Day 2 - System Integration Starts

Late Morning

Middletown, North America

“Greetings creatures of Earth.” The voice was loud and monotonous, and yet not deafening to Erin’s ears. “Your planet has been selected for System integration.”

Erin’s thoughts were racing. System integration? What did that mean?

The voice continued, heedless of her thoughts, “During the next twenty-four hours, the initialization process will complete. If you require assistance, think help. It is critical that you not attempt to hinder this process.”

She needed to get home fast, this would be scaring her mother out of her wits.

“Once initialization has completed, you will receive a new message.”

Erin was running at this point. Past a car that had run off the road, no one in the driver’s seat. More people were clearly reacting to the message,

As she rounded the corner into her neighbourhood, a few residents were collected on lawns speaking with each other. There were some frantic arm waves, and a few shouted loud enough to cause dogs to start barking, but none were her mother, so she ignored them and focused on her target.

Crossing her lawn, she vaulted up the steps and burst through the door to her home. “Eomma?” She called out her affectionate name for her mother, a Korean term, “Eomma? Are you home?”

“Ttarai!” Erin’s mother, Eun-ha, replied with her own affectionate Korean term, “I’m in the kitchen.” Her voice sounded distressed, spurring Erin’s race to the kitchen, where she saw her mother’s focus was on an empty spot in the air.

“Ttarai, is this the 5G they’re always talking about on the Internet? Are they beaming thoughts into our brains finally?” Eun-ha winced and put a hand to her head, like she was overcome with a sharp headache.

“No Eomma.” Erin shook her head and approached her mother, “It’s very real, and I don’t think it’s coming from Earth.”

‘You mean…” Eun-ha looked up, like she could not only see through the roof of the house, but also into space where aliens would be orbiting, “Up…up there? That can’t be true!” Eun-ha reacted to another sharp pain in her head.

“It’s true Eomma.” Erin was at her mom’s side now, grabbing her hand supportively. “Everyone is reacting to the message, and 5G doesn’t beam messages into our heads. That’s a conspiracy theory.” Erin’s response was firm, but respectful and caring. “We need to prepare, mom, things are going to get crazy. People are going to get crazy.”

Eun-ha stopped clutching at her head, the headache starting to clear, and nodded at her daughter. “We always keep emergency supplies. Your father’s influence, but I’ll start checking everything, confirm what we do and don’t need.”

“Are you alright? You looked like your head was in pain.”

“I’m fine, Ye-rin. Probably just a migraine from the weather.”

Erin wasn’t certain about that, but she relented. “Okay Eomma, I’m going to try that help thing the message mentioned. Anymore headaches and you tell me.” Erin hugged her mom tightly, then headed for the living room. She plopped down in her dad's old recliner, something neither she nor her mom had the heart to get rid of, and closed her eyes. Too much stress in a short window. Erin could practically feel the anger and rage inside trying the manifest. “No time for you.” Erin mumbled.

Taking a deep breath, Erin opened her eyes. She wanted to check the HUD first. Starting from top center, she noticed a collection of vertical lines, with a number represented at the top center of that. She turned her head, and as the lines moved with her head movement, she realized it was a compass. To the right of the compass, in the corner, were two bars. One had the letters HP to the left of the bar, the other had the letters Rsrce. Both had the letters N/A overlaid on the bars, which seemed a bit odd to Erin. HP and Rsrce seemed like they might be obvious, health points and resource, but she wondered why they were labeled N/A?

Focusing on the N/A over the HP bar, a message appeared in her vision in red.

N/A: Stat not assessed. Newly acquired abilities, stats, and skills may require usage to determine their full capabilities. Additionally, no stats are assessed during the initialization phase.

The message remained long enough for Erin to read it, then faded away. Along the right side of the screen there was a vertical bar, empty currently, with the word Status printed vertically on the outside of the bar. Focusing on the bar, a new message appeared on her screen.

Status Bar: Icons will appear here to represent status conditions, both positive and negative, as well as skill and ability cooldowns. During the initialization phase, this bar will remain empty.

