《Noah》 Prologue - Birth of Noah Prologue Everyone in my generation remembers where they were and what they were doing when the announcement was made. The government had at the time made a nationwide media release on all channels and sources. ¡°It is our great pleasure to announce, through the great efforts of our countries scientists, the world¡¯s first virtual capsule machine will be released for the mass in the coming months.¡± Why the big deal you ask? With the ever growing human population and the ever dwindling oil supply, the world¡¯s economy is literally going into the gutter hole. The lower end of society was already taking it hard with the increase in commodity prices, but now a simple drive in a car was a luxury for the rich. Now this is where the virtual capsule comes into place. Some genius geek in a attic lead a online campaign asking for a state run reality world so that the mass can enjoy the pleasures of life that we could no longer afford. Boy was it a hit. In merely a day, a quarter of the nation¡¯s population signed up for the petition. The politicians picked up on this like a animal sniffing its prey. In their effort to win over the voters, they dumped a enormous portion of the countries next 10 years budget into further developing a existing VR technology. Now, the capsules not only fool your sight, your smell, hearing, and even touches, everything takes place inside your mind. Meaning it¡¯s not much different from reality! I can¡¯t say this decision was smart for the country as a whole but it sure as hell won the voters over. People were in the streets celebrating like the world was raining money. Beats protesting in a war zone like the old world in Europe and Asia. Can¡¯t blame them, I was just like all my friends. Imagine 14 years of my life, never did I ride in a car, or go on vacation overseas. Now all the things people in the 20th century took for granted can be experienced by me in the 21st century! Names Jack. Semi loner geek that loved spending my days on the computer browsing porn and watching old anime¡¯s on the open web. Oh no, you got me wrong. I¡¯m not fat at all, in fact, my body is skinny like a stick and my muscles are like a cheesy tofu but I do sweat a lot. Life was simple; I go to school and get decent grades while I leech off my father that barely made enough to get us by. I can¡¯t blame him for our shitty life of a two room apartment; he was hard working and bright. It¡¯s just hard working things out since my mom passed away during my birth. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. It¡¯s not like I don¡¯t want to help the old man out. It¡¯s just I don¡¯t know how. My pops not exactly the mentoring type; he¡¯s more of the let the kid do his own thing and he will manage somehow. Some may say it¡¯s the best and it¡¯s true to a certain point. I know my family relatives around my age all worked part time or have some prospect to get a scholarship in a university waiting for them. And here I am no job or grades to get into a decent college. The elders in the family don¡¯t say it in my face, but I figured they¡¯ve been making comments behind my back. Then one day, my salvation appeared. In a attempt by NASA to produce a self-regulating computer to monitor the worlds ever escalating problems, the Cerebro was born. This massive ten ton satellite in Earth¡¯s orbit was the world¡¯s leading program in regulating the web, can¡¯t say it was self-conscious but it was damn close. Now the best part about the AI Cerebro was its ability to access anything in the web but also opens itself to foreign access. Now some young entrepreneur came up with the greatest idea of the century. In a attempt to outdo his competition, he asked some programmers to infused a part of the Cerebro AI core into his games system core. The result was something beyond imagination as the world¡¯s most powerful AI went rogue on its creators. The Self-monitoring Cerebro thought the game - Noah was defective and looked to ¡®fix¡¯ the game. Now the techno behind what happened is too complicated for my high school educated brain. In simple terms, the AI infected just about every piece of technology on the planet to use as a server for the game. Oh don¡¯t worry; it¡¯s not like a virus that corrupts its hosts. Everything continued on like nothing was wrong except Cerebro could use the extra computing power for itself. Through the vast information on Goople and other less known search engines, Cerebro used the original lore in the game and built a entirely different VR world on it. No one knows how big the game truly is now, what I do know is that it was huge. Thanks to the integration of the every computer on the planet, a person would not need to have all the data in the game to access it. Now the thing every kid plays after school is to log into their VR capsule and get into Noah. Chapter 1 - Life sucks Chapter 1 I¡¯m currently sitting outside my apartment staring up into the yellowish blue sky, waiting for the right time