《Escape - A novella set in the universe of The Net》


 RAID [FIRST DRAFT]

    RAID


    Bullets whizzed by my head, ricocheting off the steel drums and God knows what else around me.


    A moment went by, but it felt like an eternity.


    Then, the sound of a rifle boomed in the open aired halls, just as loudly as when the enemy Invader decided to reload a moment later. The sound echoed in my EarPro headset, giving me a good idea of exactly where the enemy AI character was located. I was happy I remembered the EarPros, glad to not make the mistake of forgetting them again after what happened the last time we were out here in The Mall.


    ¡°Ok, you need to move inside of Transfer, quick. I¡¯ve got him pinned across the hall in Medical.¡± Taylor, my best friend since we were kids, was running point on this raid and had noticed the NPC (Non-Player Character) Officer as we were working our way deeper into the area. He was one of the regular patrols that you came across in the halls of The Mall. While not necessarily deadly, they could be dangerous, especially if you aggroed more than one or two at a time. Thankfully, we had focused on this particular map more than any other the past few months, so we had a good feel for when and where the AI would spawn enemies for us to deal with.


    ¡°Yah, yah. I hear ya,¡± I replied as I crouched and slowly retreated backwards into the abandoned clothing store. Adjusting the heavy plate chest rig as I settled into my crouch walk I replied, ¡°I¡¯m slowing it down a bit, I don¡¯t want to pull any other officers. I haven¡¯t seen any players yet but someone¡¯s going to be coming for the loot in Corner Store at some point soon.¡± We weren¡¯t communicating via voice chat in game, so I didn¡¯t have to whisper, but I found myself doing it in intense situations anyway and we were definitely ramping up the intensity.


    And then I heard it. The unmistakable clang of a grenade hitting the pavement just in front of us.


    Oh shit.


    ¡°Taylor get in Transfer now,¡± I yelled across coms as I leveled my assault rifle into my direct view, aiming down my sights for the bonus they gave me to accuracy and handling. The corner of The Mall we were in was always a hot spot of activity. The store we were taking cover in, Transfer, was an old high dollar clothing brand. Once draped in satin and furs, these days the mannequins were half shot up and didn¡¯t carry much on their skeletons except for the occasional Cowboy Hat. Which, if one had spawned, I would immediately grab. They fetched a decent payout on the market because they were needed for an important quest line. Nothing crazy, but that¡¯s how you kept from going broke around here; looting everything you could and getting the hell out of dodge before you found yourself dead. And look, no, dead didn¡¯t mean you were gone for good, this was a game after all. However it did mean all of the loot you were carrying was. So it wasn¡¯t a good feeling to spend an hour out on a raid to find yourself returning back to your hideout empty handed. Which is exactly what I was currently attempting to avoid.


    Barely skipping a beat as I yelled for Taylor to take cover, I turned on my heels as I yelled, ¡°GRENADE!¡±


    Immediately after the word leapt from my lips, the grenade went off with an unexpected flash of bright white light. A EarPro headset was absolutely necessary whenever you went out on a raid to ensure you could hear quality audio cues from all around you. Thankfully, I was wrong about the little metallic egg that rolled to a stop before exploding right in front of me. It wasn¡¯t a grenade but rather a flash bang. This type of throwable gave off the same impression and audio cues as a grenade, but did not contain any shrapnel, so no damage was taken by my character. However, they did provide a Blind Debuff thanks to the extremely bright light they emitted and if I hadn¡¯t had my EarPro on, an Aural debuff that would¡¯ve greatly decreased my ability to hear would have taken effect.


    Suddenly, the sound of Taylor¡¯s rifle rasps off three quick bursts of fire in the direction the flash bang came from. A couple of breaths that lingered in the air later, Taylor spoke camly, ¡°The little shit is down. Once you shake the Blind Debuff off, let me know, I want to go check that invader¡¯s pockets.¡± A much overlooked loot spawn, an invader¡¯s pockets could spawn just about any item in the game. Most of the time it was junk, cigarette packs and a stack of screws that may be worth it to some level 4 newb, but to veterans like us, wasn¡¯t worth the inventory space. ¡°Score,¡± he notified. ¡°A stim pen!¡± A relatively rare medical injection, a stim pen gave a buff to your stamina and energy for 90 seconds, while also giving you a slow heal effect over time.


