White thirteen marked the beginning of the crash. In the first cycle we lost tens of thousands to the Lazarus plague, our leader, our managers, our most skilled and most respected. But the problem wasn’t those locked in dreams. The problem was those whose minds recovered. They woke up feeling only hunger and rage. The council deputies activated the beacons, sending out the call. When she was only one that arrived the council was dismayed
Acting Councilor Adams “Where are the others?”
The Justice replied “Light! Ain't I enough? It's only one plague!”
The Price of Immortality, 818
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I am back at GSC 138 pondering recent events over lunch, margarine sandwiches, tomato soup with coffee, 16 credits. Getting the information from all of the local wetware installers took around 3 hours, all told.
Papa Doc at A Stitch in Time was a soft touch. I think he really cares. A quality that is uncommon if not unique in the Hive. The middle-aged woman manning the counter at Tools R US took a little convincing but after calling Mama Isabella to confirm my story was true she was understanding and helpful.
Build a Better U and Pro Wetware Solutions had views similar to H3atS1nk’s. They refused to divulge customer information. There were some hints from the BBU register worker that he would be open to a trade, information for payment, but Fen had already slipped past him and my lowball offer of 5 sol bits was rejected.
In retrospect my offer was way too low. I’ve been blacklisted from BBU as well as The Chrome Emporium. Visiting all these stores and seeing the prices the street vendors were offering I’m getting a feeling for what a sol is worth.
There is no official conversion rate between sols and dollars, of course. Different goods also have different conversions. When buying food, a sol bit is around a 2030s dollar. I haven’t found the local equivalent of ramen and frozen mixed vegetables but for street food I can get a snack for a few bits and a meal for 15+ bits. When buying physical goods that last, a screwdriver, a duffle bag, or a wall mountable shelving kit, a sol is around a 2030s dollar.
To put my offered bribe another way, I offered him a couple of nails or a toasted apple on a stick in exchange for breaking company policy and maybe getting fired. I think he assumed I was either intentionally fucking with him, or I was an idiot kid fucking around. Hopefully he hasn’t found out what Fen and I were actually doing.
I don’t have a good handle on software and digital goods yet. Software that interfaces with my public AR layer is much cheaper than software that interfaces with my personal AR layer. Like I’ve seen the same product from the same company and the personal layer AR was ten times the price.
No idea why the prices are so much higher. I write a memo to ask Olivia the next time I see her. I intentionally don’t invite her to a group chat.
There wasn’t a 2030s equivalent to hardware. An industrial grade lifter arm sells for around 700 sols, but if I lost an arm in 2030 I couldn’t just buy a better one. At any price. The best I could hope for was a prosthetic arm that did a few things very well or everything kind of poorly. I don’t think I’ve ever lost an arm. I can still vividly recall sleepless nights dealing with back problems but I don’t have any memories of phantom limb, physical therapy or learning how to use prosthetic limbs.
Credits weren’t accepted anywhere I asked. While I’m in GSC 138 I can exchange a sol for 25 credits but there is no offered conversion from credits back to sols. They might be a ‘premium’ currency only useful in the creche. Or I’m not shopping in the right places.
Lunch compleat I check out my progress on my Dailies.
Daily Quests
XP
Gym
4617/2000
Reading / Writing
8/1000
Math
62/1000
Art
0/2000
Music
0/1000
History
0/2000
Science!
0/1000
Programming
168/1000
Social Studies
39/1000
I was wrong about my gym xp gain. Averaging together my time walking with Fen and the race to The Chrome Emporium skewed my results. When I’m learning from my past selves, or I guess technically when I’m practicing skills from my black market wetware package I earn xp a little slower than with a xp boost at the creche. I think I’m learning even faster than that but not everything I’m learning falls into whatever my core classifies as gym.
I also picked up a few points of xp in Reading / Writing, Math, and Social Studies. I can understand getting a few points in math just from running the numbers on my runs. I didn’t get much reading / writing xp but I suppose I have been reading things so a little isn’t unexpected. No idea where the Social Studies xp came from.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Not every second of those three hours was spent exercising and earning gym xp but enough was. Remembering how to fall on discarded food wrappers, climbing up dirt crusted walls and sliding down greasy railings all combined with my teenaged sweating from prolonged athletics. To put it simply I was very gross by the time Fen and I got back to the creche. A ten minute shower was totally worth the 10 credit price. Max was right about that. Changing into my only set of clean clothes also felt great but the question of laundry remains unanswered. I tried to message Mama Isabella but she was already in a chat. I guessI can ask tomorrow when we have another check in.
Fen said he would handle comparing the records we acquired with Lily’s core ID. Until he gets back to me I don’t have anything more productive than the dailies to do. Wait, am I the sidekick? I was the distraction while Fen grabbed the records. I’m banned from two shops but they don’t even know who he is. Now that my job is done Fen is continuing the quest while I go back to grinding out my dailies.
