“Welcome to crystallization tower. Please step off the pad and move this way… ah… well ya don’t see that every day.” Ronin heard the voice speaking before his eyes recovered from the blinding teleportation. He blinked several times trying to clear his vision but between the transport and the beating he’d just been through, it wasn’t happening.
“Well now, you must be Alexander Dawson.” Ronin looked up to see the blurry outline of a crystalline man wearing armor. He’d never seen one before, but he was sure that this was one of the lucky people who had earned a new body from the ship. A body that was able to breathe in earth’s new atmosphere.
“Mmmrrree” Ronin tried to speak but couldn’t manage anything around his shattered jaw. He raised his hands up to feel the damage, but that only brought into his line of sight his broken and mangled fingers.
“Don’t worry about it Alex,” the armored man said. “Alexander Dawson’s ID was used to activate the pad at the appointed time, and since the paperwork would be a nightmare if you were someone else, you are alexander Dawson… but my file shows you were going to be bringing a pair of slaves with you to sell. All I see are a few corpses. Ah well, no big deal, man. I’ll just change the entry to three organ doners, they look fresh enough. Actually, it’s a good thing. Organs have a set price whereas slave auctions can be temperamental.”
Ronin was having a tough time staying conscious. The armored man’s rapid-fire speech wasn’t doing him any favors either. He was having a hard time following the words. The adrenaline must be leaving his system too because the pain was getting more intense.
“Ok buddy here’s the deal,” the armored man continued his verbal assault. He moved from body to body, picking up their ID tags. “You should know all this already but, procedure you know, anyway looks like…” he pulled Ronin’s ID tag from around his neck and read it. “Robert, over there was holding your ID tag so here you go.” He looped Alexander’s tag around Ronin’s neck and kept talking.
“Where was I? Oh yea, this is crystallization tower. Everyone who comes through here has to listen to what that means and give their consent to be crystalized before the process can begin. So, crystallization starts when you step into that thing over there.” He pointed to a nearby platform that looked a lot like a clear crystal casket. “Once you lay down in there, that machine will make a complete copy of your brain, your memories, your personality…everything that makes you, you.”
As he talked the armored man moved around with a small handheld scanner. He waved it over everything the thugs had brought with them. After each scan he tapped something on the scanner’s screen before moving on.
“The procedure itself is painless, but your body is destroyed in the process. The only thing left of you will be your crystalized consciousness. That, along with your ID information… who you are and how many credits you are bringing with you… will be transferred to the ship. Where your mind can interact inside a crystalline database. Don’t get it pal? It’s like a giant computer ya see. In old earth terms, you’re getting digitized and sent into a ship sized computer… except the computer is actually a biomechanical crystal that can learn and grow and fly through space… you follow?”
Ronin had in fact known most of that already. He even knew what a computer was, though he had never seen one before. Not that he could respond in any way even if he’d wanted to. The armored man wasn’t paying him any attention at all. Still going about his task of scanning everything that had been teleported in with Ronin.
“OK, so once you get up there, you will appear inside your room. That room will be your new home. The default model is pretty terrible, not gunna lie, but you can spiff it up with ship credits if you want. Apart from furniture and some basic clothes it’s completely empty… except for the giant globe on the table. That globe is your own private pocket world. Again, the default model is pretty terrible, but you got plenty of credit here, with this much cash you can turn that place into your own private adventure world. If ya know what I mean.”
He’d finished his work at that point and had moved back over to Ronin. As he finished talking, he gave Ronin a huge wink before picking up Alexander’s ID tag and touching the scanner to it.
“There you go Alex, quite the tidy sum there. That ought to last you for quite a while… let’s see what else was there.” He picked up a clipboard that had been hanging from his belt and ran a finger down it. “Identity check, crystallization information, what to expect when you get there, how to earn credits…ah ok.” Ronin still couldn’t see clearly but he could tell the armored man was smiling.
“Right pal, history lesson time.” He said, squatting down in front of Ronin. “So, the aliens whose ship that used to be, are called the crystalline beetles. Well, that’s what we call them anyway, their actual name isn’t pronounceable in English. But they look like giant crystal humanoid beetles so there ya go… anyway, they sent out a probe way back when. It arrived on earth something like ninety million years ago. During the Cretaceous period, when dinosaurs were still a thing. Anyway, the probe circled the globe for like a hundred years or something, to get a real good scan in ya know. Then it went back. The beetles did some advanced math and determined that there was no way that the dinosaurs were ever going to gain intelligence, so it would be ok to wipe them out and colonize the planet.”