    I shook my head to clear the fuzziness as quickly as I could and to shake my eyesight back to normal. The moment my sight cleared up, I saw a head drop below a barrier about sixty feet down the hall. ¡°Got a PC (player character) with a blue OSK helmet and what I think was a M4. About 60ish feet, left side ducked behind the gray barrier.¡± I could see Taylor¡¯s deep blue eyes beneath the face shield of his helmet as he looked in the direction I called out, as he slid the new med item he found into his chest rigs inventory.


    ¡°Heard,¡± he replied. Then, as if totally ignoring what I just said, ¡°I¡¯m moving across the hall to Corner.¡±


    ¡°Corner?!¡± We were barely into the raid and he was ready to rush one of the best loot spawns on the map. It was risky. But if we beat everyone to it, and looted quickly, we could get in and out without much of a fight. Not only that, but if he bolted for the store from his current position, the player I just saw might just peek for a shot.


    ¡°Ah, fuck it. Go for it, NOW!¡± And almost on my command, the PC down the hall peeked his head around the corner at the sound of Taylor running for the Corner Store. Seeing as I was ready for it, I took a quick shot and before he had any idea what hit him he was down. ¡°PC with the blue helmet is down. He¡¯s on the other side of the main corridor. So open the gate on Corner and let¡¯s get in and out. FAST.¡± I over emphasised that last part. Taylor was a notoriously slow looter. He was great at Escape though, no doubt about it. He knew the best loot spawns, he knew all the timings for all the maps to get the best PvP (player-vs-player) action, and he was really good at pushing the tempo faster than most players preferred to play. A lot of the time this resulted in catching them off guard. Most of the time, it went well¡­ but sometimes¡­This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    Right then, simultaneously I heard a SNAP and a CRACK. Taylor screamed out as I watched his left leg give out from underneath him in a spray of blood. ¡°Across the hall, left side, he¡¯s got a P90.¡± He groaned as he turned himself into cover behind some crates along the center of the large mall aisle. ¡°Copy,¡± I replied as I spun 180 degress, ¡°Lay down cover fire, NOW!¡±


    As if he knew what I was about to say, Taylor started firing off blind shots with his AK from behind the crates. That gave me the sound cover I needed as I sprinted down the hall. I was going to flank this guy, and I was going to flank him really fucking hard.


    Getting to the corner opposite him, further into the mall, I had completed my sprint around what would essentially equate to the bottom half of a square section of mall and was now coming around the top corner. Just as I figured, the guy was crouched deep in Taboo, the store Taylor had spotted him in, and wasn¡¯t sure which direction he should go. He was pinned, and his constant shuffling meant he was getting anxious to make a move. I readied my aim, took a breath, and fired off another shot.


    ¡°BOOM, I saw that from my corner, bro. Nice shot.¡± I was using one of my favorite guns and we had spent so much time running this particular raid recently, I felt comfortable enough to make plays like that one. The tactical advantage that a flank gave you was understated in a game like this. Most of the people who came to play it had no idea what they were getting into. They were used to the shoot, kill, die, respawn, and repeat cyle of game play. But Escape was different. You couldn¡¯t approach your raids with that type of unconcern, or you would lose a lot of loot, fast. It was a hard lesson to learn, but everyone eventually learned it. Slow down, take your time, learn the maps, and use your knowledge to gain an advantage over your enemies.


    I could hear Taylor¡¯s character around the corner huffing as he healed his broken leg. ¡°Just about done on the heal. Want to loot him?¡±


    ¡°No, he looked like another damn bambie.¡± Bambie was one of the less colorful names we used for newbies. ¡°I¡¯m going to open Corner. Let¡¯s get in and out, and then we can check his loot if we¡¯re not full up.¡±


    The thick barred exterior door to the Corner Store creaked loudly, echoing in the halls of the mall. Opening Corner was always a gamble. Multiple angles, the loud door, the tendency for the AI to spawn a NPC near the entrance; all combined for a pretty high adrenaline loot spot. I slid one of the keys from my keytool into the small, electronic slit in the massive entryway. There was barely an audible hiss, as the door cracked open, now unlocked. ¡°Got it open, make sure to shut it behind us.¡± Walking into this place always made me feel claustrophobic. Once you closed that door, you were essentially locked in. That huge metal hatch was the only way in or out.


