The moment I stepped foot inside the shuttle the door started closing and a human man stepped out of the cockpit to stand in front of me.
“Welcome aboard my Lady, we shall be in transit for approximately seventeen hours before docking with the frigate Lost souls”
he bowed then returned to the cockpit leaving me standing in the hallway with a dozen seats around me. I sat down in a seat and found a blood pouch sitting in an armrest pocket that was keeping it warm and after I tasted it I knew it was also keeping the blood fresh. I sucked the blood down quickly and grabbed a second pouch drinking that too. They were so delicious. I couldn't think of anything I had ever tasted that had been better.
I relaxed back into the seat and didn't even notice the shuttle had left the ancient elven ship far behind as I slipped into a euphoric state. I didn't even notice the pilot, an elf was standing in front of me until he clapped his hands in my face. I sat bolt upright and looked around with concern to finally rest my eyes on his smile.
"You now know why so many elves are hunted so relentlessly." I looked at the blood pouches then back at him.
He nodded his head. "Yes, it was mine." I licked my lips. I then had to force myself to calm down before I jumped this elf.
"Thank you, it was very delicious." I said.
He nodded again then waved his hand at the screen sliding out the armrest between me and him.
"We have a large range of entertainment onboard, please enjoy"
he then turned and walked back into the cockpit. I spent a great deal of time perusing the collection of movies and series. I even watched a few movies before turning it off. I closed my eyes and after several minutes I found myself in a new and interesting state of being asleep but still conscious enough to be aware of my surroundings.
It was a truly blissful feeling. I suddenly understood why so many movies and books back on earth had vampires sleeping for centuries in them. This was a rather enjoyable feeling. I could indulge in it for a long time. It was at this time the human came back to speak with me but when he saw my eyes closed and shallow breathing. I felt the blood in his face drain away before the sound of his feet turn and hurry back to the cockpit. I could hear them through the door as if I was standing next to them.
“She’s asleep!” the human voice said.
“Vampires don’t sleep, it’s why you can’t sneak up on them!” the elf voice replied.
“Well her eyes are closed and she is breathing shallowly, so if that’s not sleep then I don’t know what is!” the human voice replied.
“It is hibernation.” the elf voice stated, he paused there before continuing “they lose the sense of sight and gain what we would call sleep but they are still fully aware of what is going on around them....” the elf voice suddenly trailed off before saying a bit more urgently “and their other senses heighten! She can probably hear this conversation!”
I found it interesting that I actually heard the air shift giving me the impression that they had snapped their heads to stare at each other.
“Maybe we should just focus on working.” The human said nervously.
“Good idea.” The elf replied also sounding a little nervous.
I opened my eyes as I smiled slowly “hibernation huh? Feels wonderful.” my mind drifted back to earth as I thought about the times I had gotten the best night's sleep and snickered at it, this hibernation felt a hundred times better. I shook the thoughts from my mind as I looked around. “Status” went through my mind. The blue screen opened my status in front of my eyes.
Name: Michelle
Clan: Unknown
Clan Members: 6
Vampiric Rank: King
Level: Error unable to access.
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Skills: Error unable to access.
“The hell my status sheet is broken? And what happened to half my clan?” I asked, staring at the status screen completely confused.
“Hello? I could use some assistance back here” I called out as I looked up at the cockpit door.
It immediately opened and the elf guy came walking back to my seat as quickly as he could.
“Yes, My Lady, how may I be of assistance?” he asked me as he bowed slightly.
I looked up at his face as I frowned slightly.
“When I crashed into that elf cargo ship I had twelve clan members and a working skills sheet, but now I have six clan members and a busted skills sheet, can you explain this to me?” I asked almost believing he couldn’t and was ready to wave him away.
He nodded his head as if he had been waiting for me to ask about this “Yes, of course, I can answer this for you.” he paused as he collected his thoughts before continuing. “First your skills screen is… busted… as you say because the limiter was removed therefore it can not tell you what skills it allows you to have. The skills you have are all the skills a member of the pureblooded vampire race would have, if I stabbed you right now you would not bleed and your wound would seal over almost as instantaneous as pulling the knife from you, in fact, I am not sure the blade could even scratch your skin. You can move faster than I can perceive, you could tear the seat out of its bolts with your strength.”
he then nodded as all this was proof that I had more and better skills than before.
“As for your clan members, I am honestly not surprised, Lord Ardinton did manage to survive that battle. His ship while heavily damaged made it into a quantum tunnel, he abandend what remained of his clan when he made his escape. however, once he realized what he had done, he began to correct it by destroying the members of your clan, the six members still a part of your clan are no doubt hiding somewhere. He will not stop hunting until all seven members including yourself are dead."
I stared at him before managing to mumble. "We need to save them." He shook his head as he looked into my eyes.