As much pain as Ronin was in, he was doing his best to listen to every word. He had never heard anything about the reasoning behind the aliens coming to earth before. Only the rumors and ancient stories that he had heard back in his isolated cave.
“See, the beetles don’t have faster than light travel and they live a looong way from here. That’s why the ship is like a giant computer. They digitized themselves for the trip and just had the ship make them new bodies when they get wherever they are going. Just like this one.” He thumped himself on the chest, proving Ronin’s theory that he was a human reborn from the ship. “… pretty cool really. But anyway, it took them millions of years to get here, right? Well part of that time was spent in stasis or with a slowed perception of time… but… some of the time was spent preparing to colonize the planet.” After saying that last line, the armored man bent down and picked Ronin up. Moving him towards the crystal casket.
“Long story short, the default world globe is an exact replica of earth from ninety million years ago. With computer generated responses… it’s basically a virtual reality world, got it?... Anyway, the colonists could earn credits by completing tasks that colonists would do in a new world. Eliminating predators, building infrastructure, developing technology. And those credits could be used to buy entertainment elsewhere on the ship… here we go.”
The armored man had reached the crystal casket. Dropping Ronin into it without ceremony he pulled one of his broken hands out and pressed it against his scanner.
“Please press your finger here to show that I have explained the situation to you and that you give your consent… thank you sir…now where was I?... Oh yea, pretty good system really. Except they didn’t take into account the asteroid that hit the planet, wiping out the dinosaurs and giving rise to humans… ok Alex, it’s been a pleasure talking to you today. If you ever earn enough credits up there to get a body and come back to earth, look me up, ok?” With those parting words, he closed the lid, locking Ronin inside the casket.
“But he didn’t even tell me his name.” That was the only thing that really came to his mind as the machine powered up. Lights in all colors flashed and as they did, memories and emotions began to bubble up to the surface of his mind, only to be replaced by others. The process continued, speeding up until he couldn’t see clearly enough to make out the images or distinguish what emotion he was feeling anymore. At some point, they all blurred together until everything went black.
* * *
When Ronin came back to himself, he was standing in a hotel room from just before the crystal ship arrived. Looking around, he took it in. Blue and white wallpaper covered the walls, a queen-sized bed took up most of the floor space. A small microwave and coffee pot sat on top of a mini fridge. The only thing that separated it from any hotel almost worldwide was the holographic image of a globe floating over the small desk near the window.
“Wait a minute,” he said freezing in place. “How do I know what a hotel room looks like? I’d never even heard the term ‘mini fridge’ before now so how did I recognize everything at a glance?” He moved around the small room, marveling at the technology that so many people had taken for granted, before the world had gone to hell.
Stepping into the bathroom, he looked around in a mix of understanding and awe. He’d read about bathrooms before, but he had never been in a working one. What was really throwing him off balance though was the intuitive knowledge that told him what everything was and how it worked. On his right, a shower. It was designed to clean one’s body and remove the filth. Straight ahead, a toilet. It did the same for human waste. Stepping up to the toilet, he decided to test it out. Reaching for a small wad of “toilet paper,” what a novel concept that was, he threw it into the bowl. Hitting the lever on the side of the tank, he stared in slack jawed amazement as the paper swirled around and went down the drain. Such a simple thing at first glance, but it was so much more convenient than the bucket he had in the cave, and the pit that everyone dropped their waste into. Ronin always wore his oxygen mask in that place.
Turning to his left, he took in the sink. The amount of available water here was mind boggling. There had been water everywhere back in the caves too, but most of it was stagnant and not safe to drink. Reaching out to the handle, movement caught his eye and made him pause. Looking up he jumped back in fright at the stranger standing in the bathroom with him. When he jumped the stranger followed suit. As he righted himself, the stranger did the same. It took a long moment for his brain to catch up to his racing heart, but when it did, he realized that he was staring at his own reflection.
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“How can this be?” Raising his hands to his face, Ronin felt his cheek bones, his jaw line, under his eyes. His face had meat on it, and he could barely see the outline of his bones. Running his fingers through his hair, he couldn’t believe the difference. His finger length hair had been thin, frail and limp. Gone mostly to gray at thirty-five. Now it was thick, full of body and a deep brown. His lifeless gray eyes had sharpened and cleared, the gray now closer to light blue. Opening his mouth, he felt around with his tongue. “I have all my teeth!” He couldn’t help but shout. Half his teeth had rotted away or cracked long ago, but now they looked pristine and white. With a smile, he rubbed his now hair free chin. Not a hint of the five o’clock shadow remained.