to get back into Noah. Remember when I said oil is running dry? Well the world wasn¡¯t exactly lacking in alternative energy source to meet life necessity, it was just the luxury stuff that was beyond the average family. Every household nowadays had some form of green energy generator, mostly solar panels and underground heat pipes. In order for me to use the VR capsule, I have to wait till the solar panels on our apartment building to charge up the batteries to max and this usually happens around the late afternoon where the sun was the strongest. Humanity has come a long way from the non-viable 20th century solar panels that can only power a calculator. My agitated body couldn¡¯t stop twitching as my heart pounded with every passing second. There¡¯s a good reason why I¡¯m so desperate you see. A few months back when my school summer vacation just started, I was welcomed home by my father who was getting himself drunk on the sofa. Looking up, my father garbled his words as he looked at me ¡°heuy Jack, I¡¯m soory yoo haf a useless dod.¡± Drops of tears trickled down his eyes as he spoke with a bottle of beer in his hand. Twenty long years of loyal service to the government¡¯s energy plant located a couple of miles from my home, did nothing to help save his job. He was sacked that day by his manager and finding a steady job in this kind of economy was like winning the lottery. Watching my old man like this was causing me to get emotion. As long as I can remember, it has always been me and pops. Never once did he cry like this and it hurts me seeing him like. It was clear to me how serious our situation is. With the ever increasing cost of living, it was not the best time to lose our only income and get our life turned upside down. That night, I cooked dinner for us from the government welfare frozen dinner boxes handed to us from the food bank. We didn¡¯t speak; it was painfully quiet as we ate, so as a way to help lighten the mood, I flicked on our hand me down holographic TV. We couldn¡¯t afford legitimate cable for quality channels so we paid some illegal company to hotwire our place to tap into our neighbors signal. Whatever they watch, we watched and luckily for me, they were mostly into things I loved like news on the hottest game Noah. I knew it wasn¡¯t helping my father in his depressive mood but I was still a kid, can¡¯t expect me to console a 40 year old man. The women on the news show were really hot and truly skilled at her job. They had to be, having looks just won¡¯t cut it in this competitive work environment. Every movement she made was like hinting erotic images at every man watching. If there was still a censor committee in this age, she¡¯d be flagged for indecency. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. But that wasn¡¯t what caught my attention. The news story was what really caught my attention. Due to the wave of negative opinion by the older generation regarding Noah, the government decided to hold a contest to reward real hard cash to the monthly top contenders in the state owned game Noah. ¡°Dear viewers, the government have just announced the highly controversial contest in the popular Noah VR game. The top ten players in the monthly ranking will gain real monetary prizes from the government. The amounts are based on your ranks in game and rumor has it, the prize could reach up to tens of thousands of dollars!¡± It wasn¡¯t all that surprising actually, since the inception of the game. The government has been raking in advertisement fee and other income from across the globe. The deficit incurred by the VR capsule program would soon be blotched out with what they were making. There was no way they would want to lose the cash cow that has landed in their lap. So, some finance minister in the government came up with the idea. Since the economy is so bad, which is true and it was this guy¡¯s job to fix it¡­ This corrupted official decided to hand out a small percent of the monthly income in Noah as a prize to the player. This was all advertisement to change public opinion regarding protesting parents that didn¡¯t like their kids spending so much time playing Noah and who can say no to real cash? I couldn¡¯t sleep that night, staring mindlessly towards the moon in the nightly sky. The news of the contest kept biting at my mind. The cash prize each month was more then what most full time workers made and every player was eligible to win. Noah had a built in ranking system that gets wiped at the end of every month. How a player gain points was anyone¡¯s guess because simply grinding or leveling in Noah would only gain you so much points. Just last month, a new player was ranked first out of millions of players just for talking to different NPC¡¯s in the game. Who would have guessed right? I was stirring in my bed for hours and by the time I fell asleep, the sun was about to rise in the horizon. Even then, my dreams haunted me with images of us begging on the streets, with my relatives and friends