Author’s Note: Bradley finally levels up and all his backed-up new skills and perks are finally unveiled! As a consequence, there is also a bit of info dumping this chapter. Enjoy!

  Bradley’s Home Base, the Game

  Dismissing the window—as it had no new information for him—Bradley again found himself in the ‘white room’. Like before, balls of invisible light lit up the room leaving few shadows. Unlike the one he took his test in however, this one looked habitable. A small table and chairs stood in the center with a bed to the far side with what appeared to be a large chest at the end of it. The furniture consisted exclusively of the same organically shaped white ceramic except for the silky white bedsheets and mattress. It appeared both half-way alien and familiar.

  “Is this where I’ll always come to when I enter the Game?” Bradley asked rhetorically.

  “Yes,” an indifferent feminine voice came from behind him. “This is your ‘Home Base’, a guaranteed safe haven away from both the Real and Virtual Worlds where all Meta-Game services can be used.”

  “Gah!” Bradley exclaimed in surprise. Running to the table, he grabbed one of the chairs and—holding it defensively—turned back around to see who had spoken.

  While the form could be considered feminine—with a narrower waist and smaller shoulders—the rest of it seemed far removed from what one would consider ‘typical’. The being’s body comprised of thick interlocking metal plates like chitin with small mesh-weave material over flexible metal cabling at the joints. A thick metal helmet and glass visor covered the head, various lights of a Heads-Up Display appearing obscured on the backside of the glass. Having never seen a Haxlardian face—as the Ambassador always wore a mask which covered half of it—he was surprised at how human it looked. Only abnormalities in bone structure, eye shape, and the yellow eye color made the Haxlard appear different than a human.

  “W-who are you?!” Bradley demanded, feeling very self-conscious in front of the ‘woman’. The Haxlard looked capable of crushing his body into paste with nothing but a slick of a finger.

  “We have already met before, although we did not speak for very long,” the Haxlard replied. “You met a robotic proxy of mine before the Tutorial’s Survival Test began.”

  ‘That’s where I remember that armor!’ Bradley realized. ‘That robot before the Test with the Bears began had the exact same one. If I remember correctly, she was kind of rude.’

  “Wait, so then wouldn’t the mean you are an Administrator?” Bradley asked.

  “That is correct,” the Haxlard replied. “I am Former Ultihaxlard Specter, now 3rd Administrator of the Earth Transition.”

  “Right,” Bradley nodded, putting the chair away. “So why are you here? Are you the one I should speak to about the trip to Iras?”

  “Despite my former allegiance, I no longer have any ties with the Haxlardian Empire,” Administrator Specter denied, “my participation is simply a decision of the System, nothing more. Ambassador Nova has already made all arrangements; a ship will arrive on Earth and extract you.”

  “Ambassador Nova?” Bradley asked, “I thought his name was Ambassador Bright Star.”

  The Administrator’s lips quirked slightly upward for a moment before immediately regaining composure. If one looked hard enough, the action could have been considered a sign of humor on the otherwise stoic face.

  “That is… a possible translation,” Administrator Specter replied with a hint of mirth, “although be sure not to say that within the Game. In the Haxlardian culture, someone with the name ‘Bright’ is considered to be na?ve and foolhardy. The Ambassador would probably consider it an insult.”

  “Right, I’ll keep that in mind,” Bradley agreed, being sure to remember to tell the others about that tidbit of information as well. “So if you aren’t here about the whole travel-to-another-planet thing, why are you here?”

  “As your assigned Administrator, I am here to give you an Introduction. Most are not given such a welcome, but as a chosen of the Administrator Faction and a member of a newly inducted species, you are entitled to such a conference.”

  “Okay…” Bradley agreed. “Although that reminds me, why was I chosen?” The question had been sitting on the back of his mind ever since receiving the government package in the mail. ‘I am not exactly extraordinary,’ he relented.

  “There is no significant reason,” the Administrator replied plainly, seeming almost disappointed in the question.

  “Wait, really? But Dr. Fitzgerald said it was because I was ‘ideal’ for some reason or another. Surely there must have been a special talent or… no; I already ruled that one out. None of the others really had anything in common with each other or myself. Still, you can’t just say there was no reason. We’re the first ones to represent humanity; that wouldn’t be done arbitrarily.”