Moving away from his face, at last he looked at his hands and forearms, it was the same. Flexing his fingers, he felt the muscles moving under the skin. He felt strong. Raising up his shirt, a brand-new white tee shirt, he looked at his chest. He couldn’t see his ribs, just a sheet of rippling muscles. Was his torso longer? Taking a mental step back, he looked at himself as a whole. Yes, he had gotten taller. On earth he had been around five foot nothing. Now, he had to be every inch of five ten. By no means a giant, he was still as tall as Markus, who’d been the tallest man in the caves.
Searching his mind for that source of inherited knowledge, he tried to understand what had happened to him. Eventually, he just ended up with the feeling that this was what he would have looked like before the fall of earth. What he would have looked like if he hadn’t lived a life where he was half starved every day. Where he was exposed to sunlight, and air that wasn’t trying to kill him. Where he could eat meat, and fruits and vegetables.
“I didn’t realize,” he said to his reflection. He hadn’t realized just how bad his life had been. That was just how things were. Everyone lived the same way, and he hadn’t known it could be different.
“But how did this happen, and where did all the injuries from Alexander go?” He didn’t have to think too hard on it this time. The knowledge that he didn’t have a physical body anymore, flowed into his mind. He had been healed and improved to the idealized version of himself by the ship. It wasn’t even as far as it could go, he could use credits to change his body in any way he could afford.
As all the new information flooded his brain and mixed with the trauma of his last hour on earth, his mind started shutting down. He had been crystallized. It was the dream of every human on earth, one that only perhaps three percent of the population still living could ever experience… and it had happened to him.
Ronin zoned out completely as everything crashed down on him at once. Walking out of the bathroom he looked around for any source of comfort, deciding to eat, he moved over to the mini fridge. A screen appeared in his vision as he opened the door of the empty fridge, it held an extensive list of food items. Selecting something at random, he tapped his ID card against the screen, and it disappeared. The once empty refrigerator now held a chicken pot pie. He didn’t even know what that was, but his hands moved on their own, taking it from the fridge and putting it into the microwave.
He stood there for the three minutes it took to finish cooking. Without conscious thought, His body moved on its own. He grabbed the pot pie and a fork before sitting down at the desk. Ronin watched the globe spinning slowly above the table, while he mechanically ate the food. He had finished eating already when he realized that he hadn’t even tasted it. With a wave of his hand the empty tray disappeared.
“What should I do now?” He mused aloud, an indeterminate amount of time later. “I made it to the ship, it’s a dream come true… but I’m registered as Alexander Dawson. His father was crystalized and will be coming to find him soon. How will I explain this mess to him… wait… father? Oh god, my parents are here somewhere… what do I do? Should I try and find them? Oh god, I’m not ready for that yet. How do I tell them I, … I… I killed two people… oh god.” His thought swirled around and around just like the globe he was looking at.
After a while, the slowly spinning globe gathered more of his attention. Until he was engrossed in it. The globe looked different than the one he had seen in Markus’s cave. All the land was on one side, and although there were distinct land masses forming, none resembled the world he had been born into. As he looked, he wondered what the captain would do upon discovering a whole new world, and his thoughts drifted back to the armored man’s words.
“The default model is pretty terrible, but you got plenty of credits here, with this much cash you can turn that place into your own private adventure world.” His own private adventure world. His own private adventure world. The thought kept bouncing around his head until it finally clicked home. His vision cleared as his mind came back into focus. He could be the hero in his own story, and he wouldn’t just have to read about it… he could actually live it. All the pain and anxiety of the day, all the uncertainty of the future, he channeled it, changed it and instead, threw all that focus into making his fantasies a reality.
Leaning forward, Ronin accessed the globe. Bringing up the settings he familiarized himself with how everything worked. Everything was intuitive and he could do it automatically. The only time he had trouble using the completely unfamiliar interface was when he thought about what he was doing too hard. After an hour of familiarizing himself with the options available, he began.
“Creating a human population isn’t nearly as expensive as I would have thought.” He mused as he looked at options. “But putting a space craft into orbit is exorbitant… looks like I can limit costs drastically if I limit the number of personnel who are allowed to go planet side at a time. And remove all planet buster weapons…” he continued to talk to himself as he worked, pulling all his favorite races and places from his favorite books.
At one point Ronin wondered how the interface knew what he wanted so exactly. Then he remembered he was a part of the larger database now, and it was probably just reading his mind. Oddly enough, that realization settled him down even more. Hours passed in this manner, he moved the globe around, setting down cities, people, and monsters all over the place. There were several friendly cities, but the majority of his focus was on creating villains; bandit caves, evil queen filled towers, goblin dens, and dragon lairs. He wanted there to be plenty of foes for him to conquer on his adventures.