snickering at me with the face I despised so much. By the time I awoke, my shirt and shorts were stained with sweat. A person can only take so much when backed into a corner. With no income and no hope of achieving anything significant in my life, I decided that morning, I will win the contest! Chapter 2 - Youre the best Chapter 2 Well, the moment when I awoke that day, I did want to start my crusade into the top ranks of Noah but like so many teenage kids, my mind inherently pushed it off for another day. What, a kid is a kid, what you expect? Plus, I had a date with my friends in the old factory warehouse, our very own hideout. But just when I was about to walk out the door, I saw my dad¡­ He was still dreadful looking, browsing through the job seeking software on his holographic bracer. My heart ached, knowing I was blowing off my promise to myself just to have fun. I sighed. Opening up my own holographic bracer, I called up my best bud George and left him a message saying to meet me in the Global web lobby instead. That was it, no more delaying. My quest to outdo millions of players in the game starts now. Opening my capsule sitting in the corner of my room, I squeezed my skinny body into the cylindrical tin can. Think of a soda pop can that coke uses, that¡¯s exactly what my discounted mass produced VR capsule looked like. Oh there are better looking ones and higher spec available but the fact that we got one was fortunate enough only through my dad¡¯s government connection. Public employee¡¯s get first dib, dig that for job benefit. Now that I¡¯m all set, I hit the flashy red icon on my capsules holographic screen and that was all. No pain or flashy immersion, I just close my eyes and darkness takes my mind. Every time someone logs into the VR server, their mind goes blank for a second and your avatar would get thrown into the digital tunnel vacuum. Afterwards your avatar would appear in the universal VR lobby spawn area or by your choice, the game you saved in. There is of course some safety concerns regarding tapping into a person¡¯s brain, but the popularity of the VR technology overshadowed any demonstrations. There I was, in my goofy looking avatar that I made since my first immersion 2 years ago at the age of 14. It was a splitting image of me in the real world but a little bit better looking without the pimples and not as skinny as my real self. If one wanted to alter their default avatar forced upon everyone by the government was to pay big bucks to a VR shop for parts. Their money grubbing excuse was to use doctors proclaiming it was better for the human mind if their avatar was closer to real life. I didn¡¯t have to wait long in the lobby room with a space station background setting. George has always been my best pal that got my back even if I acted like a asshole sometimes. He soon flashed into existence like I did and waved his muscular hands at me while he floated towards me. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. ¡°Hey what¡¯s up Jack, what¡¯s with the sudden bail? I had the perfect setup to check out this hot chick from another school man.¡± George spoke in a whiny tone towards me and I don¡¯t blame him, he had the craziest ability to find the hottest girl in the city. I don¡¯t know how he does it. I¡¯m guessing social networking sites like Facelook? ¡°You hear the news about the governments contest last night? They said the prize to the top ten ranked players will get a share of the monthly earnings from Noah. Do you have any idea how much the government earns every year? Millions you hear me, and that¡¯s just what the public know. I¡¯m willing to bet there is some dough that isn¡¯t even disclosed to the general public!¡± I was speaking with my hands waving in the air to exaggerate my words and my eyes were literally popping out as I stare at George. Maybe I was overreacting because George was slowly taking a few steps away from me with a frown. ¡°So what Jack, you know people like us won¡¯t have much of a chance to win the prize.¡± George put a hand on my shoulder ¡°There are literally thousands of professional gamers out there in Noah, making money off the game in multitude of manners. And now that the contest is on, I heard there are even companies popping up specifically aimed at hitting the top ten.¡± George was seriously warning me but I didn¡¯t want to listen. Since I was young, I have done nothing but idle around in my life. The only skill I had within my body was playing games. I was definitely good compared to all my school mates and even took part in some tournaments online. So how can I possibly shrug it off when the calling of my life was in front of me now? ¡°George please, this is really important to me¡­ Last night I found out my dad lost his job.¡± I stared down at my boots with a sullen look, ¡°If I don¡¯t do something to help out, I won¡¯t be able to forgive myself. It¡¯s fine even if I don¡¯t succeed but I don¡¯t want to look back in the future and know I sat around when my dad needs me.