For most people it was just another evening in Nova Pari, but for myself, 22 year old Ross Vonarn, it was another evening filled with frustration. Walking down the street sullenly, as the sun in the sky began to set and the light from the billboards and street lights took over. People continued on their merry way, some laughing to each other as they passed me, other bumping into me as they hurried off to do some sort of task before it was too late.
Pushing my through the crowds towards home with my head down and earphones in my ears blasting the latest new song. 3 blocks away through the flood of people on the street was Apartment apes district 34, a massive living complex for those who needing housing but didn’t make large amounts of money. While it isn’t exactly what I had expected to be living in, it’s the best I can do without having a job.
Stopping a moment to let the automatic door recognize me and open up, I take a few steps into the apartment complex and sigh. Walking over to a collection of small metal boxes in the wall I take out my earbuds and kneel down. Pressing my thumb to a glass plate on the front of a metal box I wait a second before opening the box. Inside a very unwelcome sight of absolutely nothing at all was completely visible. “Dammit, Nothing New, Again” I feel my heart turn cold as anger flares through my head, Standing up I kick the door shut as hard as I can, causing a small dent to appear in the box.
“This has been your second warning “Ross Vonarn” another attempt to damage the property of Apartment apex 34, and you will be forcefully evicted and prosecuted to the full extent of the law” from all over a very feminine but robotic voice came from all of the speakers in the lobby area and from my
“Dammit, I can’t deal with this right now. I can’t afford anywhere else and there is no way I’m going to live at home or at any of my buddies… damn it” Acting with more caution but still seething with anger, I approaches a portion of the wall that has a metal door, the transponder. As I approach it opens and I quickly enter before the doors close behind me.
“Room A356, Ross Vonarn, Renter” I say a very clear voice, dictating each word so that the stupid machine doesn’t mess up my destination. Almost instantly the room is basked in a soft green glow and I can fell the small change as it starts to move. A few seconds later and the room screeches to a stop, almost throwing me into one of the walls. Of all the things they fail to fix it just has to be the one that could kill someone. I steady myself and place my hand on a small glass pane to confirm my identity before the door opens and I enter my room.
It’s a small room without any windows, white walls decorated with a collection of posters and other personal items. In a corner there is a desk with a large collection of electronics strewn all over the place, some seemingly haphazardly connected to each other and a monitor. It’s my prized built from scarps, quantum computer with a mental interface; it’s not the greatest but it works for me. One of my other prized possession is a cushioned chair, it would have cost me a fortune if someone hadn’t thought it garbage when I was walking on my home a week ago. I use it as a chair for my desk, helped some of my back problems from using a hard metal one.
Throwing my jacket onto the table, I walks over to the desk and sit down. Hanging on the edge of the monitor is a crown shaped device made of molded black plastic, this is the device for connecting to the mental interface called a temple crown. I place it on my head and as soon as I do, the monitor winks to life and I start playing with the layout of my home screen before deciding to browse the internet.
I flip through a couple news stories before deciding to visit one of my common haunts, The Valkyries of Zeus. It’s funny how the name uses 2 different mythologies for it but it’s not like that matters to all of its users; it functions as a chat room for programmers. As soon as I change my status to online, I receive a message from a friend I made back in my early University years. He goes by the Handle, Dioxis, and is a couple years older than me. We often talk about projects he works on at his job, he works as one of the many programmers at Inside Developments. He specializes in AI coding, which happens to be my favorite topic; so I instantly open up the message hoping it’s something really interesting from that field.
I open the chat room and see the blank black space all around filled with only 2 avatars, Dioxis’ and mine who I call Lucius. Dioxis’s avatar looks like a very pale skinny savage with blonde hair and black face paint around the eyes. Dioxis says it’s supposed to look like a character called look from a very old TV show called Vikings. I myself haven’t watched it but Dioxis will rave about it for an hour, maybe more if you mention the topic to him.
My avatar on the other hand resembles a demon; I don’t know what it is about demons but I find them very interesting. I made my avatar with an almost translucent white skin and piercing violet eyes. Additionally there are many blood red runes tattooed all over the avatars body just as a fashion statement, a very scary one at that though. Lastly, with any demon, I added some rams horns to the sides of my head causing my somewhat long black hair to be forced out of the way.
Lucius, how has hell been?” instantly all hope vanishes from my soul, he is here to torment me about my job search.
I run over to Dioxis and wrap both of my hands around his avatars throat in anger snarling at him “If you mean the job search shut up, Dioxis. If we were in the same room right now I would be choking you to death. ”
“Wow, cool down, it’s not like you have to get the job right away, you still have some time to find something to pay the bills.”
Damn the system doesn’t allow for me to actually cause his avatar harm so I let him go and calm myself down. “I know, but come on, I don’t want to become desperate for money just before I get a job. I’ll be so scary that it will ruin my interview.”