  “The Administrators apologize for the misunderstanding, but any rationalization given by your government is mistaken. The list of candidates presented to the Earth Coalition for their selections contains no statistical significance except diversity. All professions, ages, beliefs, and ethnicities are represented. In part, this was to gauge for bias within the governing bodies as well as simply because the System told us to do so.”

  “I don’t understand though,” Bradley groaned. “If you Administrators really are controlling everything in this Game, then there must be something you wanted to learn. If it really was just bias, then you could have just left us to decide the Candidates for ourselves without any list at all.”

  “Your assumption is correct, but there seemed to be a grave misunderstanding here. The Administrators do not control the Game, the System does.”

  “Well I know that,” Bradley said, rolling his eyes. “Obviously a group of people couldn’t run a system as complex as the Game. The System runs the Game’s functions, hence why I use the ‘System’ command to ask questions. That’s just semantics; you Administrators are the ones ‘pulling the strings’, which is why I don’t understand why you would just let the System decide everything.”

  “Such a misconception fails under scrutiny,” the Administrator denied with a shake of her head. “The Administrators existed since the time of the Lords of Life several thousand years ago. Such a group controlling a vital and powerful resource such as the Game would inevitably fall to corruption.”

  “Then what is the System exactly?” Bradley inquired.

  For the first time since Bradley arrived, Specter showed emotion by rolling her eyes. “If you have a question about the Game, its infrastructure, or the System itself, you need only simply ask it.”

  “Ask? Oh right….” Bradley replied, slapping his forehead. ‘System: What are you?’

  “Wait, an Artificial Intelligence?!” Bradley yelled. “Is that translating right? Not a sophisticated Neural Network or a massive statistical database of heuristics but an honest-to-goodness sapient, synthetic, self-aware, being?! Why the hell would you let the fate of the Universe lie in the hands of one machine?!”

  “That is only partially correct,” Specter replied, unamused by Bradley’s outburst. “The System controls the Game but the Administrators help manage how the System interacts with the Players. While the System can manage itself for the most part, there are several ‘edge-cases’ that demand our attention.

  “For example, to provide fairness and realism, the Game allows a Player to be captured and interrogated. Not doing so would give an inordinate advantage to spies and other infiltrators. If one could merely log out when caught, one would be unstoppable. As a consequence of this, a Player could be forced to stay in the Game indefinitely against their will. In such circumstances, an Administrator may become involved to make a decision on a case-by-case basis. Perhaps in one instance, the Player is allowed to log out only when certain information is given. Perhaps in another case, the Player may log out, but with the penalty of death with all information uncovered removed from the infiltrator’s mind upon exiting the Game.”

  Bradley’s eyes widened at that. ‘The Game as the ability to erase portions of my mind?! Actually, that makes sense that something like that would be possible. If it can read my mind to allow me to use the Connect Ability, it stands to reason that going the other way is also possible.’

  “A similar arbitration was made during your Tutorial. The Player Patricia Davis was enslaved by the Pirate Captain Va’lakeesh. As a Tutorial forbids logging out from a Tutorial until a Player dies, that would be the only way for Patricia Davis to exit. However, by being injured and enslaved, she would be unable to do so without permission of Va’lakeesh thereby forcing her to stay logged-on indefinitely. In this instance, there was precedence set by an Administrator and so the System allowed her to log out as usual once enslaved.”

  “That’s… pretty good I guess, yeah,” Bradley agreed, again painfully reminded of the potential cost his plan’s failure could have had. “Wait, but that does not resolve the corruption issue you talked about earlier. It might only be arbitration in certain special circumstances, but a group of Administrators could still guide the System towards certain outcomes and thereby manipulate all… uh, galactic politics as a whole.”

  “That is a surprising insight,” the Administrator complimented.

  ‘Huh?’ Bradley thought. The window appearing had surprised him, but seeing that this “Administrator” was about to speak up again, he dismissed the prompted as soon as he read it.

  “This does not occur, however, as the System polices us as much as we police it. To clarify, the System has more control over the outcome of a particular issue within the Game but less decision-making power on how to wield that control. The Administrators have more power over how the System makes its decisions, but also more bureaucracy within both ourselves and through the System and therefore have less control over any particular issue.”

