No way its already time to wake up. It feels like it’s only been a few minutes.
Kyrie stretched and rolled over, reaching to pull up his blankets. Sometimes you just have to relax in life, a few more minutes wouldn’t hurt anybody.
Where’s my duvet. No way Jalen stole it again. That’s not even funny anymore.
Kyrie opened his eyes and immediately squinted, the light was way too bright in the morning and everything looked too. . .green. Kyrie twisted his head quite irritated at having his rest disturbed, but even through the thin slits of his eyes he knew something was wrong.
The fuck? Where am I?
He looked down at himself. He was wearing some sort of white tunic tied around the waist with thin rope and had some coarse brown sandals around his feet. He was definitely not wearing his normal bedtime pyjamas.
Kyrie rolled over once again wishing it was all a dream and that the next time he opened his eyes he’d be in the safety and comfort of his bed. But, against his will, the information was slowly beginning to drip back into his sleep-muddled brain.
He had been teleported and was now on some alien world created from the corpse of his own and many other planets. With a thought he summoned the blue screens.
Yep. Those still exist. Shit.
He forced himself to get up and, dragging himself to his feet, surveyed the area. He had woken in a picturesque valley. He stood in a meadow, assaulted by the buzz of insects and the obnoxious chirping of birds overhead. His feet were tickled by the soft short grass that had so cruelly tricked him to thinking he was in his own home back on Earth.
The meadow sloped downwards slightly towards the bottom of the valley through which a wide river of surprisingly clear water wended its way. It was lazy in some parts but bubbling a frothing white in others and Kyrie thought he could see the glint of fish scales from its depths.
Upstream of the river the valley became much more mountainous, so much so that Kyrie sighted snow from the top of the peaks furthest in the distance. However downstream it was the opposite. The terrain flattened, replacing the open meadows and undulating hills, and the land became more densely forested. The landscape carried on downstream as woodland as far as Kyrie could see into the distance.
“Ahh so you finally decide to wake up. You do love to sleep in.” Kyrie looked behind him to see his mother, he had been so engrossed in the magnificent view that he hadn’t noticed all the hustle and bustle of the people around. There were hundreds of them in, all in white tunics, strolling through the meadow, seemingly as dazed as Kyrie himself.
“We’re all gathering to elect a leader,” his mum said walking up to stand beside him on the slope, “just so this place doesn’t descend into anarchy. It’s happening over there on the rise.”
She pointed to the top of the hill, “I’ve been chosen to represent us as a family, and just came to check that you’d woken up. You decided to open your eyes a few hours later than everyone else.”
Kyrie squinted at his mother in the glaring sunlight, “Could you slow down. You know I’m not a morning person. Everything’s going so fast. I have so many questions. For one why are you so. . .different?”
She looked ten years younger; all the wrinkles of age were gone. She was slimmer, healthier and the way she was moving – so fast.
What happened to chronic back pain?
His mum laughed and did a mock curtsy with her tunic, “You remember all the times I told you about the slimness of my glory days. Well, I wasn’t lying. You should see your grandma. She looks like she’s twenty again. You know when the system talked about reforging? It wasn’t lying. Everyone seems to have returned to their peak physical state. Even your father.”
Kyrie’s eyes widened, “Dad lost his beer belly. Impossible!” he sighed, “I still can’t quite fathom what’s going on.”
His mum patted Kyrie on the arm, “Don’t worry, will make it through all this. Now, go sit over there with your brothers and watch while we elect a mayor or leader or whatever. That’s the best thing you can do to help us bring some semblance of order to this place.”
Kyrie smiled and turned away, trekking up the meadow to the place where his dad, Dame and Jalen sat together. There was a depression in the meadow here. Which usefully made the terrain almost bowl-shaped. It was a perfect natural theatre. Kyrie once again wondered if the system had planned even this.
Surrounding Kyrie were other members of his family. Kyrie spotted Uncle Kai, Aunt Flora and their children to the right. And his grandma a few paces below him.