    I quickly scanned the room to see if I could identify any high value loot right away and noticed a rifle on the back wall. Not one I preferred to use on raids but one I would gladly part out and sell on the market. I snatched it up, took off the silencer and removed the magazine from the weapon. This allowed me to stuff it into the overly large, almost comically so, backpack I was wearing. Turning my head to the left, and then the right, I noticed some attachments in a display case. I scurried over to check it and frowned when I realized it was basically junk. Shrugging I turned and entered the back caged room. What was once a sealed safe full of weapons and ammunition, now carried a single gun rack, and a large military crate. The rack had a chance of spawning a really rare SMG, or a semi-rare assault rifle. Neither was there today. So I snatched at the military crate lid, pulling it open with an audible creek, and peered inside.


    A wide smile crept along my cheeks as I noticed an AK-105 sitting on the bottom of the crate. I pulled it out and slung it over my shoulder and onto my back. ¡°Score!¡± Shutting the crate, I noticed something tucked behind it on a shelf, which normally spawned nothing but medical items at best, sat a small keycard. I couldn¡¯t read the writing on the back of it as it¡¯s smudged to my view. The game''s way of notifying me that I haven¡¯t discovered this item yet, and to reveal which keycard it was, I would need to examine it first. I didn¡¯t make a habit of doing this mid raid, as it took a few seconds, so I shoved it into the vest of my chest rig and moved on.


    Across the room, I saw Taylor shoving a folded weapon into his backpack and decided to check all angles I could from the back corner of the store. Sweeping my view from left to right, I checked the bushes outside the store, the clothing shop across from us, and the middle of the mall where people would tend to come down the escalators and straight for Corner. I didn¡¯t see anything worth noting and let my partner know as much via comms.


    ¡°We¡¯re clear. I¡¯m full and I snagged a keycard I haven¡¯t seen before, so I¡¯m thinking we extract and run it back.¡± When you were done looting in a raid, and decided you were ready to get the hell out of dodge with the loot you had gathered, you still needed to extract. These points of interest were scattered across the map and allowed you to exit after a short wait period. This particular map had more than most, and going into the basement and out the sewer extract was probably the best bet from where we were at. And¡­ we would pass by¡­ my thoughts trailed off as I began to speak up.


    ¡°I think we should go down the Hole,¡± one of the main points of interests that was just down this side of the hall, ¡°and into the Sewers. It¡¯s the fastest way out.¡±


    Taylor glanced back over his shoulder at me. ¡°Sounds good chief. I¡¯ve got one of the gold pocket watches for that quest, so I¡¯m definitely down to get out and reset.¡± Running it back, resetting, ¡®going again¡¯, were all ways of saying let¡¯s get out, drop off the stuff we¡¯ve looted and get back into another raid as quickly as possible.


    Immediately, I fast walked out of the door. When trying to get in and out of The Mall, we decided as a team that we would only run when necessary. Yes, you got places quicker, but that didn¡¯t matter if everyone on your side of the mall can hear you coming. So I lead the way out, making a swift turn to our left and headed straight for the hole in the ground directly at the end. As we briskly made our way up the left hand wall of the wide walkway, we were about to walk right in front of my favorite loot spot in the mall.


    ¡°T, I¡¯m about to,¡±


    He cut me off. ¡°Ya ya,¡± he said. And then in an attempt to imitate me, he raised the pitch of his normally low, brawny, voice and continued, ¡°Going into Toyz.¡± He huffed deeply into his mic, returning to his normal, deep tone. ¡°I should¡¯ve known. Every. Damn. Time.¡± I laughed in response, but continued forward towards the toy store.


    We¡¯ve played Escape with each other for a while now. We knew how each other likes to approach each map, favorite choke points and loot locations, as well as their favorite type of loot to collect. EVERYONE collected something. Some liked to collect the different types of miniature statues in a game, of which there could be hundreds, or preferred to hoard practical loot like high end armors and helmets. Others, like me, enjoyed the hunt for Chest Champions. One of the only collectibles that spanned almost every game setting across The Net, thanks to an open API and a system that essentially equates to a 21st century blockchain protocol.