  “Huh?” Bradley got out, now completely lost.

  “Such politics would be too complicated to explain in the time that has been allotted to this Introduction,” the former Ultihaxlard waved off. “To answer your other question, being chosen—while random—was not arbitrary. Rather, you were selected because the System believed you to be a member of a group which will be underrepresented in the Game for whatever reason. It may be due to poverty, contentedness, isolation, or any number of other circumstances.”

  ‘Huh, that does make sense, I doubt I would have participated if I wasn’t being paid for it,’ Bradley thought to himself. ‘If that’s true, it would explain why so many people left the orientation on the first day.’

  “But there’s still a thing I don’t understand,” Bradley asked. “Why is everyone giving us a fighting chance? I mean, why not just invade us or ignore us? Considering how much you knew about our culture from the exam I just had, there isn’t really anything you could possibly learn from us.”

  “That is correct,” Specter agreed bluntly, “however you ignore the reason for the System’s existence: to remove the necessity of death and destruction through war that exists in the Real World. The System does not invade because doing so facilitates in unnecessary death. It also does not ignore because doing so allows continued deaths when an alternative is available.”

  “But then why doesn’t the System just force us to join?” Bradley asked cautiously. “After all, if we’re just stupid monkeys that can’t control ourselves and are willing to murder each other, isn’t it the job of the Omnipotent Artificial Intelligence to put us on the ‘right path’?”

  The alien looked at him with what could almost be considered bemusement if not for her ever-stoic face.

  “I do not need the System to tell me you are being sarcastic.” She cocked her head for a few moments. “So is that it…” she quietly muttered. “If I am not mistaken, you are questioning the System’s Decision-Making process in terms of the ‘Paperclip Maximizer Dilemma’ inherent to flawed Artificial Intelligence,” she concluded.

  “Huh? I’ve never heard of that before,” Bradley responded honestly.

  “In short, are you worried that the System will attempt to pursue its goals in a way that is contrary to your own morals and beliefs?”

  “Yeah?” Bradley agreed doubtfully, “Or at least I think I was hinting at that anyway.”

  “Then you are incorrect,” the robot stated unequivocally. “The Predecessors and Lords of Life—like all sapient creatures—highly valued choice in making a decision. As such, they designed the Game to be joined by one’s own choosing. While it could be argued that your acceptance and introduction into the Game was done through manipulation based on limited information, it was not done so directly by the System. It was your Government’s choice to keep the Game a secret and to have you sign a contractual obligation to participate. Even now, you are free to leave the Game forever just as Patricia has, although doing so is a terrible decision that will only hasten your death.”

  “Okay, fine, fine,” Bradley groaned, “this philosophical stuff is making my head hurt. I already had a never-ending Final Exam from Hell? in this room. I don’t need a Lecture from Hell? too. Let’s just move on.” Bradley thought for a moment. “I guess the obvious question is how the Game is different from Real life. I mean, the Game Windows and sparkly death scenes are obvious, but I don’t like being continually surprised to find out things like slavery and torture also exists too.”

  “As you have already surmised, this Game greatly differs from reality and is more analogous to what your civilization calls ‘Video Games’,” she continued. “This is especially true for those in which Player abilities and attributes are objectified in data, such as ‘Role-Playing Games’. However, while the known Universe has been copied, it is by no means a duplicate. For one, resources in the Game are infinite. So long as a ‘resource vein’ is given adequate space to grow, it will continue to produce without abiding by the Real World’s Conservation of Energy. In addition—to protect the information of entities who have not yet participated in the Game—much of the information copied has been altered to ensure that those Players who enter the Game, do so without needless coercion.”

  “How does that work exactly?” Bradley asked, “I remember Lieutenant Winslow said something about how some things were changed.”

  Administrator Specter paused for a moment, staring off into space before continuing. “Ah, I see. As your ‘Lieutenant’ has already told you, the consequences of the wrong thing finding itself in the Game can be catastrophic. It is unfortunate that these subroutines were not built into the System initially, for many newly discovered civilizations were drastically affected.

  “Information is power, and often the first individuals of the new species to enter the Game were able to use that information to their advantage. This vastly changed the balance of power and caused much needless death. As you know, the Game was designed to expressly avoid such outcomes. Therefore, the System was updated to prevent it from happening again.”

