*Beep beep beep*
Coming up from the abyss of a dreamless sleep I turned my head over to look at the alarm clock. I'm still not sure why I have an alarm, I retired years ago. After 22 years in the air force, since I had pretty much a paycheck for life I've been pursuing interests of my own, ranging from writing to programming. All the hobbies I do bring in a little extra money, even the streaming whenever I play video games.
Lately though I've found that I've become extremely bored, nothing I do can quite compare to the halo left by the first experience. The first successful program, the first half decent chapter, I can feel the apathy setting in, the first time in a long time that I've felt like this. The beginning of depression. Trying to snap myself out of it I grab some caffiene to offset the lifeless feeling pervading my body. Another day to fight off the boredom and everything that comes with it.
*Beep beep beep*
"God damnit" I say as I make sure to turn the alarm off instead of hitting snooze this time. With a sigh I kick my legs over the side of the bed. "Hey Belle, what's on the news today?" The room dims slightly as a hologram appears in the front of the room. The female looking hologram motions towards her left with a green tinged hand "It is currently raining in the local area, would you like to turn on hydrophobic coating?" Stretching while I walk down the stairs I give a quick nod and walk out of the door. Small pinpricks that barely register are the only indication I have that the layer was turned on, my clothes are already made of hydrophobic materials out of necessity considering how it rains 320 out of 365 days of the year. Climate change has been more of an annoying bitch than a murderous one. Looking down I see the nanobots have done their job, rain is rolling off my skin as if it's covered in a layer of plastic. "Hey Belle, list my current programs and any new ones approved by the fda, toss up the beta list on the side as well."
Nanites
Currently installed
HUD
Faraday coating Active
Rain coating Active
Heat sink (3rd Party) Active
Night vision
Heat vision
Tissue repair
FDA recently approved
Pigment correction
Fixes pigment abnormality such as graying hair, darkening of the skin etc.
Tissue regeneration
Updated version of tissue repair, improves natural lattice of the skin, prevents scarring.
Scrolling down I continue to see health, vision, quality of life updates, nothing truly noteworthy. With how restrictive everything is on getting new addons for something that can change the way your body works usually only superficial things manage to get through. Although the tissue regeneration seems moderately useful. Queueing the update I continue heading towards the mini-bx. The small cornerstore has pretty much everything you could want for convenience.
I push through the door and give a nod to the cashier, "Welcome back Allen, what can I get you today?" I grab a case of energy drinks and toss them on the counter. "Just these for today Tom, I drank my last one this morning." Shaking his head he looks up after ringing it up, "These things are kinda bad for you, I'd invest in a coffee maker if I were you." I shake my head "I'm already 42, if I lose a couple years from drinkin these it wont make too much of a difference, plus they taste quite a bit better than that bitter shit you're always downing." I said while swiping my hand over the biometric reader. With a chuckle he waves me off "well either way, have a good one." I nod and walk back to my pickup. Noticing a notification from Belle I swipe the icon swimming in my vision. It's the beta apps I requested earlier, I thought there weren't any, guess one just popped up.
3rd party
Dept of Def
Direct Vision
Auditory Addendum
Looking through the list of companies the DoD catches my eye, it has the lock icon, but since I have access based on clearance it looks like I can take a peak. I pop it open expecting message encryption or some other security feature. Instead.
Skin Hardening
Uses Arrector Pili muscle along with ______ to increase the surface tension and rigidity of the skin. Provides moderate protection to lacerations, minor firearms. Reserved for individuals that have _____.
