9 Chapter Nine. The Crazier the Explanation, the Closer the Truth
"You aren't a failure until you start blaming others for your mistakes."
John Wooden
EVERY RPG PLAYER is used to the conventions of online games. If you take such a basic thing as a health bar which is a prerequisite in most of them, it allows players to always know their own health levels. Quite often they might also know those of certain other players, too. This is so normal that a player takes it for granted. Logical, really: if your char's DPS is a meager couple of thousand, you'd think twice before attacking a monster whose hp is measured in millions.
Now let's imagine that this characteristic becomes available IRL. Just think how many deaths from terminal diseases that could prevent. Think of a person who's going happily about his or her life, considering themselves perfectly healthy while their health numbers are slowly dwindling... and once they see that, they go to the doctor for a check. And indeed, this turns out to be the early stages of cancer which are perfectly treatable and have a very favorable prognosis. How's that for a good life?
This also means that any magicless level-1 newb in possession of a non-dimensional inventory, a built-in map and a number of status bars could automatically become the next Forbes sensation in the real world. All he'd have to do was open a medical diagnostics center. And even if medicine wasn't his vocation, he could always use his inventory to make a living pinching vodka in supermarkets. The possibilities were legion.
Those were the kinds of ideas I was contemplating while studying my interface.
The built-in Wiki had given me answers to quite a few questions. I still didn't understand what had prevented the game's mysterious creators from uploading all the data directly to my head. That could have been a simple solution for someone that powerful. Then again, it could have been technically (or biologically?) impossible. Probably, the information had to be acquired organically, via normal channels such as eyesight and hearing.
The tab contained a standard brief menu,
- About the program
- Wiki
- Settings
- Available updates
- Technical support
I can't even tell you how relieved I felt staring at these lines which looked so familiar to me from the countless other pieces of software I'd used before. Even though the first three entries were rather nondescript, the last two spoke for themselves: I'd somehow ended up with a computer program installed in my brain. Which meant that someone must have built it.
Do you know what I did first thing? Checked the available updates, of course.
Impossible to establish connection with the updates server
It might be unavailable
Check your universal infospace connection settings
The same thing happened when I tried to contact Support.
Ignoring the Wiki and Settings buttons, I opened About the Program.
My jaw dropped to the floor.
Augmented Reality!7.2 Home Edition
Copyright © First Martian Company, Ltd. 2101-2118
All rights reserved
Registered owner: Philip Panfilov
S/N C4R-7702D-2102770
One-year single user license
Account type: Premium
Activation date: 05.16.2018 09:00
Expiration date: 05.16.2019 08:59
I don't know how long I spent just sitting there staring at the copyright line.
When I'd been a kid, I'd read my fair share of time travel books where a humble student like myself somehow ended up in the future. How many times had I wished it had been me! I'd have loved to have seen our planet's future and hopefully even travel to Mars. At the time, I'd have given anything for a peek at the awesome world of the future.
As I grew up, I'd switched to dystopias and post apoc. Add to this all the zombie apocalypse blockbusters and my infatuation with Fallout games, and you'll understand why I wasn't so eager to see the future anymore. Still, even then I wouldn't have said no to Gray's Sports Almanac 2000-2050 or some such artifact.
And now it looked like my pipe dream had finally come true. I'd just received a big tangible kick in the butt compliments of the twenty-second century.
I crawled back in bed and lay there buried under the sheets like a snail trying to retreat into its shell. The super ability freebie I'd just received weighed heavy on me. It felt very much like stumbling across a briefcase containing a million bucks in a dark alley. On one hand, it made you deliriously happy; on the other, a find like that bode nothing good. No one was stupid enough to leave a million bucks in a dark alley which meant someone was already looking for it.
The expiration date did nothing to improve my plummeting mood, either. What was going to happen to me and my brain once the license expired? Would they just unplug me? Or offer an extension? In which case, how did they expect me to pay?
If, at some later date, I decided to write a book describing these events, I would have to omit this moment of weakness entirely. I'd begin the book with me working hard. I'd sign up for all kinds of courses and classes and start leveling everything from archery to cooking to online marketing.
Reality wasn't as simple as that.
Unable to sleep, I stayed in bed till midday making all kinds of plans, then envisioning their sinister consequences. This fabulous gift from the future definitely came with strings attached. As a result, I received two mutually exclusive debuffs: Insomnia (duration: 12 hrs.) and Lack of Sleep. Between themselves, they'd decimated my Vigor, Satisfaction, Perception, Intellect, Agility and all the other stats for good measure.
Whatever. I didn't care anymore. All I wanted to do was continue researching this game system.
I actually discovered that all that eye-rolling wasn't really necessary. I could very easily control the interface by sending mental commands.
I opened Settings.
It allowed me to set up my system message preferences, play with colors and the interface layout by moving around bars and buttons, add a clock and a mini map, set up an alarm and change the task logging parameters. I could also enable the auto accept quest option (whatever that was supposed to mean), and activate some thingy which blasted an alarm whenever a certain person came within direct line of sight. Etc., etc.
I could deal with all of that later. Now I had the best course of this digital feast staring me in the face:
Wiki.
Someone else might have opened it first, ignoring all the other tabs. It's just like kindergarten kids who eat their dessert first, then move to the more boring dishes. Me, I'd always left the dessert for last. It was the only thing that could motivate me to finish my carrots and gulp down the sickening milk soup which Russian nutrition authorities believed beneficial for children's growing bodies.
The Wiki turned out to be very helpful. It was a proper virtual assistant: the moment I thought of something it offered me a page with answers, then read its contents to me out loud. Eventually, that became a problem because I kept thinking of new things as I read, which prompted an avalanche of new windows overlapping each other. Every time I thought of something, my virtual assistant would stop mid-word and switch to my new inquiry, which in the end became admittedly chaotic.
At first, the assistant's voice was devoid of emotion and even gender: it was too high for a man and too low for a woman. It spoke Russian with just a hint of an accent. Not that I paid any attention to it: I was too busy learning how stats were calculated.
They actually turned out to be quite simple. I'd been right: the system adapted to the user's understanding. Had I been some clueless newb without any gaming experience I might have received the following system message,
Congratulations! Even though you're not that strong (2), you're very smart (14) and have enviable intuition (16). You're quite observant but unfortunately, not too enduring (4). To make up for it, you're agile and supple (11). And you have tons of luck (15)!
