Author’s Note: Note that the massive “grey blocks” in this chapter aren’t necessary to understand what’s going on, they just provide a little background. Also, there are a few spoiler-ed Windows at the end of the chapter with the Status Window and list of Abilities the MC has thus far. I'll be updating them as I go.
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The Pentagon, Washington, DC, the Game
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Bradley navigated the halls of the Pentagon in vain for anything that might help him understand his new implant ability. Even with its straightforward shape, the circumstances turned it into a labyrinth.
For the most part, Bradley could not rely on the maps because many of them simply were not there, having been replaced with blank white pieces of paper. In addition, all the windows were either boarded up with plywood or covered in sandbags. With no landmarks or distinguishing features, he would occasionally lose his sense of direction after checking a room. In addition, the hastily scribbled pieces of paper stuck to the doors telling everyone what the rooms were used for were often illegible, causing several embarrassing encounters of him barging into people’s bedrooms.
During his little tour, Bradley did manage to find the room where he would “live” within the Game. The room barely contained the bed, desk and chair in side. While small, the dependable furniture and built-in AC fulfilled their function, but with not enough space to even add a bedside table, Bradley thought that calling it a “living space” would be a bit much. Still, he would not complain. In fact, the room made him feel a bit nostalgic; it reminded him of his University days living in residence.
Eventually his search did yield results. Of all the rooms in the Pentagon, no room would better serve the needs of understanding the incredibly advanced alien technology that now—apparently—resided in his head: the Internal IT Service Desk.
Gathering together the calibration tools, computers and spare parts in this room and setting things up, for the first time coming to this Game, he felt like this whole experience really happened. After the clandestine hiring process, the soldiers, the aliens, the medical scans and the crazy White Abyss, he could finally sit back and take it all in. With all these computer parts and tools surrounding him, he could almost convince himself that he never left his job at Perceptisense and signed on for a 5 year contract as a military guinea pig. Only the occasional Game Window when he asked the System a question brought him back to this new virtual reality.
The enjoyment and familiarity he felt—this new puzzle to solve providing a surprising challenge—distracted him from a feeling that began to grow inside himself. A seed of uncertainty began to sprout, but for now he ignored it. This new virtual world was new and exciting so doubts about his decision to come were pushed to the back of his mind. After all, why was there a need to fear?
This was only a game.
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3rd Level Internal IT Service Desk, The Pentagon – Northwest Wing, Washington, DC, the Game
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“Argh, damn it…” Bradley groaned, tossing the computer mouse haphazardly to the side of the desk. He sat back in his chair and covered his eyes with an arm, letting the other dangle uselessly to the side. “Why doesn’t this stupid implant work?!”
For three hours, Bradley tried to find some way to activate his implant “Human-Computer Interface, but nothing he tried could show any outward sign that the implant even existed at all. From what he understood from the System’s description, the Player simply had to “will” the implant into functioning and it would search for and connect to any wireless device that was available.
This approach failed.
He tried every form of wireless device available to him: WiFi, 3G, 4G, Bluetooth, even the little USB radio antennas that wireless mice and keyboards used, but Bradley could not detect anything different about himself. Moving on with his troubleshooting, he hooked up “dumb” devices like a Ham Radio and AM/FM desk radios to see if maybe he needed to start off simple, but even those failed. Hooking up everything to a computer, he monitored the device ports for incoming traffic, but nothing showed up. In desperation, he attached a radio antenna to an Oscilloscope and waved it around his head, but he could only pick up negligible background noise.
Unless the implant somehow functioned outside the radio spectrum or could operate below a detectable amplitude, the system stumped him. By his investigations, the implant either did not exist or simply did not function.
“How do I even test what the problem is?” he asked himself with a sigh. “For all I know, this ‘implant’ nonsense is just a load of BS. What was I thinking would happen? That I would suddenly have magical computer powers and could ‘hack the mainframe’ with my mind?” He shook his head. “There isn’t even a way to reverse-engineer the concept and probe the components. What would I do, cut open my head and stick a Multimeter in for a look? What a joke.”
Suddenly a man approached him from behind.
“There you are!” the male voice shouted, marching his way towards Bradley.
“Gah!” he cried, leaping to his feet and causing the stool he sat on to fall to the ground. Turning swiftly around, he saw that the voice belonged to none other than Lieutenant Winslow who came bearing a large bowl of hot stew.