No way she has a full head of hair. And my father. . .
Kyrie’s dad looked built. He had always loved to evangelise his glory days when he’d earnt a black belt in martial arts and now, he even looked the part.
Still bald though. Some things never change.
Further outwards were the members of other families. There were hundreds of people. All ages, races, genders. New-borns crying in their mother’s arms. Kids running around rolling and wrestling on the ground, fighting with sticks. All the adults were trying to look calm, for their kid’s sake, but the glint in their eyes showed stress and ultimately fear.
How are we going to take care of everyone. What are we going to eat? What are we going to wear? These tunics are so thin. It feels like they’ll only last a day.
Kyrie looked downwards to the bottom of the bowl. Below them in a line were arrayed about 20 men and women. It was weird seeing all of them wearing the exact same dress and it meant their bearing had a lot more of an effect on people.
Standing in front of the line of representatives was a tall, pale woman. Her skin was already beginning to redden and peel in the sun. Despite this she showed no obvious discomfort and had an authoritative bearing. She spoke and her voice was clear resonating through the entire theatre, “Please everyone can I have quiet now.” Parents hushed their squabbling children, and some semblance of silence was created, “Hello. My name is Kristina Howard and I used to work as a judge in a high court in Britain. I will be adjudicating this selection of a leader. I am a neutral party, neither I nor my brother, William, who is my only relative, will be running for leader. To make it simpler, as there are too many people here, and we do not have the infrastructure for vote-counting we have agreed it will only be the family representatives who have a say in the election.”
It made sense, there would be way too much cheating with the hundreds sitting on the grass. This way the representatives could just raise their hands, and everyone would be watching to verify. No ballot box – which they had no access to – or voting security was needed.
“Now please can each representative introduce themselves and their family starting with you furthest to the left.”
She pointed to a small Asian man, who bowed to the group, “My. . .name is. . .Takeda Haru,” he spoke haltingly, “Sorry my English is no good.”
A stern-faced woman stepped forward from the line, “Don’t worry. Everyone understands your native language now. I figured that out earlier.”
Haru switched and now talked much more smoothly, “Hello, do you understand me. Put your hands in the air if you understand me.”
Kyrie and the others around him raised their hands.
This system keeps on giving. It doesn’t sound like he’s speaking English, yet I understand it.
Haru looked just as shocked, “Not only have I shed 30 years, but I can also speak a thousand languages. Amazing. Think-”
Kristina stepped forward, cutting him off, “Not to interrupt but could we continue with proceedings.”
“Yes, yes, apologies everyone,” Haru said bowing again, “Let me restart. My name is Takeda Haru of the Takeda family. My brothers and myself worked as ceremonial swordsmiths for the Kazoku of Japan.” He stood a little straighter, “I’ll have you know my grandfather crafted a sword for the emperor and I continued his trade. I was just beginning to teach my son the craft when this whole unfortunate occurrence happened. I will not be running to become leader, I was never a very good communicator, but I hope I can be of use.”
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Haru bowed again and stepped back. Kyrie saw the stern-faced woman nodding her head. She looked like she was listening intensely.
The next man in the line came forward. He was a big boulder of a man, red-nosed with shaggy blond hair and tree-trunk arms, “Name’s Guy Harvey. Rancher from the United States of America,” Kyrie didn’t know how it translated but the man’s Colorado accent was thick, “Now, I know a good bit about farming, and I think I could get production off the ground here at a good rate. Fertile ground everywhere you look in this place. No-one likes being hungry, correct. So, you bet I’ll be running for leader. If all goes to plan, we should have a stable food supply in about a week, if we can find some useful crops in this meadow or down there in the forest.”
“Next!”
“Park Lee, CEO and owner of the Park Conglomerate. That should be enough for me to be elected already. I have guided an upstart company from just myself and my bedroom to a two-billion-dollar valuation. I have managed two hundred thousand employees, implementing a few hundred here will not be a problem. My first priority will probably be finding a source of metal to create tools.”
