Luon was inwardly shocked at the sight of the world he had woken up into.
His Vortex Container left the assembly line and entered a transparent tunnel. Luon couldn’t tell what magical forces were moving his Vortex Container, but his eyes shined brightly. New things are great!
Beyond the transparent tunnel was an astounding sight.
Luon looked in all directions, all he saw was clear blue skies and many cylindrical, white skyscrapers with various transparent tubes attached. They seem to be head towards what looks like to be the center of the city.
Luon turned his head in an attempt to look at the ground. Although he didn’t know the altitude he was currently at, it was very high up.
At first, he was expecting people to have flying cars but other than blue skies, circular tubes and buildings, there wasn’t much else up there.
‘There must have been some kind of flying regulations around here, to prevent the circular tubes from breaking and causing accidents.’ Luon thought.
The building at the end of the tube was a massive, black building with a large number of tubes attached to it. The building seemed to function similar to a terminal as all the skyscrapers interconnect with this structure.
After arriving at the building through the transparent tube, he reached an area which seems to be a platform station.
Before Luon was able to evaluate the station, Luon’s Vortex Container did several turns around the platform entering and exiting many different tubes. It then elevated and went above the platform, within moments he had experienced over a hundred twists and turns.
Luon had finally reached the end of the tube, and his Vortex Container slid into the room.
The Vortex Container made a series of random noises symbolizing its opening, the transparent lid lifted upwards like the scissor doors found on an expensive Lamborghini.
Luon slowly stood up and like a newborn fawn, wobbled his way as he began to evaluate the room.
The room was an office space, there were several bookshelves, a coffee table, a metal door which led to another room, 2 sofas facing each other and a chair with an armrest in between, a very regular miniature meeting set up.
Behind that was an office desk which consists of a table filled with paperwork, and a very familiar beauty smiling and sitting on a black leather chair while lightly tapping her finger on the table as if waiting to see if Luon was done with his evaluation.
“How was the view of the city? Did you like it?” Isabella asks in a dignified and proud voice.
“It’s amazing, it’s almost like I’m dreaming,” Luon said steadily after being stunned of the different world he had just experienced.
“Have a seat over there, it may take several days to adapt to your body, but there should be no problems.” Isabella points towards one of the sofas, she then stands up and moved into a corner that held an assortment of treats and drinks. She walked over and placed them on top of the coffee table, then she sat down on the chair in the center.
Luon motioned his body and placed himself on top of a sofa, he then moved his hand over to one of the cookies on the table and took a bite out of it. “Delicious!”
“I’m glad you liked it. Although I would like to have a few minutes to do some chit-chat, I have to follow the standard procedures first. We, operators, are very busy as hundreds of people wake up each day. You might not notice, but our population standards are limited and scale to the number of resources we have available.” Isabella talked in a very professional manner as if these words can be recited off by memory.
Isabella faced towards Luon and continued “Before we start do you have any questions about your hibernation experiences and your life simulations?”
Luon gave it some thought for a moment then he carefully and with some uncertainty looked into her eyes and asked “Was it really just a simulation? Everything in the simulation seemed so real. From the feelings of joy, sorrow, pain, and torment to the single detail of a blade of grass. The world was so well detailed its kind of unbelievable.”
Luon eyes revealed the feeling of yearning at the same time carried a minor sadness. Luon looked old despite his young age as if he had seen the world passing by and everything was left behind.
Isabella looked at him sighed “There is a lot of people like you who felt the same way, time and life is a really precious thing. As I explained, earlier this process had to be done to maintain our status quo within the universe. If you were born in another Solar System you might not have these feelings, sadly you were born in the Nexus System.”
“Do you regret doing the simulation?” Isabella stared at Luon observing his expression.
Luon shook his head, “No I don’t regret it, although it may not be real, those experiences make me who I am now.”
Isabella smiled, “Great because there are still 5 more experiences to account for!”
“5 more experiences?!? How come I can’t recall any of it?” Luon body shooked and as his brain began to process to its best abilities, although he still wasn’t able to recall not a thing.
“That’s because the most dominant simulation, the longest life you spent in hibernation becomes your main memories, the other experiences are to be re-integrated later on.”
Isabella then handed Luon a box which she pulled out of nowhere, on top of it is a wrist-watch. “First, take this. This is your BMPU wrist-watch.”
“BMPU wrist-watch?” Luon questions her filled with curiosity.
“Biometric Magicite Processing Unit, it’s your government ID, personal computer, and the container of memories of your simulated lives. It shows you how much value you are to the Federation. The device for new users, allows you to sync into your simulated memories, although once your memories are sync, you may feel a tad bit sick. There is also a tutorial on how to use it when you first start it up. To start it up simply press on the display and hold it for 10 seconds, you could do it later tonight.” Isabella explained.
Luon received the wrist-watch and attached it to himself.
“Good, now that your major concerns have been answered and I gave the watch, half of my work is practically done. Next on the agenda is arranging your schooling. Based on the annual report the system has judged you eligible to attend the Nexus University to further your studies and career.”