“Ah, didn’t mean to scare you,” the Lieutenant apologized. The smirk on the man’s face left Bradley questioning the sincerity of it, however. With an outstretched hand, the Lieutenant brought the bowl over to him, the smell causing the engineer’s mouth to water. Bradley had not realized how hungry he was.
“I didn’t see you at the mess hall for supper,” the Lieutenant added, “then I remembered you picked those strange implants and thought they might be giving you trouble. So, how goes it?”
“Trouble is right,” Bradley sighed, eagerly taking the stew from the officer and voicing his thanks. Putting the bowl off to one side, he gestured to all the various mobile phones, wireless routers, laptops and keyboards he had placed in a semicircle around him. “No matter what I do, I can’t seem to get the stupid thing to work,” he ranted, “no manner of commands or concentrating does the trick, the network pipes show no movement and even the tools only pick up the regular pings of the devices asking for connections.” He massaged the bridge of his nose. “I’m beginning to wonder if I should just give up and try something else.”
“Don’t give up yet, I know how hard it can be,” Winslow sympathized, pointing to his eyes. The pupils changed color, rotated, dilated and contracted with a shaky and artificial jitter. “Do you think I got these ocular implants working right away? The only thing it did when I first got them was everything my eyes already did. None of that fancy object-recognition, night-vision or magnification it does now.”
“What did you do?” Bradley inquired with a slightly pleading tone, “I’m reaching the limit of my patience with this thing. Literally any hint is better than what I’ve been working with until now.”
The officer sighed. “Well I hate to be the bearer of bad news then, but the only thing you can do is get a ‘feel’ for it,” Lieutenant Winslow confessed. “Instead of concentrating intently and forcing it to work, you have to let it ‘come to you’.”
“Really,” Bradley deadpanned, “would you care to translate that into science for me?” he rebuked with a peremptory and contentious tone.
Taken aback by Bradley’s response, Winslow did not respond immediately.
“Hey I feel ya, it’s stupid,” the officer eventually agreed, attempting to defuse the engineer’s belligerent attitude. “At least you weren’t the leader of a group of twenty marines. We knew even less about what was going on than you do! So lighten up, the Game can be tedious and annoying at times, but you’ll get the hang of it!”
Seeing the uneasy grin the officer held in front of him, Bradley took a few deep breaths and calmed himself down. “Sorry, I’m not usually this testy it’s just this everything’s just piling up all at once and it just has me feeling frustrated,” he explained.
“No problem, man, it’s no big deal,” the Lieutenant dismissed with a laugh and a rough pat on the back. “Trust me, you haven’t seen ‘testy’ until you’ve met my little dysfunctional family of leatherneck delinquents.”
“Still, that idea seems pretty… stupid. No offense,” Bradley commented, idly rubbing his back that the Lieutenant had just smacked.
“I know it’s stupid, but how else would it work?” the Lieutenant replied with a shrug. “This game is supposed to be ‘realistic’ right? How realistic would it be if you could suddenly use these new parts of your body as if you always had them? It’s would be similar to giving someone who was born without arms a few prosthetics and expecting them to suddenly start juggling. I mean, if you just stare at your arm and command it to move, it isn’t going to do shit. Why would these implants be any different?
“Think about it. Everything you do with your body is instinctual. It may not sound very scientific, but you don’t need to write a thesis on the subject, you just need to get it to work. For me, I realized that the implant wasn’t actually a part of my eye at all but a completely different ‘sense’ altogether. I only finally figured it out when I just completely zoned out one day. After a while, it felt as if I had an itch on the back of my neck. I scratched it and it didn’t go away, but when I tried focusing on it, all of a sudden I had this need to blink my eyes. The next thing you know, I could make out the numbers on a licence plate a half-mile away… in the middle of the night.”
“Right…” Bradley replied, not really understanding quite how all this would help him.
“To sum it up, you can’t force it,” the Lieutenant stated. His expression became suddenly contemplative before he added, “Now that I think about it, wasn’t your implant supposed to connect to things wirelessly or something?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Then maybe you should try meditation!” the Lieutenant concluded, causing Bradley to groan. “No, seriously, that’s what worked for that one guy in Squad 8. He has the ability to detect ‘life energy’.”
Bradley stared at the officer with a sceptical look.
