It is in changing that all things find repose. - Heraclitus of Ephesus

***

Kelly and I argued about the best course of action given our unexpected discovery of a pair of sandstone monoliths deep in the forest and adjacent to our former campsite. As Kelly and I “talked,” Lyle wound his way down the slope. I was explaining to Kelly how I thought that it was important to check-in with others about what we had found when I noticed her gaze shift down the hillside. I turned to see Lyle running at full tilt toward the smaller of the two obelisks. He was already at the bottom of the hill.

I called out to Lyle, not really in alarm, but most certainly in WTF. Lyle didn’t break his stride. As Kelly and I started after him, it became obvious that he would reach the sandstone monument well before we caught up.

When Lyle stepped onto the low, circular disc on which the smaller obelisk sat, the monument began to emit an extremely low, resonant tone. When he placed his hand into a small indentation in the smaller obelisk, the larger obelisk began to shimmer with an effect that looked similar to the air right above hot pavement in summer sun. The shimmer became more intense and appeared to coalesce into a gossamer equal parts silver, gold and green cascading down the large obelisk.

Lyle was gazing up at it in seeming wonder. Kelly and I had both stopped in our tracks staring with disbelief. I grabbed her hand, turned around and pulled her along with me as I made for the hill. She didn’t resist, but she didn’t seem entirely all there either. I held on and we had rounded the base of the hill and were pushing toward the track to the clearing where the rest of our friends were waiting for us when I felt the world fall away. There was a blinding flash that forced my eyes closed with a burst of pain and I felt all of my momentum immediately disappear along with Kelly’s hand.

Obviously this was my blue screen moment. As I said, I had watched the anime and read the webtoons and “played” the Lit RPGs. When I spent tedious hours at work making spreadsheets and building models, my conscious mind was always drifting to topics of greater interest. I had spent ages wondering about every aspect of this type of idle fantasy, plenty of time to puzzle through what my strategy would be if I were to really be trapped in that moment.

So when a blue screen appeared in my mind’s eye, I already had a game plan in mind.

Congratulations! You have been selected for awakening. Prepare for awakening in:

... 5

... 4

... 3

... 2

... 1

Congratulations on your awakening.

I definitely felt something. It was like when your ears pop after a long flight, but for all of my senses. There was an increase in fidelity and clarity that felt like taking a deep breath. I felt curiosity and some excitement, but mostly I felt an almost overwhelming clarity and a deep feeling of calm.

Analyzing starting statistics ...

Calculating initial class options ...

Prepopulating available quests ...

Detecting synergies ...

Compiling results …

Congratulations the Unified System has awakened you to a new reality. Within the Unified System your struggles are quantified. As you use the energy that you absorb from your environment to transform your physical and mental capabilities, the Unified System tracks your experience and reflects your gains. The limits of your old reality are not relevant in Unified System space. Your only true limitation is your own drive and the will to advance.

This interface will allow you to choose an initial class from pre-populated archetypes familiar to your pre-awakening culture and support your transition to the Unified System. New classes will become available as class requirements are unlocked. Classes can be changed at any time. Please note, only class abilities in which you have achieved mastery will be retained following a class change.

Please review your available quests and choose your starting class accordingly:

>Wake the Dreamer

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

>StarMancer - Path of the Wizard

>Ghostlight Falls

>Purge the Dark Forest

>Arkfall-LOCKED

All system menu options may be selected by thinking of the desired menu option or keyword with the intent to access that menu option. Please select each quest for a detailed explanation and description of requirements and details. Once complete you may select your class and continue to the tutorial. To access your system menu and utilities at any time use the Unified System keyword MENU.

My first stop was the help menu. I thought the keyword: HELP with the will to open the menu and it appeared in my mind’s eye.

Unified System Utilities: Help-LOCKED

This function is not currently available

This was not entirely unexpected. They always try to screen you out on the front end and force you into the options they present. Then they hit you with the fine print and suddenly you “own your own vacation” with a timeshare in Boca Rattan that you can’t get out of even if you straight up die. There was no way I was going to select any quests or classes.

I thought keyword: REPRESENTATIVE, keyword: I WANT TO SPEAK TO A REPRESENTATIVE, keyword: OPERATOR, keyword: 0, keyword: ZERO, . . .

***

“Where is Harris? I feel like something is wrong,” said Jim.