“Annual report? Is there anything needed to report every year?” Luon asked slightly confused. To do a report for each person incubated must require a massive amount of human resources.
Isabella showed an exhausted expression and said in a flat voice. “There are tons of things to report for every year. Honestly, there is simply too much writing to do, luckily candidates who are evaluated not eligible to go to Nexus University attend to some minor schooling for logistics, otherwise we operators would be swamped with work. On this solar system only about a maximum of 12,000 people, every year are allowed into Nexus University to educate themselves in combat and technical jobs, the rest of the candidates would work at standard jobs such as tending stores, office positions, or some agricultural jobs.”
Isabella continued as if venting her feelings into words, “Every day we would write reports about hundreds of people and their life experiences. Every year in real life is equal to 10 years of simulation, and there are a total of 6 simulations. So for the system attempts to average the life expectancy of candidates simulations to 27 years old by instituting a series of events which we call “Death Flags” to pressure them into unlocking their real abilities. Because of this, we are then able to have the candidates wake up at an eligible age to attend the Alliance Tournament.”
“As for your reports its relatively funny, we will talk about it last though. Sadly you woke up a month before the new year otherwise you would have more time to adapt to the world. One month from now you have to move to the student dormitories before that though is your will. Do you have any questions or concerns about anything else?” Isabella said as she looked at Luon.
Luon pondered. A new world that Luon had never dreamed of. A brand new life, living in the skies. A brand new school with tons of new things to learn and read. Luon smiled at the pure thought of how great life was going to be.
Isabella smiled seeing how Luon was lost in his own thoughts, she knew what he was thinking and said before he was no longer aware of her. “Even though you’re now a new citizen of the Nexus System, it’s not guaranteed that you get to live in the upper levels of these buildings nor would you get a good job, or become super rich. Everything is determined by your ability, your will, and your parents status.”
Luon’s delusions shatter on the spot as he began to give Isabella a stare of a man who is deeply concerned, he said, “My parents? How are they? Are they healthy?”
“Why don’t you ask them yourself?” Isabella gave a joyful laugh as if she just played a mischievous trick on Luon. She then pressed a button on her chair, the doors to the room opened, and Luon saw 2 familiar figures standing there.
They were Rina Fate and Kane Hung. They looked really similar to the simulated version of them, and Luon couldn’t help but start crying.
Luon had faced separation from them for what he can recall about 40 years in the simulation, and this was the first time meeting them in reality.
Luon’s image of Kane had changed from an engineer to a veteran soldier. One of his eyes appeared to be blind as there was a scar mark right on top of it. His body was extremely muscular and robust, and one of his arms wasn’t even human anymore, it was robotic. He wore a dark green military uniform with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. And he no longer had any hair on his head to admire, it was cleanly shaved bald.
Rina Fate,
on the other hand, was even more different than the simulated version. She appears to be a beautiful and mature blonde beauty with very delicate white skin. She wore a simple white t-shirt and a pair of dark blue jeans that revealed the elegant and modest curvature of her body. Her hair was tied up in a ponytail, and her blue eyes gave off a sharp gaze, making her look very domineering. The most notable feature was that her ears were long and pointy, she wasn’t human but an elf.
Even though they didn’t share the same experiences and feelings as Luon did when they met, the moment they saw Luon begin to cry Rina and Kane couldn’t help to be moved. This was their first time seeing their son after 17 years, even without any knowledge about what happened to Luon the joyful feeling of reuniting can still be shared, they approached Luon to give him a hug.
After Luon and his parents calmed down and recovered from the reunion, Isabella motioned for them to sit down on the sofa. Luon sat on the opposite couch from his parents and Isabella was still calmly sitting down in between. “Now that your parents are here it’s time to explain your simulation to them, although they got the annual report every year on paper it’s much better to reconfirm everything at once. As you may or may not notice, but these simulations are based on the Alliance’s superpowers history and culture. The system recalculates and bases your simulations to refit it based on your racial attribute, so in your case, you should have experienced the life with human and elven attributes.”
“Human and elven attributes? I know I was born human, but I can’t possibly recall meeting any elves in my lifetime.” Luon tried his best to recall any meeting with elves but didn’t manage to remember anything.
“Each simulation would have a portion of your genetic attributes inside of them depending on each simulations background setting. Let me just check the record for your most dominant lifetime then. Hmm, let’s see… Oh, your Elven attribute only started to appear on the 2nd annual report onwards.” Isabella said as she used her wrist-watch to pull up a holographic document.
“When I was more than 10 years old? Maybe I must have read some fantasy novels, but can that really be considered having expert level knowledge about elves?” questioned Luon.
“The record says you have a tremendous amount of knowledge about elves, especially in your later teenage to young adult years and the materials you studied about elves can be classified as obscene materials.” Isabella blushed and said.
“…” The mood turns awkward. The only thought Luon had remaining was that if he knew his perverted lifestyle was being recorded that he shouldn’t have bothered telling his friend to destroy his hard drive after death. If his life weren’t a simulation, maybe the guys in the afterlife would also be able to check his life records.