¡± That did it; George has always been a bit emotional for a guy. His personality definitely didn¡¯t match his real and VR self, with a bulky macho body, sometimes our classmates wondered if he was into men but I knew better. ¡°Alright alright, don¡¯t use my weakness against me; you know how I hate it when you take advantage of it.¡± George complained with his arms crossed as he looked at me. ¡°Thanks man I know you always have my back¡± I cheerfully smacked him on his back as I broke into a grin. Chapter 3 - Safe zone Chapter 3 VR is somewhat different to the traditional monitor based computer. When someone wanted to log into a game or go to a website in the old CPU, all you have to do is open the program with a click or type in the web address into a browser. Now in VR, you actually have to travel to the game through a portal gate and they weren¡¯t cheap. The government department in charge of scamming the people¡¯s hard earned cash was the VR improvement institute. When they named it ¡®improvement¡¯, what it meant was improve it for the corrupted politicians, not for the people¡¯s interest. How¡¯s that for naming sense? Spending my ever dwindling allowance since my dad no longer had an income and now living off his EI. I paid the robot guardian cyborg that acted both as a map guide and security gaurd. You never know if someone would tail you from behind just to PK you on a danger red world, looting all your hard earned gears and VR credit coins that could be traded for real money. Some people even made a career out of this and if they get lucky, they can make more than most people. Within seconds, me and George was flying through the digital tunnel towards the VR planet Noah. The game was set in a fantasy magic and martial arts setting, but here¡¯s the weird part. Unlike most traditional magic and fighting games, Noah included a certain levels of scientific technology into the game, this means guns and bullets. Well, even if there was modern day weaponry in the game, it wasn¡¯t common for someone to be using one because a lot of hindering factors that came with it. I won¡¯t get into this now but if I ever do encounter such a problem, it was common knowledge in how to counter them. Now with a flashy pop, I was standing with my avatar in the last saved point I reserved in Noah. I did say I was good at video games but when it came to Noah¡­ my avatar was a noob. No gear and no level, all because I was goofing off the entire time with my friends when we joined the game since release. When Cerebro ¡®fixed¡¯ Noah, what it really did was use existing data in just about every game in history to create a completely chaotic game. The general genre of a MMO or a shooting game could not be used to describe it. Looking around, I was standing in one of the beginner¡¯s village that every new player has to get through in order to leave the safe zone. Why I never got past this point was something I wanted to curse myself for. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. The entire starting region was a island dedicated to servicing new players, fully stocked with every kind of cute and funny looking monsters and free items to use. Many casual players like me had no reason to leave this place because once you leave, there was no returning and the danger zones were not known to be merciful. First things first, waving my hand in the air, I opened the character option. On the ranking ladder board, my in game name (BcatQQ) had a big fat zero beside it. That was not very motivating; in fact, it was simply demoralizing as the current leading name had a thousand points beside theirs. Letting out a sigh, I opened a private call to George to see where he spawned. ¡°Hey, where are you right now?¡± It didn¡¯t take long for George¡¯s image to appear in front of me, indicating he received my call. ¡°I¡¯m at the bunny village on the northern part of the island, where are you?¡± I smirked because I knew why he was at the god forsaken chick hangout spot. When you put one of the cutest animals into a certain game, you can expect girls to flock toward that location. ¡°I¡¯m at the southern village where the Jello monsters spawn, come meet up with me when you can. I¡¯m going to level as fast as I can to get out of the safe zone.