“Sure, like you aren’t desperate and scary enough as it is right now.” His retort almost made me try to choke him again but I managed to hold off the urge.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“What! Can we talk about something else? Like how is is Gladis?
“Gladis? Oh yes, the project has hit a standstill. There just seems to be something that is preventing the more complex processes from being accepted. After going through many variations of the code, it’s been decided that the basis of the code is flawed.” Nonchalantly Dioxis sits down in as if he was in a chair but of course there wasn’t on, no need for one in a pace like this.
Aw come on, I thought you guys said that Gladis was going to be the next greatest thing since the first AI and you are calling it dead?” I get up close and sit down in a nonexistent chair next to him leaning far back and resting my feet on an invisible desk.
“I wouldn’t put it that way, we still are going to call the finished product Gladis, and we are just using a new base than the one right now. Hey do you want a copy of the code? It’s going to be scrapped anyway and you’re a decent quantum programmer, maybe you might find out what we missed or just have some fun with it.”
“You realize I have no free time as things are right now, even if I get a job I still probably won’t have time to check the code”
“Come on, you’re going to want a break every now and then, I’m giving you something to play with, We are throwing it away anyways, just accept it. In fact I’m sending. In fact I’m sending out a copy of the code right now, whether you look at it or not is up to you” At the bottom of my monitor a small icon appears showing that an email is being downloaded.
I open up the icon and check on the progress of the download… What is this, this file; it’s one petabyte in size! That’s more than half of my current remaining storage space. Immediately I send an angry message at Dioxis “What the hell man, that file is enormous. You’re lucky that I am prepared to deal with the chance I needed something this big someday. If I wasn’t you could have blown my Computer, remember quantum computers aren’t always stable” I warned
“Wow, I’m sorry. It’s just you usually would jump on the chance to have an AI code to mess around with. I guess the job search is that bad huh?”
“Yeah, its draining me in more than just 2 ways, mentally and physically, my precious bank account is being deprived of its prized babies” I feel a small tear fall down my cheek which my avatar on screen copies perfectly.
Dioxis’ avatar lowers its head and a hand appears face palming “You see here Lucius, I think I know why you aren’t getting any jobs. Have you mentioned anything about money being your babies to any of your once potential employers?”
“Why not? It shows how dedicated I am to my job, I must have money so I would do my job to the fullest and achieve promotions due to my hard work to inflate my bank account much quicker. It’s a win win situation, they gain hard worker, and I gain more of my precious babies!” Moving in circles my Avatar does a small dance with pride flowing out every virtual pore on it.
Walking up to my avatar slowly, Dioxis stops in front of me and sighs before slapping my avatar sending it flying a couple meters “A Employer won’t hire you if you are mentally unfit! You sound like an insane maniac! I am surprised that you haven’t been reported to Orouboros and carted off with talk like that!”
I straighten up in my chair and become serious “You don’t think that could actually happen… right?”
Noticing my sudden change, Dioxis raises his hands “I’m not really sure but come on you got to be careful when people are just disappearing all over the place with no rhyme or reason. It wouldn’t be too bad if it wasn’t for Ouroboros not even doing any investigations on what could be causing it.”
“Okay, but do you actually think that Ouroboros could be behind the disappearances? It does seem awfully suspicious that they are doing nothing about it.”
“Come on man, you know it’s just urban legend. There is no way a Universal Organization like Ouroboros could afford to do crimes on a scale like that. They probably aren’t doing anything about it just because it’s us lower class disappearing, nobody important has disappeared if you actually take a look at things.”
“That makes sense but it’s still pretty scary if you just look at the news.”
We continue talking for a while about things like our favorite songs, shows, and games. Eventually we each have to head off and do something, Dioxis had to go off to a late night dinner with a friend. Based on how much he avoided telling me the details, I assume it was a date with one of his woman colleagues, sometimes I just want to wring his neck Myself on the other hand was going to go to sleep. Well not before I grabbed a snack at least.
Sitting on my counter next to a coffee maker is one of the most important invention in the last century, the food printer. By using a collection of organic meal base, nutrients, and flavorings, it can print any meal that has been logged in the database. The one sitting on my counter is a convenience model 8 years out of date, and of course every option has a price tag next to it. I swipe through the list of foods and groan each time I see something I crave but just outside of my price range. Eventually I settle on having some vanilla yogurt, as the printer starts pouring the yogurt into the cup, I silently the curse the heavens as I imagine the babies I had to sacrifice for this snack being sent off to a prison somewhere far away.
After crying inside and enjoying my snack, I throw the container into the reuse bin in the wall. All it takes after that is two steps to flop onto my bed and fall into a deep dark slumber as all the stress from the day drags my mind under.
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Author's Note:
I hope you enjoyed this first chapter.
It would be great if spelling and grammatical errors are pointed out.
Sadly I cannot guarantee when the next chapter will be available
Thanks for reading! :)