A lot of the specifics are redacted but it's easy to get the gist of it. Being a programmer I can guess what's going on. Most likely I still have an active account in the system so it included me in the update. It's supposed to be deleted after 60 days of inactivity. Clicking the app and applying the changes to my nanites immediately I count my good graces. Every once in a while an amazing update will be pushed out, either by a third party, which means either an independent group or a corporation, or by the government. This is the 3rd app I've been able to snag from them, the first was Faraday which makes me practically immune to electrostatic discharge. Something everyone in a communcation squadron gets. The second was heat sink, again, had an additional duty with a supercomputer that kept overheating, the app makes the nanites spread out the heat evenly, so instead of a 3rd degree burn on your hand, your whole arm gets 2 degrees warmer. Heat vision was added along with that so techs could see overheating components and fix it before the thing fried. Night vision was released by a hunters group so they could see in low light conditions while deer hunting. Tissue repair was something I picked up after breaking a rib in an mma training session. Honestly I would prefer to have more but a lot of the additions are 3rd party and sketchy at best, most of the FDA approved ones are either not interesting or not useful. So far the only really useful one I've found is the hud, it basically makes you into a smartphone kind of cool really.
Swiping another icon up I take a look at some news articles, "Blue box virus? What the hell" I mumble to myself. It seems someone finally uploaded a virus into the nanites. I know that nothing is truly secure but nanites are practically foolproof. The kind of havoc someone could wreak if they had access to something that could turn you inside out is kind of scary. Scrolling through I continue to read.
The emergence of the first ever virus moving through the nanites. The virus automatically activates the HUD and puts up a permanent blue status bar. Differing accounts show that the bar is steadily increasing as the number of infected increases.
Frowning, I finally start up my truck, sitting in your vehicle for extended periods of time while not actually doing anything used to be kind of creepy, nowadays its the same as someone playing on their phone. Pulling out and heading to my house thats only 2 blocks away. "Hey Belle, read me the headlines." Taking a slightly roundabout way home I listen to Belle rolling out all the news headlines one by one. Theres one about Trumps wall, seems it's still being maintained. Ever since a drug cartel got into a shootout and killed a few border guards support for the wall skyrocketed, its been almost 30 years and they still harp on the necessity of it. Honestly, with the things that nanites can do to make you feel good I'm surprised there is even still a drug industry left, I guess it might die whenever everyone with a physical dependency on it is done but besides that, well no use dwelling on that subject.
The next headline was about some electrical interference, seems it's become even more rampant. There was a blackout that left a little over a million people in the dark. Along with hundreds of smaller ones. The weird thing is that there's seemingly no indication of why there are power spikes downing major portions of the network. The only thing that's been found are semi-precious stones near the transformers. "Zoisite?" Slightly confused looking at the picture. Even more impressive, it looks like they might all be gem quality according to the article. Shrugging since I don't really know much about geology, I get Belle to skim through the rest of the articles, most of them are somewhat lame.
Heading inside the house I crack open an energy drink, trying to get myself to wake up even a little bit more. Mornings are always hard after binging on either the console or VR. I've recently switched from army building games to army of one games, where instead of building an army I make it where my character can take out an entire army. I've got to say, I usually like the feeling of watching a well-enacted plan decimate the opposing forces but there's also something special about being able to decimate an entire army with a glaive in hand. Looking around the game room I see my collection of weapons from the medieval era. Spears, Glaives, Swords, Shields, all manner of random equipment, only half of which is able to actually be used, the rest being there just for looks. Plopping down onto my sofa I turn on my PlayBox to see if anyones online. No luck, I send a quick text to my little brother to see if he wants to jump online. No luck unfortunately.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
Seeing a flashing notification on my nanite HUD I pop it open.
Update Available Install Immediately
Waving it away it comes straight back.
Update Available Install Immediately
Update Available Install Immediately
Update Available Install Immediately
Update Available Install Immediately
More and more blue popups stack in my vision until I can no longer see anything except blue boxes, as I attempt to swipe them away they suddenly all disappear. "Damnit!" I cursed, knowing I hit a yes button somewhere when I tried to swipe them away. They all faded away and what looked like a loading bar appeared on my HUD.
