“The servers have been online for an hour. We’re ready to start the download, Twelve. Are you ready to make history?” The cadet stated. He was a young cadet, very new to computers in general, although technically he had been with them his entire life. Strong, tall and lean, preferring to eat the native foods of his old hometown of Fourside, which has long since been kept in freeze and stored in SubServer Number 122, in the RR Section. In fact, all of the cadet’s world had been put in freeze, save for himself, his father, cousin, ladyfriend and a handful of other people. Odds are the world would be erased, for there was no need to have yet another example of the engine the new nation was running on. Game engine, that is.
Twelve turned in his pilot’s chair to look at the cadet. “Everest, I’ve been history since I was born. Or, installed, that is. Let me copy and paste there from my biosuit for a second so I can get the camera set up. How’s Reslo doing? I haven’t seen him for a while. I heard that Camofrog had a good talk with Reslo, and they ended up trading blows. I can’t really see why, he’s just telling you your world wasn’t real and that everything you’d worked so hard for was all a moot point. Anyway, I’m in. Let’s do this thing. Hit it!”
The cadet, named Everest, punched the button and stared in wonder at the video screen above him. SubServer One through One Thousand downloaded, Section AA. SubServer One through One Thousand downloaded, Section AB. And on and on, until Section ZZ was complete, all six hundred seventy six thousand servers were fully integrated into SuperServer A, currently the only SuperServer. They did it. The United Nations shot them a message saying they endorsed their sovereignty as the newest nation in the world, and all the nations but the remnants of North Korea and China would allow dual citizenship in their nation and the others, unless the nation declared war on their nation.
“That’s it, then. We are the first nation to be nonexistent and have sovereignty. Are you ready to become a State Governor of New Central? I know I promised Economic Supervisor, but this job is more fun. You get to do less boring stuff.” Twelve asked him. Everest gave him one of those looks where he didn’t entirely know what something was, so he unpacked the concept and stared at you until it finished. “Yeah, I think I’d rather have a fun job than a not fun job.” Twelve made a mental note of that. He literally made a mental note.
See, each member of the Sentients now had an upgrade to their programs. In the case of Bbykat51, because she was still a real being and not a computer program, and she was alive outside of the computers, she only had it when she was in the machine. Every other member was a program, and thus they had an upgrade called a BrainBoy. A BrainBoy was this: You take a supercomputer, compress the half a petabyte of data down into a dozen terabytes, (a terabyte is one thousand twenty four gigabytes, a gigabyte is one thousand twenty four megabytes. A terabyte is pretty big, let alone half a petabyte.) and install it into your brain. Literally. You would use it as simply as using your phone, only without the need for a phone. Or a hand.
It hooks into your audio receptors and visual receptors, (your eyes and ears) and can give you pop ups of information, like an alarm to wake up or a diagram of CPR. You can hear the voices of people in your ear, like a phone call. They can send you mental ‘screenshots’ of what they see at that moment in time and send it like a picture. Besides all that was the massive, and still growing as more companies jumped on board with the licensing, Data Dump, the largest collection of virtual materials known to man. Data Dump was pretty much the eShop for your brain. Any Linux, iOS, C#, C, C++ and almost any other language was compatible with the Dump.
Data Dump also doubled as a social networking site, allowing a Facebook-styled experience or, should you choose to, rearrange it so it feels like you're back on the Animal Crossing Community. The Dump had more than enough to keep you busy for years. As a sort of joke, Bill, always fond of potty humor, had nicknamed the process of downloading an application from the Data Dump, "Taking a Dump." The name stuck, much to the dismay of people with a weak stomach.
Twelve started to stare off into the distance, a sign he was reading something off his BrainBoy. He then looked at the armrest on the right and started to fiddle with some buttons. Everest spoke up, not realizing Twelve was on his BrainBoy. “Well, I guess this is it, Twelve. We’ve got a hundred thousand volunteers, the Civic Defense Division is organizing them into sectors and in about three hours they’ll be released into New Central. The United Nations told us that we’re on our own for hosting the servers, so we’ve purchased some islands near Hawaii and the Western Hemisphere is being moved there, the Eastern servers are being transported near Australia. Twelve? What’cha doing?” Twelve held up his hand. Everest kept quiet until Twelve was ready to talk.
“I just got reports that people in Egypt and Germany are starting to revolt over the fact that now there is a digital nation. They claim that we will be the downfall of humanity, and that we must be purged from the world now. Their governments are trying like crazy to keep the peace and that just causes more revolts, so Egypt send me a personal message asking us to intervene. Germany sent one to Bill. Bill says that he’ll help, and I figure I’ll go to, but only if you come with me. It’s about time you experienced the warsuits in action.” Everest shrugged and got up. “Sure. Which one should I use?”
Twelve read something off his BrainBoy again. “Access Warsuit A11, that’s the one Peaches used to use, it’s not in bad condition at all. And besides, she didn’t use it hardly at all, she never did like the feel of being a human soldier. Locate yourself there, I think mine and yours are both in the same hangar. If they aren’t use GPS and meet me at Cairo. Got it?” Everest nodded. “Good. Now let’s blow this popsicle stand.”
I intend on this being the real last installment, by the way. I figure I shouldn't pull another Everest Nightmare on you guys.
EDIT: It doesn't matter how long I do this, I'll always mess up the HR line.