“Wow, Jim. Kind of an understatement,” Sarah deadpanned. It wasn’t that Sarah wasn’t concerned about Harris, but we all have our coping mechanisms and as those go Sarah’s dry wit is pretty spectacular.

Kelly broke in, “He was right next to me when that blinding flash hit. I felt his hand just drop away and twenty minutes later I completed the Unified System awakening and found myself here.”

“You felt his hand just drop? Was there any blood? Did you see the hand when you woke up?” Lando said with absolutely genuine concern.

“Of course not,” replied Kelly. If I had his bloody hand I would have led with that, Lando. I was holding his hand and it just disappeared.”

“I am sorry, Kelly. You were holding Harris’ hand? I guess this is literally the end of the world,” rejoined Karen, also charmingly still in possession of her sense of humor despite the situation.

“What the hell Karen. We weren’t on a picnic date at the park, he tried to pull me to safety after I froze when Lyle did whatever the hell he did.”

Lyle jumped in to defend himself again, “Yeah. I told you. I really felt like the right thing to do at the time and everyone is here and safe, well everyone except Harris.”

“Listen. This isn’t getting us anywhere,” said Jim. “It’s been five hours since Queakers appeared. Everyone else shows a ‘Ready’ status on the party menu and Harris’ line is just blank. I think that we have to accept that there isn’t anything that we can do for him now and begin to work our way toward the training facility. We can take it slow and if he doesn’t appear with us on the road, maybe he can catch up. If we wait any longer I am concerned that we won’t make it before it gets dark.”

“No worries. I am ready to go when you are,” I said. “A walk sounds really good right now. I feel like I have been cooped up forever.” Everyone turned in unison to find Harris standing just behind the group. Queakers darted among Harris’ friends to reach him with a flurry of barks and playful nips. Harris was getting the bichon version of a beat down, which he clearly deserved for being so darn slow.

“Harris. How did your dog finish the integration before you? Did you fall asleep?” Sarah said with relief in her voice despite the sarcasm.

“Why? How long have you been waiting? How long did the process take for you?” asked Harris.

“Well it took most of us about 30 minutes, but Queakers took about 45. We have all been waiting for you for five hours. We were getting worried that we wouldn’t make it to the safezone by dark,” replied Sarah.

This was quite confusing for me. I had no way to mark time in the void of my mind’s eye as I tried to work his way through the system prompts. I never did connect with a system representative, but I did manage to leave a message of sorts. It felt like it had all taken much, much longer than six hours. I didn’t want to slow my friends down any further and I felt great, so I just apologized, grabbed Queakers and started forward on the path.

***

Each Numu collective is made up of millions of sentient plants. Each plant about the size of a thumb, these individuals generally choose to bind themselves together into a collective with a gestalt mind when they reach maturity. They inhabit some of the most energy dense worlds in our region of space, close to the galactic core. The nature of their existence lends itself to near immortality on the collective level and an impressive capacity to split their focus across a staggering number of pursuits. This has allowed the Numu to rise to a level of technology that is magical or even miraculous by our standards. After all, what is magic but a system of technology advanced enough that it exceeds our current framework of understanding?

The primary focus of Numu society since time immemorial has been the achievement of the Eon. The power of eternity is a lofty goal, but an indefinite lifespan and a level of power that exceeds civilizations on a galactic scale tends to support aiming high. Primarily a philosophical, or perhaps more accurately a metaphysical goal, the Numu progressed their efforts to achieve the Eon through varied means, including the development of a comprehensive understanding of their galaxy and the diversity of its contents.

Even with their capacity for parallel processing, the Numu devoted a full three collectives to their efforts to fully explore the primary forms. Collective*Nupos was parsing the information streams fed to them by their spiritual constructs across their sector when they ran across something new. Finding something new was nothing new in itself for Collective*Nupos. It had happened innumerable times before, after all new things were being created and destroyed constantly. However, this new thing gave Collective*Nupos a rather pleasant tingly feeling, which was also new.

Collective*Nupos pulled their focus more tightly into the source of this experience and integrated Collective*Nutho and Collective*Nusis into the relevant spiritual construct. The source of the experience was calling itself the Unified System. An interesting, but certainly not unique perception-on-perception overlay construct that was experiencing a one sided “customer service dispute” with a newly integrated entity.