    I sidestepped into Toyz, keeping my eye out into the hall, as to not turn my back until Taylor could hold the corner. As soon as I see his shoulder, I spin on my heels and scan the shelving, looking quickly to spot any small crystal shards glimmering in the light of my Hunter¡¯s Mod, an attachment for one of the rails on my gun, which emits a pulse into my direct line of sight that effectively lights up any Chest Champion Chips I gaze across. Pretty cool right? Not very cheap though. But I was, well, addicted, and I invested heavily in my collection. Don¡¯t judge me.


    Without a single crystal on any of the shelves, I leaned over the counter and inserted a key into the cash register. This wasn¡¯t the cheapest key you could find for this map, but it wasn¡¯t the most expensive. The register had the best odds to spawn rare loot in the store, but also the lowest spawn rate. Meaning most of the time it was empty. But not today. Today, glimmering in the invisible pulse of my Hunter¡¯s Mod light, was a Super Rare, Ultra blue chip. I snatched it up and immediately went back to my partner.


    ¡°I¡¯m good, let¡¯s go.¡±


    With that, we sprint across the open area to the massive hole in the ground in front of us, dipping into the depths of the mall and making our way to extract.

 HIDEOUT [FIRST DRAFT]

    HIDEOUT


    When we get back to our hideout, I tend to my usual ritual. I kick off my boots and push them up against my bunk with one foot, as I balance my weight on the other and sling my backpack down onto the mattress. I reach over and tug the large zipper backward, opening the sack.


    The hideout was exactly what you would expect from a ¡®post-apocalyptic¡¯ setting. It was dingy, and the lighting wasn¡¯t the best. It had a very distinct smell to it. It wasn¡¯t unpleasant, but it wasn¡¯t exactly a breath of fresh air either. The walls were off green and peeling in some places, while the floor was a cold concrete slab. We completed roughly 60% of the upgrades available, and the modules that were left to upgrade were mostly comfort level stuff. Nicer toilets, high end theater equipment, softer sofas, things of that nature.


    We didn¡¯t make those a priority, as we didn¡¯t spend too much time in our hideout. However, some people did, and those who did were the type of people that spent 90% of their time on The Net. While the attractiveness of going anywhere and doing anything at a whim was nice, Taylor and I preferred to spend more time in the real world. We enjoyed sailing the expanse with our ship, and seeing just what the universe had to offer whenever we could.


    ¡°Other than that Super Rare CC chip I saw you pocket from the Toyz store, what else did you snag?¡± Taylor asked from the other side of the room, doing his usual routine of sorting his loot into the bins he stores under his bed.


    I yanked out the deep black AK-105 from my sack and looked it over. The combat sight on top was pricey and could fetch a decent amount of credits on the market. It also happened to be one of my favorites as well because it boosted the accuracy stat on any weapon it was attached to. I turned the rifle over and took note of the laser pointer mod attached to the side. I slid it off and tossed it up in my hand. ¡°Easy money,¡± I responded and tossed the small gun attachment over onto Taylor¡¯s bed.


    He picked it up with one hand while wiping his brow with the other. ¡°Hell ya man. The MACH2 goes for what, 96k right now?¡± He said rhetorically. Even from across the room I could see the laser interface etched over his retina. For Taylor, his interface was more red based in color than mine, and I could see it burning like an ember in his eye. I preferred a solid royal blue, it stood out from the background of the world and didn¡¯t give off as much of an ambient light as the red seemed to do in most cases. But everyone has their own preference, and with the ability to customize everything, some went as far as to have complete headsets render to represent their time messing with the main Net overlay.


    No matter what game you were playing, this menu was accessible and gave you access to all the important information and tools you needed while on The Net. Friend list, global inventory, Clan access, and a whole lot more, especially if you were a power user who ran your own shard. That wasn¡¯t something many in the universe had access to, as even with the relatively low cost to run one, coding it and keeping up with that code was a different beast. Good shard coders were not easy to find, and if you were going to invest into a personal shard, then you had better have a plan to make it unique, or else it would sit, barren and desolate, in the sea of oversaturation of shards. Good coders weren¡¯t going to waste their talents on an empty shard, there was too much money to be made from providing a unique experience that could go viral at any moment.