Mind you, this was only my conjecture. Numbers would be no use to a clueless newb. He or she wouldn't know what to do with them.
One thing I'd managed to work out was that the stats numbers were in keeping with some average values — probably, shared by all human beings. How the mysterious game creators accessed those numbers was a different question entirely. Most likely, they extracted them from that universal infospace they'd already mentioned. An average human being's stats seemed to hover around level 10.
In any case, what exactly did the system mean by Strength, Perception or Agility? How were they supposed to work and what were they supposed to affect?
Strength stood for a user's brute physical force. Using weightlifters' language, it was the number of weights a person could lift using any given muscle group. The system summed up the numbers of all human beings on planet Earth in order to work out an average, which was then divided by 10 to calculate the value of one point.
Which meant I was 40% weaker than an average Terran. Sigh. The good news was, Strength was one of the easiest stats for a newb to level thanks to the so-called "beginner's effect".
Agility, according to Wiki, was "the ability to learn complex coordinated movements and use these acquired skills continuously in constantly changing environments". Unlike Strength, it was calculated using some arcane chart of complex movements and their performance times.
I had a funny feeling that the chart listed cartwheels and leg splits which I'd never mastered at school. Otherwise, why would I only have 4 pt. Agility? Luckily, it too could be leveled up with various exercises and gym practice.
As for Intellect, it wasn't as simple as one's IQ reading. In fact, the game had its own IQ test which also calculated the person's creativity and their ability to think out of the box. There were other contributing factors, too. Like Erudition which was calculated as the percentage of the user's knowledge of the planet's entire information database. Or the ability to generate new knowledge which figured heavily in the IQ calculation formula. There were also Life Experience, Problem Solving and other such factors.
I indeed proved to have high Intellect numbers. Finally something I could be proud of. I could level it up even higher by studying, through learning the existing knowledge and generating new data — for instance, via my writing.
Now, Stamina. Here the Wiki flooded me with data about my lung volume, respiratory metabolism and ventilation rates. I stared at columns of digits depicting my CO2 rates and metabolic heat production, trying to come up with questions which could explain it in layman's language. Finally, I worked out that all those numbers could be improved upon by performing extended periods of certain types of physical activity such as jogging, swimming, uphill walking, jumping, making love, or pull-ups.
Getting the right answers from my virtual assistant was a job and a half. I showered it with questions, trying to work my way through lists of scientific terms and make my questions as straightforward as possible:
"Does sex count?"
"Yes. The time spent in the active position can be used as a variable which would allow you to calculate the average..." the assistant would go on and on until I interrupted it with my next question.
Perception was another complex characteristic which included Eyesight, Hearing, Taste, Smell, Intuition, Rapid Memory, Attention to Detail and Foresight. Even though I hadn't quite managed to work out their calculation principle, I could see they were all interrelated. As for leveling it, I decided to leave it till later.
Charisma included Attractiveness, Credibility and Charm. No idea how the system was supposed to calculate the latter. Apparently, it had performed a virtual simulation of each and every legally capable human being on Earth in order to see how many other people he or she could attract and influence.
Finally, the calculation of Luck. That's where I thought I must have been losing it.
"We have analyzed every day of every person's life from the moment of his or her conception, taking into consideration all key life events which have affected his or her existence," the assistant said matter-of-factly. "Then we used the 'good-to-bad life choices' ratio in order to produce the average Luck reading."
"How? How did you access the data?"
"It was provided by a particular local segment of the universal infospace."
God bless their infospace. And its local segment, whatever that was supposed to mean.
In order to level up Luck, you had to make correct life-changing choices. One thing I couldn't work out was the effect it was supposed to have on your life.
"This parameter is involved in all processes," the assistant replied evasively.
"What, all of them?"
"Oh yes. Luck affects all stats. It has a decisive influence on a user's life."
The assistant dissolved in a wordy explanation. According to it, even the probability of a lethal blood clot entering my bloodstream was determined by Luck.
Having studied all the characteristics, I moved over to skills. Their number wasn't limited. Their levels depended on the number of hours spent practicing them. Each consequent skill point required more hours (or reps) than the one before it. Sometimes loads more. If you took gaming, I'd apparently spent over 15,000 hours playing online — but I was still only level 8.
This system was actually quite predictable and not that different from the one used in gaming. In any given game, you could make level 1 in a matter of hours. Then you sometimes had to spend hundreds of hours just to reach level 2. To give you some idea, bringing one's skill to level 5 required about 10,000 hours of practice.
And anything beyond level 10 was considered Top Expertise which required a minimum of 21,000 hours of training and practice.
Still, those were only the basic numbers which didn't take into consideration the cumulative effect of other skills. Which was indeed a problem. The time required to make the next level of any given skill depended on the combined value of all the others. You just couldn't become a munchkin by leveling everything in sight. The explanation of this phenomenon lay in our brain's capacity. Logical, really: once you've used up some brain space by leveling, say, chess skills, there'll be less space left to learn cooking.
Having said that... today's scientists seemed to question this theory. Then again, what did I know? The experts of the future seemed to have studied this problem extensively.
Was there any way I could delete useless skills from my memory? Why would I need all those early Mortal Kombat tricks, like remembering the correct button order for each combo and memorizing all the fatalities as well as each warrior's special abilities? All those "back, back, forward, press X"? That was a veritable mine of useless information which encroached on my brain space.
Some skills required Spirit points, too. I hadn't yet worked out what exactly they were. Apparently, they required a higher level of Insight which could only be leveled through constant use. All I managed to work out was that it too directly depended on stat readings.
That made sense. My Agility was admittedly low which meant that I couldn't succeed in leveling any agility-heavy athletic skill, no matter how hard I practiced. By the same token, practicing a skill could improve its respective characteristics.
The good news was, my improved Insight meant that now I didn't need to make eye contact with other people in order to see their stats.
When I'd finally finished going through the charts, I heard a melodious jingle followed by a new system message,
Task Status: Master the augmented reality control interface
Task completed!
XP received: 5 pt.
+1% to Satisfaction
That was nice of them. Shame I couldn't see the XP bar. I might need to ask the assistant about it.
I spent some more time in the Settings. I temporarily disabled the mental command function, changed the assistant's voice to female and called her Martha.
Martha spoke in a husky old-Hollywood kind of voice,
"Welcome to Augmented Reality System!"