“Hey don’t look at me like I’m crazy, it’s true! It’s one of those ‘Psionic’ things; it doesn’t have to make sense,” the Lieutenant defended. “Anyway, for the life of him, he couldn’t get it to work. We all told him to change it to something more useful. It wouldn’t be the first time. With only a few exceptions like that Human-Computer Implant you have which requires another implant to work, we’ve pretty much tried every implant available.”
“Is that where you get your policy on ‘Psionics’ from?” Bradley asked the Lieutenant, reminded of when he told them about psionic implants; that he would force them to change it if they had them.
“Actually, that marine is probably the only one to make me reconsider it,” the Lieutenant replied. “No one else could get the things to work and just gave up, but that guy—Schmitt…no Schneider was his name—he wouldn’t quit. He spent weeks just meditating and trying to ‘feel the world around him’ and all that spiritual enlightenment crap. It worked though. He’s our best scout now. Whenever we’re going hunting, we have to bring him along. Nobody can find and catch deer like that SOB.”
“You guys hunt? Isn’t there enough meat in those cans of food?”
“Yeah, but it all starts tasting the same after a while. Besides, it’s good practice and it keeps you working. There’s nothing worse than a bored Marine.” The Lieutenant shook his head and grunted. “Argh, we’re getting off topic. Anyway, you have a job to do. Get meditating and be patient; it’s going to take a while. In the worst case scenario, I can tell you of some implants I know will work without a hitch for your Tutorial tomorrow and you can use those instead. It’s no big deal.”
“Sure no problem…” Bradley replied, tactfully trying to end the conversation before he started wanting to punch something. ‘He makes it sound like it’s so easy,’ Bradley internally fumed, ‘as if the answer will magically fall from the sky if you wait long enough.’
As Lieutenant Winslow left the room—having done what he came to do—Bradley decided to take a break and eat the stew.
‘I need to calm down,’ he thought as he sat down cross-legged on the floor, slowly munching on the now lukewarm beef vegetable stew. ‘Jeez, what’s with me today? Maybe this world really is getting to me.
‘Anyway, I need to try all my options. Think about it scientifically: my method hasn’t worked and the meditation method worked for an implant with a similar function as mine. This is a different world and I shouldn’t assume it functions with the same common sense. It’s worth investigating.’
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3rd Level Internal IT Service Desk, The Pentagon – Northwest Wing, Washington, DC, the Game
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‘This world’s common sense can go burn in a fire for all I care! The Lieutenant was at least right about one thing, I’m going to need a lot of patience for this,’ Bradley thought as he readjusted himself in his cross-legged position.
Sitting in the same spot for the past three hours, Bradley felt extremely self-conscious. Sitting on the floor, surrounded on all sides by various wireless devices, he looked as if performing some strange ritual. Apart from his constant fidgeting, anybody that saw such a scene would no doubt think he belonged to some strange IT cult… or at least, Bradley believed that.
Bradley thought sitting in an empty room—surrounded by electronics—would be peaceful, or at least boring. Bradley soon realized this would not be the case. Bradley spent most of his life in a flurry of activity: Video Games, Hobbies, Studying, School, Working; always doing something. He could not even last the bus ride to the base without talking to everybody or sleeping through the trip. He soon realized that without the constant ability to do things, his already disquieted mind grew more and more restless.
‘Why doesn’t it work?!’ he thought, groaning to himself in frustration, taking a peek at his watch, ‘there’s only half-an-hour left! If I don’t go to sleep then, I won’t wake up in time and I’ll miss the Tutorial! I don’t really know what it’s about, but it has to be important… and how am I supposed to concentrate with those fans driving me insane!’ He clenched both his hands into fists. ‘How am I supposed to concentrate with all this goddamn noise?! I’ll destroy this whole damn place soon if I don’t-’
He took a deep breath and breathed it out forcefully. ‘Alright, just calm down,’ he thought to himself, bringing both his hands to his temples in the hopes of massaging away the frustration. ‘Have I always been this frustrated when I can’t solve a problem? Come on. I won’t be able to face the Lieutenant and say I’ve tried my best if I don’t focus.’
Ignoring his other senses—the sounds around him, the dull ache of his legs falling to sleep, and his own tired mind—he tried again to “feel his surroundings”. He tried feeling every sensation inside himself and focusing on it. He hoped that—just as it worked with the Lieutenant—one of those feelings would cause another feeling, and then another and that through those feelings he would eventually find the “source” of his implant. He felt that if he could just do that, he would be able to figure everything else out.