¡± For the entire day, I wasted my limited battery life in my capsule grinding the hell out of the soft transparent balls. In the end, I was finally able to leave the place with George beside me. I felt somewhat wrong to force my friend to leave the safe zone. Once we head out to the actual Noah game, it was every man for themselves as predatory man and women feast on the innocent noobs. I turned my head and looked my friend in the eyes. I didn¡¯t say anything as a imaginary lump lodged itself into my throat. Luckily I didn¡¯t need to; George just nodded his head and gave me his signature wink with his left eye, indicating he¡¯s all good with it. Opening up the special message box that appears whenever someone was eligible to leave the safe zone, both of us placed our hands at the same time on the ¡®YES¡¯ holographic icon. Then with a flash, both our bodies popped out of existence. Chapter 4 - Shame and scared Chapter 4 Right now, I¡¯m standing in my room looking absolutely shamed¡­ You must be wondering what happened right? Here¡¯s the melt down. After transferring my avatar out with George, I was expecting to be transferred to some major city in the game to start my adventure. But nope, instead, my avatar was tossed into the stratosphere and dropped at break neck speed towards the planet. Whoever thought such a experience would be fun was absolutely out of their MIND! Or AI computing software, I don¡¯t know. As my body brushed against the overwhelming wind, I couldn¡¯t breathe or even say anything because my lips were flapping into a big ¡®O¡¯ shape against the wind. Then as I was just about to hit the ground inside a metropolis city, some safety feature kicked in and levitated my avatar just slightly before impact. My entire soul was screaming bloody murder as my heart pounded against my chest. Never once in my life did I feel like the reaper was hanging behind my back, readying his scythe to lop off my head if I turned to look. This game had a sick sense of humor in my book. It took me a moment to regain my composure but it was already too late. The capsule had a automatic sensor built into the system that could tell when a body needed to wake up for emergencies. In my case, I had a major problem at hand that no teenager my age should have. I ended up wetting myself while immersed inside the capsule¡­ Tears welled up inside me as it flowed out of my eyes. Not only is it a real pain to clean up the cushions, how am I supposed to explain this to my dad and to George. The nightmare of this spreading to my small circle of friends and family was slowly creeping into my brain. ¡°Move! I need to erase any traces of evidence in this world.¡± I screamed to myself but kept it low enough to not alert anyone nearby. With lightning speed, it was considered fast to me OK? I tore off my clothing and rushed to the shower. Not wasting even a second, I took off the synthetic leather cushion in my capsule and sprayed it with the certified cleaning solution and wiped it clean. By the time everything was over, the sun has already set and the moon was up. George had ringed me a few times in my frantic mission to cover up my shame, but I ignored it. Not even a hint can be given to anyone; this rule must never be broken! Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. I know George will give me hell for leaving him hanging inside the game but what do you expect? Noticing the hour, I realized dinner was not ready yet. That was strange because by 8PM, either I or my pops would have dinner ready. This pattern was practically a ironclad rule in the house, both parent and son is not known to be very durable against hunger. Checking the kitchen/living room, my pops was nowhere to be seen. Then the only place left was his room but he¡¯s not known to stay inside besides to sleep. Now I realized something very strange, the entire time since I came out of the capsule, there hasn¡¯t been any noise inside the apartment... ¡°You¡¯re just scaring yourself.¡± I kept repeating these words to myself out of fear. A chilling feeling was creeping against my skins, without a doubt I was getting seriously worried. Tiptoeing my feet against the old creaking floor, moving closer towards the old man¡¯s room. Maybe it was due to the lighting but I swear, with every step I took, my vision was getting darker by the second. I gulped. Raising both hands, I turned the handle to release the lock on the door. I didn¡¯t have the nerve to push it open all the way, afraid of what I¡¯ll see inside so I just let it go at the halfway point. Letting physics do the rest, the door moved at such a slow pace I thought time itself had stopped. What I saw was not what I imagined. I was expecting a suicide scene right out of a horror movie flick but there was nothing. Everything was clean and smooth without a hint of anyone using them. The one thing that stood out was my mother¡¯s portrait, instead of hanging on the wall like it¡¯s supposed to; it¡¯s left on top of his bed. Obviously he was having some emotional time while looking at mom. A breath of relief came out of me. ¡°Now where did pops go?