Tuesday, August 21st
“One, Two, Three,” Ernie said the words, “Hup!” and they threw the last of the dead old man’s belongings into the landfill.
They’d already separated out everything that could be sold or stripped for materials like the fridge and the television. Everything else—the pictures, the clothing, and all the other things that showed something of a person’s life—they threw it in with the trash.
While Ernie headed back to the front of their truck, Jake looked out over giant heaps of discarded belongings and smiled. It was the opinion of most that Golding, California was a dying city, but to him, the city was already dead. The only reason it hadn’t been fully buried yet was because junk haulers like him and Ernie were taking their sweet time doing so.
Ernie honked the truck’s horn. “Come on, man. Let’s go.”
Jake latched up the back of the truck and then hopped in front so they could drive back to dispatch. As he did from time to time, Ernie invited Jake for drinks after work and as was always the case before, Jake declined. Why?
Well, there were only two types of people left in Golding after the oil and mining money dried up: the people who were rich enough already that it didn’t matter for them and the people that couldn’t leave because they had something tying them down to the city.
The people in the latter category—himself and Ernie included—were more often than not a depressing bunch. Ernie had a habit of complaining about the mother of his kid while Jake and him were on the job and at this point, Jake had heard enough to assume that they fought about everything.
Beyond lending an ear while they were working, Jake didn’t want any part in his issues. He already had enough of his own to deal with.
Since it had been a surprisingly light day of work for him, Jake returned home to his grandparents’ house early in the afternoon. The house sat in the middle of their street in their middle class suburb. It was two stories tall with a decently sized front yard and plenty of room in the back.
From the outside, it looked like a home most people would be fine with, but as had been the case for over a decade now, Jake dreaded what awaited him on the inside.
As he pulled into the driveway, he noticed five new packages on the doorstep along with a copy of a local newspaper. None of them had been there when he left for work that morning.
He picked up the newspaper and started skimming the headlines while he walked it over to the trash. It was called the Golden Times. Apparently, new issues came out weekly.
City Hall Releases More Plans for City Revitalization
Too late for that, Jake thought. Forty to sixty years too late depending on who you asked.
Missing Person Reports Highest in City History
Turn to Page 9 to Learn More. →
Jake was sort of interested in that small headline stuffed into the corner of the frontpage, but he was also already sort of standing in front of the trash bin.
Probably, just people who left one night without saying anything, he decided, throwing the paper away. He had considered doing so himself a few times at this point, so why not others?
After stacking the five boxes on the doorstep, Jake opened the front door to a dragon’s hoard of a mess. There were stacks of storage boxes filled with useless crap with other useless things precariously stacked on top of them. There were stacks of unopened boxes whose contents were known when they were originally ordered from TV or mail catalog, but had long since been forgotten. Spilled out in the entryway were three more packages that hadn’t been there that morning.
None of the packages on either side of the door were Jake’s and to his knowledge, none of the rest of this junk currently belonged to him either. If any of it actually did, he'd have gladly thrown it out by now.
His grandmother was the one who’d bought all of this 'As Seen on TV' junk. She had become a hoarder after Jake’s grandfather died back when he was in middle school.
Her habits had gotten worse every year, but it had still been a shock to him to see how bad things had gotten after he had avoided Golding for the four years he was in university. It made him thankful that his grandmother never learned how to use a computer well enough to figure out online shopping.
Jake stacked his grandmother’s eight newest packages in the entryway, then moved as quickly as possible around the pillars of forgotten trinkets to his room. He had to try his best not to knock over the stacks of cookbooks that had never had a single recipe read from them as he passed them by.
Opening the door to his room, he took a deep breath of the air within. His room was one of the only two rooms in the house that was actually clean and the only one that didn’t make him feel helpless.
He’d been able to see what was happening to his grandmother back in middle school, but even now, he hadn’t figured out a way to help save her from herself.
At least he’d figured out a way to keep his sanity while he was around her. He became a minimalist after he left for college and only kept the necessities—and his gaming set up—in his room when he got back. His bed was neat, his desk and shelves were organized, and his floor was... clear…
Jake paused mid step when he spotted the unopened box for a gaming product he definitely didn’t order on his floor.