17%
Sighing at the injustice I jump on google looking for any fixes for the supposed virus. In annoyance I grit my teeth, just a shit-ton of idiots saying random crap like 'OMG ILLUMINATI' and literally no helpful information on the subject, sifting through the conspiracy theories I sigh in defeat about an hour later, I glance up, its at 24% now. Looks like theres an exponential increase in the quickness of the bar, it was at 1% for a few months, 2 for a couple months 10 for a week, now its going up by the hour. From the little experience I've had making viruses, the more vectors for transmission there are the higher the rate at which it spreads, at this rate, it'll hit 100% by tomorrow morning. With a flicker all the lights in the house go out, "haaaaa, god damnit, looks like my area finally got hit. I start walking down to the basement to turn on the backup generator. If nothing else my time in the military taught me one thing, be prepared. Grabbing the gas can in the corner I pop the cap open on the generator and start filling her up. Hearing a ding startling me from my thoughts I look up. Holy shit, it's already at 80% and rising by the second.
Usable medium verified.
Initializing.
Current Users 8.75 Billion
Viable Users 25 Million
Beginning Initialization.
Current User: Allen Shura
Please say "Status"
Laughing at the peculiarity of it all I go ahead and say "Status"
User Allen
Profession none
HP 600
Mana 2600
Body Strength 6 +
Body Control 8 +
Mental Strength 18 +
Mental Control 18 +
Stat Points available 10
Raising my eyebrows I'm actually somewhat surprised, did they take data from the nanites to push this out? The consistency of just the first one makes me wonder, assuming 5 is the average for someone who just turned 18 years old I know that right now I have roughly 20% more muscle than average. The control is also decently high I've been known to have extremely steady hands which is why I used to get thrown any delicate work that came through. The mental strength and control don't really surprise me. Literally everyone who was in my career field was in the top 97th percentile and above when testing at 18. Then I see the stat points. I start laughing, I laugh so hard my face hurts and my eyes water. "What the fuck, all the trouble for a life game?" If all that was purely a marketing stunt then I'd be surprised if this thing didn't become popular. After filling up the generator I start it up and smile again at not only having power but also that I have a new game to play, free at that.
Jumping on my sofa I bring open the status window, since theres no guides on this I'm thinking I should go ahead and round my stats up to the divisible by 10 equivalent. I click on the plus icon next to Body strength. My muscles start to get warm, frowning I look down at my arms, they've turned from their original slightly tan complexion to slightly pink, most likely from blood rushing to the surface of the skin. My skin gets a bit hotter to the point that it's uncomfortable, starting to panic I rush to the shower and turn on the cold water. Panicking even more when the water doesn't cool me down and just slides right off my skin, I quickly dismiss the rain coating. When it finally subsides I sigh in relief at the feel of the cold water across my skin, after a few minutes it finally stops feeling like I'm standing in an oven so I take a deep breath in relief and turn off the water. "What the fuck was that?" I say irritated. Coming out of the shower I pause. In the mirror I'm barely recognizable, my previously tone body looks like I packed on about 20 pounds of extra muscle. The small bits of flab that started to accumulate because of a sedentary lifestyle were completely gone. Thinking back to the status screen I bring it up.
User Allen
Profession none
HP 685
Mana 2600
Body Strength 7 Updating... 85%
Body Control 8 +
Mental Strength 18 +
Mental Control 18 +
Stat Points available 9
Smiling I start getting excited at the implications. Never having to work out again. Getting smarter without having to spend hours learning new things. I want more stat points, looking through posts I've found that not everyone got the same number of stat points, I thought 10 would be standard but it looks like I was mistaken. The vast majority received 6 points, some receiving as high as 8 while some as low as 4. Looking at some of the stats I started pushing through the numbers. I had exactly 50 stat points total 6 + 8 + 18 + 18. The people that received for had a total between 10-24 most of those being teenagers. Everyone between 25-29 got 5, again the pattern continues, 30-34 got 6. Almost everyone that got to a base of 40 stat points was either an athlete or had a job that required a lot of thought. The amount of information shared is actually kind of scary, everyone is so caught up in this that they completely forgot to protect their personal information. Shutting down the site I start looking for anything related to what the stats do. The basic algorithm was for every 5 stats you received an extra stat point after 20, with a base of 4 for those who had yet to have to chance to develop themselves.