"Hi, Martha."
"How do you do, Mr. Panfilov?"
"Oh please. Call me Phil."
"Request accepted."
"Who are you?"
"I'm your virtual assistant for the Home Edition of Augmented Reality!7.2."
"Who made this game?"
"First Martian Company, Ltd."
"Which is where?"
"Please be more specific."
"What's the company's office address?"
"The offices of First Martian Company, Ltd are located in Georgetown, Schiaparelli, Mars."
Were they really? Did that mean that we'd colonize Mars, after all? When would that have happened? Was its atmosphere OK? What other planets would we've colonized?
It was a good job I'd disabled the mental command option. The answers to all those questions would be no good to me at the moment.
So I posed another question, which admittedly had strings attached,
"Who was the company founder?"
"The company was started by Zoran Savich."
"Is he a human being? What planet is he from?"
"He is originally from Earth, born in the Eurasian Union in 2058."
I committed the name to memory. If I lived to see him, it might not be a bad idea to stock up on his company shares.
"And what year is it now, Martha?"
"It is two thousand eighteen by the Gregorian calendar. This is your default chronology option, based on the results of your brain scan."
"In that case, can you explain to me how on earth could it have happened?"
"Please be more specific."
"When exactly was the game's current version released?"
"In twenty-one hundred eighteen by the Gregorian calendar. This is your default chronology option, based on the results of your-"
"Okay, okay. Can you just tell me how on earth did it end up a hundred years earlier?"
"Sending request to server. Please wait," Martha temporarily zoned out. "Server connection timeout. Impossible to establish connection with the server."
"Ah, forget it."
"Please be more specific."
"I mean you can cancel the server query."
"Request accepted."
"Where is the server, anyway?"
"The server is located along the Lagrangian points within the Solar system."
"You have any idea why you can't connect to it?"
"Sending request to server. Please wait. Server connection timeout. Impossible to establish connection with the server."
"That's because there's no flippin' server in those wretched Lagrangian points at the moment!" I snapped. "Never mind. But if the server's not available, can you tell me how come I can still access other people's data?"
"The data is extracted from the local segment of the universal infospace."
"The local segment? What exactly is it?"
"The local segment of this sector of the Galaxy contains all the information on the human race as well as one other sentient species."
"Which sentient species?"
"Unauthorized query. Your access level is insufficient. Your license is limited to your personal use only."
"And this universal infospace, what exactly is it?"
"It is the sum total of all knowledge accrued by all sentient species in the Universe."
"How many sentient species are there in the Universe? We aren't alone, are we?"
"Apart from you, this location contains a creature belonging to the species of Felis domesticus which is a small, typically furry, carnivorous mammal. Would you like me to mark the creature's location on your mini map?"
"She's not a 'creature'! Her name is Boris!"
"Information surplus to requirements. Your brain scan data contains the creature's name."
I did a mental facepalm. "Martha?"
"Yes, Phil?"
"How many sentient species are there in the Universe?"
"Unauthorized query. Your access level is insufficient. Your license is limited to your personal use only."
"I thought I had a premium account!"
"This is class AAA+ access level. This kind of privileged information is not covered by premium accounts."
"What kinds of privileges do they cover, then?"
"The only privilege the premium account offers is a triple bonus after having calculated your levels and stats such as characteristics, skills, XP points, Reputation and social level."
I knew it!
This was a leveling booster!
How cool was that? I'd hit the jackpot! This was every paying player's wet dream!
I did a quick mental calculation. If I decided to become the next soccer star like, say, Lionel Messi (at thirty-two years old, yeah right), I'd have to practice for twelve hours a day, every day. I'd need 21,000 hours to reach the Top Expert level. Without the booster, it would have taken me about five years. But now it was going to take me just over a year and a half.
Which still wasn't too good, really. My license expired in a year. Which meant I wasn't likely to achieve anything spectacular.
It also meant that my initial idea to level up every stat I had wasn't really viable. I had to come up with a good leveling plan. And I had to think fast because every day mattered now.
"Martha, how do I get the access level I need?"
"Please be more specific."
"How do I get the access level required in order to find out how many sentient species there are in the universe?"
"You need to purchase Augmented Reality! Professional Edition. Would you like to place an order?"
"Absolutely."
"Sending request to server. Please wait. Server connection timeout. Impossible to establish connection with the server."
"I see. Mind telling me how much the professional version costs?"
"Please specify purchase currency."
"Russian rubles."
"Unfortunately, we only accept Martian credits, Eurasian yuans or Federate dollars."
"Okay. Martian credits."
"Your upgrade will cost 199,900 Martian credits. Would you like to proceed to the checkout?"
"Yes please."
"Error. Insufficient funds on your account balance."
"Can I see my account?"
"Your account balance is negative. You have minus 49,000 Martian credits on your account. Allow me to remind you that your financial commitments should be honored. Failure to fulfill financial obligations is a basis for initiating court proceedings which might seize your property and make you compensate damages by doing hard labor."
"Okay. One last question. 49,000 Martian credits, how much would that be in rubles?"
I expected another server connection timeout message. Still, this time Martha replied promptly,
"Based on the evaluation of the planet's strategic energy resources in 2018 as compared to those of the Solar system in 2118, the going rate is 22,730 rubles. At the 2018 conversion rate, 49,000 Martian credits equals 1,113,770,000,00 Russian rubles."
How much?
I stared blindly at the number Martha had just read out to me. Did I really owe one billion rubles? To whom? What for? Was it the price of the game license I was currently using?
Without saying a word, I closed the interface. By then, I was yawning non-stop. I couldn't keep my eyes open. Between the Apathy and Lack of Sleep debuffs, both my Vigor and Metabolism were already in the red. The system kept showering me with alert messages, warning me against the dangers of lack of sleep.
And this last bit of news had completely put me off any further conversation with her.
Still, masochist that I was, I couldn't resist the temptation of summoning Martha one last time,
"You mentioned damage compensation. What exactly did you mean?"
"Any incurred damages are compensated by doing hard labor, namely mining uranium on one of Jupiter's moons. There's a 83,71% chance of the said moon being Io."
I smiled sadly. In this case, I had every chance of becoming the first man on Io.
"Martha?"
"Yes, Phil."
"How much time do I have to pay for my license?"