‘Of course, it isn’t that simple,’ Bradley thought, again unable to feel anything new. ‘I should have known this wouldn’t work. This meditation thing might have worked for someone that does that kind of thing regularly, but for me to-‘
Again the noise around him cut off his train of thought.
“Okay, that’s enough! I can’t even think with all this racket!” He yelled out to no one in particular. He put his fingers in his ears to drown the noise and attempted to calm himself down by humming an upbeat classical tune to himself. Despite completely plugging his ears, however, the sound still continued and his song did little to drown out the noise. ‘What the hell is this?! Is the Game glitching-out or some-‘
‘Wait.’
His eyes widened in realization. ‘This could be it!’ he thought. He focused on the soundless noise and suddenly found his thoughts drowned out with—what felt to Bradley—was concussive white noise from all around him:
[table=grey]hÞ¬VÛnÛ8ýû’pG¼S@aÀ±ãÆEnˆÓ¤XAŠÍ8ÚÊ’W’Ód¿~g(;‰³ÙݶèƒDŠÎ9âœR1açØ8l1&#¦6œi#™Ø8&%³6bR¡e,˜ÔŒK“†q¥9“èÈ(Í$zrV13‑Û˜)tÎfŠ3!¶‚ÅS’Í%a‹,p©Ð±f>À¸*[j""±K‚=E@¡gÈ5öú}8¯«ÙÔ·„AS_Înþð3r1ApÆ&ßõˆ@·°ß·Î)´43_¶,¶†ÙêÈç‹;üŠbùn&‚q‘Ü‹ÀîàzH]ÅœÓ0:Î/ïià4[zVsÿ›ˆ¸p0i³"ŸÊEáÑã´õË+æ\>®|°'´:_µU_6$pKû}dx5žL‚;ò5œŒ¦º˜”·œÕs_çåbo2GÂyû¸~‘7mý¸7˜W7~¦ëÕªðËð?¸k£k&Lü˜”@ô§ë›h!EñL®‑Ùãò6"}“ioK¨w´ÙÎy†{M‚zC°ËY5GòðÂvË€@#¸¬>9yT]øÄ¥ß2/¢h¹zEúÚF±'œy#=nΡþñ§ª@îÄSíÆóÈ÷¾ÍgõÔ¯)¶ÇøVK|k¯‹j™•?mÍíî‑Ž¯_>}z÷„I€ÇÕë0~‰4¯UÅ÷©@&ºÔ$Z›4NŒŒRÎÌcÊ唫ÄDTb\Êm0ä1é±Ò„i£3X,fª3Ë‹‑”Î4Ç®%L6ÞYšsÃ¥Z&´˜œà¢T»$&5.ÑX't,ÙËVÄ&¸„H’@_NË0¦b™:PeÓÈ]rÝMaßjÆ"ÁnšþP”þ+¤ü‰Ð¯3`CæÉÉu^&ú‑å··¾öåÌ7‡)´AÍ*›yhÀC9”°€%¬áÜÁ!ÜÃø‡Y‘aŠªæ0K;ÄÓ€ºM¹(z‘rFè甓Ñ[µ³çfw‑)ª‘{N9‰ÉnÊKßP^ùźÈêW™u’7ò¹Îçíê;SŠvƒx}pur4z°z[¤íÏÒq(åuÓﲚñ¤LGú8Û¾@þ2€v7€¸7‰ÆL*Rž£tây«4ŠOb5–‑¥Â$pZ‡¾!Ñb«±r)‹ª5h§lgË]ú£âAµÆ#Š¡FQd(þB™Ü£øsí›6¯Ê_ª<ù{ÂRŽƒ(ìŽ‑ÜÛz˜úe~SóïúÇ1žþ~x|±QÄÖ³$ÜÿJ"Þ•7ÿ.‰ømI'ChI$í8^s4Õlߥb*kd#ð^„Å+Ucø8a²Ìþk†]3KÿЦµÉ”ÝfEãáàN«z™00þ>‚³óÍÌÙùþàtÀÚzíaz’5_Ñ´ô<´§mÖz˜ea]µêÖþUî¿‘òEIhÃÚg¸;›kóÕNlRk<¬h£þžï?mØn¿UõWº´ÑÅ®lIMª»(öŽ³G‹ö;BgÃð¹Á¿¤f¸ìý-ÀÓZ [/table] [table=grey]1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 0101 0100 1010 0001 0000 1010 0010 0011 0001 1111 0111 1111 0000 1000 0000 0000 0100 0101 0000 0000 0000 0001 0101 0001 0101 0110 0011 0010 0000 0000 0000 0000 1000 0000 0001 0001 1110 0011 0110 0001 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 0000 0000 0100 0100 0000 0000 0100 0011 0000 0001 0011 1101 0000 0101 0011 0000 0000 0001 0000 0001 0000 0110 0000 0000 0011 1001 0000 0011 1111 0011 0010 0110 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0101 0011 1100 0000 0100 1000 1101 0101 1001 0000 … [/table] [table=grey]ff ff ff ff ff ff 54 a1 0a 23 1f 7f 08 00 45 00 01 51 56 32 00 00 80 11 e3 61 00 00 00 00 ff ff ff ff 00 44 00 43 01 3d 05 30 01 01 06 00 39 03 f3 26 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 53 c0 48 d5 90 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 63 82 53 63 35 01 03 3d 07 01 54 b8 0a 63 0f 7f 32 04 c0 a8 00 0d 0c 09 4d 61 63 5f 42 6f 78 3c 08 4d 53 46 54 20 35 2e 30 37 0d 01 0f 03 06 2c 2e 2f 1f 21 79 f9 fc 2b ff … [/table] [table=grey]DHCP 0.0.0.0 (67) 255.255.255.255 (68) DISCOVER DHCP 0.0.0.0 (67) 255.255.255.255 (68) DISCOVER DHCP 0.0.0.0 (67) 255.255.255.255 (68) DISCOVER DHCP 0.0.0.0 (67) 255.255.255.255 (68) DISCOVER DHCP 0.0.0.0 (67) 255.255.255.255 (68) REQUEST DHCP 0.0.0.0 (67) 255.255.255.255 (68) REQUEST DHCP 0.0.0.0 (67) 255.255.255.255 (68) REQUEST DHCP 0.0.0.0 (67) 255.255.255.255 (68) REQUEST NDP Cisco_48:d5:90 Broadcast SOLICIT NDP Telco_48:d5:90 Broadcast SOLICIT NDP Apple_48:d5:90 Broadcast SOLICIT NDP Samsung_48:d5:90 Broadcast SOLICIT DNS 192.168.0.4 192.168.0.1 QUERY 0x0aa5 DNS 192.168.0.4 192.168.0.1 QUERY 0x0f0a4 NBNS 192.168.0.4 192.168.0.255 REG NB REDHAT_NET_TEST<20> NBNS 192.168.0.4 192.168.0.255 REG NB REDHAT_NET_TEST<00> NBNS 192.168.0.4 192.168.0.255 REG NB WORKGROUP<00> … [/table] Flashes of numbers, notifications and information flowed into his mind as red-hot magma, and out of it as volcanic eruptions. He tried desperately to understand the situation—to even think of anything—but he was completely overwhelmed by the searing intensity. To Bradley, it was as though the information pouring into him was not just trying to burn his mind, but destroy his grip on reality itself. Although the information became more organized as the excruciating seconds wore on, it simply could not make sense fast enough for his mind to comprehend. ‘What… turn off… n-need t-t-to d-do some-someth-ing… how… quIT! END! J-JUST STOP IT!’ Not being able to think of any way to stop what was happening to him, he instead tried to retreat from the source of his pain. Pulling himself shakily to his feet, he moved unsteadily towards the exit of the room. As he felt what had to be the last of his sanity slipping away, he screamed at the top of his lungs and collapsed onto the floor. With his brain no longer in control of his actions, he began convulsing. Hearing the sudden hollering from out in the hall, a soldier rushed into the room to find what he thought was an epileptic seizure. “Oh shit!” the soldier unconsciously let out. He quickly checked back into the hall to see if there was anyone else to help him. There were none. With no experience or training in this sort of thing, he rushed over to Bradley, grabbed him in a fireman carry before rushing out the door and down into the hallway. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. “Goddamn it!” the soldier yelled as he quickly slogged his way towards the medical center. He dared not go any faster, his training drilled into his head the importance of proper pace and posture when transporting an injured man this way. “If you die on my watch, the Lieutenant is going to have my ass for this!” ---------------------------------------- Provisional Marine Medical Center, The Pentagon – Northeast Wing, Washington, DC, the Game ---------------------------------------- ‘Urgh, what the hell was that…’ Bradley thought, his consciousness slowly returning. He tried opening his eyes and immediately regretted it; the bright lights around him only served to aggravate the migraine he now discovered he had. Instead he kept his eyes closed and took a deep breath, rubbing his temples with his knuckles. Over a hundred all-nighters during university had long prepared him for this kind of mental trauma, but Bradley never experienced a headache quite like this. Sitting up in the bed he found himself in, he called out for anyone around. ‘If I’m too sick to open my eyes, I’ll just have them come to me,’ he thought. “Hello Bradley, how are you feeling?” the female voice inquired. The female took a seat beside him, however Bradley—with his eyes closed—could only infer about the action. “I feel like I lose a head-butting contest with a truck,” Bradley moaned pathetically. “You’re a doctor, right? Can you inject my head with morphine or something? Please?” “No, that would be a very bad idea,” the woman responded with a sigh, “but you are right that I am a doctor, and if you can think clearly enough to make such a vivid metaphor, you will be fine.” Suddenly her voice became serious. “Now I wish that you remain calm while I explain this. We believe that you underwent what we call a ‘tonic-clonic’ epileptic seizure.” Bradley took a deep breath, but did not say anything for roughly a minute. “W-What does that mean? I’ve never had a seizure before,” he eventually got out. He would have been more worried, however his migraine prevented him from appreciating the full effect of the news. “I’m not too sure,” she replied honestly. “We are still in the midst of determining everything there is to know about how this game works. It may be your body or mind just not able to cope normally within the Game or it could be a symptom of an underlying condition that nobody caught on to until now. I already preformed a blood test and imaged your brain with the instruments I have on hand, but I could not find any signs of the common causes. Do you know what you may have done to cause you to seize like that?” Bradley did not need to think long