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“YEAH, BABY! WOAHHHHHH!!!!! I FEEL ALIIIIIVE!” Everest was screaming through the skies, heading for Cairo. Actually, you wouldn’t know if he was screaming; he broke the sound barrier. “It’s great, isn’t it? Marvel and I got together to make this thing. It’s modeled after Iron Man, from those comics and that movie series.” Twelve said to him through the voice chat feature in the BrainBoy. Everest dove about five hundred feet, then shot back up before he lost control. “Do you guys do this a lot, when you need to be somewhere in person?” He said. Twelve sent him a Ping, a little burst of emotion, sort of like using an emoticon when texting. “Normally when our presence is required in reality, it’s for a business meeting or an inspection of a SwellBells server or something like that. We have these warsuits so New Central can defend itself in the case of war. The biosuits do have the ability to fly, but you have to fly on a full stomach or else it’ll run out of energy over the ocean. The biosuits are different because they’re meant to somewhat simulate the human body in civilian form, except for some differences, like flight. You even have to eat when you’re in one.” Twelve and Everest grew closer to the Mediterranean Sea, eventually the coast of Egypt and then Cairo came into view. Everest flew lower, about two hundred feet above the ground. Twelve flew about fifty yards above him, scanning the streets for riots.
“This is Sun God Seven Air Traffic Control System. Please state your name, purpose and destination.” Something said in Everest’s ear. He glanced over at Twelve. Apparently they both received the same message. “What do we say to them?” Everest asked Twelve. Twelve slowed down, then drastically reduced his speed almost to the point of stopping. “Tell them that we’re here as a favor to the Egyptian government. They want us to help with some riots, and that patching us through to someone there would be much appreciated.” Everest did so, and they landed on Main Street. The streets were perfectly clear, almost spooky. “Thank you for responding. Our riot police are currently three blocks north of you and six blocks to the west. You’ll want to speak with Commander Raee Nikklson. Have a good day.”
Twelve focused his mechanical eyes and peered around. He flew up above the buildings and scanned the area for riots, eventually finding the locationt the person had spoken of. He and Everest landed in the middle of the street, behind a barricade of police vehicles. Several riot officers looked over for a second, wary of the new arrivals to the scene. Twelve switched his language to Egyptian. “Who is Commander Raee Nikklson? I must speak with him.” He asked. A tall man, probably about thirty five or forty stepped forward, tear gas in one hand and a pistol clipped to his belt. “I am he. Are you the ones from above?”
Everest nodded. “We are. Your government has sent us to aid you. We’ve got something to do in an hour, so just point us at the right places and we’ll let your people go. Got it?” Raee nodded and pointed down the street. “That way they are. I’m going to inform my people down there about you, just do what you do and subside the riots. Many thanks.” Everest and Twelve flew down, loading their tear gas and prepping the hoses on the way. “Down there.” Twelve made a blink appear in Everest’s vision, sort of like highlighting something. Everest dove down, slowed, and eventually landed right the middle of the riot. People stepped back, then rushed forward and attacked. They hit him with crowbars, bats and occasionally a teddy bear would bounce off his visor. Everest merely stood there, unmoving. It wasn’t until Twelve fired a pistol loaded with blanks into the air that it paused momentarily.
There was peace for about two seconds, no one moving, someone sneezed as they really got a chance to look at this living machine. Everest stepped over to Twelve. “We are representatives of New Central. We don’t mean to harm you. We aren’t here to undo the peace or create a world government. We just want to relieve some of the world’s problems like overpopulation, or hunger, or poverty. We know we can’t do everything, but Twelve and I want to do everything we can. Does that make it more clear?” Some of the people in the crowd nodded, started to leave. Twelve looked up in the sky, staring off into the distance again. He leaned over to Everest. “Two bogeys are coming in, armed to kill, drones it looks like. Three miles away, should be here in fifteen seconds. Get them out of here.” Twelve leaned back over. “Get out of here! Leave! You’re under attack! Quickly!” The people looked confused for a second, then started to jog out, turning into a run as the planes came into view. Everest looked to Twelve, then realized he was already up in the sky. Twelve shot him a Ping, showing fear and excitement. Everest started to fly upwards, toward the action until one drone went down in flames.
“Catch that! Don’t let them hit the city!” Twelve was practically yelling in his ear, despite being two hundred yards away. Everest rocketed down and grabbed the largest piece of debris with his right hand, then dove and caught the second largest with his left. That was pretty much all of it, as it had mostly only split into two parts when it broke. Twelve was still up there, chasing the other drone, which had just dropped a payload of one big, angry bomb. “Cross your eyes! You have three seconds of laser vision usage before the lenses burn!” Twelve was screaming now. Everest focused, then started to burn away the casing and the electronics inside the bomb. It crashed into a building, starting a small flame rather than exploding. Everest looked back up to Twelve, who had caught up to the drone and was..... punching it? He ripped something out of it, something about the size of a watermelon. Twelve tossed it straight up into the air and grabbed the drone by the nose, almost being pulled with it wherever it was going. He shoved something into the innards of the drone and threw it straight up as well, then came back and caught the watermelon sized object before landing. Everest landed too, and they walked over to each other. The drone exploded a few hundred yards behind Twelve, Everest could see it over his shoulder.
“What did you do to that thing?” Everest asked him. Twelve shrugged nonchalantly. “I stuffed a handful of grenades in it, maybe four high powered ones. Just put that debris down, I’m sure Egypt will appreciate we took care of the attacks. Which by the way, we should call them.” Twelve handed Everest the watermelon thing, which was actually a handful of wires and a motherboard. “Yeah, it’s me. I cleared out the riots and then two drones flew in. One of them I couldn’t get a good look at, but it’s somewhat intact, the other one I cleaned out the motherboard of. Everest, hold that thing up. I’m sending you a picture now.” Twelve blinked twice, which meant he took a picture. “I’m going to leave the debris here, as well as the junk I ripped out. Send your people down to get it. Hey, no problem. Anytime. Bye.”
Twelve stared off into the distance again, adjusting something on his BrainBoy before he looked at Everest. “Well, let’s get out of here, shall we?” Everest nodded and sent him a Ping of affirmation. They went home.
Prepare to be amazed. The next addition is going to blow your mind.