"Your license has been paid in full. It is valid for one year from activation. The license expires on May 16 2019."
"You know who paid for it?"
"Sending request to server. Please wait. Server connection timeout. Impossible to establish connection with the server."
"Oh great," I muttered before passing out.
I slept through the rest of Friday and the following night.
* * *
I AWOKE with a jolt. Before even opening my eyes, I could see a new system message hovering in my mental view.
Good morning, Phil!
You wanted to wake up at 7.00. It is 6.42 a.m. now, which is the best awakening time based upon your sleep cycle.
That's right. Hadn't I set the system alarm for 7 a.m.? I couldn't find the alarm tone options at the time, wondering how on earth it was supposed to wake me up. And it just had! I simply woke up in the best of moods, feeling refreshed and energized.
Don't get me wrong: I could still remember every word of my last night's conversation with Martha. Still, I looked at it all differently now for some reason. Hard labor? Uranium mines? They didn't even exist yet. Not for another hundred years or so.
Without getting out of bed, I summoned Martha.
"Good morning, Phil."
"Morning! Remember you told me something about my duty to honor my financial commitments? When exactly is the deadline?"
"The deadline for honoring your payments to First Martian Company, Ltd. is December 31 2118."
"Thanks, sweetheart," I said, suppressing a triumphant scream. "Thanks a bunch. You be a good girl. I'll be back soon and then we can talk some more. This time we're going to discuss the leveling options of that so-called social status of yours."
I spent half the day straightening the place up. Now that both the Lack of Sleep and Apathy debuffs had expired, I'd finally seen our apartment in a truly unadulterated light. I didn't like it. The sight gave me a desperate desire to scrub the place clean.
So I had to walk the talk. I scooped out all the junk from all the drawers and cupboards, shined the fridge inside out, fixed that wretched kitchen tap, washed the windows, then sorted through my wardrobe, discarding everything I'd never had the heart to part with before.
In all these tasks, I was greatly assisted by the Object Identification skill courtesy of my Insight.
Like a child who'd just learned to read and now scrutinized everything she set her eyes on, I studied the stats of all of our household items. Even though I couldn't see much with my current level — not even the brand's name — the program identified all the items correctly, adding a brief description. For instance,
An LCD television set, 32". A long-distance device allowing for the reception and display of visual and audio signals.
A table fork, stainless steel. Part of a set.
A T-shirt, white, 100% cotton. An item of clothing.
The simpler the item, the shorter the description was. Some displayed their Durability numbers, others didn't. All items with Durability below 20% went straight in the trash.
Interestingly, some of the items of clothing had stat bonuses. Quite impressive ones sometimes. For instance, my reading glasses gave my Perception a considerable boost. Or maybe it was just me with my admittedly ruined eyesight? My only pair of good shoes offered +1 to Charisma while my old track bottoms did exactly the opposite.
Armed with this knowledge, I unhesitantly discarded my torn sneakers with -1 to Charisma, replacing them with a pair of black Derbies I'd unearthed in the depths of the wardrobe.
Those were actually my wedding shoes. The only time I'd worn them was when I'd married Yanna.
How did I know they were Derbies? Simple. Their tag had told me as much,
Black Derby shoes
Material: leather
All-purpose open-laced footwear, worn with both casual and special-occasion outfits
+1 to Charisma
Durability: 17/20
I'd had them for ages without actually knowing what they were. I just loved my new abilities.
Having finished cleaning, I booted up the computer. First of all, I wrote back to my clanmates. Just think of all the sleepless hours we'd spent together; all the days and nights — years even. We'd been playing together since vanilla.
I let them all know I was leaving the game. I thanked them for the great time and wished them luck on Argus. Just a down-to-earth message devoid of sentimental crap. I'd met quite a few of them IRL, anyway, which meant we weren't parting ways for good.
Task status: apologize to clanmates for my silence
Task completed!
XP received: 5 pt.
+3% to Satisfaction
I donated all my gear and resources to the clan bank. I sifted through all my legendaries one last time, thinking how much time and effort each of them had cost me. I gave the empty Stormwind one last check, then took the Deeprun Tram to Ironforge. There, nostalgia got the better of me. I took a screenshot of my rogue char, exited the game and deleted him together with all the alts. I didn't even consider selling him. It just didn't feel right.
I uninstalled the game and heaved a sigh.
Fare thee well, Azeroth.
Task status: Stop playing WoW
Task completed!
XP received: 50
+10% to Satisfaction
Stop playing WoW? I didn't remember seeing this task on the list. It must have added by itself when I'd made that decision.
Still, its results were impressive. I could use more of the same. The jump in Satisfaction gave me a feeling of incredible relief — the kind of sensation you get when you remove uncomfortable shoes after a day spent walking.
The number of XP points was also considerably higher. Martha had been right saying that the system awarded them depending on a task's difficulty for a particular user.
True: it hadn't been easy for me to erase almost twelve years of my life.
I didn't stop there. I deleted Steam and all the remaining games, followed by gigabytes of guides, TV series, graphic novels, meme collections and other such junk. I sorted through my work files, cleared the computer desktop and checked the email.
Apart from spam, it also contained two very welcome letters. The first one was an appointment for a job interview from some packaging factory in need of a sales rep. They said they'd phoned me earlier but I hadn't picked up.
The interview was for Monday morning. I'd have to spend some time preparing for it.
The other letter was from some Siberian pine nut distribution company. They'd contacted me via a freelance portal asking if I'd be interested in writing content for their corporate web site.
I immediately replied. Despite the weekend, one of their workers answered almost instantly. After we'd agreed on fees and deadlines, I set to work straight away.
Task status: Check the email
Task completed!
XP received: 1
+1% to Satisfaction
The more time I spent closing the unfinished tasks, the more I liked it. It wasn't even about all the system buffs. It was more about my newly-acquired feeling of accomplishment. I wasn't wasting my time playing or watching TV series: instead, I was being useful.
I was so hyped up that I used the short breaks from pine-nut content writing to finalize some other tasks. I gave Boris a good brush, did a quick grocery shopping, wrote a blog post about me quitting the Game and called my parents.
I spent the rest of Sunday finishing the content assignment and preparing for the next day's interview. I went to bed early. As I was falling asleep, I realized I'd completely forgotten to look into my social status which I'd already begun leveling. I even had an available stat point to show for it.
I really needed to invest it into something useful.
