[Player Log Start!]
[Log Holder: Asadullah Khan]
[Level: 2 (SubLevel)]
[! Log Translated From Urdu !]
Asadullah wavered in the background, watching Paterson pull open the back of the Console. It was still working, the mechanical guts beeping a little as important calculations were made inside the smooth black bricks that made up the components of the computer.
He leaned his head around to get a better look at what was inside. He’d never spared a thought of what lay inside machines, but now that he had the chance, he was eager to look at it.
“This is interesting.” Paterson announced.
Asadullah’s ears twisted around in interest, but he didn’t say anything. Lucky asked the question instead, “What’s so interesting?” She asked.
“This is running two different Interfaces.” He explained, “Which means they lead to two different Games, without them intermingling. But the second one isn’t connected to anything. Did you unplug this?”
Lucky edged over to look at what he was referring to, “Ah. Yeah. The power source was only connecting to one of them. I switched it out in the hopes of resetting the Console.”
“Well, it didn’t reset it. But now we know why it no longer runs the Harbinger Interface.” Paterson pointed out, rotating the Console with an air of interest, “All the other functions seem to fall in line with the ones we use for our own Consoles. It’s simply the two hidden Interfaces that differs, along with the general frame of it.”
That was a lot of words, crawling across his vision, twisting and changing and hard to keep track of. Asadullah was tempted to close his eyes to tamp down the budding headache, but if he did that, the conversation would be lost to him in a storm of undiscernible noise.
So, he tried to parse through the conversation by himself. And it finally clicked in his head.
“The part of the Console that was allowing Burks to jump to the Developers is locked away.” He realized, “Any way we can access it without activating the Harbinger program?”
Paterson shrugged, eyes roving down to look at the translated captions of Asadullah’s words, “This isn’t something I’ve seen before. I don’t know how to deal with this. Not without more poking around. And…” He glanced at Lucky, “I don’t want to risk the fate of this mechanic here.”
“You’re probably right.” Tench conceded, and Lucky nodded, looking conflicted.
“We’ll have to figure something out, though. This is our only hope.” Terry insisted, “How long do we even plan on being here? Because we’ve found people here. Now we have to head back and tell the others that we struck gold.”
“But how do we head back?” Jared asked, “We can only leave a Sub-Level if we finish the Mission.”
“And the Mission hasn’t even finished loading yet!” Tench complained, shaking his fist at the floating boxes above them all, that still declared the same unchanging message. Mission Loading.
Nancy frowned, “How long does it normally take for your Missions to load?”
“Almost instantly.” Asadullah explained, “It definitely hasn’t taken this long before.”
“Must be one hell of a Mission, then.” Simon noted, “If it’s taking this long to load, how long will it take to complete?”
As if summoned by his words, there was a series of dings chiming from around the room. The Mission was ready to start. Asadullah was almost afraid to cast his eyes upon it to see what impossible task had been set in front of them.
But he had to see what laid ahead of them. There was never another option in the Game.
[Objective: Complete A Perfect Day]
“A perfect day?” Tench asked, “How- how would you even decide what makes a day perfect?”
“Our Game can.” Simon explained, but he didn’t look too confident with that statement, “A perfect day is classified as one where productivity and enjoyment go hand-in-hand. There are daily challenges and algorithms that you need to crack, all while keeping stress levels down.”
Terry snorted, “How’re they going to know what our stress levels are?”
“The point of this Game is to relax you as much as possible.” Paterson reminded them, “It’s entire job is being aware of your stress levels.”
“Right, right, chill as much as possible, while still doing things.” Jared agreed, “Sounds simple. What do these daily challenges usually look like?”
Knowing their luck, it was probably going to involve stealing something from a monster chicken. But luckily for them, Kathy jumped in with information, “Daily challenges are simple! You’re supposed to gather fish and berries and do trades and farm! It’s all easy stuff, but it takes time.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Lucky huffed out a laugh, “Kid, we have nothing but time at this point.”
“It’s evening already, so you’ll have to give up the idea of achieving a Perfect Day.” Nancy pointed out, “Stay the night and start over tomorrow.”
“Stay where?” Tench asked, “I don’t think your mother would be too happy about us hanging around your house.”
Both Nancy and Simon barked out laughs simultaneously, “Oh, fuck no, we don’t have the space for you guys at our place.” Nancy pointed out before suggesting, “Maybe the hut that’s finished loading?” She pointed towards said hut through the window nearby. The new one that Asadullah had seen in the distance, except it was now solid and real-looking.
“Oh, brilliant!” Jared agreed, already moving towards the stairs, “Race you guys to- WOAH!” His crutches slipped across the metal ramp the stairs had been turned into by Lucky, and sent him spiraling downwards, screaming in fear.
Asadullah cursed, expanding his feet into wide leopard paws to allow him to slide down the ramp easily, catching up with Jared, passing him at the foot of the slope, and turning into a full leopard as he fell onto flat ground, providing a soft landing point for Jared to slam into.