    Right now, Escape was actually experiencing its own sort of viral expansion. Thanks to a global event that spanned somewhere upwards of 125 different game shards, the developers had their hands full with a massive influx of players. For guys like us though, it just meant more people to deal with when it came to the looting hot spots. Newer players tended to spend a lot less time in a raid due to the high probability of dying and losing all the shit they just found. So adjusting our normal routes through the raids and compensating for the fact that a decent percentage of the enemy players could be lootin¡¯ and scootin¡¯, was something we were still getting used to.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    ¡°Yup, there¡¯s a couple on there for 92k, but most are just under 100. Put it up for 96-97 and it¡¯ll sell before you finish packing up for the night.¡± While we waited for our extract team to meet us in the sewer, we decided we would call it a night after this one. We had a good amount of loot and it would help sustain us for quite a while. We would be able to pick up some decent grub for our ship, recharge our storage batteries, and pay for the next Net access bill just off of this singular raid alone.


    In the real world Taylor and I shared a ship, the Amnesty. She was a class S Euclorian. Euclorian¡¯s were a sort of, sentient organic being merged with a ship. Well not sort of, that¡¯s exactly what they were. But I¡¯ll explain that a little later. Friends since the age of 14, and a plan of setting out to explore the universe together, investing in a ship we could share was always the best option. So, when the time came to set sail, we both agreed we wanted a living ship. We didn¡¯t want to get ours from the auction house, since Euclorian ships on the AH tended to be unhappy with their life. So we went the slightly more expensive route and invested in an Euclorian egg.


    The chances of the egg being an elite class ship was relatively low thanks to the vendor we purchased it from, but we just wanted a sentient ship, so we figured we would roll the dice. Either way, we would be happy with the purchase. This was going to kickstart our journey into the stars! Imagine our surprise when Amnesty was born and upon her birth scan, she was identified as an S class ship. She was our getaway, our guide to a better existence, the one who would take us on an adventure that we would call life. From the day she came into the world, our lives had been enriched. The relationship you build with your ship thanks to the vast amounts of time you spend inside of them, (literally) was unlike any other.


    Due to Amnesty being a Euclorian, maintenance costs were low due to the lack of constant repairs having to be done when compared to traditional ships. Euclorian¡¯s simply needed sustenance, and thankfully that was easy to provide as their diet was basically anything, except metal components. Now, if you got into a combat situation and your ship was damaged, that was a different story. You would need to get your ship to a medical space station as soon as possible and the ship would need to see a healer while there. Being mostly organic, they required being ¡®repaired¡¯ as such. While most, like Amnesty, were equipped with some sort of shielding, even the experience of combat may need to be addressed with a doctor due to the mental stress it puts on the ships with little to no combat experience. Thankfully, we hadn¡¯t had any run ins with pirates or anything to this point, but that didn¡¯t mean the threat of them wasn¡¯t out there.


    Speaking of shields and things. Let me explain how Euclorian ships work.


    During the early months of a Euclorian¡¯s life, they¡¯re almost a blob with no definitive form. And during this time, they can absorb metal components. Those components then influenced what the Euclorian would become upon adulthood after incorporating the technology into their bodies. For example, a common practice was to ¡°feed¡± a Euclorian specific technology modules that were designed to integrate them into interstellar transport.Thus giving them additional abilities such as a shield component or energy storage units. However, this absorption process is so detrimental to their life, that once we realized what was happening, we immediately agreed as a race to never feed an adolescent Euclorian anything it does not want to ingest. In fact, should you force an Euclorian to absorb anything against their will, it could be considered torture.


    This did cause some issues when you incubated an egg for a specific purpose and that particular Euclorian wasn¡¯t very interested. Typically the Euclorian eggs were bred to be predisposed to certain interests, but ultimately, they still made the final decision on what would be absorbed and integrated into themselves. The breeding did allow for at least some direction towards specific uses of the eggs, but they always came with a disclaimer. Worse case, there was a global trade market for ships that would rather be traded to a human who was aligned with their interests than an alternative like being an exploration ship when one truly wanted to be a miner.


    Thankfully, Amnesty was interested in exploring the galaxy as much as she was interested in ensuring she was ready for anything that same entity decided to throw at us. During her absorption months, we fed her all types of fun gadgets and gizmos, including a PAL transmission module. The nice, and not so nice, thing about Euclorian ships was that instead of dealing with an AI PAL, you could connect your internal comms unit to your ship instead. While AI was advanced enough to be sentient, there was still a different feel to communicating with an actual organic intelligent being. Eventually, Amnesty made the choice to have one absorbed and later on admitted it was due in part to being envious of the dedication that Taylor and I have for our friendship.


