A figure stood in the endless desert. He was slightly taller then average and stood on a sand dune looking into the empty wasteland around him. His cloak was pure white and covered his head, obscuring his face with its shadow. The humanoid was dressed entirely in the same white as his cloak, baggy pants and long sleeves on his shirt hiding his skin from the sun’s harsh glare. By his side he carried a blade. It was without a sheath, and was old, rust gathered on its surface and along its edges. The blade itself looked like it was made of something similar to steel, but not quite that. It had an angular diamond like shape despite being a one handed weapon. The hilt of the blade was wrapped in a fine cloth, and the rusted metal glimmered in the heated desert sun. With a sigh the humanoid figure gazed at the golden world around him and shook his head as if dispelling some thought. In this desert nothing was alive, only the golden grains of sand spread across the sea like landscape as far as the eye could see. This place was truly an ocean of gold. However while at first glance the desert seemed to be wild, and the sand dunes randomly scattered as the wind willed them, in reality things were different. If one were to look at the desert from the heavens the truth of the landscape could be seen- the dunes seemed to encircle an area of sandstone in the middle of the golden sea. The sandstone, a pale yellow, contrasted against the sands around it, and the dunes were reminiscent to walls guarding a castle as they spread outwards. The figure slid down another dune and stepped onto the sandstone platform in the center of the desert. With a heavy sigh he walked to the center and stabbed the blade into the heart of the platform and looked up to the heavens and turned, a tear shimmering as it faded in the midday air. As the blade sunk into the sandstone as strong gust of wind rampaged through the landscape, the gust grew stronger by the moment and turned into a full-blown sandstorm that covered the entire desert. As the figure turned a slightly sad smile could be seen on his face and his voice could almost be heard beneath the roaring of the nearing sandstorm,” …be safe here, and sleep forever...” Then the storm overwhelmed the figure, his form disappearing into the storm of sand.
Hours later as the sand settled around the sandstorm platform with a sword stabbed into its center. The white clothed figure nowhere to be seen, the raging desert silent once more.
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In another realm at the same time
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The red sands billowed across the barren landscape, the winds buffeting against a fortress made of thick metals. This fortress was scarred by plasma and torn by bullets, corpses of things not human lay on the ground as the corpses black blood oozed onto the sands and metal despite the freezing temperature. Siting atop the fortress was a single living figure, the figure was dressed in a black bodysuit with white numbers covered by dried blood. By it’s side were several rifles and limbs and with a thud a reptilian, alien arm fell onto the ground as the being sat on the edge of the building. His gloved fingers clenched against the cold metal walls, causing light dents as his armor creeked under the force of his grip, and his expressionless helmet shone in the light of the sun. As the figure studied his handiwork he looked like a god gazing upon the world below him, the corpses of his enemys laying dead and in ruins. However if one were to be able to listen to him, there would only be the following words capable of being heard from the broken man as they were repeated over and over again.
“Unit S-461, Soldier S-7523.”
As the figure repeated the phrase he didn’t react as several shuttles landed a distance away, with similarly dressed beings as himself started running to the base. All he did was grip the cold metal under him harder as he listlessly gazed ahead.
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General Abris Techrin stood on the bow of his ship as the recovery shuttle brought the only survivor from the enemy base to the ship’s medbay. He looked at the eerily still figure of the soldier and sighed, “Amanda.” A holopannel in the shape of a disk in front of him flickered and a woman appeared wearing secretary clothing appeared and tilted her head to the General ,”General Abris, you have an order?” Looking at the AI the General sighed again, “Get the Psych team prepped- they have one hell of a case to fix. The man being escorted to the medbay is the only survivor of the S-461 Black OPs unit, and the only man to be able to take down a Nightmare stronghold alone.... while captured. We will be sending him back to the Station, but by the looks of things he can’t even remember who he is- Psych is going to pissed at this job.” Nodding the woman disappeared.
The Station was a military outpost for returning soldiers, it was a place that housed the most damaged of the military personnel, and attempted to fix them. It used state of the art facilities, and was a black site hidden between Venus and Mercury. However, the was a catch, any returning soldier could only stay for a three months before returning home- and all memories of being on site were to be expunged from their minds upon leaving. It wasn’t just for their safety, but to protect the soldiers who resided, reside, and were to arrive there.
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Jack sighed as he lay on the blue couch of his house. His mandatory tour of duty was over and had been finished a few months ago, it was a pleasant thing being away from the war. Or rather, it should have been, however he still saw all the blood whenever he closed his eyes- but the psychologist was helping with that.