“Oomph.” Jared mumbled, the sound so unintelligible that it didn’t get translated. After that, though, he pulled his face out of Asadullah’s fluff and then threw his hands up, “Holy shit, I survived!”
“Thanks to me.” Asadullah pointed out, twisting back into his more human form. Shifting into leopard form was easier this time than it had been in a while. Maybe from the adrenalin? But the transformation back was more agonizing, the fur pulling back into his skin feeling like needles digging into his flesh.
He gritted his teeth, trying to force the muscles and fat and bones to realign themselves. All that achieved was making the bangle heat up faster, burning a brand into his arm as skin and fur continued to bubble over the surface.
A hand on his other arm – front leg? It was hard to tell at this point – and jolted him out of his intense trance. It was Terry, watching him with concern-laden eyes.
“You okay?” He asked, in sharp, over-enunciated Urdu.
“I will be.” Asadullah promised him, running a hand over his overheated bangle. C’mon, rebellious djinn, he needed to make this look good or Terry would start getting upset.
Thankfully, it seemed to hear his command, and the bubbling skin smoothened out, bending like taffy until he was molded back into his fragile human frame.
“Told ya.” He winked, springing to his feet. Jared was still giddy in the background, scrambling around to pick up his crutches.
“Cool trick. Now work on the consistency.” Jared snarked, readjusting his weight on the crutches. Asadullah could have said something in response, but he kept his head down, leading their sad procession down to the hut.
“We gotta head back, Kathy.” Nancy worriedly reminded her sister, “Fill Mom in on the situation over here, and figure out some way to download the Game she got the invitation to join. Good luck with the daily missions. We’ll catch up with you later, okay?”
“Got it. Thanks, you guys.” Tench waved them off as Lucky fought over the bumpy ground to open the gate to the hut they belonged to.
“Come by to my place whenever you want.” Paterson offered to her, “You promise stimulating conversation, Ms. Paine.”
“Bet that’s not the only stimulating thing he thinks about you.” Tench whispered to her as they cracked open the front door. Lucky stopped in her careful maneuvering of her chair’s legs up the two steps to shoot him a glare.
“You have some nerve, Gideon.” She snarled, turning on a flashlight before she managed to find the light switch, “Oh, there is a bedroom on the bottom floor. I will be taking that.”
“And it comes furnished, too.” Tench whistled, looking around, “That’s the craziest thing about this setup. Capitalism would never allow for this.”
“I mean, the system here does lean more towards the communism-socialism side of things…” Tench volunteered. Jared glanced at him, perplexed.
“Gonna be honest, I don’t actually know anything about economic systems other than what the people around me say.” He admitted, heading over to the stairs, “But check this out! There are photographs.”
For a bone-chilling moment, Asadullah wondered if the photographs would be of them, depicting scenes they had either never partaken in, or hadn’t photographed. But no, the photographs hung on the walls were stock photos, depicting plants and mushrooms and glacial lakes. It looked out of place, but not nearly as eerie as what he had been expecting, so brushing it off wasn’t hard. He was more shaken by what he found on the top floor.
Beds. Not the foam ones used in Hygeia, these were stuffed with springs and goose feathers and cotton, giving a more bulky and springy sleeping space. It was unstained, and untouched, with a thick warm duvet that reminded Asadullah of shrinking into a tabby cat and sleeping by the fire during winters.
He put a hand on the mattress, testing it under his pressure. The hand leaned forward until the entire elbow was in contact with the cloudy creation, and then the other hand, and the next thing he knew, he was falling forwards, already asleep.
----------------------------------------
As of late, Asadullah’s dreams had not been pleasant. They rarely were before, but compared to what he had to endure now, the night terrors of before were practically laughable.
They hurt, was the thing. When he was asleep, he was experiencing actual visceral pain that he somehow blocked out while he was conscious. The djinn inside his arm wanted him to hurt.
The betrayal of that was thick on his nerves. It just wasn’t fair. He thought that they were building a rapport together. That they had found some sort of understanding. Or maybe that was too much faith to put in a monster that had once tried to burn his home down and was now trapped here against its will.
Now, Asadullah spent every night in this twisting void of crimson walls, wracked by pain and misery, all while words were being shouted at him that made no sense. Except this time the Game didn’t intervene to tell him what they meant.
Even with the promise of comfortable mattresses, these night terrors didn’t fade. He was consumed by them once more, listening to the wailing, unintelligible words, repeat over and over again, until he jolted up from his sleep, heart pounding and skin slick with sweat.
Above him, there was an array of words, hovering brightly. He had to squint to read them, because they were rotating on the spot, for no fathomable reason.
[Good Morning! It is 5 AM! A little earlier than most, sure, but that marks you as an Early Bird! Do you wish to do some chores? There’s plenty to do in the mornings!]
Wow, that was… too many exclamation marks.
But then again, he was supposed to be giving a go at a stressless day, right? He could do that. He could be the most chill and normal person out there. He could have a perfect day on the very first try. Because that was all he had wanted, right? To go back to Mira and have a perfect day?
This mission was everything he could dream of.
[Player Log End!]