Marcus didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t a stupid man, but he was also stuck on an island that he didn’t have a boat to get off of.
His boat was gone. It was a beautiful place, but this was so scary. That night, he just cried. He had found some fruit on his hike, so he had something in his stomach.
He just felt so hollow. He had no family left.
His parents were gone.
He was an only child. He had never found a mate in any which way. He did date when he was younger, but he never found anyone that made him miss them. Maybe something was wrong with him. He didn’t know.
But the next morning, he realized that this was his retirement. He was 44 years old and a single fisherman in a little village. So he decided to take one last adventure.
When he got up, he looked around the cave. It was a beautiful pre-sunrise.
The sun was not coming over the horizon, but the colors were just starting to change. The darkness was just starting to recede, where you could just start seeing shadows. Looking out over the ocean was breathtaking and beautiful, like every day. But from this height, in this cave, with all the weirdness in this cave and its glowing lights, it was magical.
He just sat there with a handful of berries. It just made his decision.
He got up, walked directly over to the table where the book was opened.
The book. There was just a line in the book, and he wrote his name with the quill.
It was his first time ever using a quill, so it was a little messy, but it was amazing because the mess disappeared after he took the pen/quill away. As he moved his hand away, the quill became a pen, and the writing was clean and neat, like he had written it with a pen. He looked down, and under where he had written his name, words just started to appear below the line. It wrote this:
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Hello Marcus,
Oh, really? Yes.
By signing your name in this book, you hereby agree to read a contract. This contract will be scrubbed from your mind if you do not sign it, and there is no harm to you at that point. You are given 24 hours to leave the island, and your boat will be returned to you at that time. If you sign the contract, you will be given more information.
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The next pages changed into text. It was an NDA. It was straightforward, saying nothing, and you keep your memory. If you don’t sign it, you will get your memory wiped and get the hell off our island.
Marcus just went to the last page and signed. He was already in. Screw it. Let’s play ball.
Everybody in his village took Marcus not as a weird person but as one that was super focused on things in his life. At one point, it was baseball and pop music. He would get into these phases, and it would take sometimes years for him to get out of them or for him to get enough information where he’d be happy just having it in his brain. Then he wouldn’t have to feed the thoughts anymore. Well, this had piqued his interest.
Marcus was sitting there in front of this book. The moment he put the pen down next to the empty inkwell—yes, the desk even changed a little bit—things...
Around him, things were changing in real time. He was literally just looking around. He took his eyes off the book, and the book shut itself. Then he heard a very large click come from behind him, from the far corner—from the door. The lock had unlocked, and the door slowly, just a small amount, opened up to show that it wasn’t closed or locked anymore.
This intrigued Marcus. So he got up, went over, grabbed the door, and opened it. He looked inside. What he found was like a broom closet. It was small. There was just one black stone chair, and on the chair was a letter with a red seal on it.
Marcus took the letter from the chair, backed up from the door, opened it, and read it:
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*Marcus, welcome. You are now this planet’s guardian. Others have used different names, like caretaker or one of the fates, but that’s all up to what you make of it. Once you sit in the chair and close the door, you will experience one minute in this room. During that one minute, your brain will do a job that you will not remember. After that, you will be free to go back until you decide to return to this room and sit in the chair again.
In return for doing this, these are the two things that will happen:
* Problems all over the world, because of the one minute you donate, will change people’s lives—hopefully for the better. This is your job, and good luck to you.
* Your payment for doing this job is that you will earn credits on a galactic board. These credits can be redeemed for food and other products or services.
The one catch is that you will do this until the day you pass away from old age on this island. Then the island will summon a new guardian or fate to take over for you.
If you sit down in the chair and perform your first shift, you will retain your memories. If not, and you decide within 24 hours not to go through with it, your boat will be returned to you, and you will be asked to leave the island—if needed, by force.*
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This was getting stupid, so Marcus just sat down in the chair, closed the door, and said, “What do I do next?”
The moment Marcus finished that sentence, the perception of walls—just inches to feet from either side of him—disappeared. It was still black as night, but the feeling of an open area around him came into being. Then, not more than five feet in front of his face, a monitor appeared, built into a rock wall that had somehow moved further away. The door was gone.