to remember; the pain he felt would probably be etched in his mind somewhere for the rest of his life. “It all happened so fast, but I think it’s because I was trying to get my implant to work,” he groaned. “For some stupid reason, I thought I could improve my chances if I completely saturated the air with incoming wireless connection requests by every type of device under the sun. I’m not sure if that actually helped the implant work or not, but—as you can tell—it sure as hell hurt.” “That could explain it—the Game’s neural implants do use electromagnetic and chemical pulses to communicate with the brain. It is possible that the implant caused something akin to Electroconvulsive Therapy,” the Doctor noted. “How did that happen?” As the doctor inquired with a curious tone, Bradley could make out scratching sounds he assumed were writing on a page. “I got a report from First Lieutenant Winslow concerning all the newest Players, but I didn’t recognize the implants you had chosen.” “I’m not surprised,” he replied, “I doubt most people would find it very useful considering all the ‘better’ ones out there. It basically allows me to communicate with devices remotely with my mind; or at least that’s the idea. I still haven’t properly tested it. Since I’d like to think that I’m a pretty good Computer Engineer, I figured that being able to quickly program machines was more useful than some type of super-soldier implant.” “So you think all this ‘communication’ was what caused your seizure?” she asked, “What makes you so certain?” “Aside from never having had anything worse than a migraine in my life? Well, it’s because all I can remember from that time is pain and generic network setup requests. Everything from Link Layer node configuration to DHCP handshaking and DNS setup. I barely even remember that stuff from university so I can’t think of any other reason I would remember it now other than the implant working.” “Right…” the doctor replied, clearly not understanding much of what Bradley was saying, “anyway there should be one easily way to clear this all up.” “How?” “Open your eyes.” “I… I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Bradley muttered. ‘Still, I’ll need my eyes eventually if I’m going to do my Tutorial-’ he thought, immediately cutting himself off. “The Tutorial!” he yelled, opening his eyes and trying desperately to ignore the onset of a searing light-induced headache. Turning to the blurry woman beside him, he asked, “W-What time is it?” Bradley now could see the woman sitting next to him. Her hazel eyes and brunette hair framed a simple yet unblemished face. She wore a lab coat over a simple blue scrubs like what a surgeon would wear, which only partially hid her fit physique. She held him back down onto the bed to prevent him from running away and he did not struggle; with the lady’s good looks, Bradley did not seem to mind. “You need to settle down!” she demanded. “It is only six o’clock right now. You have plenty of time until your Tutorial. You should be focusing on getting better first.” Bradley stared at her for a moment before blushing slightly and looking away. “S-six o’clock? Oh, so I have a few hours left,” Bradley sighed, sitting back into the bed. “So?” the doctor asked, “Is there anything different?’ “Different—?” Bradley started. ‘There is something different, three things to be exact. Now that I’m not…distracted, let’s take a look…’ By identifying a device’s communication using the Human-Computer Interface you have gained a new ability: Wireless Perception Wireless Perception (Basic)Using the Human-Computer Interface, you can now perceive wireless communications actively searching for connection. Other wireless transmissions in the electromagnetic spectrum are ignored to avoid unnecessary oversaturation. ‘So that implant really can do that... At least, that’s what is says. I can’t wait to give it a try,’ he winced as his migraine flared up again. ‘Although then again, I’m not sure I want to go through all that pain