Frank sat in his chair, still spinning from his rough landing. He stared helplessly at the screen in front of him, which moved to keep itself a fixed distance in front of his face. He stood up sharply, his chair sliding back into the wall of his cubicle.
The cubicles next to him were empty. He could still feel the warmth from Jason’s hand.
His breathing started becoming panicked. “They’re gone. Okay. Some weird flash of light took my friends. Were we friends? Jason would probably think so, but I don’t know about Sanjay.”
He chuckled nervously. Probably not the thing to be worrying about right now.
Looking past his cubicle group, he tried to spot anyone else who might still be in the office. There weren’t many people on this floor, so a visual inspection was quick. He was alone.
“Is there anybody else here?” he called out.
All he heard back was the air conditioning kicking in.
Okay. Deep breaths. Maybe everyone who’s left will be at the emergency meeting site. Right? He glanced around. This feels like it could be considered an emergency.
He stepped out of his cubicle. The screen followed him, and he eyed it warily. “You told everyone that the teleportation thing was going to happen, right? Any chance you could tell me something helpful, instead? Something that will make me feel a little less like the sky is falling?”
The screen didn’t respond. It maintained the same message:
Unable to finish teleportation operation. Emergency procedures engaged.
Please wait while procedures are confirmed…
Error! Planet [Earth] does not fit any emergency procedure conditions!
Engaging Auto-Sweep to clean loose ends.
“Hmm. No. Well, I guess I should get to my own ‘emergency procedures’ then.”
He tried side-stepping the ominous message, but it remained resolutely in the center of his vision. Frustrated, he swiped his hand at it, and it slid to his peripheral vision, compressing into a neat little notice with an exclamation mark.
“Oh, great. I have a personal heads-up display now. Just what I always wanted…” With his vision now clear and feeling like he had a bit more control over the situation, he set off.
Okay, first step in meeting at the evacuation site: find a map to the evacuation site.
He heard a crashing boom from outside.
I’m sure that’s fine.
It was not fine. He stood on the second floor landing of the stairs, where he had found emergency exit procedures. He’d had a moment to look at them before his attention was drawn out the window beside the map.
Frank worked in an office that its architect might sell as a ‘timeless look for industries of all kinds’, but could charitably be called a brutalist enclosure for humanity. ‘Office’ and ‘Park’ were not words that should be joined together.
This office was considered accessible, which meant that it sat right off the freeway. From the window that Frank stood at, he had a good view of the road.
He was glad he hadn’t gone out for lunch yet.
The entire roadway was a wreckage of steel and wheels, the occupants having either crashed when magic screens showed up in their faces while driving, or disappeared entirely, leaving vehicles to drift aimlessly.
This was the first time he’d seen people since his coworkers had been teleported.
Unfortunately, this was also the first time he’d seen dead people. He turned away, queasy.
This isn’t good.
With a little prompting, he pulled back up the notice.
Error! Teleportation capacity exceeded.
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
8,126,934,201 / 7,000,000,000
“This is happening everywhere.” He glanced back out the window before looking away. Guess it’s not gonna be climate change that gets us.
He dismissed the notification again, letting it collapse to the side of his vision. He stood back up, and continued down the stairs. The assembly point was downstairs. Hopefully someone would be there.
Even after waiting for a while, no one else showed up. He was alone at the office.
Frank sighed. “I never thought I’d find myself wishing remote work was abolished.”
He looked around the little courtyard. If it weren’t for the unwelcome notice in the corner of his vision, it would be a lovely day. The sun was out, giving a nice, gentle warmth as he sat on a bench in the middle of the nice, manicured lawn. There wasn’t even a single plane in the sky to break the calm of the day.
Suddenly, a new screen popped into view.
Auto-Sweep process engaging.
Errors to resolve:
[Users] on world
Unusual energy signatures on world
Unknown Skills detected
His stomach sank. “What now?”
Resolving: Unknown Skills detected
Categorizing Skills...
Integrating Skills...
Unknown Skills no longer detected
Resolving: Unusual energy signatures on world
Analyzing energy signatures…
Integrating energy signatures…
New Skills created!
Resolving: [Users] on world
Error! [Users] on world that has been evacuated.
Recategorizing [Users]...
Another pop-up appeared in Frank’s view. This one appeared to be a status sheet, though it was filled with all manner of data that he couldn’t parse at a glance. What did draw his attention, however, were a few lines at the top:
Frank Vila
Human [User]
As he looked, it changed to:
Frank Vila
Human [Native]
Then it disappeared.
Resolving: [Users] on world
Error! [Users] on world that has been evacuated.
Recategorizing [Users]...
[Users] recategorized!
[Users] no longer on world.
All errors resolved!
Beginning terraforming…
The blue screen stopped updating, and a green screen appeared. Frank ignored it, compressing it to the side of his view immediately. He laid down and looked at the sky. “I was not ready for today.”
The clouds scudded by as he lay there, letting himself have a moment to just be, without worry.
Distantly, another explosion sounded.
“Yeah, okay, so much for that. Let’s take a look at the information I have, shall we?”
He flipped open the blue screen, the log of messages he’d received still present.
“Whatever this is, it looks like it was trying to teleport everyone on Earth. Obviously, it failed. That means there are definitely still others out there. At least…” He squinted at the numbers. “One billion and some change. That feels like a lot, at least.”
He scrolled up further. “I guess the 7 billion lucky winners are off in the ‘tutorial phase’, whatever that means. Jason and Sanjay are probably there, and…” he was struck by a thought. “My family! They’re caught up in this too.”
He reached for the phone in his pocket, before he remembered that it was still at his desk. I need to check in on them. Right now I have no leads on what is happening to them, or where they are. I’ll need to get my phone, but I’m concerned about this latest message. All the [Users] on the planet, which I assume is everyone, are now considered [Natives]. He tilted his head. “Hmm, feels a bit like a downgrade, but I don’t know where everything fits in. It said it’s some System, right? So, a [User] feels pretty straightforward, but [Native]? I have no idea.”
He glanced at the green notification at the side. Maybe this will give me some clues. He pulled the green notification over, letting the blue screen disappear.
Type changed to [Native]!
[Native] : generally reserved for unintelligent life, [Native] provides System access. This access can expand and change as [Native] is affected by terraforming. For more information, see [Lifeform] type.
The screen vanished shortly after he finished reading it.
“Okay. So, definitely a downgrade,” he said shakily. “Subject to terraforming can’t be good, can it?”
He stood up on wobbly legs, and gave one last look around. No one had shown up yet. It was time to move on. He started heading back to the office. “If I can get in contact with my family, great. If not, maybe I can reach out to someone else. Sanjay seemed to have an idea of what was going on; maybe someone else does as well.”
His stomach growled. Jason had some food stored away, too. Anxiety straddling his shoulders like a child he’d never had, he made his way back to the office, eyes peeled for signs of this ‘terraforming’.
It didn’t take long to find him, as a glowing blue squirrel jumped him on his way in the building.