John Wooden
EVERY RPG PLAYER is used to the conventions of online games. If you take such a basic thing as a health bar which is a prerequisite in most of them, it allows players to always know their own health levels. Quite often they might also know those of certain other players, too. This is so normal that a player takes it for granted. Logical, really: if your char's DPS is a meager couple of thousand, you'd think twice before attacking a monster whose hp is measured in millions.
Now let's imagine that this characteristic becomes available IRL. Just think how many deaths from terminal diseases that could prevent. Think of a person who's going happily about his or her life, considering themselves perfectly healthy while their health numbers are slowly dwindling... and once they see that, they go to the doctor for a check. And indeed, this turns out to be the early stages of cancer which are perfectly treatable and have a very favorable prognosis. How's that for a good life?
This also means that any magicless level-1 newb in possession of a non-dimensional inventory, a built-in map and a number of status bars could automatically become the next Forbes sensation in the real world. All he'd have to do was open a medical diagnostics center. And even if medicine wasn't his vocation, he could always use his inventory to make a living pinching vodka in supermarkets. The possibilities were legion.
Those were the kinds of ideas I was contemplating while studying my interface.
The built-in Wiki had given me answers to quite a few questions. I still didn't understand what had prevented the game's mysterious creators from uploading all the data directly to my head. That could have been a simple solution for someone that powerful. Then again, it could have been technically (or biologically?) impossible. Probably, the information had to be acquired organically, via normal channels such as eyesight and hearing.
The tab contained a standard brief menu,
- About the program
- Wiki
- Settings
- Available updates
- Technical support
I can't even tell you how relieved I felt staring at these lines which looked so familiar to me from the countless other pieces of software I'd used before. Even though the first three entries were rather nondescript, the last two spoke for themselves: I'd somehow ended up with a computer program installed in my brain. Which meant that someone must have built it.
Do you know what I did first thing? Checked the available updates, of course.
Impossible to establish connection with the updates server
It might be unavailable
Check your universal infospace connection settings
The same thing happened when I tried to contact Support.
Ignoring the Wiki and Settings buttons, I opened About the Program.
My jaw dropped to the floor.
Augmented Reality!7.2 Home Edition
Copyright © First Martian Company, Ltd. 2101-2118
All rights reserved
Registered owner: Philip Panfilov
S/N C4R-7702D-2102770
One-year single user license
Account type: Premium
Activation date: 05.16.2018 09:00
Expiration date: 05.16.2019 08:59
I don't know how long I spent just sitting there staring at the copyright line.
When I'd been a kid, I'd read my fair share of time travel books where a humble student like myself somehow ended up in the future. How many times had I wished it had been me! I'd have loved to have seen our planet's future and hopefully even travel to Mars. At the time, I'd have given anything for a peek at the awesome world of the future.
As I grew up, I'd switched to dystopias and post apoc. Add to this all the zombie apocalypse blockbusters and my infatuation with Fallout games, and you'll understand why I wasn't so eager to see the future anymore. Still, even then I wouldn't have said no to Gray's Sports Almanac 2000-2050 or some such artifact.
And now it looked like my pipe dream had finally come true. I'd just received a big tangible kick in the butt compliments of the twenty-second century.
I crawled back in bed and lay there buried under the sheets like a snail trying to retreat into its shell. The super ability freebie I'd just received weighed heavy on me. It felt very much like stumbling across a briefcase containing a million bucks in a dark alley. On one hand, it made you deliriously happy; on the other, a find like that bode nothing good. No one was stupid enough to leave a million bucks in a dark alley which meant someone was already looking for it.
The expiration date did nothing to improve my plummeting mood, either. What was going to happen to me and my brain once the license expired? Would they just unplug me? Or offer an extension? In which case, how did they expect me to pay?
If, at some later date, I decided to write a book describing these events, I would have to omit this moment of weakness entirely. I'd begin the book with me working hard. I'd sign up for all kinds of courses and classes and start leveling everything from archery to cooking to online marketing.
Reality wasn't as simple as that.
Unable to sleep, I stayed in bed till midday making all kinds of plans, then envisioning their sinister consequences. This fabulous gift from the future definitely came with strings attached. As a result, I received two mutually exclusive debuffs: Insomnia (duration: 12 hrs.) and Lack of Sleep. Between themselves, they'd decimated my Vigor, Satisfaction, Perception, Intellect, Agility and all the other stats for good measure.
Whatever. I didn't care anymore. All I wanted to do was continue researching this game system.
I actually discovered that all that eye-rolling wasn't really necessary. I could very easily control the interface by sending mental commands.
I opened Settings.
It allowed me to set up my system message preferences, play with colors and the interface layout by moving around bars and buttons, add a clock and a mini map, set up an alarm and change the task logging parameters. I could also enable the auto accept quest option (whatever that was supposed to mean), and activate some thingy which blasted an alarm whenever a certain person came within direct line of sight. Etc., etc.
I could deal with all of that later. Now I had the best course of this digital feast staring me in the face:
Wiki.
Someone else might have opened it first, ignoring all the other tabs. It's just like kindergarten kids who eat their dessert first, then move to the more boring dishes. Me, I'd always left the dessert for last. It was the only thing that could motivate me to finish my carrots and gulp down the sickening milk soup which Russian nutrition authorities believed beneficial for children's growing bodies.
The Wiki turned out to be very helpful. It was a proper virtual assistant: the moment I thought of something it offered me a page with answers, then read its contents to me out loud. Eventually, that became a problem because I kept thinking of new things as I read, which prompted an avalanche of new windows overlapping each other. Every time I thought of something, my virtual assistant would stop mid-word and switch to my new inquiry, which in the end became admittedly chaotic.
At first, the assistant's voice was devoid of emotion and even gender: it was too high for a man and too low for a woman. It spoke Russian with just a hint of an accent. Not that I paid any attention to it: I was too busy learning how stats were calculated.
They actually turned out to be quite simple. I'd been right: the system adapted to the user's understanding. Had I been some clueless newb without any gaming experience I might have received the following system message,
Congratulations! Even though you're not that strong (2), you're very smart (14) and have enviable intuition (16). You're quite observant but unfortunately, not too enduring (4). To make up for it, you're agile and supple (11). And you have tons of luck (15)!
Mind you, this was only my conjecture. Numbers would be no use to a clueless newb. He or she wouldn't know what to do with them.