¡± I muttered to myself. Raising my arm, I called my pops through the phone interface on my bracer. With every beep the thing made as I waited for him to pick up, I was getting increasingly angry. I know I shouldn¡¯t be acting in such a way but I just thought he killed himself out of depression. Show me some slack, he¡¯s the only family I have left and I sure as hell am not losing him. Chapter 5 - Gambling Chapter 5 It took him a whopping fifty second just to pick up my call, can you believe this? ¡°Dad, where the hell have you been? I was worried sick here and and¡­¡± I couldn¡¯t keep going as my eyes turn soppy red. His image in front of me looked perplexed but then broke into a sneering smirk. Oh that did it, I was really angry now. I screamed at him with everything I had up to the point he opened our front door and gave me a reassuring rub down on my hair. Can you believe there was such a parent? Here I am worried sick to my bone and crying my eyes out and there he is, laughing as if the funniest joke had just appeared in front of him. ¡°Hey champs, don¡¯t worry man, your father isn¡¯t going to leave you alone just yet. I still need to live long enough to see my grandkids and you get marry to a loving girl.¡± He gave me a thumb up, ¡°I can¡¯t go meeting your mom without anything to tell her now can I?¡± The next morning I looked absolutely horrifying. Black eyes from lack of sleep and the memory of yesterday would forever haunt me in my dreams. Oh how I want to forget it. At least I know my dad is doing fine now, his friend found him some part time work at his place so we will somehow get by I hope¡­ Now to explain why I ended up lacking sleep and came up with baggy eyes or what I like to call, panda eye. Since my experience with the little mishap inside the VR game Noah, cough cough. I have decided to do a little more in depth research about what to expect and some of the ways to raise my points in the monthly ranking. What I concluded only after reading through hundreds of forum posts and watching videos on Yotube, mindless grinding doesn¡¯t work to raise my points. Certainly killing monsters and gaining levels helps a player gain points in the ranking, but here¡¯s the problem. With each level gained, it gets increasingly harder to reach higher levels. And killing monsters in the game has no pattern in the rewarding points whatsoever. Someone posted their month long slaying of thousands in a high level zone, the result only gained him at best a hundred points. Time to reward ratio just don¡¯t make sense for either method. So how do people gain a thousand points in the ranking system? The truth was, nobody really knows or even if they found a way, they wouldn¡¯t share it now since knowledge means money. I yawned before getting into my soda pop can (VR capsule), the sun has just risen and it was high time I got back into Noah. I lost some valuable leveling time yesterday and George probably left me behind by now. We were buddies but he wasn¡¯t exactly known for his patient when gaming. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. As my avatar appeared inside, I was immediately bombarded by spam mails sent by the one and only George. Some were questioning me about what happened while some messages were showing how angry he was at me for ditching twice in one day. I decided to hold off on my reply for a bit until I get the lay out of the city I¡¯m in. I don¡¯t want him to get even more frustrated at me if I can¡¯t answer some of his questions like ¡°which city did you start in?¡± Looking around, I could see avatars walking around minding their business and party recruitment shouts everywhere. I¡¯ve known there were a lot of people playing the game but this was beyond normal. Thinking hard, it wasn¡¯t all that surprising considering the ranking contest was just announced two days ago. Everyone must be like me aiming for a chance to get their hands on the monthly prizes. ¡°Now what should I do first? Go level my avatar a bit or explore the city, hmmm.¡± As I pondered my options, a commotion down the street was drawing a crowd around the noise and the curious me couldn¡¯t help but go see what the trouble was. ¡°Excuse me, coming through, hey watch it!¡± I squeezed myself through the wall of viewers to see a ensuing fight already taking place. In the middle of the street, two men holding swords and shields were going at each other like their very life was depended on it. Why are they doing this in the middle of the metropolis city was something I don¡¯t understand. Killing inside a green zone like this is forbidden, even if you manage to subdue the other person, you won¡¯t be able to deal a decisive blow to end the player¡¯s life. Looking beside me, I asked the women next to me, ¡°Umm, miss, do mind telling me why no one is stopping them?¡± Hearing my question, she gave me a sneering look as if I was parasite but still answered my question anyway. ¡°Those two are having a duel using ranking score points as a wager. The winner takes all so piss off before I stick a bullet into you.¡± I flinched back at the women¡¯s rude behavior but the idea of gambling in the game was jaw dropping to me. The illusion I had of Noah being a fun and amazing game was starting to fall apart like a domino effect. The game was meant to be a fun getaway, it was supposed to be fair, it was supposed to be my one chance to do something in my life, but these people are turning it into a casino gathering. I felt sick just standing here. My other story Just wanted to promote my other story "Calamity" Link: http://royalroadl.com/fiction/2857