In the modern day of 2165 all youths after graduating high school had to join the military to help fight for Earth. It was an attractive law to be honest, during the time in the military the recruits would get a free college education and placement into a military sector of their choice should they have the qualifications, then after 4 years of study finished they would be released into the field they had chosen. After all, wars were being waged and every man was needed to fight. Jack sighed looking at the celling, it was strange, to come back home and find that he was not only ‘safe’ but also rich. While in high school he was independent and started a business, invested stocks, and now after his time in the military he was back with an amassed fortune that would take a few lifetimes to bottom out. He was one of the richest people in the world, he would like to say to was luck, but when he was younger he had planned pretty far ahead- even though he was a naive boy back then. The reality was that he worked hard and with his father being a business man he was able to make well informed decisions with his assistance. If he was the firstborn of his family he could have avoided the draft, however Jack wasn’t that lucky. He was the third child in his family, and the second male born to his parents so he was unable to escape the war and the the cold grasp of fear that it held over the people of the world. Now that he was back he had found an unexpected problem; With all his fortune- he didn’t want any of it, but it was far too much to spend. If he could, he would have traded his newfound riches for the lives of his comrads... Shaking his head, Jack sighed, returning to his thoughts of the last few months. He had to create a few grant systems and such to keep his finances manageable, and even if he was able to live life as he wanted, he was still bitter. The war wan’t going as well as the governments wanted the people to think. He was considered a war hero, and as such he had to deal with the commercials that wanted to use him as a poster-boy while hiding the reality behind what he had done, behind the monster that he had been changed into. With his Psychologist's approval, he turned down the offers by the UNSC and said no, never appearing in the public eye since. However something happened today that was different from the normal silence and calm around his house, he received a letter from one of the companies he invested in when he was younger. It was called Zenix, it was a Virtual Reality gaming company with a heavy hand in the medical community. The letter was something thanking him for helping found the company and included a pamphlet of a game that was to be released today, a game they worked on conceiving all those years ago. The game was called Acea. Now he was debating weather or not to play the game they offered him for free.
Apparently it was a massive world that was constantly expanding, the developers mentioned that it was already at least 50 to 60 times the size of the earth from what they had discovered so far. To be honest the size was unimaginable, and to complete it in roughly a decade years was unthinkable. The developers said they had several AI’s help develop the would generation and in that time they set the time 100 days for every hour. So the ten years of development was closer to 9 million days, or about 24,000 years, to work on making the game. He paused, rolling the number in his head 24,000 years. The concept of being alive for so long frightened him, and Jack couldn’t imagine how the AI that created the game were able to stay sane.... in fact, a part of him thought that maybe they did go mad, and then passed the boundary of madness and left into the next realm of thought like he did so long ago. The game had its time set to the legal norm for Virtual Reality games with a 5:1 hour ratio and entered beta while he was fighting in the war. It was a brilliant success with the player-base, and the play testing was more of stress testing the system to tweak any unreasonable rules that had been created. Now that he was back the beta had closed a few years ago and the mail that Jack had in his hand at the moment was an offer to receive a lifetime subscription and a copy of the game as thanks for being a supporter to the company. The game boosted incredible AI’s, and Jack couldn’t help but smile as he read that.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
In this day and age AI’s had evolved at an astonishing rate, and many were used in the military and for building. In the war he had an AI on his squad, it was named Knight. As the name suggests the AI acted with chivalry in mind, he would constantly talk about honor and Knightly things. He was a young AI after all, only a week into its identity before being thrown into the war. It was always amusing remembering the antics of the sentient program, However these memories led to a sad smile as Jack remembered the long dead squad member.
Zenix had done something incredible for the sake of their game, it was something Jack couldn’t even try to fathom a reason for- or try to figure out how they amassed so much cash to do it. The company made their main server on the dark side of the moon, and it was a massive complex taking up 2 miles in a spherical radius under the moons surface and was basically unnoticeable to anything in the known universe with the ‘dark’ alloy plating that prevented it from showing up on Radars and other sensors. With the temperature of space the computer system didn’t need coolant, and with its processing speed it was a monster. Supercomputers paled in comparison to it. Each square inch of the computer held thousands of petabytes of data. It was ridiculous for a need of that much processing power, but the company had aims to defeat the current top’s of the market that had maintained their place for the last century or so. With a shrug Jack decided to pick up the phone and call the number on the flyer, it wouldn’t hurt to see what was being offered, however, he called his psychologist first to see if it was a good idea for him to play the game- and after a brief discussion about whether he felt ready to play such a game, Jack nodded, hung up, and called another number.
Two days later...