One thing I'd managed to work out was that the stats numbers were in keeping with some average values — probably, shared by all human beings. How the mysterious game creators accessed those numbers was a different question entirely. Most likely, they extracted them from that universal infospace they'd already mentioned. An average human being's stats seemed to hover around level 10.
In any case, what exactly did the system mean by Strength, Perception or Agility? How were they supposed to work and what were they supposed to affect?
Strength stood for a user's brute physical force. Using weightlifters' language, it was the number of weights a person could lift using any given muscle group. The system summed up the numbers of all human beings on planet Earth in order to work out an average, which was then divided by 10 to calculate the value of one point.
Which meant I was 40% weaker than an average Terran. Sigh. The good news was, Strength was one of the easiest stats for a newb to level thanks to the so-called "beginner's effect".
Agility, according to Wiki, was "the ability to learn complex coordinated movements and use these acquired skills continuously in constantly changing environments". Unlike Strength, it was calculated using some arcane chart of complex movements and their performance times.
I had a funny feeling that the chart listed cartwheels and leg splits which I'd never mastered at school. Otherwise, why would I only have 4 pt. Agility? Luckily, it too could be leveled up with various exercises and gym practice.
As for Intellect, it wasn't as simple as one's IQ reading. In fact, the game had its own IQ test which also calculated the person's creativity and their ability to think out of the box. There were other contributing factors, too. Like Erudition which was calculated as the percentage of the user's knowledge of the planet's entire information database. Or the ability to generate new knowledge which figured heavily in the IQ calculation formula. There were also Life Experience, Problem Solving and other such factors.
I indeed proved to have high Intellect numbers. Finally something I could be proud of. I could level it up even higher by studying, through learning the existing knowledge and generating new data — for instance, via my writing.
Now, Stamina. Here the Wiki flooded me with data about my lung volume, respiratory metabolism and ventilation rates. I stared at columns of digits depicting my CO2 rates and metabolic heat production, trying to come up with questions which could explain it in layman's language. Finally, I worked out that all those numbers could be improved upon by performing extended periods of certain types of physical activity such as jogging, swimming, uphill walking, jumping, making love, or pull-ups.
Getting the right answers from my virtual assistant was a job and a half. I showered it with questions, trying to work my way through lists of scientific terms and make my questions as straightforward as possible:
"Does sex count?"
"Yes. The time spent in the active position can be used as a variable which would allow you to calculate the average..." the assistant would go on and on until I interrupted it with my next question.
Perception was another complex characteristic which included Eyesight, Hearing, Taste, Smell, Intuition, Rapid Memory, Attention to Detail and Foresight. Even though I hadn't quite managed to work out their calculation principle, I could see they were all interrelated. As for leveling it, I decided to leave it till later.
Charisma included Attractiveness, Credibility and Charm. No idea how the system was supposed to calculate the latter. Apparently, it had performed a virtual simulation of each and every legally capable human being on Earth in order to see how many other people he or she could attract and influence.
Finally, the calculation of Luck. That's where I thought I must have been losing it.
"We have analyzed every day of every person's life from the moment of his or her conception, taking into consideration all key life events which have affected his or her existence," the assistant said matter-of-factly. "Then we used the 'good-to-bad life choices' ratio in order to produce the average Luck reading."
"How? How did you access the data?"
"It was provided by a particular local segment of the universal infospace."
God bless their infospace. And its local segment, whatever that was supposed to mean.
In order to level up Luck, you had to make correct life-changing choices. One thing I couldn't work out was the effect it was supposed to have on your life.
"This parameter is involved in all processes," the assistant replied evasively.
"What, all of them?"
"Oh yes. Luck affects all stats. It has a decisive influence on a user's life."
The assistant dissolved in a wordy explanation. According to it, even the probability of a lethal blood clot entering my bloodstream was determined by Luck.
Having studied all the characteristics, I moved over to skills. Their number wasn't limited. Their levels depended on the number of hours spent practicing them. Each consequent skill point required more hours (or reps) than the one before it. Sometimes loads more. If you took gaming, I'd apparently spent over 15,000 hours playing online — but I was still only level 8.
This system was actually quite predictable and not that different from the one used in gaming. In any given game, you could make level 1 in a matter of hours. Then you sometimes had to spend hundreds of hours just to reach level 2. To give you some idea, bringing one's skill to level 5 required about 10,000 hours of practice.
And anything beyond level 10 was considered Top Expertise which required a minimum of 21,000 hours of training and practice.
Still, those were only the basic numbers which didn't take into consideration the cumulative effect of other skills. Which was indeed a problem. The time required to make the next level of any given skill depended on the combined value of all the others. You just couldn't become a munchkin by leveling everything in sight. The explanation of this phenomenon lay in our brain's capacity. Logical, really: once you've used up some brain space by leveling, say, chess skills, there'll be less space left to learn cooking.
Having said that... today's scientists seemed to question this theory. Then again, what did I know? The experts of the future seemed to have studied this problem extensively.
Was there any way I could delete useless skills from my memory? Why would I need all those early Mortal Kombat tricks, like remembering the correct button order for each combo and memorizing all the fatalities as well as each warrior's special abilities? All those "back, back, forward, press X"? That was a veritable mine of useless information which encroached on my brain space.
Some skills required Spirit points, too. I hadn't yet worked out what exactly they were. Apparently, they required a higher level of Insight which could only be leveled through constant use. All I managed to work out was that it too directly depended on stat readings.
That made sense. My Agility was admittedly low which meant that I couldn't succeed in leveling any agility-heavy athletic skill, no matter how hard I practiced. By the same token, practicing a skill could improve its respective characteristics.
The good news was, my improved Insight meant that now I didn't need to make eye contact with other people in order to see their stats.
When I'd finally finished going through the charts, I heard a melodious jingle followed by a new system message,
Task Status: Master the augmented reality control interface
Task completed!
XP received: 5 pt.
+1% to Satisfaction
That was nice of them. Shame I couldn't see the XP bar. I might need to ask the assistant about it.
I spent some more time in the Settings. I temporarily disabled the mental command function, changed the assistant's voice to female and called her Martha.
Martha spoke in a husky old-Hollywood kind of voice,
"Welcome to Augmented Reality System!"
"Hi, Martha."
"How do you do, Mr. Panfilov?"
