Jason told the girl to sit on the bed and threw his backpack next to her as walked to the back of the barrack and looked into the small compartment that he had thought was a shower. Without stepping into the room he leaned forward to look over it. He didn’t want to be surprised by anything that might pop out or holes that might be in the floor. He didn’t see any such things. In fact, he didn’t see any defining features whatsoever; just flat walls. Deciding it was safe, he stepped in and ran his hands around the walls looking for anything that might trigger what the room was for, but for all his groping around, he found what he saw. Nothing.
Turning to exit the room Jason suddenly found he was sealed in. The doorway had vanished as if it were never there to begin with. He blinked. He tried so very hard to not be caught unawares and still this place had tricked him. Then from every direction harsh jet sprays of some liquid blasted every inch of his body, every crevice, painfully for several minutes. Some of the liquid got in his mouth which caused him to gag from the repugnant taste. He tried to get it out of his mouth but every attempt just inundated his senses with more of the foul liquid. Only 2 minutes had passed from the beginning to the end. It felt like an eternity to Jason. He was just thankful it was over.
Jason heard shouting and knocking on the door. It was probably the girl freaking out. He tried to find some sort of release to open the room’s doorway when he felt his skin warming all over. Was he burning? His flesh felt tingly and steam rose up to the ceiling, sticking to it, coalescing into a dense fog, looking almost gelatinous sitting on the ceiling. This lasted but a moment before the doorway opened and in tumbled the girl. She had lost the wall without warning and fell face first into the room. Jason caught her, not letting her fall to the ground.
“Hey, it’s ok. Stupid thing just gave me a shower… I think. But we should get out of here before it gets any more ideas.”
The girl sniffled, standing under her own power once more. She nodded and brushed the tears from her eyes. It scared her that she had been separated from the only person she knew here. Jason could see that she didn’t want him to leave her, even for the briefest of time. He could understand that. He didn’t want to lose site of her either. There was the matter of her safety to consider, but it was comforting to have someone there that he was experiencing this with. Not to mention, she had pulled him out of his own fears twice now. Certainly it would be a benefit to him to keep her near to trigger those protective instincts that would save not just her, but both of them. Instinctually, They both knew that the other was likely to be his only hope in surviving whatever was going on.
They stepped out, back into the main room, and the girl returning to sitting on the bed while Jason went over to the sink to investigate it. He didn’t see any way to operate the sink and having learned from the shower, he didn’t look for any. Instead, his attention was on the display. It appeared to have a map of the room on it with two dots which were at located on the map where he and the girl were. This didn’t seem like a very useful feature. Scanning the monitor with a more detailed eye he spotted an icon in the upper left. Naturally he tried to push it. Surprisingly, he got a reaction. A menu opened up with several items; ‘Support’, ‘Profile’, ‘ARMS’, ‘Inventory’, ‘Maps’, ‘Contacts’, ‘Market’, ‘Library’. The menu was very reminiscent of a video game UI. He selected ‘Support’, hoping to get in contact with someone that could get him out of this situation. A window popped up and read, “Contacting Support will cost 1 credit per minute. Would you like to proceed?” He was tempted to accept, but remembering that they had only given each person 100 credits and wasting it on trying to contact and convince someone in support, in his experience, was probably a waste of time and resources. He might do it someday, but not now. Jason canceled out of that and selected “Profile”.
The profile window opened up, displaying a simple UI with several text fields;
World of Origin Sol, Earth Species Human Grade Unregistered Class Unregistered I.D. Number 000-000-000-002 Name Not Available Age Not Available Height 177.8 cm Weight 69.39 kg Strength Not Available - Believed Average Intelligence Not Available - Believed Average Currency 100 Credits
The information was laid out in a very game-like way. The design was efficient so it made sense that it was the case. Jason looked over the list and noticed that only the things they could measure and know without direct inquiry or probing was what had definite information on. He was curious about the ID number, why it was so low, but it wasn’t important and he confirm a suspicion he had about it later. Seeing that it would be a problem to give them his name, he tapped on the “Name” field.
“Please say your name,” a feminine voice with a slight digital sound to it spoke from empty space.
“Jason Gideon,” said giving his name to the disembodied voice and watched the text on the display changed to show it.
“Is this the correct spelling of your name, Jason?”
“Yes. Thank you,” he confirmed and thanked the artificial voice without thinking.
Next, Jason canceled out of the profile window and looked into each of the menu items, not finding much of anything in any of them. They were all empty, save for in “Inventory” his backpack was listed, showing once again that they were watching and kept track of anything that they were doing. The “Market” window was also an except to being empty. It had sub-menus, all but one of that was greyed out and inaccessible to him. That one was labeled, “Unregistered” containing a “Registration Pack,” that had no list price that he could find, an “Edible Ration” for 1 credit, and a “Liquid Ration” also for 1 credit. Jason tapped the Registration Pack entry and confirmed his selection. In games it was always a good idea to open a free pack before buying something if you didn’t know what was in it to lower the chance of wasting resources Jason thought.