Gamify
Founder’s Kit
Turn your boring world into your gaming world!
AS SEEN ON TV!
Ages 13+
Includes:
4x Display Shades
4x Wrist Brains
4x Scanner Sets
$1000 Value
Only 5 Payments of $19.95 + S & H
It looked like a toy that came straight out of a 90s infomercial.
Judging by the blown-up images on the front of the box, the display shades were just some cheap sunglasses, the wrist brains were thick bracelets with LED light slit, and the scanners were thick bookends that might have motion sensors in them.
On the back of the box there was an image of potted plants on fake grass followed by an image of the same thing with ‘Gamer Vision’ where everything seen through the sunglasses was replaced with a lush jungle environment.
Jake felt a little nostalgic for his childhood seeing an obviously bs product like this again, but he was also pissed that it had been placed in his room. He picked up the box and walked over to his grandmother in the den where she was baked into her recliner watching the only type of channel she watched other than the 'things she'll never actually cook' channel, a home shopping channel.
“Grandma,” Jake said.
"Hey, Jake," she said, eyes still glued to the screen. Her cordless home phone was in one hand and her four dozen button remote was in the other. Said remote had four designated buttons for her four favorite channels. All of them were set to home shopping channels.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
"What's this?" Jake asked, holding up the Gamify box.
She didn't respond and just kept staring at the screen.
"Grandma."
"Could you give me a second," she said.
"And there you have it!" the shopping channel presenter said on the television. "One glass of fresh squeezed juice with ice for those hot summer days."
"Ugh, Grandma you already have a juicer," Jake said, exasperated. She had probably bought five 'unique' juicer models while he was away at college.
Jake just stepped in front of the TV and held up the Gamify box. "Why'd you put this in my room?"
Jake’s grandmother took a five second open mouth pause before answering, "I bought it for you."
"Why'd you buy it for me?"
She thought about it for a second, then smiled. It was the ghost of that smile she used to show him back when his granddad was still alive and she was a shell of the woman she was back then too.
There was a shorter pause. "I thought I should get it for you since I didn't get you anything for your birthday," she said.
"You didn't get me anything for my birthday because I asked you not to."
"Well, I thought you'd like it.” She shifted around in her chair. “They were talking about how all the kids are playing Fort Night these days and I know how you like playing those kinds of games on your computer."
"I..." Jake gripped his head with his freehand. I can't believe we're going through this again, he thought.
He shook his head. "I don't want this."
His grandmother frowned. "You haven't even tried it."
"I don't need to try it."
"You see what it says on that box, Jake?" She leaned over and tapped on the front cover. "It's a thousand dollar value."
"Grandma, you know you don't believe that."
"With how inflation 's going?" She smiled.
"Grandma."
"Look, it's already here, Jake.” She leaned back into her chair. “Just give it a try. If you still don't like it, you can throw it away."
"Fine," he started on his way out the den.
"And don't just throw it away without trying it!" his grandmother called across the house just before he’d made it back to his room.
As soon as he had the door closed behind him, Jake placed the founder’s kit on his desk and opened the box. Along with everything pictured on the front of the box, there was a user's manual and a quick start guide for setting up a game instance.
The user manual looked to be over a hundred pages of useless information long, which meant there was no chance that Jake was going to give it a look through. If there hadn’t been a quick start guide, he’d have used the tried and true ‘try it first and read about it when you muck it up’ method.
Step 1: Remove a wrist brain, a pair of display shades, and a set of location scanners from the box.
Easy enough, Jake thought, taking out a four-piece scanner set along with a pair of sunglasses, and a light up bracelet.
Step 2: Set up a perimeter with your scanners.
The suggested method for setting up the first game instance was to choose the smallest room he'd be comfortable in and place the scanners on the walls outside of it or in the corners of it if he couldn't manage that. A closet was also acceptable if there was enough space.
There was in fact enough space in his room’s closet, but seeing as how he wanted this specific waste of his dead grandfather's pension to spend as little time in his room as possible, Jake decided he'd be taking his test run to the only other clean room in the house, the guest bathroom.