Like before, the message disappeared after Erin finished reading it. Her eyes wandered to the top left corner next where the word Quests sat above a single bullet point that read Complete the integration phase. That seemed self-explanatory for now, so she left it alone.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Roughly centered on the left side of her screen there was an icon that looked like the typical social media friends icon; Silhouettes of people overlapping each other. This seemed obvious as a friends list, so Erin focused on it to see what it looked like. When it expanded into a box, she was surprised to see the word Party at the top of it. Unfocusing on the box minimized it back down to the icon.

In the bottom left there was another icon with squiggly lines. Erin expected this to be a chat of some sort, but after the previous surprise she wasn’t assuming too much. Focusing on the icon, it expanded to display a box in the bottom left that was indeed a chat window. Along the bottom of the window she could see a channel name, Local, and a typing field. Before she could test the typing field, a message appeared in the chat window.

Noah: Testing…

Noah: Hello, is anyone else using the chat?

Erin debated replying, but decided the benefits outweighed the risks for now.

Erin: Hi, uhh…Noah?

She noticed that the chat was very literal when sending a message, as it sent exactly what she thought.

Noah: Hey, someone else found the chat. I’m trying to test the range of the Local channel. I’m on Alabaster Ave.

Erin: I won’t be sharing anything so specific as my street, but you can know that I’m on the other side of town.

Noah: Oh, that’s smart. My mom says I can be too trusting.

Erin: Your mom is right.

Noah: Have you studied the HUD yet? This is just like a video game!

Erin: Yeah, I’ve checked everything except that experience bar and level reference along the bottom.

Noah: My level is zero. I focused on that, and a message popped up telling me I can’t gain XP until the initialization phase is over.

Erin: Good to know. Be careful with sharing level information online as well, though.

Noah: You’re right. One second, my mom is getting a headache. They started after the message.

Erin: Your mom is getting headaches? My mom did as well. I think…they have something to do with what’s going on.

Noah: …

Noah: Okay, back.

Noah: She keeps saying this is the 5G beaming things into our brain.

Erin: Hahaha, my mom said the same. Now that I think of it, she got a headache after saying that, and again when she questioned me about saying this is aliens.

Noah: Really? You think that’s why they got headaches?

Erin: Maybe? In both cases, she was denying what’s going on.

Noah: That’s bad. What happens if someone doesn’t accept what’s happening?

Erin: Nothing good, I’d bet.

Noah: I’ll convince her.

Noah: Hey, I tried focusing on your name to see if I could get info, there are greyed out options.

Erin: Like?

Noah: Private Message, Profile, Invite to Party, and Invite to Private Channel

Erin: Is there a friends list?

Noah: Yeah, but you have to think “friends list.” It’s not on the HUD.

Erin: Okay, I have to go, but we’re preparing for this like it’s an emergency. You should do the same.

Noah: Good idea. If you learn more, leave me a message.

Erin. Will do. Good luck.

Thinking Friends list, Erin’s view was filled with a new window. There were tabs for Friends, Enemies, and Trade Partners. Along the bottom there were buttons for Find Local and Search. Focusing on Find Local, the window was populated with a growing list of people. At the top of her list was her mom, Moon Eun-ha. She could see her mom’s level, location by city, distance in meters, and an Add Friend button.

Below her mom’s name, the list was greyed out, names hidden, with what appeared to be page switching buttons in the bottom right. Shrugging, she clicked the Add Friend button at the far right of her mom’s line, and was met with a startled scream from the basement.

“Eomma!?” Erin jumped to her feet, moving towards the stairs to the basement.

“Did you send me a friend invite, Ttarai?” Eun-ha sounded more than a little freaked out by the relatively minor event.

“Umm…yes?”

“What do I do with it?”

“If it looks like there’s an accept button, focus on that. If it’s just a message, try focusing on the message instead.”

“It’s just a message. I focused on it and I see accept and decline buttons…okay, I accepted it.”

Erin received a notification in her vision stating Eun-ha has accepted your friend request.

“What now?” Her mom said from the basement.

“Nothing for now, Eomma. I’ll go over this with you later.”

Erin went back to the reclining chair and called up the help option. She had reading to do.