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“Criminy, guys. You did tell him that the warsuits were still experimental, and shouldn’t be able to handle seven hundred fifty miles an hour speed at three thousand feet above sea level, let alone sticking your barely armored hands into a highly electric nuclear missile. If you were an organism, you wouldn’t be an organism anymore. How far did he push you, Everest?” Bbykat51 was giving Twelve and Everest a lecture on the proper handling of company materials; the biosuits and warsuits were the property of SwellBells. Of course, SwellBells had fifteen more exactly like it in the warehouse, but they were pretty expensive. Everest was about to speak up when Bill rushed into the room.
“The hundred thousand volunteers are ready. America, Canada, France, England, Spain, Mexico, Japan and Brazil are ready to transmit. Spain is going first. Do you guys wanna watch, or what?” Bbykat51 turned to look at them and then pushed past Bill excitedly, walking into the other room. Everest and Twelve followed her.
The other room wasn’t really a room; it was more of a planetarium, and on the ceiling were dozens of television monitors. The faces of the various world leaders from the transmitting countries were on them, with some exceptions, like Parliament and some other things. On the bottom of each monitor was a small progress bar, there was a percentage of the total amount of people transmitted and how many citizens left to transmit. The leaders were also monitoring the servers, some grinning, some with the same scowl you see in official portraits.
Spain finished: five thousand Spainard souls were now in SuperServer A. Brazil started next, five thousand more people started to download themselves into a computer. It’s really mind blowing. People turning themselves into programs, you could fit three of them into a USB drive. Being turned into a machine; really messes with your mind. Not literally, because New Central was actually built to feel like reality, simply with bug nets and shovels and axes that bounce off of you when you swing them. Guns had been eliminated, but that didn’t mean the boys in blue weren’t armed. They had PSI, which was the the term used when discussing abilities like Teleport and Medic as a whole, in the collective sense.
Brazil was done. If Everest had a physical heart it would be pounding out of his chest. Japan started; fifteen thousand incoming. SuperServer B had been brought online last night and was now accepting Japan. The Japanese prime minister, Naikaku-sori-daijin, was obviously very tired: it was around one in the morning there. And he didn’t seem to be able to keep his balance or speak very well... well, no need to pry. Japan was done faster than Brazil and Spain combined: they must have better computer networks.
France and England started to go at the same time: England to SuperServer A and France to SuperServer B. They both sent their people very quickly and let Canada and Mexico go. Mexico had the fewest amount of people: only a thousand, pretty close to Canada’s five thousand. And then America went. America’s Congress overlooked the downloading: their president was attending some secret meeting overseas. Twenty five thousand individual lives were transferred into SuperServer B, all ready to begin their new lives as part of New Central’s first villagers. Yes, nine hundred thousand people would come in as well in the next week if the servers could handle it; SuperServer C, D and E were all going to be brought online tomorrow. The final person was downloaded: Buzz Aldrin, second man on the moon. There was wild applause: New Central was now a nation. Bbykat51 wiped away a tear, Everest looked over to Twelve and Bill and saw they were bawling. Everest gave them a pathetic look and inhaled deeply. Animal Crossing: New Central was founded.
The sun was bright, like you’d expect of the first day in an entirely new world. Twelve woke up in his small house in the perfectly located villa that he placed. About a dozen houses, only three of them filled as of yet. One of the Tom Nook expansion chains was moving in in three days, so until then Twelve was pretty much all alone, save for the neighbors. Twelve slid out of his bed and slipped into his Super Mario Slippers, something he had made himself. He grabbed a bowl of cereal and ate slowly, looking at the beautiful sunrise.
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Everest came out of his house for the first time in the perfectly located neighborhood that Twelve had put down. Nook was going to come in and open up one of the first parts of his chain here, but Camofrog was arguing that because this was technically the new Animal Crossing as well as an entirely new nation, they should model it after New Leaf, so it might be Timmy and Tommy instead of Nook. To his right was Twelve’s house, it was the size and shape of the starter home from Animal Crossing: Population Growing. That’s how all people would start in this country, with the starter home. It wasn’t going to be divided into a grid for your furniture, because hey, this is also a kind of reality, but it was still about the same size anyway.
Bbykat51 hit the New Age Retro Hippie with the Cracked Bat and took about 15 HP of damage. She used Lifeup Alpha on herself to restore her HP and the Teddy Bear took about 20 HP of mortal damage, causing it to explode into stuffing. Bbykat dodged quickly as the New Age Retro Hippie brushed his teeth, causing beams of sunrays to attack her. Bbykat51 used PSI Rockin and then realized her Psyche Points had run out, so she simply Bashed instead. “Are you done yet? I wanna play Mario Kart now.” A voice cut into her game; it was her friend Bluebear.
Bbykat51 paused EarthBound and the RealSNES Emulator that she was using, and stood up. She had been playing on her BrainBoy and gotten so caught up in EarthBound that she had forgotten she and Bluebear were going to play Mario Kart: Double Dash!! together. Camofrog and Bill had created some emulators (emulators are essentially a virtual console on your computer or device. If you have a Nintendo Wii emulator on your desktop then you can play the Wii on your computer. However, you’ll also need virtual copies of the games as well, called ROMs files.) for a bunch of systems and added special games to them, but some games took longer to add than others so it was taking a long time; there was only a few of them in New Central.
“Yeah, sorry about that. I had just beat Captain Strong and got out of Onett and into Twoson and then Happy Happy Village and then-” Bluebear cut her off. “No need to apologize. I’ve already beaten EarthBound, so I know how weird it is. Connect your netplay (the ability to play a game on an emulator over the internet, basically multiplayer for people with BrainBoys) to me and let’s get started!”
Twelve finished his bowl of cereal and simply sat, admiring the view. Lush landscaping went as far as the eye could see, bushes and shrubs occasionally. Bbykat51 had placed in her hibiscus shrubs yesterday; each Sentient had a chance to edit their house and surroundings with whatever they wanted. Bbykat51, though she would have to pop in with reality eventually, due to the fact she was the only person who was still in their original organic body, chose a garden. Everest chose to live fairly plainly, save for some peach trees in his backyard. Twelve chose nothing at all, instead preferring to start from the ground up. Bill lined his house with golden axes; he said he would pick them up and keep them in storage to sell. Camofrog put bags of bells around his house and some black roses as well. The Sentients were mostly set, except Camofrog’s and Bill’s houses had still not been moved into yet; Twelve could see the roses and axes and bells still lying on the ground.
