"Hey Tor, I have great news, the orphanage has been awarded one free spot at the summer camp." "Nice" I replied. "But why are you telling me Rebecca?" I waited for her reply and in a second heard her laugh. "I am telling you because you are the lucky guy who gets to go." I was stunned, really at a loss for words. "Rebecca I am truly grateful for the chance to go but do you think one of the younger kids should go?" "No I do not," said Rebecca. "Listen you have been here since you were eight years old and you have been so helpful to so many of the other kids."
I thought for a minute, what she said was true but I honestly do not think that I can get any credit for what I have done. It was just the right thing to do. I knew what it was like to lose all that matters to you when you are young. Rebecca voice continued to speak about the summer camp so I listened closely. I would need all the info I could find to do my research if I was going to be Ingame.
The summer camps had been around for a long time in N.A. It had probably started with the boy scouts and spread out to in compass any group that could buy some land and build some crappy shacks on it. When the advent of the virtual reality pods or vrp arrived and the price point dropped low enough to readily purchase a few of them one smart guy realized what he had. With the time dilation effect, two month in a vrp was like a year in real life.
He quickly hired a programmer and created the first online total immersion Bible camp. It was an adventure set during Christ's last 6 month before the crucifixion. The experience was apparently life changing for the kids who attended. So life changing that they had to shut it down after two years as it turned out that God online was just too much for most people or so the story went. But the rumors persisted, something had happened to a few of the players.
The rumors if anything only fueled the success of the vrp which in turn opened the door way for the rapid expansion of vrp into all segments of life. Schools were all done inside vrp. Sports were now played in vrp; it seems the government thought everyone should be as talented as a Gretzky to make it a fair sport. Crop of ka ka in my opinion, no one had to train or develop skill sets anymore. It was all awarded for being Ingame. These days there were rules about vrp online worlds, the schools, entertainment and games.
The big rule was no direct intervention by any higher powers, no God's or demons to seduce or beguile players. Only the government and Gnet could change stuff. It meant a lot of adventure in many different worlds’ but with no direct divine influence. A ton of sublimation hypnosis was speculated but no one could prove the government or marketing of putting it in the game. One blogger I followed was big on conspiracy theory and as he pointed out many people thought Kennedy and 9/11 were both inside jobs but no one could prove them either.
Rebecca finally stopped and asked if I had any questions. I had a few but the first was "which camp was I going to?” “Sleepy Hollow." Rebecca replied. "When I asked?" "In four days." That would give me enough time to do some research. Thanking Rebecca I went to my room and pulled on my one piece of wearable technology. It was a 25 year old pair of beta version 4 updated Google glasses. Found them on an antique technology auction site. Upgraded the mini OS with my own simple AI and patched the hardware to connect through a fiber wire to the dorm computer. Really, I was surprised when the darn thing worked. What was unexpected was the connection that I had with Gnet.
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When Google finally took over the net it offered free non advertising internet for all. That was pretty nice seeing how it had been so swamped with pop ups and spam for 30 years most people did not browse a lot anymore. Having no spam was nice but losing a large percent of net access was tough. This meant no more access to the dark web, or any other unapproved site if Google or Gnet as it was renamed did not approve. Gnet made sure your website did not get visitors.
Once online I was amazed at how such old tech still worked. The goggle glasses I purchased were beta and had been meant for someone on the senior admin team. Everything was coded in ROM at a system level with full admin rights. This was cool but what made it interesting was the fact it was all still active.
When I first logged in, I am sure a dusty server whirred to life and acknowledged system admin credentials and there I was, at the backdoor to Gnet. This was fricking unbelievable. I immediately set up several admin accounts with different logins, because who knows how long the pot of honey is going to be out in the open.
In fact this back door was my hope to get rich in 6 month. I had to leave the orphanage at eighteen and that is when I would turn in the Google glasses with the system admin rights to Gnet. A few years ago when Gnet had amalgamated with MS they had released MS OS 40. They had basically taken Linux and gutted and reshaped it. Apple had done it years earlier with their OS; I think their latest software titled Tabby was now out.
What I needed to do was enter the hack attack contest Gnet had sponsored. The rules were simple if anyone could get into Gnet and do a few simple tasks and then log out and announce it to Gnet without getting caught or being part of a business or Government that individual would receive 5 million credits. I had already met all the objectives but was waiting until I turned legal age. Otherwise the state run orphanage would claim my winnings.
It turns out that Sleepy Hollow was a brand new summer camp and it only had one game so far. Gods and Man developed by MS Studios. It was a fantasy realm with distant God's that kingdoms would align with and then the players would basically go out and kick the crap out of other kingdoms/players. It was not that clear in the write up.
Heck, you could even start your own kingdom if you found some land and had serfs and gold. It had all sorts of cool stuff the online market the gold silver and bronze accounts, real world money exchange at ten to one. In short this was one of the newest games that catered to the rich kids. That could be problematic...