Oh, now that I’m back in the GSC 138 environment I’ve got some loot boxes waiting for me. One bronze and three silver. 28 credits and three 15 minute boosters. One for Math, one for Art and one for Social Studies. I have the fleeing 30 min xp booster I earned last night, the 15 minute History booster from yesterday and the 15 minute Gym booster from yesterday.
What did I learn yesterday? Right, 2ks first, so I can use the 15 min boosters they give and make sure to use the fleeting booster first. Might as well dive into history. I’m not sure how much I internalized from yesterday, unlike math I was not getting sets of perfect lessons. Mostly I was guessing using context clues then ‘memorizing’ the corrections by jotting them down in my memo. The system didn’t accuse me of cheating, I guess self study and testing is done open book? I take a few minutes to review my notes from yesterday, activate my 30 minute fleeting booster and get to grinding.
The system is fairly flexible and I can choose the general part of history I want to focus on. While I am interested in how humans colonized a planet I’m more interested in the current state of things. What is the state of the world? Where am I and what kind of government do we have? Am I a citizen, a serf, a slave?
I am a citizen, subclass minor, of the Semper Noctis Meritocracy and a legal resident, subclass lower, of The Hive. The Semper Noctis Meritocracy is a solar system spanning political organization. I’m not sure it’s the only government but the lessons I’ve seen so far haven’t mentioned any others. I’ll be considered an adult once my core is fully integrated, which legally can’t be done until I’m 19 years old.
The Hive is a city, or maybe several cities built on top of each other anchored around a space elevator. It was built so that hundreds of millions of people could live and work here. The Lower Hive, where GSC 138 is, is traditionally where manual laborers, technicians, farmers and crafters live. The Underhive, below the lower hive, is an industrial sector that refines metals but also makes components that are ultimately shipped off planet or to the other cities on Aphrodite. The Middle Hive is where the elites live and work: politicians, oligarchs, pop stars and the like. The Upper Hive is mostly a port for shipping and receiving goods but there are semi permanent resident spacers too. The different sectors have something to do with how the planet was terraformed, with the Middle Hive being the oldest section. I know most giant towers start at the foundation but originally the surface of Aphrodite was a hellscape of poisonous vapors with rivers of liquid metal. The initial colonists lived in floating cities kilometers above the surface.
Sakura finds me in one of the study halls before Fen gets back to me. My last History Booster ran out a few exercises ago so it’s probably been around 45 minutes.
Tanaka Sakura: Hello David! The annoying woman finally leaves me alone so we can continue the conversation.
I am annoyed that I don’t even get a prompt asking if I want to start a chat this time. Sakura left our group chat when Mama Isabella forced her to clean up in the washroom and I haven’t started any chats since my own time cleaning up.
David: How are you talking to me? I didn’t get a chat request? Do we automatically reconnect once the signal is no longer interrupted?
Tanaka Sakura: Don't want to talk? But you're the only one I know on earth! It's clear that we're going to work together.
Sakura doesn’t wear her heart on her sleeve but I can tell that my perceived rejection has affected her.
David: Sakura, I will talk to you, just, how are we chatting?
Tanaka Sakura: Oh, I mean, how did you start this communication? Your presence on the network is very open. I sent you a direct message using the IP address you used in your first chat. please do not worry. This is much more secure than accessing via your local intranet.
David: I think I followed that. You didn’t start a chat group with me, you just sent me a direct message? So we’re what, texting not chatting right now?
Tanaka Sakura: We are communicating directly from my system to yours. This method is very safe, but only works over fairly short line-of-sight distances. A few hundred meters unless connected to a more powerful station or local repeater network.
David: Sakura, are you good with computers?
Tanaka Sakura: No.
David: Oh, well nevermind then.
Her eye light up, her face breaking into a confident smile.
Tanaka Sakura: I'm very good at using computers. (woman)
David: (￣、￣ ) To use your terminology I think computers might be your cheat power from god. Have you been practicing them? Are you getting better really quickly?
Tanaka Sakura: I always aim for perfection. That's my samurai spirit! I feel like I haven't leveled up even once since I came to the new world. I test yourself on something more powerful than this sad little local intranet?
David: I’m still learning what my cheat powers are but I leveled in the few hours since we last talked.
Tanaka Sakura: Then I'll do my best too!
David: Oh, can you help me protect my local system security? My sister Olivia and I have been getting viruses that I think are coming in over the GSC 138 environment.
Sakura gives me a look.
Tanaka Sakura: David, I'm an elite programmer and hacker. I'm not technical support. I'll help you just this time, but you have to study enough to help your sister yourself. You're doing well so far, but once you turn me off, it's much harder to turn me back on.
David: I’m not sure I caught all that but I will diligently learn anything you are willing to teach me.
Without thinking I offer Sakura a martial salute. It feels right to offer my teacher respect. She returns my bow, without the martial gesture. Looks like I have something more productive than dailies to do now.