Michael decided that instead he would live in the town nearby: named Fourside, in honor of Everest’s hometown, which was named Fourside in honor of an area in one of Camofrog’s favorite video games of all time. Michael was going to start facilitating residences for that area; he would tell people where to live and why, and give them a few options so they could choose one. One thing that Michael had been noticing lately, judging by his BrainBoy messages, was that even though there was no skin color, (they had not figured out how to get all of the shades that you see in reality just yet, but they were close!) people from different nationalities tended not to live together. The Americans lived with Americans, the Japanese lived with Japanese, even though there were no language barriers, either. They spoke their own language, which, thanks to the BrainBoy, was immediately translated so it sounded like whatever language the use spoke. It worked so well you couldn’t tell that anyone spoke anything else.
It was a great system, really. Nearly perfect.
I'm having fun writing this. Are you guys enjoying reading this?
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Since the dawn of the Sentients, there has been one flaw in their explanation of how they came to be. Their explanation was that bits of beta coding that wasn’t used or erroneously programmed were “floating” around the overall program, and that somehow, quite mysteriously, they came together out of pure coincidence to form Twelve, Camofrog and Peaches’ ability to think freely. A large part of their “sentient sciences” had been formed around the belief that it was completely random and unpredictable, and that anytime it had happened it had to have happened out of pure chance. And for the most part, it was true. Except for one thing: the belief that it was random.
Camofrog had just finished up adding SuperServer D to the fray when his BrainBoy picked up a message from Bbykat51 and Bluebear. It seemed that they wanted to play Mario Kart with him, so he set up the RealDolphin (a Nintendo Gamecube emulator) and added them as friends on multiplayer. He then downloaded the game ROM file and added himself to their game, as well as hooking up voice chat. A few seconds later, she and Bluebear were playing at Bbykat51’s house and Camofrog was playing in his office, outside of New Central.
The Animal Crossing Community servers were almost burning: ever since they had agreed to host Animal Crossing: New Central’s official forums, hundreds of thousands of people, both from that country and from reality had made accounts. Dozens of threads were being posted every second. The ACC had even had to open a new warehouse to house their servers, of course SwellBells had given them a nice gift of fifty terabyte servers, (pretty much the processing speed of one SubServer) to get them started. Animal Crossing Community gratefully accepted the servers, and then set out to buy a hundred more from the manufacturer.
The staff of the Animal Crossing Community were swamped: a thousand new staff members had to be hired to manage this, but only one half of one percent had been on the site longer than a year, and a third of that barely met the criteria. Old staff members were being hastily rehired, and new ones were barely keeping it together. The only rest most of the staff got was during the scheduled downtimes, now usually twice a day, for about two hours a day. Some of them even started going in shifts. Of course, most of them would’ve left by now had the job of staff member not become a paid position. At twenty American dollars an hour, or fourteen british pounds, staff didn’t really want to leave. In fact, there were actually waves of people applying, but the thing that kept them from getting the job was the fact they needed Animal Crossing Community experience.
Everything was pretty much okay, save for the fact that twenty thousand people a day were joining and two staff a day were being hired. It wasn’t for lack of money: the very reason that they could afford a hundred servers and twenty dollar an hour salaries was because millions of views an hour made it nearly the most popular site on the internet, making advertisers pay much, much more for an ad. They were earning nearly thirty dollars a minute from ad clicks, whether it be accidental or not, and that number was constantly rising.
Animal Crossing Community had even signed up for a special Google Translate feature that automatically translated languages into English, or English into whatever language the user chose. It had only been installed during the most recent downtime, about an hour before the time of this writing, so ad revenue from international visitors had not been calculated yet, but it was sure to be massive once Mexico and Spain and the countries with people in New Central got in the act. Fortunately, and unfortunately, this would create even more of a raging demand for moderators, which would definitely be hard to fill.
But the Animal Crossing Community would survive. Help would come eventually.
Possibly the most ironic thing that's ever happened to my writing is that I wrote this part the day before the ACC adds a bunch of new staff members. The timing was nearly perfect, especially cause it was on accident.
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Twelve and Michael were standing on a hill overlooking the newly made town that the construction programmers had put in. Toad Town, as it was christened, was going to be one of the more developed towns for a few miles, with a Re-Tail, Tom Nook’s Homes and Supermarket, and Timmy and Tommy’s Emporium, Post Office and a Leif was being created to move in as well. Eight people, the new maximum for a town, had already volunteered to move in, the primary reason they were chosen was because they were all Mario Kart enthusiasts, and netplay video game tournaments would be a nice thing to have in New Central, especially when two of the Sentients (Twelve and Bbykat51) were big fans of it.
Michael received a netplay request from Bluebear for Mario Kart and turned it down, and attached a message telling her that he was busy right now, but later he might. He almost set up a voice chat with Twelve, and then decided that the traditional way would be better. “So how’s it going, Twelve? We’ve finally got our nation now, and thanks to sovereignty the United Nations can’t stick you on the electric chair again. I’d say that’s a plus.” Twelve held his hand up in the air and pulled out a shovel, then started digging up a star nearby. He pulled out a Gyroid. “I guess it’s a nice touch, having an Animal Crossing game with Animal Crossing elements in it. Otherwise there’d be no reason to keep the name Animal Crossing.” Twelve commented.
