Nick held his breath. He realized that that was a bad idea when nothing happened for a minute. Is this going to be another percentage, and another week of waiting? Or—?
Initialized.
Setting English Language: 7%
File not found.
Setting User: Nick
File not found.
Select Name: Petruh
Confirm (Y/N)?
Nick stared, then tapped the name. The keyboard came up and he corrected it. Petra. Then he pressed Y. He shook his head. How does Petra know her name? He wondered.
Generating Profile
File not found.
Nick frowned. Petra appeared to be having difficulties. Still, this was massive progress.
Game progress saved as Nick1.
Actions:
New Game
Resume Saved Game
Play Tutorial
Settings
Quit Game
Exit
Nick blinked twice. A tutorial. I'll be goddamned. Petra has a fucking tutorial! YES!
Very, very carefully, Nick selected Play Tutorial. The displays went blank. Nick pressed his palms together and bowed his head a moment, then went back to watching the tablet screen.
The opening animation from Argoroth Dragon Hunters 9, one of the games on his phone, started playing on every display, complete with music. Nick's eyebrows went up. Petra has speakers?
As the video clip continued, Nick's heart sank. She's just parroting again. She doesn't know what she's saying. Of course. It was too good to be true. God damn it.
Then the animation cut out, and a voice began speaking. The sound was obviously spliced together from different audio clips. Many of the clips were of Nick's own voice. He also heard Brian's voice, the narrators of two of his games, a few telemarketers and the nurse from his doctor's office. Petra appeared to have gobbled up every scrap of audio on his phone. Accompanying text in a game font appeared in synch.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Welcome to—Planet Bigball—You are—brave warrior—craft—build—explore and conquer. Go forth. Exciting adventure awaits!” The voice cut out and was replaced by very soft background music. He recognized it as one of the ringtones from his phone, playing on repeat.
It was surreal.
Nick just gaped at the screen. This is...I just...what? Holy what?
With a little cash register sound effect, something vaguely like Petra's main screen appeared.
“This is—your control—menu. There are lots of things you can do. For starters, try—press or say—'status.'”
“Holy shit.”
“I'm sorry, I didn't quite understand that. For starters, try—press or say—'status.'”
Nick cleared his throat before answering.
“I'm sorry, I didn't quite understand that. For starters, try—press or say—'status.'”
“Status.”
Most of the screen was replaced with what looked a lot like a character sheet out of Argoroth, only it was both emptier and much more detailed. The outline of his body appeared to be both accurate and live, showing Nick leaning forward with his jaw hanging. Seeing that, Nick sat up straight, and so did his image on his character sheet. The only things filled out were
Name: Nick
Level: 1
Class: Boss Monster
Gender: Male
Boss Monster? Nick wondered.
The voice resumed. “Thank you. This is your status screen. You can edit the information on your keypad. When you are finished, press or say—'exit status.'”
“Exit status.”
“That's great, thank you. Now, try—press or say—'Petra's status.'”
Hopeful, Nick said carefully, “Petra's status.”
“Thank you. This is my status.”
The screen changed again. The hologram now showed a sort of 3D web of labeled symbols for all the devices Petra had made, with glowing lines from each going to Petra in the center. The new device was right next to Petra, connected by a much thicker glowing line.
Meanwhile the flat displays were showing lists. One was labeled Inventory and all the substances Nick had seen before were there, with their gibberish codes or the names he had given them. Another panel showed a map of the rooms he had carved out of Bare Hill. A little arrow at the bottom seemed to indicate with pictures that if he swiped left, the map would swap over to the holographic display.
The main tablet, the one Nick had been using almost from the very start, had a kind of character sheet.
Name: Petra
Level: 4
Class: Dungeon
Gender: none
Core: 1
Memory: 1 x2 (120 times)
Processor: 1x2 (84 times)
Rooms: 10
Traps: 0
Monsters: 87
Inventory: 327/1048576
Range: (Search) 5274 cm
Range: (Connecting) 15822 cm
Range: (Monsters) 1582200 cm
Defense rating: 0
Energy: 1327/85680
Power Input: 0/24 per second
Power Output: 0.2/second
Max Mass Input: 4.36/second
Max Mass Output: 0.347/second
There were more numbers—a lot more—but Nick's eyes glazed over past that point. He tried to focus on the most important parts.
Petra thinks she's a dungeon core. And she thinks I'm her final boss monster, and all the guys—the tools I asked Petra to make—count as monsters. I think she's even counting the light fixtures, no other way to make the total come out to 87.
This could all be just Petra having no English except for things like my video game apps. She's set up the description kind of like a sandbox game, where players can choose to fight, gain resources, gain land, and so forth, however they want to interact with the world. If Petra's trying to model the real world, a sandbox game makes sense.
Petra went on, walking Nick through several basic commands that he had already figured out the hard way. He wondered how much he would learn from the tutorial. His focus sharpened again, however, when he heard Petra say, “Here are my recommendations for making.”