Kyrie didn’t know what it was, maybe the arrogance, but he didn’t like Park Lee. He seemed like the kid at school who thought he was cool just because he was wearing a bit of designer and felt it was important that everyone know.
Unfortunately, he seemed a lot more convincing to the others than Guy Harvey before him and the representatives who came after him all weren’t running.
“Adamu Kariuki, I am the chief of the Beidami tribe of southern Kenya. The savannah was our homeland, and we knew every inch of it. This place may not be as hot, but we hope to come to love it just as much as we did the old plains.”
“Matteo Gallenzi, finest chef in Venice. Pizza, Pasta, Lasagne. These were my specialties, but I can cook anything, and it will taste bellisimo.”
“Mike Miller, I ran a lumber operation up in the north of Canada. That forest down there looks like good timber and if we’re going to build a settlement the first thing you need is wood. For that I’m the man.”
Then introductions kept on. Indian tailors, cobalt farmers from Congo, cattle herders from Brazil, a French artist with moustache that seemed to infinitely curl. The sun was sinking by the time Kyrie’s mother herself stepped forward as the penultimate speaker yet still only two had offered themselves for leadership. Guy Harvey and Park Lee.
Maybe the others are intimidated. Park Lee sure does have some stellar credentials.
“Jane Oladipo. Nice to meet all of you. We are a British family. Heritage is Nigerian. My family worked in a multitude of different jobs. I worked as the manager of design at an architecture and city planning firm based in London. I will not be running for leader, but I will not stand for one that is incompetent. I want above all to keep myself my family and as many other people here as possible safe and I hope to work with you to achieve that.”
Kyrie was shocked that his mother had not run. She was always the command-and-control type and was freakishly organised. Kyrie would have picked her over any of the past speakers. Then he saw his mother’s eyes flicker to the final representative, and something passed between them.
Have they made some sort of deal.
He had watched her since she had offered advice to Takeda at the start and the way she had been nodding along and seemed to be noting down every detail of each family’s speech in her mind has garnered his attention.
I wonder what she will offer up.
“My name is Lucinda Sarpong,” She was a short woman, only a few inches taller than Kyrie’s mother, and people would describe her more handsome than beautiful with a severe nose, mahogany skin, and piercing grey-green eyes, “I’m here with only my daughter, Olive. In my past life I was Ghana’s United Nations Ambassador and later Ghana’s representative in the African Union. I have a history of leadership. I attended Oxford to study PPE and went on to study law at Harvard for my Masters. I hope my credentials are enough to endear me to you so I can run for mayor.”
Jesus Christ. She did everything I wanted to in life. And Sarpong have I heard that name before.
However, she didn’t stop there, “However I have also taken the time to further understand the system in order to display my problem-solving skills to you. This is why I knew of the translation feature as both me and my daughter are bilingual.”
Park lee, probably intimidated by Lucinda’s golden resumé spoke up, “So you found out the system translates for us. We probably would have found that out within fifteen minutes of talking to each other it’s not that big an achievement.”
Lucinda responded, “No that is not the only thing I found. Everyone look at something living. It could be an insect or the person sitting next to you. Now in the same way you think about summoning the system think about inspecting them. It takes a bit of time but once you do it once you’ll remember it forever.”
Kyrie looked at Damian and tried to focus on inspecting him.
Inspect. . .Inspect. This isn’t working. Inspec-woah.
Letters appeared above Damian’s head.
Damian Oladipo – Level 1
He used the skill on his father.
Lucas Oladipo – Level 1
There’s levels. How do we upgrade.
Lucinda raised her voice over the clamour that had erupted after the discovery of this new skill, “After discovering this and the levels. I wondered if there were other features of the system that could help us to survive. The system did say that in the first year we would be granted special help. And that’s when I discovered the skill system. I started with something as simple as knot-tying with my tunic-rope and after doing it for about half-an-hour I levelled the skill up and gained level 1 proficiency in knot-tying. Just don’t ask me how I had the mental fortitude to sit around tying a knot for so long. If you think of status on the system screens you should also be able to see what skills you have unlocked already. They seemed to have passed over from your previous life on earth.”