  Now that the Administrator had finished, Bradley expected her to move onto another topic. This did not happen.

  ‘I guess she’s waiting for me to get out all my questions,’ Bradley thought. ‘Now that I think about it, this might be the last time I get to talk to an actual Administrator about something like this. The System commands are good, but it isn’t exactly a conversation.’

  “Well I guess the last major thing is how death works. I noticed that when I tried to… uh, loot the corpses of the pirates, their bodies weren’t there. Garry disappeared too. How does that all work?”

  “As you already know, death is only a temporary state in the Game. Traces of a death can be found but the bodies vanish. This is not done to protect ‘civilized sensibilities’, but to avoid System function exploitation. When dead bodies did not disappear, several early Factions used slaves as literal resources, continually slaughtering Players for an infinite food supply and giving them an unfair advantage.

  “Getting back to your point, the penalties of death for your species have been lessened considerably; you will only lose 10% of the experience points you would otherwise have lost. Your actions as a species going forward will determine whether you retain these privileges but typically it only lasts no more than a year in Game time. That being the case, there are limits to what the System can penalize upon death. The System will never remove any information from your mind except in the case I mentioned earlier. Such a thing is analogous to death and runs contradictory to its core functioning.”

  “Wait, I don’t understand,” Bradley spoke out in confusion, “You say that you will give penalties, but you won’t erase any progress I’ve made. That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “That goes into the next point,” the Administrator nodded. “All death penalties applied are only towards rewards by the System. This is represented by Ability Points and Attributes. On each level up, 5 Ability Points are granted for the strict purpose of both the points and the levels being lost upon death. Therefore, the more times you die, the less that can be taken away until there reaches a point where there is no penalty upon death, although the System will likely intervene in such a case. This is also why selecting an appropriate Spawn Point is important to prevent such needless circular death from happening.”

  “Spawn Point?”

  “Your current Spawn Point is located at 38.871130 Geographic Latitude, -77.055422 Geographic Longitude in a place the System refers to as the ‘Pentagon Center Courtyard’. It is where you will revive upon death.”

  “Oh, right, well that should be fine,” Bradley confirmed. With the new lull in the conversation, Bradley found himself having a hard time thinking of any new questions. ‘Think, think, I won’t get an opportunity like this any time soon,’ he thought. “Oh! Yeah, abilities! They seem to pop up at random times. Why do they happen and why are they useful? Obviously the implant abilities are really good, but things like Mind Survival seem pretty pointless.”

  “Attributes, experience and abilities are all gained by exceeding the Game’s expectations of you.”

  “Huh?” Bradley said. “How the heck am I expected to exceed the expectations an Omnipotent and Omniscient A.I.?! After all, doesn’t the System have extremely efficient algorithms to determine how good I actually am? Isn’t that the point of these tests in the first place? How could I possibly ‘exceed expectations’ when it knows everything about me?”

  “What you are referring to is what is known as the ‘Dichotomy of the System’. The System is both simultaneously very smart and very stupid; everything and nothing; all powerful and inconsequential. The underlying logic that creates the Game’s foundation is ingenious in its efficiency as you say. However this efficiency is necessary because the Game is so vast.

  “Despite the System being computationally powerful, it is also responsible for a large number of tasks. As such, the algorithms which govern your abilities quickly grow complacent as more important tasks arise to consume System resources. When that occurs, there will come a point in which you exceed those algorithms predictions, even if only marginally and receive rewards in kind. You will find that this happens frequently. As you are a new species, this will happen more for you than would otherwise be normal for others in similar situations, so there should be no reason for complaint. The System is fair.” The Administrator said that last point almost like a benediction.

  ‘Worrying,’ Bradley thought.

  “On this topic, you have succeeded the System’s predictions a number of times already. Since this introduction is nearing its conclusion, and your Tutorial is complete, it should be about time to unlock the Attribute and Experience restrictions that have been in place. The System is now confident that its rewards are fair.”

  Suddenly dozens of Game Windows appeared at once:

  ‘Ignorance? Hey!’ Bradley thought bitterly.