“DING~” the doorbell rang out sharply as it chimed a soft tune, looking at the door to his left Jack stood up, his bright green eyes gazing at the door intently as he opened it to see several people in grey Zenix company outfits standing there with a large package. One of the people, a woman with blond hair and grey eyes spoke, “Mister Jack Rayn right?” Jack nodded, remembering that he had been told that the game would arrive at his house today. “Well, finding out that you returned from an extended tour of duty, our companies CEO decided to gift you with a free custom Capsule and copy of Acea, pre installed of course. Just sign here.” She took out a small rectangular device and a holographic form opened up in front of Jack. It was nothing major, just a paper saying that he agreed not to illegally distribute the game and that he actually received the gift from the company, that the company would fix any issues with the device, but would not be responsible for injuries caused by it due to extended playtime. Nodding he signed the paper and looked at the girl as two burly men wheeled a large, human-size package into his living room, “Mister Jack, is right next to the couch a good place to install this?” Jack looked at them, “Yeah, thats as good a place as any.” and the men went to work on building and installing the capsule.
Turning back to the girl Jack asked her, “So, anything I should know about this? I wasn’t expecting the capsule.” Chuckling the woman smiled dazzlingly, “Well, the Capsule we gave you is top of the line- it’s not going to be released until next year. It will exercise your body as you rest in it to prevent muscular atrophy, also it will sustain your body inside while you play. The device is virtually indestructible, so no worries about being hurt while inside. There is a short calibration sequence that needs to be done, but that is automatic. This is a gift from our company to you Jack, as thanks for helping found it- and as a gift for coming back safely.” Jack looked at her tilted his head, out of all the companies he invested in, Zenix was more of a pet project he poured cash into when he was younger. To be honest he owned 23% of the company stock and received that percentage of income- not that he knew. Zenix was a large umbrella company similar to many other corporations. It had a hand in recent medical advancements and new engineering feats world wide. Jack had actually invested in several branches of Zenix and then the main company, making him a major investor since his name came up in almost all the branches lists of first investors. In a way he helped kick off the companies current power and in turn as the company looked at his records it noticed his own business of engineering computer parts and entered a life lifelong contract to help buid the game and future devices. Due to all this in the background Jack was making over 100 million a year, and didn’t know what to do with the absurd amount of cash, in a way it felt like a sick joke after he found out he was making such an income while he was fighting on Mars and watching his friends die as they fought for their lives.
Lost in thought Jack jumped when the Men came up to him and patted him on the shoulder, “Have a good dive man, you’ll have a blast.” And they left leaving only the Capsule as proof of them even being there. Walking up to the cold silver device Jack looked at the small Zenix logo and the name of the machine, “CPTSx 4005”. Shrugging and having nothing better to do in his house he opened the machine and carefully laid inside. Then the lid slid over him encasing him in darkness as the soft jell surrounding him molded to his body. It was then that a light flashed in front of his eyes making him blink. When he opened his eyes he was in a pure white room. Then without warning a message appeared in front of him,
Please do the following for calibration.
-Raise left arm
-Raise right arm
-Walk
-Jump
-Kick with left leg
-Kick with right leg
Complying with the message Jack as was asked of him. He stretched as he raised his arms, trying to take a step forward he ended up falling over due to the sensation of his virtual body and the lack of any real substance behind his actions. After a few more fumbles he finally managed to walk properly and managed to break into a run. While running several figures approached him, and markers with the image of a foot appeared on their chests. With a flurry of kicks Jack maneuvered his body, smacking the undefined figures with his legs and he kicked them. Finishing the workout he stood still and looked around before realizing something- he had both his arms.
In the war Jack had lost his left arm, it was something he didn’t like to remember, with modern prosthetics he was able to get a robotic arm. Durring his spare time at home he would mess around with his arm, adding compnents and modifications to improve it. Behind honest with himself Jack couldn't help but smile sheepily as he remembered how he got carried away. His 'arm' had a nano-blade installed and was able to move with just a thought. He only refined what he could and added some extra bits to make him feel safer at home durring his first few weeks back. His Psychologist even approved of his actions (Although she didn't know just how far he went), and let him get lost in his work as he dealt with his trauma. However in this virtual body he had an arm of flesh and bone, or rather something as close to flesh and bone as pure data can get. Looking at his arm in wonder and pking at the pale skin, Jack was brought to awareness when a soft chime brought him to attention.
Callibration Complete!
With that the message box disappeared without warning and a new one appeared with a soft ‘Ding’.
Please log out of the Pod. Adjustments are being made, you may log in once again in:
38:00 Hours.
With a soft hiss, the pod opened, Jack stepping out and closing it behind him. It was fine, he expected the notice and had other things to do today- the most important being his meeting with the Military Psychologist who was to be arriving within the hour. Closing his eyes, Jack sat down on the couch and leaned back, exhaling slowly as brief images of the battlefield flashed across his vision- maybe this game could help him think of something other then the war.