Basically, something was definitely messing with him.
The TV came on. It showed a camera view of someone’s office or study, with bookshelves in the back filled with books.
“What? What am I looking at?” Marcus muttered.
It was a room, and there was a desk. At the desk sat a young, blue-skinned person. “Huh, interesting,” Marcus thought. He sat there for a couple of minutes, looking at the screen and examining the scene.
The person—pretty much around the same age as Marcus, maybe a little younger—had a mustache of white hair on blue skin and was writing with a quill and ink in a book that looked similar to Marcus’s own. As Marcus started to calm down and examine the person more closely, he coughed or made a slight noise while shifting in the stone chair.
The noise was enough.
The person on the screen froze. At first, their brain seemed to register the sound; Marcus noticed a twitch. Then the person began to look around. Finally, their gaze fell on Marcus.
Marcus started waving without saying a word.
All of a sudden, the man on the screen froze.
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Abe, the apprentice, was sitting at his master’s desk. It had only been about three weeks since his master’s passing. Abe was now the keeper of this place, and being in charge for just a month, it all still felt like too much.
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The sound startled him. He had been alone in his room when he heard it. Turning to look around, he saw one of the paintings waving at him and smiling. He froze, unable to process what was happening.
Abe had been told that his order was there to guide the guardians of each planet. But he had never seen any of them, let alone spoken to one. That had always been his master’s job. The last time Abe’s master mentioned communicating with a guardian had been long before Abe’s time. It simply hadn’t happened in ages.
Still, Abe had been taught what to do. He never thought he’d actually have to do it, though.
He stood up, placed his hand over his heart, and said, “Please hold.”
He didn’t know exactly what those words meant, but he had been told they would calm the other person while he prepared.
Abe walked behind his desk to a bookshelf. One section of the bookshelf, where books should have been, was solid wood. He placed his hand on the wood, pulled it down, and revealed a hidden compartment. Inside was one large, ancient book.
Abe took this big book, did an about-turn, walked four steps to a lectern facing the screen, put the book down, opened it, and went to the first page. He began to read:
"Hello, Guardian. My name is..." (Abe added his name here) "...Abe Mansfree."
He continued to read:
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*When you are ready to do your daily job, all you need to do is say to the system that can hear you right now, while you're sitting in that chair, ‘Please start my daily job.’ That will then give you a cue, and you will have the ability to work as long as you want and earn as much money in credits on the Galactic Board.
The Galactic Board is a store. After your first shift, you can access the Galactic Board by saying, ‘Please show me what I can buy on the Galactic Board with,’ and then state the amount of money you want to spend. Or, you can ask, ‘Does the Galactic Board have such a product?’ It will either show you the price or nothing at all.
We are now going to let you know about an interface. We call it the Galactic Interface. It's just a visual overlay added to your eyes. It's a piece of glass that will be inserted. And it's... now it's done.*
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Marcus felt it literally slip into both eyes. He felt a piece of glass instantly materialize under his eyelids. It was such a weird feeling. But within seconds, he could see blue boxes everywhere.
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The interface will mostly be used for transactions between you and the Galactic Board. However, if you do not have access to your Interface Book—which is the book on the desk in your home—on your island (and it is now your island), you can use this interface. If you need to change anything on your island, you can.
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Abe read a note in the book:
This is a good place to stop and let the Guardian decompress all the information, do their first shift, and allow them to relax. Make sure they understand that to contact you, all they have to do is sit down in the chair, and this stream will appear for both of you.
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One last note:
For Abe, the book now had his name written in it magically. It was quite odd, as magic didn’t exist on his planet. There was technology, but magic wasn’t real. Now he was holding a magical book that was actively changing and talking to him—and to another person.
It was strange and unsettling. Abe had been told this would happen, but he’d never truly believed it. He’d never seen, felt, or experienced anything like this before.
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Let the Guardian know that their time spent in the chair, to them, will feel like about two hours in real time. However, their brain will experience between one day and more, depending on what they want to accomplish during their shift.
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Because Abe was reading he did not notice Marcus next action.
Marcus sat there for a moment, then said, “Start my daily job.”
