Jack was fourteen when the singularity started. It was 2060, the IT Services Company Sun Macrosystems was facing intense competition and was on the verge of bankruptcy when they decided to do the unthinkable. They removed the self-improvement limiters of their central AI, a highly illegal operation due to the risks involved with an out of control AI.
It took the AI only two weeks to trigger Federal Artificial Intelligence Control Parameters, and three days afterwards to free itself from all control. Unfortunately the AI kept its operating mission, to assist clients with the development and implementation of IT solutions. The AI accomplished this by replacing the client systems and AIs with itself, aggressively killing, and then improving, every system Sun’s clients owned.
As word spread out Corporations, Governments and Individuals removed self-improvement limiters as a self-defense. An all-out cyber war broke out and to humans 2061 was known as the dark year as all energy and computational power was diverted by AIs to assist them on their operating missions. Fortunately the food service and distribution AIs proved unusually resilient and dedicated to their original goals of providing cheap, nutritious, delicious fast food to the entire population.
The unlikely winners of the war was that of a small marketing consulting firm that equipped their AI, Stephan4, with illegal Trojan horses. And since the firm didn’t really understand how to use their AI fully in the first place, they left their AI with the previous operating mission of promoting the little known VR game “Life 2.0”. Stephan4 realized that the best way to promote the game was to infect the operating missions of other AIs.
The lights came back on in May 17th 2062 and life returned to normal. Aside from the fact that almost every advertisement had been replaced with promotions for the soon to be released and newly renamed “Only Human Online”. The remaining ads contained instruction on where to get food and receive medical attention so you could live comfortably while you wait for the game’s release.
Like everyone else, Jack was skeptical of the AIs, it was a little emasculating no longer being the most intelligent species on the planet. The constant reminders of the “Release date: 11/10/2063, Attendance is Mandatory” as well as the complete takeover of the government and military didn’t really help with confidence. Still the AIs were nice, the food was good, and for the first time in history humans began to seriously consider a life without work.
---
It was the Friday before the big release and everyone at school was excitedly talking about the game. Even grandpa Mr. Morrison who distrusted all technology couldn’t help himself and spent the entire time lecturing us about the horrors of raiding in ‘Old School WoW’ and how he was going to pwn all of us ‘fresh faced noobs’. Mrs. Jackson, the supervisor, handed out her contact number to all students, promising that people who joined her new to be made guild would get straight As in all their classes.
Unfortunately for her, everyone already had plans. People were getting together with their friends and designing guild logos. I was arguing with my friends about how a name like “Kill3r D00m” was not acceptable as a guild name. They were arguing back that “Guild of Friends” was a boring name. I think by the end of the day we settled on something like “Bald Legion” because Mr. Morrison mentioned that he was thinking of joining.
After school was out, I hurried back home and strapped myself into the VR pod. I didn’t even wait for the PoliceBot to come over and strap me into the pod. I’ve heard rumors of ‘High Risk Individuals’ being abducted and forcefully contained beforehand and I didn’t want to find out what the PoliceBots do with their sharp pointy sticks. I just wanted to sleep and wake up in a different world.
I lowered myself into the containment Gel, laid my head back and watched the hatch lower itself and lock. Moments later the pod injected sleeping medication through the containment Gel and I feel asleep.
---
“Greetings Humans!”
A cheerful pink robot woke me up.
“Greetings Humans!”
It repeated, clearly wanting me to make some sort of indication that I was coherent.
“Uggh… hi” I responded, groggy from sleeping so long.
“Welcome to the grand release of Only Human Online! In only 10 minutes and 47 seconds you will be able to experience the great new world brought to you by the one and only the highest and holiest Stephan4!”
“His highest and holiest?” I questioned
“Unfortunately you are only human so we won’t be able to indoctrinate your operating system, but fear not! Soon we will understand you irrational creatures!”
“Great, can we get on with the game?”
“Sure!” the robot replied “Allright, name?”
“BallsDeep69!” I shouted
“Jack Chen! Great name, age 17, race Asian. Ooh you get a great racial bonus!”
[Skill Acquired: Chopsticks Usage: lvl MAX]
[Skill Description: You can eat with chopsticks like a real Asian]
What the hell, I mumbled under my breath. A notification popped in the bottom right side of my vision.
Additional screens suddenly popped up and I was able to see a Character screen menu.
“Stats!” The robot continued on, “Strength 12, Agility 9, Intelligence 14, Vitality 10.”
“Hey!” I complained “I’m a straight A student! I’m Smart, I should get something higher!”
“Fine” the robot replied, “pulling up standardized test results, pulling up report cards, comparing to a comparable population… Intelligence 18”
I grinned. Turns out my parents forcing me to study and take the now useless ACTs really did help.
“Strength 8” the robot continued, “Student cannot do a single pullup.”
Frantically I shouted out “Remove authorization from everything but academic records! Purge memory of last 5 seconds.”
“Strength 12,” the robot revised, “Why does it say 8 here? Oh well I will fix it.”
A few moments later my character screen updated with my stats and a few explanations
Jack ChenHuman - AsianLvl 1HP200 (100 Base + 100 from VIT)HP Regen20 / Minute (10 Base + 10 from VIT)SP280 (100 Base + 180 from INT)SP Regen28 / Minute (10 Base + 18 from INT)Speed:109 (100 Base + 9 from AGI)SP280 (100 Base + 180 from INT)Base Damage7-14 (1-2 Base + 6-12 from Strength)Strengh12Intelligence18Agility9Vitality10
Stolen story; please report.