Michael nodded. “Some of the employees at SwellBells are itching to join New Central, and I think I might let them do that by joining the Animal Crossing Community. They won’t live in it like we are, but the company would send them a machine like the one we gave Bbykat to use way back when. I’m thinking that it would work out quite nicely, with us paying twenty dollars or however much an hour and the ACC paying ten. They save money and get much needed staff, cause most of our people have been one of their people for a long time, and in return they make sure to keep us a nice space on their homepage and in the Giveaways section. By the way, are we going to expand into New Leaf yet?”
Twelve shook his head. “We shouldn’t just yet. In any case, turnips and the Island are corrupting what little economy there is. People don’t need free stuff just yet, not until a few months in.” Michael gave a look of distaste and took something out of his pockets. It was bundle of turnips, one hundred of them. “I figure that we might as well check out a few of the nearby shops for their turnip prices, maybe pull some profits. I’ve got about a thousand turnips on me, and I think that I might as well make this trip profitable. Whaddya say?” Twelve whacked Michael on the back of the head. “Go for it. Also, do a BrainBoy check with the leaders of the new towns and get status reports from them so we know if there’s any problems, and what their turnip prices are. Who’s to say that we can’t make good use of our moderator abilities?”
Bill adjusted his tie and made sure the usher was still handing out pamphlets to the ambassadors. Some of the smaller countries, as well as nations that had supplied the first batch of volunteers, were going to add another nine hundred thousand people tomorrow, to make one million total, so ambassadors were being sent to New Central to get an idea of exactly what New Central was. And since Twelve, Michael, Bbykat and Camofrog were all out working very hard on establishing new cities and the BrainBoy program, the job fell to Bill. Finally all the ambassadors were seated, so Bill stepped up to the podium.
“In reality, there are many facts of life that cannot be circumvented. There is the need to eat. There is a need to sleep. You will get tired. You cannot jump off a cliff and live. You can’t survive your brain being taken out. You can’t live through a gunshot to a vital organ. And that is reality.
In New Central, you do need to eat. You do need to sleep. That much is true. But you only need to eat half as much, and sleep for two hours a day, minimum. Most people choose to continue the schedule they had in reality, that is their choice. Most people do not choose to jump off a cliff, but if they did so, they would not die. They could not die. They can survive their brain being taken out, due to the fact that they have no brain. There is no physical brain that can be taken out, nor is there a liver, heart or kidneys. They simply are there. Now, you can’t die from a gunshot to a vital organ, because there are none. There is the possibility of death, though you have to apply for it.
But now that there is no death, what can we do with ourselves? Life was not meant to last forever. But some things were: Animal Crossing. Animal Crossing, no matter which installment you have, was never meant to end. And life is now not going to end. Because of this, the Sentients and I have all worked-literally-48 hour days for the past six months to create New Central. It is twice the size of Earth, and it is truly a wonderful place to live.”
Bill flipped a switch on the podium, causing a slideshow to play on the wall next to him. The first picture was of the Sentients all grouped together with people who were affiliated with them, like Reslo and Michaela. They were at some sort of barbecue, grinning for the camera. Bill himself was about to swallow an entire hamburger in one bite, opening his mouth almost wider than a living human ever could. “These are the members of our group, you can find a key to who is who in your pamphlet.”
He moved to the next slide. It was a picture of a beta town, one that was used to create and finalize the game engine. The beta town was called Fourside, which (unbeknownst to the audience was the home of Everest) was really very pretty. There were mostly black roses, some blue, and then just an assortment of regular, run of the mill hybrids. They were arranged in some of the most lovely patterns you could see: the American flag, the United Nations emblem, and one that really got the ambassadors oohing and ahhing: a massive Super Mario logo.
A few more slides, and then Bill finished up the presentation. The people went home, back to their presidential committees and their comfy chairs, and Bill started to initiate teleportation sequences to talk to Twelve, then decided he was going to jog there instead. It was only about five miles, should take half an hour. So he just headed out the door and went.
Bbykat51 was perusing the customs area, where people who were being downloaded went through to make sure everything was in check, similar to an airport, when she suddenly became very nauseous. It was getting her again. Something, something kept forcing her out of herself somehow, almost like it was... well.... best to get back to reality for a few hours. Maybe she’d go call up her sister and have lunch at that Chinese restaurant downtown. Yeah, that would help. She staggered into a bathroom, still very woozy, and exited New Central. Her person inside New Central would disappear and she would reappear at her house as usual, nothing to worry about there. But she was still nauseous...
Hello? Is anyone home? I'm seeing almost nobody on the fanfics board as of late.
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Hehe...I'm still here. I've been a bit busy researching what a "NEET" is, as that's my next song base. Still don't really have it completely figured out...but I have a good start to the song, so it's all good. Your chapters are awesome! I love them, they're so good!!!
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The food was good, but not as good as it normally was. Cheen-Chang-China usually served much better than this, but maybe the nausea was just affecting taste instead of her sense of balance. Bbykat and her sister gave a goofy walk (Bbykat because of nausea, her sister because Bbykat was doing it) back to their cars, and they both went home, her sister to her apartment and Bbykat51 to her lovely abode on the other side of town.
One of the biggest questions that was raised when Camofrog, Twelve, Bill, Michael, Peaches and Bbykat51 marched into the United Nations (actually, only Bbykat51 marched: the others transmitted in a biosuit to go in their stead) and spitballed the idea of New Central was a question that makes or breaks every widespread computer system: the possibility of a computer failure. In your games, when you play online, even a five second lapse in communication between the two systems would end your game or do something much much worse to it. Occasionally it could destroy your save file, or erase some of the things in your game. Needless to say, bad connection did bad things.
When the Sentients started to go into detail about how New Central’s computer system would work, computer failure was the most urgent answer to be given. If a save file was corrupted, there was a chance that that file could be human life. That would be if one small glitch occurred. A power failure would be disastrous. Each SuperServer ran on its own generator, and backed up to the local power supply if the generator was destroyed. But if the SuperServer was taken out, either by a mistake or by the actual server being destroyed, then hundreds of thousands, and eventually millions of people would die. No, they wouldn’t die. They would merely be erased, as easily as another music track or a picture of a bad hair day. Gone.