"Oh please. Call me Phil."
"Request accepted."
"Who are you?"
"I'm your virtual assistant for the Home Edition of Augmented Reality!7.2."
"Who made this game?"
"First Martian Company, Ltd."
"Which is where?"
"Please be more specific."
"What's the company's office address?"
"The offices of First Martian Company, Ltd are located in Georgetown, Schiaparelli, Mars."
Were they really? Did that mean that we'd colonize Mars, after all? When would that have happened? Was its atmosphere OK? What other planets would we've colonized?
It was a good job I'd disabled the mental command option. The answers to all those questions would be no good to me at the moment.
So I posed another question, which admittedly had strings attached,
"Who was the company founder?"
"The company was started by Zoran Savich."
"Is he a human being? What planet is he from?"
"He is originally from Earth, born in the Eurasian Union in 2058."
I committed the name to memory. If I lived to see him, it might not be a bad idea to stock up on his company shares.
"And what year is it now, Martha?"
"It is two thousand eighteen by the Gregorian calendar. This is your default chronology option, based on the results of your brain scan."
"In that case, can you explain to me how on earth could it have happened?"
"Please be more specific."
"When exactly was the game's current version released?"
"In twenty-one hundred eighteen by the Gregorian calendar. This is your default chronology option, based on the results of your-"
"Okay, okay. Can you just tell me how on earth did it end up a hundred years earlier?"
"Sending request to server. Please wait," Martha temporarily zoned out. "Server connection timeout. Impossible to establish connection with the server."
"Ah, forget it."
"Please be more specific."
"I mean you can cancel the server query."
"Request accepted."
"Where is the server, anyway?"
"The server is located along the Lagrangian points within the Solar system."
"You have any idea why you can't connect to it?"
"Sending request to server. Please wait. Server connection timeout. Impossible to establish connection with the server."
"That's because there's no flippin' server in those wretched Lagrangian points at the moment!" I snapped. "Never mind. But if the server's not available, can you tell me how come I can still access other people's data?"
"The data is extracted from the local segment of the universal infospace."
"The local segment? What exactly is it?"
"The local segment of this sector of the Galaxy contains all the information on the human race as well as one other sentient species."
"Which sentient species?"
"Unauthorized query. Your access level is insufficient. Your license is limited to your personal use only."
"And this universal infospace, what exactly is it?"
"It is the sum total of all knowledge accrued by all sentient species in the Universe."
"How many sentient species are there in the Universe? We aren't alone, are we?"
"Apart from you, this location contains a creature belonging to the species of Felis domesticus which is a small, typically furry, carnivorous mammal. Would you like me to mark the creature's location on your mini map?"
"She's not a 'creature'! Her name is Boris!"
"Information surplus to requirements. Your brain scan data contains the creature's name."
I did a mental facepalm. "Martha?"
"Yes, Phil?"
"How many sentient species are there in the Universe?"
"Unauthorized query. Your access level is insufficient. Your license is limited to your personal use only."
"I thought I had a premium account!"
"This is class AAA+ access level. This kind of privileged information is not covered by premium accounts."
"What kinds of privileges do they cover, then?"
"The only privilege the premium account offers is a triple bonus after having calculated your levels and stats such as characteristics, skills, XP points, Reputation and social level."
I knew it!
This was a leveling booster!
How cool was that? I'd hit the jackpot! This was every paying player's wet dream!
I did a quick mental calculation. If I decided to become the next soccer star like, say, Lionel Messi (at thirty-two years old, yeah right), I'd have to practice for twelve hours a day, every day. I'd need 21,000 hours to reach the Top Expert level. Without the booster, it would have taken me about five years. But now it was going to take me just over a year and a half.
Which still wasn't too good, really. My license expired in a year. Which meant I wasn't likely to achieve anything spectacular.
It also meant that my initial idea to level up every stat I had wasn't really viable. I had to come up with a good leveling plan. And I had to think fast because every day mattered now.
"Martha, how do I get the access level I need?"
"Please be more specific."
"How do I get the access level required in order to find out how many sentient species there are in the universe?"
"You need to purchase Augmented Reality! Professional Edition. Would you like to place an order?"
"Absolutely."
"Sending request to server. Please wait. Server connection timeout. Impossible to establish connection with the server."
"I see. Mind telling me how much the professional version costs?"
"Please specify purchase currency."
"Russian rubles."
"Unfortunately, we only accept Martian credits, Eurasian yuans or Federate dollars."
"Okay. Martian credits."
"Your upgrade will cost 199,900 Martian credits. Would you like to proceed to the checkout?"
"Yes please."
"Error. Insufficient funds on your account balance."
"Can I see my account?"
"Your account balance is negative. You have minus 49,000 Martian credits on your account. Allow me to remind you that your financial commitments should be honored. Failure to fulfill financial obligations is a basis for initiating court proceedings which might seize your property and make you compensate damages by doing hard labor."
"Okay. One last question. 49,000 Martian credits, how much would that be in rubles?"
I expected another server connection timeout message. Still, this time Martha replied promptly,
"Based on the evaluation of the planet's strategic energy resources in 2018 as compared to those of the Solar system in 2118, the going rate is 22,730 rubles. At the 2018 conversion rate, 49,000 Martian credits equals 1,113,770,000,00 Russian rubles."
How much?
I stared blindly at the number Martha had just read out to me. Did I really owe one billion rubles? To whom? What for? Was it the price of the game license I was currently using?
Without saying a word, I closed the interface. By then, I was yawning non-stop. I couldn't keep my eyes open. Between the Apathy and Lack of Sleep debuffs, both my Vigor and Metabolism were already in the red. The system kept showering me with alert messages, warning me against the dangers of lack of sleep.
And this last bit of news had completely put me off any further conversation with her.
Still, masochist that I was, I couldn't resist the temptation of summoning Martha one last time,
"You mentioned damage compensation. What exactly did you mean?"
"Any incurred damages are compensated by doing hard labor, namely mining uranium on one of Jupiter's moons. There's a 83,71% chance of the said moon being Io."
I smiled sadly. In this case, I had every chance of becoming the first man on Io.
"Martha?"
"Yes, Phil."
"How much time do I have to pay for my license?"
"Your license has been paid in full. It is valid for one year from activation. The license expires on May 16 2019."
"You know who paid for it?"
"Sending request to server. Please wait. Server connection timeout. Impossible to establish connection with the server."