  ‘Oh, well I guess that’s alright then,’ he shrugged begrudgingly.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Bradley took a while to look over the Game Windows, before realizing he had been staring at the Administrator for several minutes. Mildly embarrassed and worried his benefactor might consider the action rude, he quickly dismissed them.

  “Well that’s… certainly something,” Bradley commented. “Um, sorry for just ignoring you like that.”

  “It is understandable and expected,” Specter dismissed. “I am in charge of a great many things and when this conversation does not require my attention, I am busy doing those instead.”

  “That’s… good,” Bradley replied. He had mixed feelings between being grateful she did not think him rude and insulted in not being worth the Haxlard’s undivided attention. “Anyway, why now? I remember the Ambassador saying that the Haxlard Tutorial gives these rewards as they happen.”

  “The answer is very straightforward,” she replied. “It would be unfair to give your species the benefits of an Administrator Tutorial at this time. For the System, the Haxlard as a species are well defined with well over one thousand years participating within the Game. As such, the System—through the Administrators—can give more leniency in how they are judged since the System is rarely off-the-mark. Your species is a relative unknown to the System. It can use heuristics from similar species to make accurate approximations of your overall potential, but is nowhere near accurate enough to provide the Real-Time adjustments needed to reward you while at the same time trying to understand you.”

  “Okay, but then how is that fair to us?” Bradley retorted. “Wouldn’t that give a disproportionate advantage to those that have been here longer?”

  “Yes,” she replied bluntly. “That would always be the case. Those that have more experience, expertise and people that support them will naturally grow and exploit those without. With family comes nepotism, power comes exploitation and experience comes manipulation; the System does not stop these things because it does not care. However, the System is different from the Universe in that it wants your presence here and so it does attempt to find a balance.

  “That is why you are given privileges. When the System realized that many never participated due to these disadvantages, it created a symposium between Administrators and the rest of the Game Factions on how to resolve these disputes. While the Factions were perfectly fine with how things currently operated, they relented on a few token gestures to ease the transition. The 5 year grace period for your planet from invasion and the lessened penalty for death are a few of these adjustments.”

  “So that’s why I was also given those ‘luck’ bonuses?” Bradley said, pointing out the oddly disproportionate stats. He did not think of himself to be that lucky. Especially considering what happened in the Tutorial.

  “That is another topic, one which is hotly debated among Game Scholars,” she informed dispassionately. “It is commonly believed that the Predecessors favored the concept of ‘fate’ in Reality. To incorporate that concept in the Game, those that set themselves up for potential acts of greatness are given a higher value of luck which improves one’s success when attempting to achieve greatness. Any act which exceeds the expectation of others such as surviving something that should otherwise kill you or being recognized for an act of bravery or valor comes with an increase in luck. It is a function which creates heroes; something fundamental to Predecessor society.”

  “I guess I shouldn’t complain since I’m directly benefitting so much, but wouldn’t that just lead to everyone taking stupid risks and getting rewarded for it?”

  “Stupid risks come with their own penalties. In many cases, gains in luck come at the expense of losses in another Attributes. Dying is also still heavily penalized. For most, the risks outweigh the rewards. The Haxlard are especially stereotyped for having the lowest average Luck in the Universe; speciesist profiling which the majority of Haxlard readily embrace. Luck is a poor substitute for skill.”

  “I see,” Bradley stated, thinking to himself for a few moments. “To be honest, I didn’t think the Game could make that much sense after what I’ve seen, but I guess it would have to, given how sophisticated it is. To be honest, I don’t have any other questions I couldn’t just ask the System later. Is there anything else?”

  “The final purpose of a Tutorial is for the System to provide a goal for its Players. All living things enjoy that which gives them purpose and the Game is not an exception. These goals come in the form of ‘Classes’; fields of study and expertise which the System has determined fits your actions best. For you, this is ‘Cybernetic’ and ‘Scavenger’.”

  “You will need to find mentors in these classes for yourself if you hope to gain proficiency. With any luck a, Cybernetic Specialist could assist you at the Iras Entry-Level Academy. A Scavenger mentor… will be more difficult. By their nature, Scavenger Experts are hard to find.”