"You need to save them, I need to get you to the frigate and that is all I need to do. Now if there will be nothing else My Lady, then I shall return to the pilot seat." He did that half-bow again before turning on his heel and walking back to the cockpit.
I made a face at the door before falling back into my chair and sighing. I closed my eyes as I considered the problem ahead of me. I was a fugitive, according to the system and government of my people. However, according to the ancient rights of my people I was now one of its kings meant to lead the government that hunted me.
"This is seven ways to Sunday, fracked up!" I growled out as I got to my feet and started to pace down the corridor between the seats.
"The real problem is my clan is also being hunted and I only have six members left. Obviously, I need to rescue them, onto a spaceship, maybe one of them has already gotten a ship we can hide out on." I was talking to myself as I paced back and forth. I had found this really helped me to think.
A bright light suddenly appeared all around the craft and raced in enveloping the entire craft before reaching me. Then it turned black and that was all I could see. I’m not sure how much time passed but it felt like seconds before a translucent blue-tinged screen appeared in front of me. With a little cursor at the top. It blinked three times then started moving across the screen as someone typed.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
You have failed to amass any points in this beta test.
You will now be sent back to your planet of origin where your mind will be wiped, any memories pertaining to this beta test will be removed.
Error…
Error…
Error…
Unable to resolve the error.
The screen vanished and I was left in the world of darkness once more.
“Well, this can’t be good.” I groaned, surprising myself that I could actually talk in the void.
I looked down seeing I still had Michelles’ body. I blinked. As I started looking around me I could see there were stars all around me. I quickly blinked again but there was no change. I moved my hands, wriggled my toes.
“Well, I suppose it is lucky that I do not need oxygen to survive,” I told myself.
I began to move my body twisting and turning when I suddenly noticed the scenery had changed. I was now standing in a bright white room.
“You are not part of the system… how did you get there and who are you?” a voice from behind me demanded.
I turned around quickly to see a screen hovering in front of me. On that screen, an old man with a long white beard and a scowl on his face was sitting at a desk. I frowned as I looked at him. I was starting to get tired of being pushed around and decided to have a little fun of my own.
I rolled my shoulders and answered simply “I am the Goddess Michelle." The man’s face twisted in anger as he furiously began to type on the keyboard. I watched him for a while but was quickly becoming bored. I was about to turn away and take a look around when he slammed his fist on the table.
“No, no, no! This is not possible,” he exclaimed in frustration.
“What is not possible?” I asked curiously.
He slammed his fist on the table again before looking up at me. “You should not exist, and I can’t delete you. How did you get in our system, tell me now!” he screamed.
I rolled my shoulders, turning away. “I don’t want to talk to a grouch, you should be nicer,” I replied.
I was trying really hard not to laugh as I teased him. I could see his face now twisting in anger and rage before he slowly breathed out and took a few deep breaths.
He then asked, “can you please tell me how you came to be where I found you?”
I smiled as I turned back to him “see, wasn’t that a lot better?” the old man actually scooped up his beard and began chewing on it as his face showed signs of anger and murderous intent.
I let out a small giggle and shrugged “fine, I received a message saying I had failed to amass any points in the beta test. I was to now be sent back to my planet of origin. Then an error occurred and the final message said the error was unable to be resolved. After that, I was left in the dark and eventually stars appeared. Then you pulled me into this white room.”
The colour in his face drained before he suddenly dove for something off-screen while screaming “impossible, we fixed all of those bugs.”
He soon reappeared on the screen holding a glass square plate and was tapping it rapidly with each end of a pen. It reminded me of a scene I saw long ago in a movie. A child named River was in a school. I suddenly snapped my fingers as I pointed at the old man.
“You remind me of a movie called serenity.”
The old man ignored me as his pen continued its furiously paced tapping. I glared at the old man for ignoring me. getting slightly annoyed I decided to throw some imaginary popcorn at him. To my surprise real popcorn actually came out of my hand and hit the screen, I froze staring at the popcorn. He, on the other hand, didn’t seem to notice but he did freeze when he found what he had been looking for and the pen slid from his finger falling to the ground.
“I don’t believe it” he mumbled.
I looked up from the popcorn laying on the floor as I frowned.
“You don’t believe I’m telling the truth?” I asked.
“I don’t believe I missed one” he replied as he leaned down and picked up his pen.
“Well, this is simply fixed, now that I have found your origin source, Michael, from earth in sector E387, you were uploaded in a beta test of earth and seeded into a female vampire. Managed to survive the terrorist test but failed to commandeer a ship and engage in battle to claim the station for yourself.”
His pen started tapping on the screen as he smiled “no worries, I’ll just give you a race change back to human and send you to a random uninhabited planet to live out the rest of your life.”
