A sudden explosion of light from the ceiling above blinds me momentarily. When I blink away the spots, I find I’m not in the convenience storage room, but an office with expensive looking furniture and a massive, detailed wooden desk at the far end. The room has large art pieces hung on the walls and a thick, lush carpet. Windows line the left wall, floor to ceiling, and look out onto a city I don’t recognize.
Faced with the sudden change in locale, all I can think to say is, “Holy shit! Where are we?”
Lillian smiles at me, drops her backpack, and hangs up her coat on a tall oak rack in the corner of the room. She walks up to the large windows and looks out onto the massive cityscape. “We are in New York City. One of the most densely populated cities in the U.S.”
“Really?” I walk over to the window and see skyscrapers. I look down and see that we must be up pretty high because all those people on the street look like little scurrying ants. I don’t know if we’re really in New York or not, but I know we’re not in the Quickie Stop Mart anymore.
Lilian takes one last look out the window, then goes and sits behind the massive desk. She motions for me to sit in one of the two cushioned seats in front of the desk. I follow her direction, still confused by the whole situation. I mean, one second I think I’m going into the storage room with a cute girl and the next I’m in a fancy office in New York.
Lillian leans forward in her seat and steeples her fingers together. She looks me up and down as if weighing and measuring me, then says, “While I’m sure that a million questions are running through your head, the big one is probably ‘how did I get here?’”
I nod dumbly. Yup, that was the exact question I had. How the heck did I get here from the convenience store? It’s like this lady can read my mind.
“No, I can’t read your thoughts. It’s the question most people have when they travel through a portal for the first time. Your second question is likely, ‘what’s a portal?’”
Well, my second question was actually ‘How the fuck do I get back?’. But it's good to know she’s not telepathic. Plus, ‘what’s a portal?’ is a much better question. So, I nod.
“A portal is an intentional tear in the space-time continuum that allows for instantaneous transportation of matter from one place to another.” Lillian pulls the set of keys out of her pocket again and jingles them in front of me. She takes the silver key she inserted into the storage room and holds it up. “This key will transform any door into a portal to my home base. In my case, that means this office. I’m the only one who can use this key. Each person who’s part of the System can get one and only one of these types of keys. It’s a safety measure to ensure that everyone has a place they can be safe, rest, and recuperate.”
Lillian pulls open a desk drawer and pulls out another key, this one bronze. She tosses it on the desk in front of me. “Normally you have to buy these from the System, but since I’m so nice, you can have this one for free.”
I lean forward and pick up the key, holding it in my hand. It doesn't feel any different from any other key I’ve ever used. But just as I’m about to put it back on the desk, a blue screen pops up.
You’ve received an unbound home base key. Would you like to bind it to your person?
I stare at the blue screen. So, Lillian was telling the truth. This little key has some sort of ability that modern science doesn’t. “What does it mean, ‘bind it to me’?”
Lillian gives a small shrug and a little dismissive wave of her hand. “That just means that no one can steal it from you and even if you die and respawn, it will stay with you.”
Her statement about dying catches my attention, and I look up from the blue screen. A single look at her impassive expression assures me that the mention of death wasn’t a threat but was just the way she saw the world. I’m still curious how blue screens or a key could kill me and ask, “Die? Why would I die?”
Lillian puts her hands up and sighs. She then opens another desk drawer, pulls out a thin book and holds it out for me. I take the book and see that it’s titled, ‘The Idiot’s Guide to the System. Vol. 1.’
“That’s a primer on what the System is and a lot of the new things you’ll have to start to learn now that you’re a part of it. A nice gentleman in Sweden makes it.”
I open book and look at some of the chapter titles. What is the System?, Interface Options, Your Character Sheet, Social, Skills, Abilities, Inventory, Combat, Respawn, Portals, Dungeons. I close the book for now. But there are more chapters; I’m sure I’ll have time to look through it later. Instead, I consider what I’ve been told. Blue screens, portals, respawns? The more information I get, the more confused I seem to become.
I look up at Lilian and ask, “What is all this? First, it was the dream with the slime. Then it was the blue boxes that told me I learned new skills. Now portals and this book that reads like it’s some video game manual?”
Lillian smirks, “Yes. In a lot of ways, the System is set up like a video game. But don’t think that’s what it is.” Lillian puts her hand out and taps the air like she’s selecting something. A can of soda appears on the desk in front her, and she nods towards me, “You want something to drink?”
I stare at the suddenly appearing drink and shake my head. “No. But I’d like some of those answers that you promised me.”
She taps the air again, and the soda can disappears. Lillian looks at me, and I feel her icy blue eyes judging me. She nods once, acknowledging my request. “That’s fair. Ask your questions.”
“What’s the System?”
The blonde cutie behind the desk scrunches up her button nose and answers, “Well, that’s a bit complicated, and to be honest no one knows for sure. The long answer involves a complex artificial structure beneath the fabric of the reality to which most people are accustomed. A way to enhance relatively few humans to deal with the collective unconsciousness of our species. There are large tomes penned by some of the greatest minds about where it originated from and why it truly exists and for whose benefit. Why Plato’s allegory of the cave is a perfect representation of…”
My eyes start to feel heavy at the long, complicated explanation. I never was good at philosophy, and the mere mention of Plato sends me into a stupor.
Lillian must see my reaction to ‘the long answer’ because she doesn’t finish her sentence. Instead, she coughs once to get my attention and says, “The short answer is that it’s everything. There’s a whole secret way of interacting with the world.” She taps the air, and a series of blue windows appear like a bunch of pop-up ads. “All the blue boxes.” With a wave of her hand, they all disappear. “The inventory system.” She stands up from her chair and pulls up a blue window divided into a series of smaller boxes. As she taps each box, her clothes start to change, and she’s suddenly wearing a mechanized battle suit straight out of Warhammer 40k or Starship Troopers. “The gear and armor.” She presses a box again, and a large glowing futuristic looking rifle is in her hands. She points it at a chair in the back of the room, and I see her pull the trigger. A blue bolt of energy shoots out of the rifle at incredible speed, and the chair blows to pieces. “Even the weapons and combat systems. It’s all a part of the System, and it can make you stronger and more powerful than you ever thought possible.”
I stare open-mouthed at Lillian, the girl who I thought I might get to make out with in the storage closet, now garbed in a futuristic battle suit, holding a glowing metallic rifle longer than I am tall.
I know I should be scared by the casual show of violence. I mean, what kind of life do you live where you pull out a gun and shoot something without blinking an eye? However, instead, I find that I’m excited by what I’ve seen. Awed, I ask, “You can do all that?” Then a thought occurs to me. She said I was a part of the System too. “Wait, can I do all that too?”