again…’ He dismissed the prompt and turned to the next pair of windows: By having the Cybernetic Interface Chip parse over one thousand electronic transmissions of a similar type, it has come to understand the method of communication. You have gained a new ability: Regulatory Identification Regulatory IdentificationThe Cybernetic Interface Chip now identifies the regulatory standards, encoding, and decoding used by the device to communicate. Frequent use further reduces the mental strain when using Wireless Perception by performing these tasks automatically.Current standards known:ANCP, ANSI, ARP/RARP, ASCII, ATA, BAC, BGP, BICC, Bluetooth, CDMA, CDP, DCP, DHCP, DLT-186, DLT-189, DNS, DTP, EAP, EDP, EIGRP, GSM, H.223, H.225, H.263, HART-IP, IAX2, IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.16, IPv4, IPv6, ICMP, ICMPv6, ISO-8859-1, ISUP, LDAP, LLDP, LMP, LTE, MAC-Ethernet, MAC-DSL, MAC-ISDN, MAC-FDDI, MTP3, M3UA, NDP, NFS, NSDP, NSPI, NTP, OSPF, OTA, PPP, RIP, RTP, RTSP, SCTP, SIP, SMB, SMB-Direct, SMP, SMPP, SNMP, SSH, STP, SyncEP, TCP, TFTP, TLS/SSL, UCP, UDP, UDP-lite, UTF-8, VoIP, WAP-WSP, W-CDMA, X.509 ‘Holy crap that’s a lot of protocols! I haven’t even heard of half of these,’ Bradley thought. ‘Did all those devices really send out enough data that the implant could recognize all these standards? No wonder I was knocked out! It’s also really impressive if that chip can extrapolate all those standards just from listening to transmissions… or maybe it’s just ‘Game logic’. Well, I’m sure I will figure all this out eventually.’ He then closed that window and turned his head to the third and final screen. ‘Jeez, I must be blind not to have seen these earlier,’ he thought. By going through intense mental stress and surviving, you have gained a new ability: Mind Survival Mind SurvivalThe mind’s ability to survive under overwhelming extra-sensory stress. He wondered if any of these newfound abilities had caused any stats increased and called up his “Status Window” only to find them still unknown and filled with ‘??’s as expected. ‘Dissapointing, but not surprising,’ he thought, immediately dismissing it; it was not worth looking at without anything having been changed. “So?” the Doctor goaded. “Oh right, sorry,” Bradley blurted out embarrassingly, realizing his thoughts and the Windows caused him to stare at the Doctor for several minutes. Clearing his throat, he played it off with a laugh, saying, “Yeah, apparently I ‘achieved’ a few new abilities, heh.” The Doctor rolled her eyes and chuckled slightly at the man’s awkwardness. “Well that probably solves that problem,” she concluded, writing a final note onto the clipboard before hanging it on the front of the bed. “Your seizure was probably related to the implant or a new ability. It wouldn’t be the first time something like that happened.” She got up and walked to the end of the small hospital room. “That’s it? No prescriptions or monitoring?” he inquired. “What’s the point?” the Doctor replied with a shrug. “If your condition becomes any worse, we’ll have you log out and tested by the medical staff in the real world. Typically though, any physical maladies are cured when you log out so there isn’t much to check.” “Right…” Bradley muttered, puzzling out the ramifications of illness in the Game. “…but wait, then what’s the point of even having doctors in the Virtual World at all?” “There are a few reasons,” the Doctor began, putting a finger on her chin and pursing her lips in thought for a moment. “Logging out and back in takes a long time, roughly one real-world hour. When you consider that this world runs four times faster than the real one, it would be a huge waste of time for something as simple as first aid. “Also for cases in which something unknown happens, we need to record as much information as possible and come up with a diagnosis before you log out so that I can collaborate with the ‘Real World’ doctors to check for any discrepancies. After all, we certainly can’t say