“Now, to work on myself and my team.” He had realized after his altercation with Alexander that he needed an upgrade. Even his new body wasn’t nearly as powerful as Smith had been, and he would be facing dinosaurs down there. Eventually he decided to go the sci-fi route. He deeply respected the prince, but just felt like a laser rifle would prove more useful than a sword when a T-rex was chasing him down. His body taken care of he turned his thoughts to the team he wanted to adventure with.
“Looks like everyone I create for the globe will be a new interactive program that can grow and change. So… a self-aware AI that can learn and adapt to its environment? That’s awesome… since they start off pretty basic anyway, I think I will just select random and see what I end up with. But how many should I make?” Remembering how many knights the prince always had following him, Ronin decided to follow suit and selected ten companions.
By the time he finished creating the ultimate cohort, complete with custom gear and mounts, Ronin realized that he was way over budget. It looked like he had spent nearly all his money customizing the planet and bringing in all the races and civilizations he could think of. Now, when he went to create the perfect team and equip them, he realized that he couldn’t afford it.
“Ah well,” he finally said with a shrug. “How much fun would it be if everything was too easy anyway? I’ll just have to revise this down as best I can and get more later. When I earn new credits in the globe. What did that armored man call it, a pocket world? I like that, think that’s what I’ll call it from now on.” What followed was an agonizing session of adding and subtracting abilities and equipment and checking the budget repeatedly.
“Oh, come on,” he grouched. “Why did I add so many ships to orbit? I didn’t even buy myself a space craft, it will be a thousand years in world before I can afford one now.” Some thirty hours later, he was finally satisfied with all his gear choices. “Finally done.” He breathed out in satisfaction. “Well, no time like the present.”
Without hesitation, he typed in the code, and entered his pocket world for the first time.
* * *
“Dropping in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… dropping.” The mechanical voice started counting down the moment Ronin recovered his senses. He was strapped into a coffin sized pod, but thankfully, the door was transparent so he could see his surroundings.
He’d decided to start his adventure like the captain had done once on one of his adventures. His ship had held several stealth infiltration pods, and he had used one of them to get a small team groundside and keep them supplied during the mission. The book had gone into extensive detail explaining how the pods functioned. Ronin shamelessly ripped off the entire design and used it for his entry.
The world was black for a long second, and it felt like he was floating freely through the void. The very next second, however, found him pressed back into his shock frame as the pod rocketed downwards. Light bloomed around him as he entered the atmosphere of the ancient earth. For a while, the craft was surrounded by flames and that was all he could see, but then they entered the atmosphere proper.
The stealth infiltration pod was shaped like a six-sided pyramid. An individual coffin sized pod took up each side of the craft. When the pod was on the ground the point would be facing the sky and so would the riders. While in descent however, the point faced down. So, Ronin felt like he was looking up at the world while rocketing downward. It instantly gave him crippling vertigo.
Ronin didn’t actually have a ship to drop from, and he had already chosen where he would begin on the ground. He’d entered up here purely for the aesthetics of it, it added a layer of realism that smacked of adventure. The reality was far different. He spent the entirety of the five-minute trip with his eyes screwed shut, doing his best not to throw up in his helmet. When the craft’s landing gear was deployed and the pod did a one hundred eighty-degree flip, Ronin tasted bile in his throat. He was relieved though, the flip meant they were almost down… and slower speeds.
The shape of the craft had the passenger’s heads now facing upwards. They were also angled back however so he couldn’t look down anymore. He spent the next minute of slow fall catching his breath. When a mountain top shot up passed the descending stealth pod, he knew they were almost down.
“Owl one, this is Owl two. Do you copy?” The synthesized voice entering his helmet made Ronin jump in surprise. He’d forgotten he wasn’t alone anymore. The drop pod contained the rest of his team, in the other coffins ringing the pod.
“Yes… I mean, I copy… that is… owl two, this is…what?” Ronin stumbled his way around the unfamiliar terminology. He’d coded into the unit that he wanted a military mentality, but he hadn’t learned any of the lingo himself. He felt his cheeks heat up in embarrassment, he’d either have to learn the command phrasing, or tell his team to be more casual going forward.
“…Owl one, owl two. We are approaching the drop sight, suggesting owl one contacts all owl team members with instructions upon landing, over.”
“Right, umm… thanks owl two.” After listening to that single sentence, Ronin decided what way he was going to go. Mentally clicking over to the team channel, Ronin prepared himself with a deep breath.
“Owl team, this is owl one. Before touching down I want to…” he was interrupted by the impact of the pod hitting dirt. “Off to a wonderful start,” he finished mentally.