In the last couple of hours there's been thousands of people testing everything they could think of. Body Strength seems to make all of your muscles fill out to a certain point, after reaching a certain amount it seems there's a restructuring of the muscles to make them strong, an increase in density, along with elasticity. It has to do with increasing every aspect of your muscles and how they work. Basically it increases strength, agility and flexibility.
Body control, it seems is the equivalent of dexterity, it also has had a noticable increase in reflexes. Strange, I would have thought that would be in the mental category, maybe the mental stats only reflect things that are purely mental. Unfortunately the effects of the mental stats are largely unknown. So far theres a bunch of guesses and theres even some people claiming that it's related to magic I shake my head, magic would be cool but this is obviously a result of science. Making an educated guess I figure the stats work the exact same way the physical ones work. Strength is what you have to work with, control is how well you can use what you have. I'm guessing Mental Strength or MS is related to how quickly you can learn and remember new information, while MC would be how well you can apply the new information.
Turning on the shower, intent on having this shit over with I dump 3 more points into BS. Immediately the change is staggering, my muscles light up like they are on fire, I can even feel the tendons pulling at my bones, under the near ice cold water of my shower I still feel the heat. Bracing my arm against the wall I can see steam rolling off of my skin. My vision darkens and narrows from the liquid fire racing just under my skin. Gritting my teeth to stay awake I ride out the rest of the changes. Finally the heat subsides, the moderate discomfort is nothing compared to what just happened. Making sure to never, ever, do that again I sigh. Standing up and stepping out of the shower I look in the mirror. Surprisingly I changed very little that time, I look ripped but its not enough to warrant all the pain I just felt. Then I notice it, the small streaks of gray in my hair that I had been forced to get used to for the past for years. They were gone! With a newfound happiness over something I know is completely vain I head out of the bathroom and back downstairs, putting on a pair of shorts. Dripping my way to the weight room intent on testing a few things.
I walk over to the plates and grab enough to put what I usually max out on my bench press. 225, not stellar but for a geek, it's pretty damn good. Laying back on the bench I set my hands on the bar, getting it off the hooks it feels strangely light. I let the weight down slowly to my chest and push, it feels closer to 135 rather than 225. Moving up, more and more I finally max out at 375. Dumbfounded at the increase I just sit there for a second, doing some mental math. It's almost an exact increase in ratio based on the stats I put into it. Going down into the Den I pull out a dart board from the closet. I grab 10 darts and set everything up. One at a time, I aim to the best of my ability. Out of 100 throws I got 24 bulls-eye hits, not bad for the distance I'm throwing. Opening my status window I put a point into BC. I brace myself for whatever is to come, after a few seconds I can feel what seems to be minor electric shocks across my body. Theres also a slight buzzing in my skull. That was far less painful than the damned BS increases. Another hundred darts later and the score is 27, the groupings around the bulls-eye were noticably better, thinking back I should have had more than one point of reference. Sighing I take out a tap measure and from the center of the board I measure out the furthest dart, 4cm. A few more iterations later of tossing and measuring the furthest out is almost always 4cm, never further. Putting the final point that I'm spending on BC into it I once again feel the buzzing across my body. After the changes complete I once again repeat the accuracy tests. 30 bulls-eye hits, with the average furthest from target being around 3.5cm.
Being dry I head back to my game room and sit down debating on whether or not to use my last 4 points on my mental stats, to be honest I really, really like what the other stats are doing for me. If the physical stats can delay aging then I kind of want to just pump all my stats into it. After arguing the pros and cons and hating to not have even numbers I dump 2 stats into each. Hoping that the increase doesn't royally fuck me up as much as the BS.
User Allen
Profession none
HP 1000
Mana 2616
Body Strength 10
Body Control 10
Mental Strength 20 Updating...4%
Mental Control 20 Updating...2%
Stat Points available 0
My status screen is the last thing I see as my vision turns dark. A profound tiredness seems to take control of me and almost instantly I feel like I haven't slept in days. Unable to fight it my vision closes into a pinpoint, until even that gets snuffed out and I fall into the oblivion of a dreamless sleep.
Phase One Begins