Status. . ha. . .she’s right. . .this is amazing.
Kyrie Oladipo – Level 1
Skills
Athletics – Level 4
Education – Level 6
The other candidate, Guy Harvey now thought it was time to butt in, “So what if you’re a little system nerd. All that doesn’t mean shit out here in the wild. You’ve got no plan for how we gon’ survive this.”
Kristina at once stepped forward, “Mr Harvey. Each candidate must be given the requisite respect. I will not allow any candidate to be bullied and cursed at in my presence. Am I understood.”
Harvey huffed in a non-committal way, but he kept silent.
“In fact, I do have a plan,” said Lucinda, “I have listened to all the selective families, and I have realised we are almost perfectly diverse and can cover all bases. We have families from all across the globe with strengths in unique areas none of which are useless. Mr Harvey, If I was the mayor of our new town, I know exactly how I would utilise them.”
“And how is that,” said Park Lee, “what exactly would you do?”
‘Well, the first thing I would do is put you, Mr Harvey and the Brazilian Santos family both in charge of a farm. You would level up and gain skills in that area. I think this meadow is a good location but ultimately, I would leave the choice of the location of your farms up to you. Mr Harvey you said food production could be up within a week and that would be the expectation. Secondly, I would have the Kariuki’s hunt for us along with any volunteers who are happy to learn while the farm gets up and running. Hopefully the Gallenzi’s could help cook and teach others how to do it also. If their food is as tasty as they advertise no one should go to sleep on an empty stomach after tonight. In addition to this I would also have a portion of the Kariuki’s scout for us, hopefully somewhere in the mountains upstream we can find a metal deposit which the Illunga’s can mine and the Takeda’s can use to create tools. Tools such as axes which the Millers can use to chop trees downstream. Those trees can be used to create more tools or build a wall just over there,” she pointed to a clearing further upstream, “where I think we should build the settlement due to its easily defensible location. The wall will be designed by the Müller’s and built by the Pawel’s. And that’s as far as I’ve got so far. Sure, there some snags that we need to work through, and my plan is not fully fleshed out yet but hopefully you Mr Lee could provide a better and more thorough alternative.”
Park Lee coughed, “No, no. You have stated each detail that I was about to say.”
Lucinda smiled, it was a small upturn of her lips, “Well you can always help as my aide. You seem to have the perfect management background to ensure that everything runs smoothly.”
Yes, Sarpong. She did a talk at Mum’s company once. I remember, she was so impressed she didn’t seem to stop talking about it for a whole month. What are the chances that she turns up here.
Lucinda stepped backwards nodding respectfully to Kristina who raised her chin to speak once again, “Okay, now that all the representatives have said their piece, we’ll have a vote. Let’s try to make this quick before the sun goes down. Representatives for Guy Harvey put your hands up.”
Two hands rose Nowak Pawel and Mike Miller.
“Representatives for Park Lee raise your hand.”
No-one. Embarrassing.
Park lee’s pale face turned bright red.
“Representatives for Lucinda Arden.”
Kyrie spied his mum’s hand rising along with most others.
“It seems Lucinda Arden is the clear winner. . .”
Kyrie jumped in surprise at the ping of a notification, and he summoned the system. Looking around he spied others doing the same.
Congratulations on electing a leader for your new settlement.
Unnamed Settlement - Level 0
Level 1 requirements – have your leader name your settlement
Even where we live gets levels. This system is way too fond of video game statistics.
Lucinda turned and bowed to the family leaders, “Thank you representatives for electing me. I will endeavour to do the best job possible. Now one of the most important aspects of my life was freedom. Freedom from poverty, freedom from hunger, freedom from my abusive husband. Therefore, it is with hope and yearning for a prosperous future that I name our settlement, New Liberty.”
Congratulations on becoming a citizen of New Liberty.