"Oh great," I muttered before passing out.
I slept through the rest of Friday and the following night.
* * *
I AWOKE with a jolt. Before even opening my eyes, I could see a new system message hovering in my mental view.
Good morning, Phil!
You wanted to wake up at 7.00. It is 6.42 a.m. now, which is the best awakening time based upon your sleep cycle.
That's right. Hadn't I set the system alarm for 7 a.m.? I couldn't find the alarm tone options at the time, wondering how on earth it was supposed to wake me up. And it just had! I simply woke up in the best of moods, feeling refreshed and energized.
Don't get me wrong: I could still remember every word of my last night's conversation with Martha. Still, I looked at it all differently now for some reason. Hard labor? Uranium mines? They didn't even exist yet. Not for another hundred years or so.
Without getting out of bed, I summoned Martha.
"Good morning, Phil."
"Morning! Remember you told me something about my duty to honor my financial commitments? When exactly is the deadline?"
"The deadline for honoring your payments to First Martian Company, Ltd. is December 31 2118."
"Thanks, sweetheart," I said, suppressing a triumphant scream. "Thanks a bunch. You be a good girl. I'll be back soon and then we can talk some more. This time we're going to discuss the leveling options of that so-called social status of yours."
I spent half the day straightening the place up. Now that both the Lack of Sleep and Apathy debuffs had expired, I'd finally seen our apartment in a truly unadulterated light. I didn't like it. The sight gave me a desperate desire to scrub the place clean.
So I had to walk the talk. I scooped out all the junk from all the drawers and cupboards, shined the fridge inside out, fixed that wretched kitchen tap, washed the windows, then sorted through my wardrobe, discarding everything I'd never had the heart to part with before.
In all these tasks, I was greatly assisted by the Object Identification skill courtesy of my Insight.
Like a child who'd just learned to read and now scrutinized everything she set her eyes on, I studied the stats of all of our household items. Even though I couldn't see much with my current level — not even the brand's name — the program identified all the items correctly, adding a brief description. For instance,
An LCD television set, 32". A long-distance device allowing for the reception and display of visual and audio signals.
A table fork, stainless steel. Part of a set.
A T-shirt, white, 100% cotton. An item of clothing.
The simpler the item, the shorter the description was. Some displayed their Durability numbers, others didn't. All items with Durability below 20% went straight in the trash.
Interestingly, some of the items of clothing had stat bonuses. Quite impressive ones sometimes. For instance, my reading glasses gave my Perception a considerable boost. Or maybe it was just me with my admittedly ruined eyesight? My only pair of good shoes offered +1 to Charisma while my old track bottoms did exactly the opposite.
Armed with this knowledge, I unhesitantly discarded my torn sneakers with -1 to Charisma, replacing them with a pair of black Derbies I'd unearthed in the depths of the wardrobe.
Those were actually my wedding shoes. The only time I'd worn them was when I'd married Yanna.
How did I know they were Derbies? Simple. Their tag had told me as much,
Black Derby shoes
Material: leather
All-purpose open-laced footwear, worn with both casual and special-occasion outfits
+1 to Charisma
Durability: 17/20
I'd had them for ages without actually knowing what they were. I just loved my new abilities.
Having finished cleaning, I booted up the computer. First of all, I wrote back to my clanmates. Just think of all the sleepless hours we'd spent together; all the days and nights — years even. We'd been playing together since vanilla.
I let them all know I was leaving the game. I thanked them for the great time and wished them luck on Argus. Just a down-to-earth message devoid of sentimental crap. I'd met quite a few of them IRL, anyway, which meant we weren't parting ways for good.
Task status: apologize to clanmates for my silence
Task completed!
XP received: 5 pt.
+3% to Satisfaction
I donated all my gear and resources to the clan bank. I sifted through all my legendaries one last time, thinking how much time and effort each of them had cost me. I gave the empty Stormwind one last check, then took the Deeprun Tram to Ironforge. There, nostalgia got the better of me. I took a screenshot of my rogue char, exited the game and deleted him together with all the alts. I didn't even consider selling him. It just didn't feel right.
I uninstalled the game and heaved a sigh.
Fare thee well, Azeroth.
Task status: Stop playing WoW
Task completed!
XP received: 50
+10% to Satisfaction
Stop playing WoW? I didn't remember seeing this task on the list. It must have added by itself when I'd made that decision.
Still, its results were impressive. I could use more of the same. The jump in Satisfaction gave me a feeling of incredible relief — the kind of sensation you get when you remove uncomfortable shoes after a day spent walking.
The number of XP points was also considerably higher. Martha had been right saying that the system awarded them depending on a task's difficulty for a particular user.
True: it hadn't been easy for me to erase almost twelve years of my life.
I didn't stop there. I deleted Steam and all the remaining games, followed by gigabytes of guides, TV series, graphic novels, meme collections and other such junk. I sorted through my work files, cleared the computer desktop and checked the email.
Apart from spam, it also contained two very welcome letters. The first one was an appointment for a job interview from some packaging factory in need of a sales rep. They said they'd phoned me earlier but I hadn't picked up.
The interview was for Monday morning. I'd have to spend some time preparing for it.
The other letter was from some Siberian pine nut distribution company. They'd contacted me via a freelance portal asking if I'd be interested in writing content for their corporate web site.
I immediately replied. Despite the weekend, one of their workers answered almost instantly. After we'd agreed on fees and deadlines, I set to work straight away.
Task status: Check the email
Task completed!
XP received: 1
+1% to Satisfaction
The more time I spent closing the unfinished tasks, the more I liked it. It wasn't even about all the system buffs. It was more about my newly-acquired feeling of accomplishment. I wasn't wasting my time playing or watching TV series: instead, I was being useful.
I was so hyped up that I used the short breaks from pine-nut content writing to finalize some other tasks. I gave Boris a good brush, did a quick grocery shopping, wrote a blog post about me quitting the Game and called my parents.
I spent the rest of Sunday finishing the content assignment and preparing for the next day's interview. I went to bed early. As I was falling asleep, I realized I'd completely forgotten to look into my social status which I'd already begun leveling. I even had an available stat point to show for it.
I really needed to invest it into something useful.
RECENTLY UPDATES
Fantasy
Action
Eastern
Contemporary Romance
Action
Action
Contemporary Romance
Action