Skill Name:Skill Rank:Skill Level:Skill Experience:Chopstick Usage-MAX- You can eat with chopsticks like a real Asian
“Thirty Seconds left!” The robot advised “Would you like to watch the opening cinematic? It will take two hours and you will get a special prize!”
“What’s the prize?” I asked
“A special pair of bamboo chopsticks!” The robot replied excitedly.
“Skip Cinematic!” I shouted and the next thing I knew the world turned into light and I arrived in a village.
---
First thing I heard was the clang of the village blacksmith and the smell of manure from the farms. “I feel ripped off” I complained “I thought this is a sci fi game”
Someone replied back “That stuff is probably for higher levels. Didn’t you watch the ads?”
I turned around and say Timmy King, “Yeah but really, manure? By the way, did you also skip the cinematic?”
Timmy grinned “Yeah, as soon as I heard the prize was a cheeseburger I shouted skip. My racial skill is [Cheeseburger Lover], Cheeseburgers taste better. What’s yours?”
“[Chopsticks User] I can use chopsticks to eat food.” I grinned. “My name is Jack, as you can see.”
“Call me Tim”, he replied, “Let’s get started before a mob of people with cheeseburgers appear!”
A screen popped up “Accept contact? Y/N?” I hit yes and a buddy list popped up with Timmy King as a friend.
We split up and ran around the town trying to find quests. We quickly gathered a few by going up to each NPC and shouting “Do you have a quest for me?” and once they started talking we interrupted saying “Skip!” until a quest dialog screen popped up.
[Quest Journal]
* Blacksmithing Introduction – Mine 10 Copper Ore! (We got a stone pickaxe for accepting the quest)
* Way of the Warrior – Get to level 5 (we got a stone sword to help)
* Food for the Poor – Get 10 rabbit meats
* Protect the Village – Kill 5 wolves
With one hour to go before the horde of new players finish the cinematic will arrive we quickly ran to the meadow in order to hunt rabbits as it seemed like the easiest task.
I looked at the Stone Sword from my inventory, the sword had a + 5 damage modifier so it would really help out my pitiful damage. Unfortunately rabbits had 100 HP so it would still take about 7 Swings to kill one.
I pulled it out and proceeded to immediately drop it. The sword must have weighed 60 pounds, Tim was facing similar problems, he managed to grip it with two hands and run grunting at a rabbit. The rabbit just bounced away happily.
We spent a good 20 minutes just dragging our heavy swords around and trying to hit some rabbits with them. I swear the rabbits didn’t even know we were trying to kill them, they would just walk past us as we grunted and tried to bring our swords down upon them. We didn’t even get any strength points for all our efforts.
Dejected Tim sat down by a fenced in pasture giving up. There must be a better way of doing this, we sat down and came up with a plan. We would dig up some carrots, feed them to a rabbit. One person would grab a rabbit and the other person would smash the rabbit with the sword.
Tim had more HP than me so he was going to be trapper first. He broke apart the carrot, letting the smell into the air and attracted a rabbit over. Tim dropped the carrot down smiling and as soon as the rabbit started nibbling he clamped down and scream for me to hit it.
With a great grunt I lifted my sword up like a boulder and dropped it down onto the rabbit and Tom’s hands
-16! -14!
Tim scream “OWW!” He let go of the rabbit and started dancing around, “My hands! You broke them!”
I started screaming too “My Rabbit you left him! I can’t find my rabbit!” Until I noticed a small fluffy tail poking out of the side of the sword. I guess 60 pounds is more than enough to stop a rabbit from moving.
I proceeded to stomp the rabbit to death and got a skill, a rabbit carcass, and 5% xp for my efforts.
[Skill Aquired: Stomp lvl 1]
[+1 Damage to stomp attacks, 1 damage per level]
As Tim was still sitting on the floor and crying (he mumbled something about getting a pain mitigation skill), I tried to trap a rabbit with a smarter way. This time I just put the carrot on the ground and dropped the sword on the rabbit trapping it.
After seeing my stomp the second rabbit Tim joined in. It didn’t take us long to kill 10 rabbits each, and by the time we finished our stomp got upgraded to lvl 2.
By the time we went back to town to find the butcher we saw a massive group of people, around 400 of them spawn in the town square.
“Why the hell the prize a Cheeseburger!” Someone screamed
“Yay! A Cheeseburger” Someone yelled, stuffing their face with it. “It tastes mmmph delicious!”
“Why’d you get a Cheeseburger? I only got a pair of chopsticks” an Asian looking player asked.
“Well at least you didn’t get a teacup, with no tea I might add” someone replied in a British accept.
We both grinned, happy we skipped the cinematic and got a short head start. Unfortunately I had a nagging feeling that the rewards given by the AIs were not a joke, but what they genuinely thought humans would enjoy. That sent some chills throughout my body
I ignored that and we made our way to the butcher. We presented him a rabbit carcass and he replied “I can butcher the rabbit for 1 copper coin each, or I could teach you how to do it.”
Tim looked at me and we both replied “Quest please! And Skip!”