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What Jason thought to be a dispensary made a sound like rushing air then several clanks were heard inside of it. Jason reached for the hatch, opened it, and reached in, grabbing anything that he could. He pulled back an octogonal disc. It was flat, shiny, and black, about 10 mm thick. In the center there was a glossy octogonal area that seemed like it might be a screen or a button, but when he tried to push it it didn’t feel like it was a button. “Maybe it’s some sort of scanning tool?” Jason pondered. He placed the disc on the center his sternum with facing so that the glossy area was against his skin. No reaction. He flipped the disc around and tried again.
The machine gave an activation noise and pulled from Jason’s hand, latching onto his skin. A black substance started expanding out from the disc covering his skin in a latex-like looking substance. Jason began to panic and fell backwards onto the bed next to the girl. He tried pulling it off, but he found that he was having trouble getting a grip on it. The girl’s eyes widened and backed away from him, into the corner of the bed closer to the door, opposite of Jason. She didn’t want to risk whatever was going on happening to her. The more Jason struggled the more worried he became and the more frantically he tried to make it stop. Nothing he did worked and in the end he gave up. Jason exhausted himself, then laid there, waiting for the end. It seemed like forever had passed, but it was only a few moments in reality. The substance covered him from head to toe when it finally stopped expanding.
“Registration in process.”
Jason heard the feminine voice once more and came back to his senses realizing that he was right and he had panicked for no reason.
“Registration complete. You are now a J-Grade Scrapper. Trash Class.”
“What’s a J-Grade Scrapper?” Jason asked the voice.
The girl’s head cocked to the side confusedly, “What?” Jason may have meant to ask the voice, but he was looking at the girl. What’s more is that the girl hadn’t heard the voice this time so when Jason told her, “I’m talking to the voice.,” this made her think he had lost his mind a bit. When he saw the expression on her face, he grew suspicious.
“You didn’t hear the voice?”
“I heard a voice before,” she replied tentatively.
“I mean… When it said the registration stuff.”
“No. Are you alright?”
Jason realize he had frightened her in his panic over the scanner and gave her a nod, “I’m fine.” Then, it crossed his mind that the scanner wasn’t deactivating. “This seems to be stuck on me though.” Reaching up to the disc, he gave it a light tug. To his surprise the black material was instantly pulled back into it and came away from his skin with no effort whatsoever. He was naked again. The girl instinctively blushed and turned away even though they had been naked this entire time. He saw this reaction and quickly put the disc back to his sternum, hoping to restore the coverings. He was in luck. They came back instantly. The first usage must have taken longer for some reason, but he didn’t know what.
The girl watched the material wrap itself around Jason. Seeing that it was safe and everything was ok, she slowly physically went through a transformation becoming excited and bursting with energy. “So cool!” she shouted. The girl pointed at the device. There was something to be said for the ability for children to adapt to a situation and go back to kid mode. It was as if she had completely forgot about the situation they were in.
“Give me one! Give me one!”
“Ok ok, let me see if I can find you one.”
Jason went back to the display to look what he could do. He saw that the Registration Pack was greyed out, but another sub-menu in the Market had lit up. He took a peak in it. opening the window opened an alert window, “Registration has given you access to 1 J-Grade ARMS for free. Once the selection is made the ARMS cannot be returned. If lost you will have to find another way to procure a new one.” He closed the message and looked over the list of available items; Dagger, Javelin, Buckler, Staff, Cross, Knuckles. He quickly selected the dagger. The other ARMS had potential, but Jason thought that the easiest to use and had the most uses was the dagger. The dispenser came to life again and again he found an octogonal disc. This one had a blue bladed weapon icon in the glossy central area on the disc. He set it on the sink and went back to the display and looked through everything he could gain access to in the market, but ended up finding nothing he could get for the girl.
Jason picked up and placed the disc on the right side of his waist causing disc to form a reverse cross-draw sheath with a dagger hilt protruding from it. He drew the weapon, confirming that it was a dagger. A very simple one that gave no hint of being some high tech equipment other than the hilt that was made of advanced materials not known of on Earth. He resheathed the blade and tugged on it. It didn’t budge. Feeling around the sheath and trying to press, push, or anything else he could think of trying, he finally found release mechanism that turned it back into an octagonal disc. He threw the disc in his backpack and his backpack over his shoulder and head for the door.
“Let’s check your room.”
The girl was hurried to follow Jason, but he stopped her from running out into the main room carelessly. He stuck his head and looked around to see if anyone was there, or worse, near-by. He didn’t see anyone so he stepped out, motioning for the girl to follow and get to the other room quickly. The door to his barrack shut automatically behind them. The girl opened her door so they could go in. The barrack was the exact same as the other one. Jason went straight to the monitor and opened the Market to get the girl her Registration Pack only to find there was nothing there. There had to be a mistake. There was no way they’d give advantages to some and not to others. If that was true though and this girl had been one to not get anything, how unlucky must she be?