    ¡°One day, I hope to earn both of your dedication as you have earned of each other.¡± She told us the day she presented the PAL unit for absorption. ¡°You¡¯re already part of the team Am. You¡¯ve had our dedication from the day we set your egg into the incubator,¡± Taylor warmly responded. The investment we made nearly 10 years ago in that ship was the best either of us made in our entire lives. She made our time outside of The Net just as enjoyable as our time spent in it.

 THE NET [FIRST DRAFT]

    THE NET


    Speaking of The Net. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve been wondering just what is The Net? The Net is just that. It¡¯s a network. Albeit, one that spans into all corners of the universe at this point in time. But at its core, just a network like any other that may have come before it. The Net was designed by early human civilization, thousands of years ago, on the other side of the UNIVERSE, as a solution to a problem that cropped up overnight.


    Their extinction.


    On June 17th, 2127, while searching the sky from his backyard on an unusually cool summer night, a young man by the name of Randy Bines, noticed a twinkling blue star that seemed to be almost moving. The star drifted ever so slowly away from the outside of the solar system like a speck of dust caught in the invisible exhale of the universe. That star would later be identified as an asteroid, and formally named RB-851. This name was a combination of Randy¡¯s initials and the amount of days before it would end civilization. Eight hundred and fifty one days. That was how long they had to save the human race.


    The problem with RB-851 was that it literally came out of nowhere and just so happened to be aimed directly at the Earth with what seemed like intent to kill. I¡¯m not sayin¡¯ it was murder, I¡¯m just sayin¡¯ it¡¯s not like a piece of the moon cracked off and accidentally bumped us in the head. But Anyway.


    Once the asteroid was discovered by Randy that crisp summer night, scientists spent every waking moment trying to figure out two things. One, where the hell it came from, and two, how we were going to deal with it. The fact that the early defense system Earth splayed out across the Milky Way didn¡¯t detect the asteroid was cause for concern. This system was designed to give humans more than an early warning of these types of dangers. Yet, it failed.


    So there it was. RB-851, a universe sized equivalent to a bullet, piercing the night sky. Shot from an unknown assassin and aimed to be the perfect killing blow. I know I said I wasn¡¯t saying we, as a race, were assassinated. But maybe I am. And maybe, some people think that makes me a conspiracy theorist. And maaaaybe some people are Taylor. But that¡¯s neither here nor there. The damn thing was so precise in it¡¯s execution shot that it was going to strike the middle of a major continent called North America, one of the most dense populations on the planet at the time, and the impact would be so great that it would literally shatter the continent into pieces like a skull shatters outward from a bullet wound. JUST SAYING. Spewing debris into the atmosphere and choking all life from existence, the Earth would then experience a millennia of darkness before any type of life could ever have the possibility of sprouting again.


    Thankfully scientists scrambled and were able to come up with a solution to save the human race. That solution, Interstellar travel aided by your neighborhood (un)friendly black hole, of which was conveniently located somewhere within firing distance of Earth, only took a few days to work out. The plan was to shoot a ship straight down the throat of a black hole, whose exit was as close as we could get to a near Earth-like planet. However once we solved the problem of physical travel across the expanse, and where we needed to go, another problem arose. That problem proved to be the real issue.


    While we could build ships sturdy enough to sustain the trip through the black hole, the fact that time was a complete variable once inside, meant we didn¡¯t know how humans would cope with the trip mentally. Would we experience it as if we had just gone to sleep for a night? Or what was more likely, would we come out having experienced every moment within the black hole as its own millenia of sorts. Having spent millions of years with only our own consciousness as company, who knows what would happen. The question of how to effectively keep a brain stimulated, so the consciousness held within didn¡¯t go batshit crazy, was more than a little hiccup.


    Thankfully, preserving a body wasn¡¯t something they had to worry about. In comes full immersion cryo pods. These pods would have a combination of chemicals deployed over the body inside, preserving it in what could only be described as a sort of human sized fossil preserved in amber yet smelled sort of like salty mint. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    The problem then was our consciousness. With no stimulus at all, a person would most likely come out of the other end of the trip having spent an eternity within their own mind. That person coming out of the pod once the ships reached Second Earth, would likely be nothing more than a bumbling, empty shell of a human being and absolutely worthless to the goal of saving the human race.