I was starting to get annoyed with his higher than thou attitude and waved my hand in front of me while I thought “disconnect” the screen instantly turned off. I turned around as I thought i was begining to get the hang of this power and with another thought, the white room vanished and I was floating in space again. I turned to look in a random direction as I thought of the Ardington space station. I blinked and found myself standing in the hangar of the space station. I smiled softly as I looked around.
“It seems I am more powerful now, and can go anywhere I want or at least anywhere I know the location of.”
A bright flash of light caught my attention, I turned to see a young man with blond hair walking out of the white light as he smiled softly at me.
“Greetings Goddess Michelle, it is a pleasure to meet you, I am Systems Administrator Somber, if I may have a moment of your time, I would like to explain what has happened”
I turned slowly and nodded my head. “As long as you don’t try to delete me.” I said.
He smiled while he looked at me. “I am sorry to stare but you are a rather fascinating thing to behold, this is the first time someone has created their own place inside our system. You see when you were asked who you were, during a time when even the system had no idea, the first thing you said the system made true. And by stating your title of Goddess the system created for you a system privilege, one that was above the authority of a system technician, this authority you have been granted seems to rival my own as I can not touch you either. Since you have been granted the privilege and authority of a system administrator I must make a request of you.”
I slowly lifted my hand watching him stiffen slightly. “What request?” I asked hesitantly.
He smiled nervously as he waved his hand for me to lower mine.
“You have been granted the authority only one other person has ever had, the system creator was designated a God in the system, and now you have been placed next to him in authority. 7This is what worries us the most as we are sure he died eons ago, meaning there is no one left that is above your authority. You have full control over everything but you are not a staff member and do not know why we are uploading civilizations into our system, therefore I must ask you to seal your powers from systems technician and above or at the very least not use them.”
my hand instantly shot back up pointing a finger at him as annoyance flashed across my face. He flinched before chuckling softly trying to hide it.
“Why don’t you tell me then?” I asked as I pointed my finger at him.
His face paled slightly as he quickly nodded his head. “Yes, yes, of course, there is something in the universe, we are not sure what it is exactly, only that it leaves nothing in its wake and anything that comes in contact with it vanishes completely. We rush ahead of it trying our best to save as many civilizations as we can. However, there is a list that must be satisfied, for instance, if the civilization is too violent and projections indicate that this civilization would destroy all those already inside the system world then they are not uploaded but only warned and offered a way to build their own means of escape.”
A realization suddenly flashed across his face. “Oh, yes we did, we did upload earth. It is in its original place inside the systems world, it and its citizens are safe”
I let out a slow breath as my hand dropped. “Okay, so not using my powers, I am meant to appear normal to maintain the universe’s balance, yes?”
he nodded his head. “Yes that is the very least we ask you to do, I will, of course, continue to pop in from time to time to check up on you, because the truth of immortality is that only the staff and you actually have it.”
I suddenly glared at him. “Then who is on the ship outside of the system testing civilizations?” I asked.
He suddenly smiled “ooh, good question, it is one of my favourites, our systems creator in his ingenious wisdom also created a way for the administrators of his system to be able to control machines outside of it we are able to directly connect to the ship systems and control them from inside, it is only navigation and system maintenance. The rest is controlled by a sentient AI. who feeds the rest of the information to us and performs the repairs we request. When the ship reaches a planet. Two things can happen, first, if there is life then Nanites are sent down to the planet they select ten thousand random citizens and place them inside a server for beta testing, the system, of course, fills the server with creatures from the planet's books or stories it also mixes in some places from the system.
Once the test is complete if the civilization is deemed safe to upload the ship scans the entire planet and well I’m not really sure what happens. It is beyond my understanding but I do know that the planet and everything on it, is sent to a server farm hidden just outside the universe. Where it is safely protected. The citizens of the planet are unaware of this and continue their lives in peaceful ignorance. Secondly, if there is no life then the planet is simply scanned and uploaded so that it may be of use to someone in the future.”
he turned to look out of the hanger into space as he smiled happily “this place is beautiful.”
I turned my head looking into space. “Are you telling me there are no humans in this system? No elves? No vampires?”
he suddenly laughed “Yes, there are humans in this system, a fair few planets have humans originating from them. As for elves and vampires, yes they are real and yes they are in the system, living out their lives. As for the stories you were told, well they were all made up...mostly”
I let out a sigh and nodded my head. “Fine, you win but I will not stop using my newfound powers. However, I will maintain the balance, agreed?”
he smiled and nodded his head.
“Maintaining the balance between all creatures is our first priority.” he said as he turned back to the bright white door.
“I believe there is a frigate around this station somewhere that is still functioning. I will also send you a few nanites that will upload the information of how your new powers work so you don’t accidentally blow up a galaxy.”
I let out a laugh thinking he was kidding but a few seconds later my head suddenly split and a searing pain washed over me as I fell to my knees and he vanished through the door. Then my vision went black as my head hit the deck.