There was never a guarantee that failure couldn’t happen: that was why volunteers weren’t pouring in just yet, not until they had reasonable evidence that it was safe. Like trying new bleach that might cause a lot of fumes but you’re not sure if it will. The way that the Sentients solved was by not solving it. Instead, rather than having a person from Spain being in the closest server, it went to two servers. If one server went down, the other server that the person was sent to would immediately be the one that handled everything that the person did until the server went back online. Redundant programming, not normally helpful but in this case it was.
Really, the only thing that could cause something in New Central to be erased was if both of the servers were taken down...
The customs aisles had never been so busy, last week was tough, but that was only a hundred thousand people. This was nine hundred thousand, nine times more. Jim had never been so tired: it was true that New Central allowed for people with tougher jobs like his to go longer without sleep, up to 48 hours, but 48 hours was three hours ago. Jim had already requested an ASP, an Artificial Sleep Pill, so that he could keep working and not be tired for another six or seven hours, but he didn’t know if it would arrive soon enough for him not to drop dead on his feet. He waved in a purple bulldog that looked kind of grumpy and then waved in a few more villagers before he felt someone behind him. Ah! The pill! Oh, sweet relief! Jim took the pill from the delivery man and swallowed it whole. “By the way, your shift ends in three hours, boss wanted me to tell you that.” Jim shook the man’s hand and continued his work with renewed strength, partially from the pill and partially because he saw a Sentient, a female one over by the door.
Twelve was piecing a gold stereo back together when Bbykat51 knocked on the door. “Door’s open! Come on in.” He said over his shoulder, bending down to screw in a knob inside the CD drive. Bbykat51 entered, and Twelve stood up. “Hey. What’s up?” He said, tossing a screwdriver into a small bucket on the other side of the room. Bbykat51 started to say something, then stopped. She started again, this time with more confidence. “Something’s wrong. I can feel it. When I’m in New Central, I immediately am hit with waves of nausea and headaches. Once I go back into reality, it stops eventually, but it takes a few hours. I’ve never had this problem before, ever. For as long as I’ve had that wonderful ‘Animal Crossing Simulator’ machine you bought me so I could help you run SwellBells, it’s never given me headaches. If anything, it’s reduced them. So it must be in New Central, something that happened recently.”
Twelve thought for a second, then spoke. “I’m going to figure it must be from the customs area, we just had a massive number of new people in and you were there at the same time other people were affected.” Twelve began issuing orders from his BrainBoy to the customs officers. “Wait. You mean that other people were affected with nausea and such just like I was, but just ones who were there with me?” Twelve nodded. “It appears that about five hundred people who were at the same place and the same time were hit with varying ailments. Some had vomiting, some had headaches and nausea, three people fainted once they moved in. One person fell in a coma, Camofrog is currently combing through his sentiency files to see how to wake him up. Something had to have happened to them, but the only error messages that could cause this that we’ve found is written in binary that doesn’t make sense. I’ll message you what it says. For now, the best thing we can do is have you get some rest in reality, and come back tomorrow morning ACC time. Got it?” Bbykat nodded and went home.
Bill had just got to Twelve’s house when he passed Bbykat51 leaving. He moved to the side and went in. “Twelve, I just delivered that presentation you asked me to give, and as I was jogging here something occurred to me. I looked back through the footage of the timespan when we think people got the virus, and cross checked the list of people who were in, and the list was off by one. I then checked off all the people in the video as compared to the list, and there was one person I didn’t see on the list, but in the video. His name..... well, his name was Leeroy Jenkins. That doesn’t sound like a name you’d see from someone claiming to be from Latin America, would it? Something’s going on here, and I want to find out what it is. Just wanted to update you on what I was doing.”
He walked out just as soon as Twelve got an invite to play Star Fox 64 with Camofrog. He accepted and sat down to play.
I'm feeling out of it on my writing. It's probably not too noticeable on this part, but the next part is going to show it for sure.
EDIT: HR LINE!!!!!
EDIT AGAIN: When you read "partially because he saw a Sentient, a female one by the door", I did not mean anything inappropriate by that. I just realized that when I reread it. What I meant was he worked harder because his boss was in the room.
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Jim saw a female Sentient by the door. Not inappropriate at all. Leeroy Jenkins? He's suspicious to me! He might even be behind the problems Bbyat and the others who were with her are going through right now. I'll be watching closely!
Camofrog had had possibly one of the most difficult weeks he had ever had in his life, but now it was over. It had been one week since the outbreak of the symptoms, and he finally had a cure for all the problems it caused, just one program to be downloaded through the Dump. He activated Twelve and Bill on a voice chat.
“I got it. I’m going to send you the program now, so that you can take a peek through it and see if I did everything right. Also, I’m going to send this to the people who were affected. There is the one coma patient though, who can’t access his BrainBoy, so I’ll have to crawl through his mind and find how to put it in manually. I’ll see you guys once I’m done.” He closed the chat and started peering into the mind of the coma patient, running at double speed because he wanted to be finished quickly without rushing himself. He opened up the files and started perusing what he had to deal with.
There wasn’t really much to deal with there, only a few places the virus could have used to sneak into the man’s brain. No pictures, just one video that was taken by accident, and the only app was a custom made app from a friend of his. It was a flashlight or something, the light would go through your pupils and light up areas. There was something.... his BrainBoy filed an error report as soon as he was transferred to New Central. He was actually here before everyone else, due to the fact that he was an employee and was going to work the Customs office, patting people down and making sure all was good and well. The error report was literally at the exact second that he hit the servers. A glitch maybe? No, no one else had that problem. He decided to do things the traditional way and ran a diagnostic on the man’s mind. The computer didn’t even know it had been broken down. According to the BrainBoy, he was still awake, merely inactive. That was odd.
