《Virtually a Cull》 ---- Prologue ---- ¡°Around the end of the 24th century, earth became inhospitable. Global warming devastated Earth, our planet was becoming a wasteland. In our desperation, technology advanced at an astounding rate. Many attempts at terraforming were made, but we just made the situation worse. The population began to decline, the situation turned dire, we abandoned earth to its fate and left. Since then humans have resided in Gargantuan Space-Stations, powered by the Dyson Sphere covering the Sun. In the beginning, living conditions were horrible, meagre food rations and living in a tin can made them weak and depressed, we desired an escape. Roughly a century later, the mega-corporation Apple created the ¡°iPod?¡±, incubator-like pods which humans live their entire lives inside, your brain and nervous system are connected to huge virtual plane, giving you the freedom to do anything you want. A golden age was conceived, there has never been a better time to be alive! This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.Due to lack of resources, we have not yet created the Utopia which we first imagined, we still lack the computing power to give everyone a virtual heaven. The main source of this power is the human brain, which is capable of astounding parallel processing. Due to Apple¡¯s generosity, it now only costs 10 years to go ad free! You will be put into cryosleep, so it will feel like no time at all. Interact with your family and friends, become the god of your own world, role play in the middle ages. The possibilities are endless. Invite a fri-¡± ¡°Skip¡± ¡°Related Videos: What is the Dyson Sphere? Where does our food come from? Where do the resources for the Space Stations come from? Please pick which advertainment to watch first¡± ¡°Skip Skip Skip¡± ¡°Now Entering Duel ¨C Welcome Solomon¡± ? Chapter 1 Chapter 1 Kara typed away on her virtual computer, she didn¡¯t have to, it could be controlled with her brain, but she liked to be old school. That was way too easy she thought as she laughed at the screen, in just a few days she managed to bypass most of apples major firewalls. Kara was one of the few people who still took an interest in hacking, with VR not many people bothered with it anymore, it was seen as a boring and dated pastime. Who the fuck would give up 10 years of their life to get rid of these shitty ads when you can do it yourself. The last firewall had been beaten and she opened the root directory of apples main server. Skimming through the files and folders while looking for the user database she came across a folder called ¡®Samuel Marek¡¯ which made her raise her eyebrows; not many people knew about the real inventor behind the ¡°iPod¡± as Apple had almost entirely erased his existence. ¡°Interesting¡± she muttered as she opened the folder. Inside was a single file called ¡°Emergency Cull¡± What the fuck is this? She thought as she opened the file. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ¡°The Dyson Sphere is a revolution-¡°. Solomon was mad. He¡¯d been duelling his brother for over an hour and he still hadn¡¯t won. Knife fights, gun fights, sword fights; he didn¡¯t win once. They¡¯d loaded into a virtual battleground and fought whilst betting ad-skip credits. Now I have to sit through more bloody ads, I¡¯m 21 so I¡¯ve probably spent at least half of that watching ads. Maybe I should just take the 10 years and go ad-free. ¡°-millions of giant solar panels cove-¡± The ad abruptly cut out. Thank the lord Solomon thought, until an ancient-looking loading bar appeared. What the hell is this? Why is it going so slow? The loading bar had been there for 5 minutes and was still on 6%. What is this; the 2200s? It won¡¯t even let me cancel. I¡¯m beginning to miss the ads. Two slow moving hours later the loading bar had finally finished, and Solomon found himself standing in forest with his brother Ariel; they were both wearing ragged clothes and holding what appeared to be a broadsword. ¡°What the fuck was that about?¡± Ariel exclaimed. ¡°You tell me, what game did you load?¡± ¡°The normal one Slowamon, I have no idea why it took so long. We have swords though, so close enough. Where even are we?¡± ¡°Hell if I Know ¨C Status¡±. Rather than the normal status window for the duelling program, an RPG-like status window appeared. Name Solomon Job N/A Level 1 ¡°Looks like you accidentally loaded us into an RPG or something. Looks pretty old school too, good job moron¡± ¡°I clicked on the right one, must of bugged out¡± ¡°Yeah, right. When has it EVER bugged out?¡± ¡°Just now actually, stop being such a dick, I can kill you again if you want¡± Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.¡°Whatever. We may as well look around before we quit, it might be an alright game¡± Solomon sighed. When he¡¯s not looking I¡¯ll stab him in the back and get my revenge for all those credits. ¡°Yeah may as well, let¡¯s go this way, forest seems to be thinning out¡±. Ariel started walking in what appeared to be a random direction with Solomon lagging behind. After walking for a few minutes Solomon shouted ¡°Check out this weird mushroom bro, looks a bit like a dick¡± while laughing as he thought when he bends down I¡¯ll stab him in the back ¨C literally. Ariel turned around and started walking towards Solomon and looked at the weird mushroom ¡°Where? Oh yeah it do-¡±. As Ariel crouched to pick the mushroom Solomon drove the sword just under his brother¡¯s left shoulder blade. ¡°That¡¯s for the credits Ar¡±. Solomon pulled the sword out and his brother collapsed onto the forest floor. ¡°Get fucked, Sol¡± Ariel spewed with his dying breath, as notification popped up: ¨C First Blood [Global] -- Oh sweet ¨C his sword didn¡¯t disappear, free loot. Solomon knelt down and picked up the sword whilst opening his contact list so he could tell if his brother was going to re-spawn or quit. Weird ¨C it says ¡°Deceased¡±, haven¡¯t seen that before. Oh well, must be because it¡¯s an old game. May as well quit then. ¡°Quit¡± ¡°Exit¡± ¡°Leave¡± What the hell ¨C how do I get out of this stupid game? After trying for a half an hour without success, Solomon just started wondering around the forest, looking for anything interesting to do, until he came across a woman. She had long blonde hair and a pretty face, she appeared to be early 20s. ¡°Hey ¨C I didn¡¯t know this was a public game, not an NPC are you?¡± Solomon yelled in her direction ¡°Hey, no I¡¯m not, I was watching a movie on SpaceFlix then this loading bar appeared. Been wondering around this forest for ages now¡± ¡°Weird ¨C pretty much the same thing happened to me. Head honchos at apple must have fucked up. I¡¯m Sol by the way¡± ¡°Tash, I¡¯d say nice to meet you, but I¡¯m pretty annoyed ¨C I hate RPGs¡± Solomon and Tara were talking about the various ways they¡¯ve tried to quit when a window popped up in front of them. Rules of the game 1. To survive, do not treat this like a game 2. If you die in the game, you die forever 3. No one is excluded from the game 4. The game ends when enough have died 5. To win, survive