    So, on April 12th, 2183, the leaders of every great nation stood side by side as they delivered the news of the fate of the Earth to the entire world watching at home. During this historic broadcast, all forms of transportation were halted. Planes were grounded. Trains were forced to dock in stations. Boats kept at bay. For two hours before and after, they brought the entire world to a standstill for this broadcast. There wasn¡¯t even anyone walking the streets that night. The announcement had been scheduled two days earlier, and it¡¯s severity was made clear. That day, every single human being alive watched that announcement through folded hands. All of humanity received the grave news of the end of their existence, together.


    Before it finished, the leaders shared their plan of action with the world. They would put 100% of their resources into the plan for escape, of which they were optimistic. The hurdle of how to treat the mind was their only hiccup, but all of academia was hard at work looking for a resolution.


    At the end of the broadcast, each leader led their respective nation in prayer, of which the entire rest of the world respected with absolute silence. It didn¡¯t matter who you worshiped or didn¡¯t worship, who you prayed to or didn¡¯t. At that moment, humanity was truly united for the first time in all of written history. And they would need to be, because if they were going to solve this global problem and get humanity off that doomed rock and into the stars, it was going to have to be accomplished together.


    Once the grave broadcast came to a close and the screen faded to black, it took 6 minutes. 6 minutes is apparently the amount of time it takes a 16 year old gamer, who¡¯s name was Trinity Alexandria Smith, from a small town in the middle of nowhere, to find and look up the number to the National department of Security. When she finally got through and told the agent who answered the phone her simple solution for humanities largest looming problem, she was immediately patched through to the highest ranking officer on duty. When that man, Colonel Jake McConnely spoke to the young woman over the phone, he felt as if he was the dumbest man on Earth. And he was absolutely positive his colleagues would feel the same way too. And I¡¯m just being honest, after you hear this next part, you¡¯re going to be wondering the SAAAAME thing.


    Ultimately, Trinity, simply suggested a game. Technology was to a point where we could almost completely trick a human into thinking a virtual world was reality. So why not occupy their minds with a game? Hook up the immersion pods, in conjunction with the minds of all the travellers, to a local network and give them a game to play. By keeping the mind occupied within a game construct, humanity could escape into the expanse of the stars without worry, and embark on the longest lasting LAN party in all of human history. Man, how awesome would it be to say you were there! Talk about hipster. ¡°Ya, your LAN sounds fun. I mean, ya know, I was at the longest lasting LAN in history, but whatever.¡± Oh. Sorry. Maybe not?


    How such a simple solution could have evaded humanities intellectual elite was anybody''s guess. In fact, some thousands of years later, scholars would debate just how this could have been the case. Most agreed that they simply over complicated the situation to a point that using their more creative thinking was thrown out the window to give way for grandiose and convoluted plans as a sort of posturing. Thankfully, after the problem was solved by a 16 year old, the board tasked with saving humanity was sufficiently humbled. Moving forward, they allowed themselves a bit more open mindedness towards the rest of the project and were able to handle the next hurdle with ease.


    That next issue which arose proved to be much simpler to sort out. The issue was how to keep the 12 ships crossing the universe in communication with a singular network while travelling through space and time. This was solved by The Neural Extra-cerebral Transmission system, or The Net for short. This technology would basically use a special mental energy enhancing serum that was directly injected into the cryo pods, allowing human brain waves to broadcast a signal that would communicate with a central network running the games software. That central hub would do all the processing necessary for the game and all we would need to do was connect with it via brain wave.


    This was the birth of The Net. Pretty simple, right? Eventually, humanity would launch 12 colony ships into space aimed at the nearest black hole. The fleet was referred to as The Floatilla. The central ship, which carried the central computer server for the game, was The Alexandria, named after Trinity. The remaining ships were each named after other important people who worked on the technology and manufacturing of the fleet, but I sure as hell can¡¯t remember them all. Once the fleet was through the black hole, it would then journey on towards Second Earth, an earth like planet in the goldilocks zone of the nearest solar system. Second Earth would be where the human race would begin anew. Of course, things never go as planned and the journey took some unexpected twists, one of which allowed The Net to become what it is today. A universal network that spans across the stars.