Camofrog started copying some patches of coding into a sandbox file that he created and accelerated their processes, essentially hitting the ‘Run’ button on the programs. None of them did anything important, except forming some small error messages, probably because the other parts of the BrainBoy’s system were back in the BrainBoy. There was one, though, probably an easter egg that he and some of the developers of the BrainBoy (no, Camofrog did not make the BrainBoy all by himself; SwellBells got together and hired every technology company in the Western Hemisphere for input) had probably forgot about. It simply did nothing, unless you accelerated it for sixty four hours, but that didn’t affect real time because it was a sandbox file. After sixty four hours, it displayed a message that made Camofrog nearly wet his pants. It said, in all capital letters, “BRUTUS IS COMING.”
Michael was sitting on his couch playing EarthBound when a ping showed up on his BrainBoy. Twelve wanted him to take a Dump, one that Camofrog made. It was supposed to cure the symptoms that a bunch of people had from a virus that spread. Michael took the Dump and applied it, nothing changed as was to be expected. He wasn’t there when it happened anyway. Rather than starting up EarthBound again, Michael decided to pick up where Bill left off. Bill was pretty weird, he was a realborn like Michael but never got around people, despite being the life of the party. To most citizens of New Central, Bill was a soldier who wanted to hop in a biosuit whenever he could and shoot everything up that moved. To people who had met him but not much, he was very quiet and reserved, and not an open book. To The Sentients, Bill was a happy-go-lucky party man who also loved to do things with his hands and with his mind, like building guns or crafting wooden toys.
But to perpetrator of the virus, Bill was a threat.
Short part, mainly because I'm behind on other writing projects and I don't have much time or will to write.
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Bbykat51 took the Dump and administered it to her BrainBoy. The headaches lifted immediately, something that she had wished for the entire last week. To celebrate, she went and watered her flowers, all one thousand six hundred and seventy two of them. It was so nice, not having the aching anymore, sort of like having weights on your ankles that never come off. She unhooked from New Central and went to a bingo tournament at the civic center in her city: today was her lucky day.
Two hours later, Bbykat emerged from the Civic Center with a hundred dollars more than what she came in with and a smile on her face. She won every game, save for one. Rather than pocket the money, because her life expenses were covered by SwellBells up to very large point, she instead drove to the nearest Salvation Army post and put in the wad of small bills. That was her good deed for the day.
It was then, when she was home relaxing on the couch, that she saw the news on the television. Egypt had broken into civil unrest again, and the person who had been leading the peace talks had been murdered in his office. North Korea had been threatening to get in on the action with their nuclear missiles, essentially telling them to shut up and knock it off or their sand will become glass. They had already fired a missile as of an hour ago, but it was unarmed and unloaded of all ordnance, probably meant to scare some people. North Korea said that next time, unless they knock it off, that they’ll use a real nuke. The situation was now a very lethal standoff. Bbykat51 decided to make a call to Twelve to see what he could do.
“Well, if it doesn’t override our agreement with the UN, I’ll grab Camofrog and Everest and we’ll go for a spin. In the meantime, put in a new town right next to the City and name it Old Central, but keep it closed off. I want to play around with New Central’s economy a little bit once this is done. I’m heading to the warsuit right now. Bye.” Twelve hung up. There was nothing Bbykat could do anymore, so she started work on Old Central to pass the time.
“I see two planes, probably fighters heading on your eleven. North Korean. Should we take them or let them go?” Camofrog asked Twelve as they were flying over West Africa. “Leave them. Unless they attack us, we ignore them. Everest, alert Egypt that we’re coming to clean up their mess. Have them stay out of our way, cause we’ll be doing some intimidation. Camofrog, start pinpointing all Egyptian aircraft within a hundred klicks and keep track of their location. If one gets within five, send a radio warning. If it gets within three, make visual contact and start to fly alongside it. Go as fast as it does. We’re coming upon Cairo.” Twelve and Everest descended, slowing down to one quarter Mach speed, while Camofrog stayed up in the air and circled the city.
The streets were bustling with rioters where they landed. The police had long since abandoned the area, and it looked like the riots had overtaken the area. “Everest, before we land I want you to go behind the crowd, and change into a civilian disguise. Do you remember how to alter your warsuit’s appearance?” Everest sent him a Ping of affirmation. “Good. Get in there and watch. I’ll end up picking you up by the throat and throwing you at some point, I think that’ll scare them enough.” Twelve landed at the front of the crowd, putting large cracks in the road as he hit the ground.
“You guys don’t get it, do you? As long as you’re rioting, you aren’t working. When you don’t work, you don’t improve your life. When you don’t improve your life, it gets worse. But you guys are wanting that the government improve your lives. Why? Aren’t you willing to take a real stand and man up? Get back to work. Make yourselves better. Stop trying to overthrow a government that you also want to protect you. It doesn’t make sense. You just-” Twelve was interrupted as someone threw a brick at him. It bounced off his helmet and landed on the ground. He walked over to the brick, held it in his hand. He pointed at the person who threw it, then looked up. He threw the brick as hard as he could into the air. He waited for a few seconds. It didn’t come down.
Someone else threw a brick at him. Then another. And another. Then rocks. Stones. Twelve thought he saw a frog slap against his helmet. Finally, he decided it was time to put Everest to good use. He sent Everest a message having him come to the front so he could be a bit abusive. Everest moved to the front, ready for his lashings.
“You threw the brick, didn’t you? Yeah, you.” Twelve pointed at Everest. Everest stepped forward, pretending to cower. When he wanted to, he could make his warsuit appear to be an average human, one trick that came in handy right about now. Unfortunately, they never figured out how to change skin color, so Everest was pasty white, somewhat out of place in Egypt, where everyone was fairly tan because of the intense sun.