with any certainty if the Game itself could be causing the problem or that leaving the Game Capsule will cure it. “There is also mental stress to consider. While the body remains mostly unchanged, the mind is directly affected by the stresses of the Game, just like any other video game. Although we haven’t had a case yet, there is always the possibility of permanent brain damage. So please try to take better care of yourself.” “Oh, right,” Bradley replied, deciding it best to just drop the subject altogether before her rant continues. “Well take your time,” the Doctor replied, “and be sure to safely test the limits of your new abilities before you start your Tutorial. Trust me, you’ll need it.” “Wait,” Bradley quickly got out as the doctor was about to leave, “you know something about this ‘Tutorial’? Oh, and w-what’s your name? You know, in case I ever get sick again?” The Doctor grinned. “It’s Alexandra Fitzgerald. Oh, and as for the , everyone has to do it after all. I’m sure the Lieutenant will tell you all about it before you leave.” She suddenly had a surprised look on her face. “Oh, I just realized that I completely forgot to introduce myself, although I think it would be in both our interests not to meet up too often.” As she closed the door, he wondered, ‘Where did I hear that name before…’ ---------------------------------------- ----Status Window---- Spoiler : Status WindowName:Bradley CooperSpecies:Human (Earth)Level:4Experience:0/1000Class:UndeterminedAlignment:NeutralAge:26Gender:MaleRenown:0Notoriety:0----Regenerative Attributes----Health:95/95Health Regen:21.55/hrPsionic Energy:1/1Psionic Regen:0.82/hrShield Energy:N/AShield Regen:N/AStamina:85/85Stamina Regen:812.09/hr----Attributes----Strength:??+20Agility:??+20Intelligence:??+20Willpower:??+20Charisma:??+20Perception:??+20Endurance:??+20Luck:??+20----Resistances----Physical:??Mental:??Psionic:??----Career----Titles:NoneOccupation:Earth Coalition – Civilian Employee – RecruitCurrent Quest:Arrive for Pre-Tutorial Practice----Currency----Currently Held:0 CreditsCurrently Owed:0 CreditsMarks:0P, 0D, 0GAbility Points:0----Faction Standings----Earth Coalition:EmployeeHaxlards:Neutral*Administrators:Privileged* ----General Ability Window---- Spoiler : General Ability WindowAbility Name:Ability Rank:Ability Proficiency:Ability Rarity:Mind SurvivalGF-2046387519GThe ability of the mind to persist through overwhelming mental trauma. Necessary for resistance against abilities which damage the mind or to use such abilities on oneself.Ability Name:Ability Rank:Ability Proficiency:Ability Rarity:Regulatory IdentificationGG-237103451EThe Cybernetic Interface Chip’s ability to identify the regulatory standards, encoding, decoding and commands used by a device to communicate.Ability Name:Ability Rank:Ability Proficiency:Ability Rarity:Wireless Perception (Basic)GG-1984412473DThe ability to perceive wireless communications actively searching for connection. To avoid oversaturation, the Human-Computer Interface does not transmit secure communication or ordinary electromagnetic waves to the Cybernetic Interface Chip. ----Implant List Window---- Spoiler : Implant List----Biological Implants----Implant Name:Implant Rank:Implant Proficiency:General Status EnhancerDN/AProvides a boost of 20 points to all attributes.----Mechanical Implants----Implant Name:Implant Rank:Implant Proficiency:Cybernetic Interface ChipDG-237103451Connected directly to the brain, when interfaced directly with a computer, implant, or memory module, this chip converts thought into the intended electromagnetic input expected by the device. Higher ranks improve the data rate, allowable frequency range, and provide higher levels of security.Implant Name:Implant Rank:Implant Proficiency:Human-Computer InterfaceDG-1984412473Allows direct cognitive access to a computer system via wireless communication, allowing the brain to issue commands directly to the device. Can only guarantee a proper interface with devices of equal or lower rank.