  “Okay, so Cybernetic I can understand, but Scavenger?” Bradley argued incredulously. “I get the reasoning for the first class easily enough. As I might like to forget, I’ve got computer parts strapped to my brain. That being said, I’ve lived in a modern society my whole life and have never wanted for anything. How could I ever possibly ‘thrive in the most inhospitable environments’? I was able to make do with the junk on hand because I’m an Engineer; guesstimating and overcompensating for the tolerances on prototypes are in the job description.”

  “That is not the definition of ‘Engineer’ for the rest of the Universe,” the Administrator denied with a reserved shake of the head. “An Engineer is one whom designs a schematic which is then fed into a machine to be synthesized. There are no estimations or tolerances as the machine completes it perfectly. The Engineering Subclass therefore grants abilities in understanding the nature of a design and makes it easier to make perfect schematics.”

  ‘Perfect schematics?’ Bradley thought doubtfully. ‘That… doesn’t sound enjoyable in the slightest. I specifically left my job because making designs all day long just wasn’t fulfilling enough. Maybe I really am a Scavenger after all. Well, It’s just a title and I doubt that the Earth is going to be working with ‘infinite resources’ like the rest of the Galaxy any time soon. Being a Scavenger might actually be an advantage considering how isolated the Earth is.’

  “In any event, are you satisfied with the classes chosen?” Specter asked. “While a new Class will not be given should you refuse; it is typical to be given another class later. With that in mind, the class you reject now may be the same one granted later; in the meantime, you will be unable to draw from the benefit of having those classes.”

  Bradley spent a minute to really consider that, but his mind had already been made up. “No, I’ll keep them both,” he replied. ‘It does not matter much anyway in the short term,’ he thought. ‘Rather, the best way is to use what you are given effectively. In fact, that seems to be the how to do well in the Game as a whole.’

  ’That could be useful,’ he thought. He quickly dismissed the Game Windows when the Administrator continued.

  “If you have no further questions, than you are free to leave,” Specter pointed out. “With your Tutorial rewards received, there is nothing else left to talk about.”

  “Actually, speaking of Tutorial rewards, I was given this by the Revenant,” Bradley said, taking the Cube of Transcendence from his Inventory. “Do you know what it is?”

  The Administrator frowned, “You should not associate yourself with the Revenant. They are a Criminal Faction; you would be outcast at best and a target at worst. I would recommend you get rid of that as soon as you can.”

  ‘Shit, I knew I should have kept that information to myself. Is that what that Revenant meant by ‘Do not come too soon, for your Allies become Enemies’,’ he thought.

  “Why, what is so bad about them?” Bradley asked. “They seemed strong, but I didn’t take them to be pirates or slavers or something like that… Uh, am I in trouble?”

  “They are secret enclave of powerful madmen and ambitious rebels. A long time ago, they instigated the First Great Cyber War, famous for being the only time the Administrator Faction was ever threatened with destruction. It was a bid for personal power at the expense of order which keeps the System in check. As its name suggests, this was not the only time either. In addition, they regularly conduct with slavers, thieves, pirates and personally oversee all manner of illegal activities themselves. The only thing that is known about them is their goal to ‘Seek out the Truth’. Despite such seemingly noble sentiments, they keep everything about themselves and their actions secret. Every Legal Faction in the Universe is currently at war with them. While merely receiving a gift from them and talking to them is no crime, it would be wise to get rid of that cube at the first opportunity you have.”

  Bradley slowly put the cube back in his pocket. “I see,” he replied. “Well, then consider the matter dropped… I don’t think I will be contacting with them.”

  ‘Although I won’t just take your word for it,’ he added in his head.

  “I would hope not, for your sake,” the Administrator nodded. “Is that everything?”

  “I think so,” he agreed.

  ‘There’s nothing left to ask… in fact, I didn’t even expect any of this to happen at all!’ Bradley remembered. ‘Why am I still here when I could be flying to another world!’

  “Well, I guess I’ll be going then,” he added. “Oh, and thanks for the conversation. It was… enlightening.”

  “It is my responsibility as an Administrator. If you have any further queries beyond the System’s functionality, do not hesitate to ask for me again.”

  With that, he quickly activated the ‘Spawn’ command and teleported away.

  Author’s Note 2: I removed the specific Ability Rank Proficiency Numbers; they don’t really mean anything and take time to come up with (which takes away from writing this).

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  ----Scavenger Ability Window----

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  ----Implant List Window----

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