“First up,” she began, “let’s ditch the phone. Put it up to your ear for a second?” Amelia requested, so I went ahead and did. Then my body twitched as the worst version of yester-years dial-up internet noises seemed to directly penetrate my skull. After a moment, I managed to toss the phone away from me.
“Fuck! What the fuck was that Amelia?” I rubbed my ear, not really knowing what else to do. I realized that I’d chucked the phone well across the room though and started heading to go pick it back up to see what else Amelia had to say.
“Well, it worked, thankfully.” Amelias voice echoed in my head.
I stopped walking, “Wait… why can I hear you?”
“Okay, we’ve got a good bit to go over and honestly, the quicker we get through it, the better off we’ll be.” Amelia let out a sigh, “I hope you can just trust me Dr. Baumer.”
“Well, voice of Amelia that is apparently in my head, please just stick to Mark, and go ahead with whatever you’re going to say, and we’ll see how insane I’ve apparently gone.” Obviously, I was losing it. No way any of this was real. Right?
“Alright, to start, I accepted being your guide, of sorts, in what’s to come. A universal system has integrated Earth into its trial phase, that’s where your Traveler designation and number came from. You were one of the first 0.1% of people to kill an ‘other’ so roughly 8 million people were given the option to become travelers, but of course some of them refused and then others have died in the interim.” Amelia began before I interrupted.
“Seriously?!”
“Yes, seriously. Now please, I have a lot to get through if we want to be successful.” I could almost see her scowl as she chided my interruption. “Next up, claimants. You moved the few who remained in the class into your temporary world. You can think of it as a sub-dimension, a temporary space, a separate planet, whatever you want really, since you can’t go there and it isn’t super important just yet.” My eyes grew wide with each new word… I was definitely going insane. “What is important, is that you need to gather more survivors for your world as one of the primary ways of gaining Personal Points. Through these, you can earn better equipment, access information, trials, or upgrade some of the facilities for your claimants. When I say upgrade, I mean luxuries, don’t worry about them, they’re taken care of just fine as they are.”
Amelia paused a moment to let me gain my bearings. “So, I just say ‘hey, come join my personal world.’ And they’re supposed to jump at the chance or…?”
“Not exactly, if you’re inside a space, like this room, and there aren’t any of the ‘other’ present, then you can simply claim them, and they will be transported. If you are in a more open area, such as outside or in a giant stadium or something without clearly defined rooms, then you can make the offer and they can accept. For a stadium, it still has the greater boundaries of the full building, so if you clear it then you can claim everyone as well. I can inform you when it’s possible though, so don’t worry too much about the specifics.”
“Cool. Cool cool cool.” I nodded along, deciding it wasn’t worth getting into the specifics of how I’d lost my mind.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
“The second way has to do a bit with what I just said, in that it’s clearing buildings. Once a building is clear, you can reduce it. This basically removes it from existence and its parts and resources are converted into points for you. In order for a building to be considered ‘cleared’ it cannot have any life left inside of it, which means you do have to exit the building as well. This means ‘others’ or humans. Sometimes it just isn’t efficient to clear everything, but we have some choice resources around campus, so we should probably reduce most of the nearby buildings.”
“Sounds good.” I continued to nod along.
“You really need to take this seriously Mark. You aren’t going to magically wake up from this and have it all gone away.” The serious tone of her voice made me focus.
What if this was actually real? What if I’m not losing it?
“Alright, last up, the ‘others’ themselves. You earn a tiny amount of points from… dispatching the base versions, like the one you already encountered, but more points can be earned from more unique creatures. Sound good?”
“Yep, sounds good.” I relpied.
“Makes sense?”
“Not even a little bit, but I’ll figure it out. Either it’s all real and I need to adapt, or I’m insane and some very nice people will be seeking me out shortly to sell me a perfectly fluffy white walled room. Either way, why fight it? So, what should I do first?” I gave up trying to avoid the situation, it would just have to work itself out one way or the other. I trusted Amelia, and if this voice was really her, might as well trust it too, at least for now.
“To start, we need to clear the building. Classes were happening and there were a ton of people here. I don’t sense any other travelers so really you just need to go around and claim the rooms of people and dispatch any others we find.”
“Okay, what if they don’t want to come with me though? I don’t really believe this yet, I definitely won’t be able to convince them.”
“Who said anything about convincing? Claim the room, they get transported, no muss, no fuss. Easy-peasy. Once they are in your sub-world, there are other helpers to explain things and get them sorted.”
“So, to be clear, my ultimate goal is to go around campus and kidnap a bunch of people while murdering monster-people?”
“I mean, I wouldn’t put it that way. Also, don’t think so small, your goal is global, not just the campus. Also, anyone who isn’t a traveler and doesn’t get claimed, well, it doesn’t go so well for them in the end.”
“Right, other travelers. Should I post on a message board to seek them out and group up or something?”
“NO!” Amelia’s response was immediate. “First up, there are no more message boards. The internet doesn’t exist, cars won’t work, guns are right out if you were thinking about using those. None of it functions anymore. The most technically complex thing we can make use of for fighting is probably a crossbow, but I generally wouldn’t recommend those. There are other things that we’ll get to that definitely make up for it though. As for other Travelers, well, Highlander rules unfortunately.”
“What now? Highlander rules?” I was so lost, and this wasn’t even something that seemed system related.
“Yeah, you know? Highlander? There can be only one? Jeeze, you’re way older than I am, how do you not know what Highlander is? But that’s the gist of it, when two travelers meet, only one remains. Half of their sub-world is integrated into the victors, but the rest, well, it’s lost.” Amelia trailed off. Lost. That many people just gone in an instant. I wasn’t sure exactly how I’d make it through this new world, this system, that was clearly callous.
“Enough of that though, we need to get this building cleared and get you some equipment, so hop to it mister!” Amelia teased. I wanted to just get back to my apartment and close the door. What in the world… this was too much! How could anyone be thrust into this and expected to just go with it?!
“Try not to think about it too much for now, let’s get through today and then we can decompress some.” Her voice was softer than it had been, as though she could sense me teetering on just quitting.
“Alright, let’s get going then.” I said and moved to the door.