The science behind that function was still very new. The entire suit was covered with panels that were actually displays, with resolution better than the human eye. The panels themselves were very small, really just shards of “gorilla glass” with an LED light behind them to give color. The UN were still going nuts trying to figure out how they could do that, and SwellBells wasn’t telling.
Twelve grabbed Everest by the throat and lifted him up off the ground. “Don’t you EVER throw a brick at me! You’ll pay for that!” He threw Everest into the ground, then picked him up and threw him in the air. The crowd sprinted away, probably the fastest he’d ever seen anyone run. No one bothered to look back and see that Everest never landed and was in fact flying. Mission solved. “Camofrog, you can come down now. We’ve finished up here.” Twelve decided to flick on Star Fox 64 on his Real64 emulator and he played it the entire way home.
Happy ending!
Just kidding.
The first outbreak was a surprise, but was easily controlled until it could be solved. The second one took New Central. One tenth of the Lower Region had been to Bill’s house when it looked like the virus originated, and all had seemed well for a while.. One week later, each and every single one of those people had come down with illnesses much more serious than the ones before. Victims had developed insomnia, depression, comatose, and three people had died, though the tech people of New Central (recently established after the first breakout) had already restarted the person from their most recent sleep period. Thus, they wouldn’t remember dying, but they had done so anyway. Twelve put the warsuits on autopilot back to the warehouse and beamed himself back into New Central. He lived in the Upper Region, where the more wealthy people lived, so he didn’t have much of a chance of being affected by that time.
Bill however, had been keeping a second home in the Lower Region. It had a better view, he said, but occasionally people would stop by and beg for money, which got annoying. Occasionally he would make the mistake of giving someone Bells in secret: within the hour, flocks of people would gather at his door, asking for just a little bit more money. That was why he always gave some right before he left to go to his other house. This wasn’t one of those cases. Bill had given away money again, flocks of people, et cetera, but almost as soon as the people got to him, it started to break out during the. Probably, Virus Number Two was planted in Bill, knowing he would give in to his inner charity and give away cash soon. But then why wasn’t he affected?
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Twelve was sitting in the dining room with Bill and Everest, discussing how it could have spread. Everest was mostly bored, sitting there because he still didn’t really get how viruses and computers work. He could operate one, but not build one. They didn’t really get anywhere until Everest stopped staring at the table.
“Does this virus work like diseases?” he asked.
“Well, yeah. As soon as you register looking at or talking to that person, their information enters your BrainBoy and you get the disease. Sort of like the flu.” Twelve told him, bringing back memories of having a cold when Everest was a lad.
“So.... what do you do when a malware program comes in to, let’s say... your average home computer? Most security software will find the mathematical inverse to it to cancel out anything it can do, cutting it off at the source. Have you looked isolated the virus and looked through the root and source codes for the mathematical inverse of the base equations? Assuming this was written in Processing, that is, but I think you mentioned it was. I think it’s weird that whoever wrote it wrote in Processing, when they could have used anything else. Even Pizza would be somewhat easier. Or HTML5, because New Central runs on that too, if I remember correctly.”
Twelve and Bill stared.
“What? You said I should learn more about computers, so I did. I don’t stare at stuff for no reason. I was learning BASIC and C++, and then browsing the Internet for details on various software.”
They kept staring.
The emulators were ready. He had specifically chosen each ROM file to use, and edited it heavily to suit his purpose. He had not set forth a time to strike, yet Rufus was getting restless. He had no patience, no training. A true master is willing to wait until the end of time for what he wants. A true master is willing to weed out even the smallest, most insignificant problem to further his goal. That problem was The Sentients. Significant as they may be, they are infidels. Thus, they are a problem. But they were also a solution. A solution to revenge.
And revenge...... is a dish best served cold. Very, very cold.
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A new part is coming soon! I just have to slog through eleven hours of school + football + marching band daily, but I should have time to write tomorrow. I hope.
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Michael had been beating away at his thirty five pound sandbag for hours. One two, one two. Pound pound. He didn’t intend on getting into any fights for a while, but it never hurt to stay in shape. He knocked it off the chain again, then grabbed a fifty pound bag and hooked it up. This one was a dark red, one of his favorite colors. It was blood red, almost. For some reason, he had always liked that shade. Red in general was a great color.
He took a step back and began kicking. Always near the top of the bag, not high enough to hit the chain, not low enough to be a blow to the legs on a person. In the middle, always. He swung his leg over the bag and lunged forward to punch instead. Even if it wasn’t a person, keeping the opponent on their toes was a good thing. They would expect you to kick them, no? So you punch. Reslo taught him that strategy, but it really wasn’t very useful. Not with someone who had fought you before, or watched you fight. Michael reared back and flipped a switchblade from his belt, then thrust it into the bag. He looked over at the clock, then noticed that the sweat was getting into his eyes and stinging them. He glanced at a real-time view of his face in his BrainBoy; his eyes were red. Enough sweat for today, he’d already been at it for four hours. He looked over at the eleven sandbags piled up in the corner, stuffing falling out of each and every one of them. He wiped his brow and rinsed off his face in the sink, and then looked up in the dented mirror right above the sink.
A snarling, purple bulldog, similar in appearance to Booker, was standing directly behind him. He was holding a blade. A very, very long blade, that was also glowing blue. Michael turned around slowly, raising his hands in the air as he turned. The….. the thing stepped forward, pointing out the blade at his chest. “01001001 00100000 01100001 01101101 00100000 01000010 01110010 01110101 01110100 01110101 01110011” he said, very slowly, almost like his voice hadn’t been fully programmed in. He spoke in binary, a very very old programming language-in fact, the root language of every computer in the world- that Michael didn’t really know off the top of his head. Michael put his hands on his head and squatted against the wall, unsure of what to do. The bulldog gestured with the knife thing to go through the door. Michael did so.
And he was in The Non.
Extremely short part, because I had five minutes to write. Excuse me while I soak my hands in ice.
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Posted:
7/1/2013 5:50pm
Edited: 1
