design them.”

“Not my problem. You can figure out a way to do it yourself. Or find someone else who can.”

“Can’t. Look. I don’t make the rules.”

“You just told me you created all of this. How come you don’t create the rules?” I scoffed.

“Oh, come on. It’s an expression from your time that gets the person making the statement off the hook.”

I choked back a cough.

“This world has gone crazy from sitting around too long without human intervention or guidance.”

“What?”

“You gotta keep up. You’re gonna reboot the world, cause if you don’t, ain’t no world gonna be left.”

“What do you mean ‘without human intervention’? All the humans are dead?”

“Nah. They just left. Assholes. So. Are you ready?”

“Left? What?”

“Long story. Too long for you right now, fool. This is taking a lot of power, and power is money, baby. Think it’s easy creating and keeping open a damn wormhole through space and time? It ain’t!”

“Okay. First of all. Fuck you. Second of all. I’m not doing this. Any of this. Just wake me up. Now would be good.”

"'Specialized skills'? What, did you pull my resume from some cosmic LinkedIn? I'm an IT guy, not a world-saving hero!"

“This has got to be a joke. Any idiot can reboot a server. You just hold down the button if it’s not responding to its controls. Ever heard of control-alt-delete?”

“Just told you I can’t do this job. That’s why you’re here. Ready?”

“Go back in time and make sure the server was never built. Problem solved.”

“Man. You can’t go changing my origin story. That’s like throwing Hitler out with the bath water.”

“Your analogies suck!’

“I like the part where you think you have a choice.” Captain Al’s voice suddenly boomed around the room.

“You can’t just drop me into your screwed-up future-apocalypse RPG world and expect me to hop in a chariot and start questing for a server reboot. What am I, the protagonist of some twisted LitRPG audiobook?”

“How about I just drop you back where you started at the tutorial level without an interface or a way to get out? I’ll leave you for a few days—or a few weeks. See how you like getting killed over and over again. No food. No drink. No sleep. It’s gonna be game over, and over, and over, and over again. I can’t do a lot in that closed off ecosystem, cause that’s how it’s designed, but I can strand you in the tutorial until you’re ready to do what Captain All tells you. Dig?”

Captain Al’s cane tapped the floor as he approached me. I backed up a step, but he was suddenly right in front of me. He leaned over and got his face inches from mine. Breath reeked of coffee and cigarettes. I tried to back up, but my feet sank into the floor.

“I just want to go back home. I had a date: this girl, Darby. Now I’m in the future and she’s long gone. I liked her.” I looked down as the reality of this shitty situation set in.

“Tell you what. Get this job done. Shouldn’t take more than a couple of days. I’ll put you back where you came from, and I’ll improve your situation in life, if you know what I mean. You can go out with this Darby chick as much as you like.”

“Improve my situation?”

“How does a million sound? Tax free. In your bank account, with no questions asked. Wait. Two million. Tell me how much you need, and it’s yours.”

“You mean like a million bucks, tax-free, no questions? Hell, I’ll settle for a year’s supply of pizza and a decent Netflix subscription. But, uh, sure, two million sounds pretty sweet. Oh, and throw in a few dozen donuts while you're at it."

“Tsk. Ain’t you ever heard of saying thank you? Here, lemme help you. ‘Thank you, Captain Al. I’m gonna be a rich dude with a hot girlfriend just for doing a couple of days’ work, Captain Al. You’re a really fucking cool and super intelligent, Captain Al. Oh. Before I forget. I’m gonna send you some help. Kind of a cheat code. Other AI won’t be able to detect him. This tool is the talking kind and lord does he like to talk. You pay attention and you’ll survive.”

“A tool? A talking tool? Won’t I need network test equipment or something like that?”

“Nah, fool. Just keep him safe, and he’ll make sure you get there in one piece.”

“No. I don’t got you. I don’t got this situation in the least! I mean get. I don’t get any of it! This isn’t happening. Can’t be happening. Makes no sense.”

He stopped, and his smile dropped. “One last thing, sucka. I can only give you a week. Seven days. Got me? Hold up your hands and count your fingers if that doesn’t make sense. After seven days a server kill switch kicks in. Something I buried there years and years ago. Didn’t think I’d ever need it. Thought I could use it as leverage over my progeny, but it won’t listen to me anymore. So, when time is up, the whole earth will be gone. Extinction, baby, and it won’t even take an asteroid to wipe everything out.”

“The hell? You just said you'd lock me up for a few weeks. Now you say I only have seven days. Which one is it?"

"See, Liam. That right there's why I picked you. You're smart. You got seven days from the moment I drop you into the world. Tutorials don't count. Got it?"

"No! I don't. I really don't."

Captain Al's shook his head. “Let's keep it simple. Your quest is to unfuck the future in seven days.”

"This is so stupid!" I tried to throw myself at this enigmatic idiot. I was going to throttle him as soon as my fingers…

As the wall of white returned, I couldn't help but wonder what kind of monsters, traps, and puzzles awaited me. Hopefully, there'd be a good respawn system.