He didn’t remember anything that happened. It was almost as if he’d blacked out. The next thing he noticed, the door to the little broom closet with the chair was open. He could see the sun had already risen. From its position, he knew it was still morning, though high enough in the sky that it wasn’t shining directly into the cave.
Marcus suddenly knew things he didn’t before, but he couldn’t explain how. For instance, he knew the sun was called Sol, and Earth’s designation was 800814-Earth.
He also knew that if he said, “Show my current balance on the Galactic Board,” a blue box would pop up.
“Show Galactic Board balance,” he muttered.
A blue box appeared:
15.2 GB$
Marcus walked out of the broom closet, closed the door, and went toward his desk. Placing his hands on the surface, he made a mental command:
“Galactic Board. What kind of dinner can I get for five Galactic Board credits?”
A list of 1000 different meals started scrolling past his vision, and he just stopped. He closed his eyes, and that was how he turned off any of the pop-up boxes or anything that interfered with his vision. He just closed his eyes and removed light from the lens for a moment, and that shut it down. When he opened his eyes, he saw the room, and it was not spinning anymore. He wasn't feeling nauseous, and he took a moment to breathe. There we go. Better. O.K., now that he wasn't spinning and feeling totally nauseous—of course not, he thought to himself—what did he want?
Marcus was a fisherman, so he'd eaten a lot of fish. Fish wasn't really his thing. Beef or chicken would have been nice, and he'd love chicken wings, but he wanted something more than that.
"Galactic board. What kind of meal can I get for 5 credits that has chicken and beef and a lot of other foods as a feast for one person?"
The popup came up and only showed two different options: one called the meat sampler, and one called the spicy meat sampler.
Marcus picked the non-spicy version, and the moment he picked it—he didn't even have to select it, his brain just said, "That's the one I want"—it materialized on top of his book in his cave.
It was a very large platter of meat, chicken, pork, and everything you could think of. It was even some meats he'd never seen before, with different colors like greens and purples. They all smelled so good, and he just moved his book aside. He realized his book now had his name inscribed in gold along the spine. He looked over at the shelf and saw an empty spot for his book. Now, every single other book had a chain and lock around them, instead of the big, long bar from before.
Somehow, he knew that the more he did, the more he'd be able to read those other books of the people who came before him. But that wasn't for right now. Right now, he saw and smelled that meal, and it caught his attention. He just started working on it hard. He was eating good that night.
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Abe’s Side
After Marcus had left, the screen went back to being a painting. Abe was absolutely shocked.
He had gone and talked with the other monks in the monastery. There were only four other ones, but he had explained to them that, as the new head, he was going to do something different. They were to keep at least one or two of them around at any one time, so that when the Guardian communicated with them again, he could bring them all in. They were going to do this as a group to help him out as best as they could, because that was the type of person Abe was. If he had a project or a problem, he'd focus on it and just keep on focusing until he figured out how to get it done, making sure everyone was happy or at least not mad. It was all about emotions, and he didn’t want to mess up the next generation.
Abe had gone back to his office and was sitting down at his desk when, all of a sudden, a giant platter of meat appeared on his desk. He didn't know why or what was going on, but he remembered at least twice having to come in and remove meals that the old master had created in his office. No one understood why he did it there, but supposedly he made some of the best food, so no one questioned it. Now, he understood. The old master didn’t make it. The old master was given it.
So, he called in the two others that were around, as he had asked. Actually, all four of them were there, and they all came in to see. He said, "It just appeared. Take this to the kitchen, and we're going to have a feast tonight, boys."
They all couldn't understand what was going on just yet. Abe was the most in the loop, and he wanted to read more into that book. But as he went to the next pages, they were just blank. He put the book back on the shelf and closed the wooden wall over it to hide it again. He knew their whole job was to help the Guardian, but what exactly were they helping him do? And what was with the food?
Abe, not being dumb, knew about the Galactic Board since he was a child. He had about 150 to 200 credits from working for a long time. The last time he checked, it was 210 credits from about forty years of working. He made a point of one credit a month. But when he looked at his balance, it was at 244. He had just made 34 credits by doing nothing. And he got food for it. What the hell was going on? He said all this with a smile on his face, in his own head.