Note: Make sure you're standing outside the perimeter for the following steps. Being inside the perimeter while the game instance is generating can be disorienting.
After he had set up the scanners, Jake stepped out of the small bathroom and closed the door.
Step 3: Put on your wrist brain and put on your display shades.
Jake put on the wrist brain and the LED slit lit up blue as soon as he locked the bracelet onto his wrist. When he put the shades on, a message appeared in his line-of-sight.
Heads Up!
By continuing to use these products, you are agreeing to not take any actions that may lead to the discovery of the Gamify Beta Test by the general public.
If you do not abide by this agreement, Gamify USA will have to take the necessary actions to deal with this situation.
Tap to Continue!
That was a surprise. He had a feeling this scam product might not be able to project anything at all, but now it was acting like it could accurately sense him touching what it presented him.
Jake’s eyes opened wide when he reached out to tap the message and actually felt it. Hold on, he thought as the message closed, unsure if he had imagined that part.
Step 4: Answer 'Yes' when your display shades ask if you want to create an instance.
Before the next message appeared the tint of his sunglasses became clearer.
Heads Up!
Display Shades will automatically adjust tint levels based on the environment.
Okay, maybe this thing isn’t as cheap as I thought.
Hello User!
Thank you for joining the Gamify Beta Test!
Scanners have been properly placed.
Would you like to create an instance?
Yes | No
“Yes,” Jake said. Without thinking, he’d said it rather than touching the word, but it still worked.
Even for a first instance, the current instance is particularly small. At this size, we can offer an automatic expansion. Would you like your instance expanded?
Yes | No
Note: An instance expansion increases the rewards, difficulty, and size of an instance.
Jake didn’t know what kind of expansion it could pull off in a five-by-four foot bathroom, but said, “Sure,” since it was offering more rewards.
Instance Generating…
The tint of Jake’s shades returned as he witnessed a bright white light bleeding out from under the bathroom door.
New User Onboarding Required
Beginning Affinity Discovery Process…
Disposition Detected
You have a Junk Hauler’s Disposition
Well, finding joy in throwing out other people’s things was probably the best interest match for his current job, so it wasn’t surprising that he had the correct disposition for it.
“Wait, how did you…” Jake said, trailing off. The words slipped out of his mouth when he realized he hadn’t told the product a thing about himself.
Discovering Affinity based on Disposition…
Jake pulled out his phone to check if it was set to connect to Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. It was not. Was it pulling information from his desktop then? They had to be taking his data from somewhere.
Suddenly, a black veil emerged from behind his phone, expanding to the point where it had blocked off his surroundings, including the ground below. The light from his phone was the only thing fighting back against the darkness, but soon enough the veil had covered it too.
Jake reached for his shades, but stopped short of taking them off when he saw a star form against the featureless void. It shined white and had a blue mist with a slight glow floating around it.
More stars floating in a sea of blue mist appeared upon the veil, forming a night sky as colorful as the pictures they’d show of nebulas in deep space.
Affinity Discovered
Congratulations! You have a Dimensional Affinity!
Jake had all of ten seconds to appreciate the beautified version of space that he was seeing before the veil receded far faster than it had emerged and then disappeared.
Instance Generated!
He was back in front of his normal bathroom with no light bleeding out from under the door.
Step 5: You're ready to start! Just step right into your instance and follow the instructions on your display shades!
Heads Up!
We’ve added some exclusive incentives during the beta test period, so make sure to get as much done as possible while you can still claim them.
Jake opened the bathroom door.
Aaaand my bathroom’s gone, he thought upon sight of what lay on the other side. In the place of a simple toilet, a sink, the cabinet beneath the sink, and a humble trash can, there was a long white corridor.
With widened eyes and a mouth hung slightly open, Jake took off his display shades and saw his mundane, clean bathroom, then put them back on to see a white-tiled corridor replace them.
A thousand dollars?
That was chump change for AR this good. The projection looked real enough that he couldn't even tell the difference between what he was seeing and reality.
Would you like a tutorial?
“I mean no…” Jake said. He was a gamer after all. “But yes.”