NOVEL NEXT Chapter 1: The First Step
It was hot…
Too hot.
I opened my eyes and found a flaming wall of fire blocking me in a corner of a room. I turned to find a window behind me that was my only source of fresh air.
Wherever I was, I was on the fourth floor of some building and—
Suddenly, gunshots rang out from below. I looked down and found a giant man slowly walking into the courtyard below, firing his shotgun at people below me. I knew there were people as shots were fired back at the man, but he ignored it as the bullets bounced uselessly off him.
That…isn’t a human, is it?
“Hector, load the EI rounds. I’ll disable him!” Another voice yelled out from below me. I was too afraid of all the bullets flying around to try to poke my head out of the window to get a better view.
Before long, something was thrown at the man, and a bright light blinded me for a full second. When my vision returned, I found the man frozen stiff, as the people below pelted him with more gunfire.
I wanted to shout out for help as the fire continued to rage on behind me, but my vision started to blur and my throat was parched. I felt really hazy and soon, I couldn’t even hold my eyelids open.
The sound of the morning alarm chimed loudly in greeting to a new day.
The dreaded noise made me regain consciousness instantly, though I refused to open my eyes yet. I took a deep breath as I gathered my thoughts.
Did I set an alarm last night again? Was there even something to do today besides sleeping in?
The alarm continued to ring.
Lazily, I leaned over toward my nightstand to reach for my phone from where I always left it, and my hand made contact with a cool glassy surface.
Glass? But my nightstand is made of wood. What the…?
As the alarm rang once more, I quickly opened my eyes wide and looked over to and saw a completely unfamiliar nightstand made of glass. On top of it was a thin translucent screen that seemed to be the source of the noise.
The screen lit up with several options to either stop the alarm or to put it on snooze. I tapped the stop button and silence was immediately restored.
I looked around and saw an undecorated room with only a simple desk in the corner of the room and the nightstand that stood beside me.
Shit… did I get kidnapped or something?
I got up from the bed and quietly opened the door closest to me, only to find a washroom. I then opened what appeared to be a set of closet doors to find a walk-in closet that had two sets of clothes on the hangers. I opened the last door, and it led to a small living room area with an open kitchen off to the side.
It seems like I am alone in here, but where in god’s name am I? The fact that I don’t even know how I got here scares me the most. I don’t normally drink, so that rules out a hangover. Did I get drugged?
With nothing interesting I could find, I moved back to the bedroom and picked up the thin screen. It appeared to be a cell phone and started playing around with it. It instantly lit up with the words Biometric Confirmed before the display opened to a familiar-looking dashboard. It was similar, but unlike any of the operating systems I knew of, so I turned the phone over and saw the words “Zenitech” engraved on it.
I turned the phone back over and started investigating it for any clues, but instead of resolving the mystery, I only got more and more confused. I found a chain of emails that were addressed to MY name, on a phone that I’d never seen before…
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FROM: |
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TO: |
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DATE: |
Friday, November 16, 499 |
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SUBJECT: |
Resettlement Package |
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Dear Rollo Halls, First, I would like to express my condolences for the loss of your place of residence, Happy Homes, due to a fire caused by hostile parties engaging on the premises. Rest assured, the perpetrators have been accordingly dealt with. As Happy Homes is a subsidiary of SocialCorp, it is our responsibility to help resettle all the charges that were under Happy Homes, as they can no longer do so. However, we would like to offer you the opportunity to apply for emancipation. If you choose to proceed, we will provide you with a compensation package that exceeds the normal benefit package. I have included the details in the files attached to this email. To apply, please… |
There were dozens more back-and-forth emails down the chain describing what summed up to be a story about an orphan, who had the same name as me, having to deal with the aftermath of the destruction of their orphanage.
The orphanage was a subsidiary of some company named SocialCorp. With the old orphanage effectively disabled from having been caught up in some fight, it fell to SocialCorp to deal with the surviving orphans.
Instead of rebuilding or moving my namesake to a new orphanage, they offered a package that basically said: ‘Agree that we are no longer responsible for you, and in exchange, we will offer you some money.’
My namesake agreed and received 10,000 credits that somehow became 5000 after a bunch of processing fees I didn’t bother to examine.
What a sucker he had been. He should’ve at least negotiated and milked them dry!
I dug around a little more to find what I could on the phone and went on the web as well, but even then, I couldn’t access any of the usual websites I frequented.
Wait a second…
This can’t be…
Something clicked for me all of a sudden and I rushed out to the living room and pushed the blinds aside as I stared out of the window.
What greeted me were giant megabuildings that stretched into the sky. There were some futuristic-looking vehicles that zoomed by between the colossal buildings, but the thing that drew my eyes the most was definitely the giant tower off into the distance that stretched infinitely up into the sky.
Well, shit… I don’t suppose I am in some foreign country, am I…
Wait… THAT MEANS ALL THE MONEY I HAD BEEN SAVING FOR THE PAST FEW YEARS IS GONE NOW. NOOOOOOOO!
Yeah… so it turned out this wasn’t the world I knew and I am now somehow in a place called Elevate City, one of the largest metropolises and artificial islands in the world. Home to the only space elevator on the planet, and from what I saw on the maps, huge was the understatement. The city alone was home to over fifty million registered residents.
How did I know this, you may ask? Well, a full day on the web would fetch you some useful information sooner or later. It also helped me get situated and distracted me from panicking like the lost chick that I was.
Food was running out in the apartment, forcing me to go out. I found a convenience store on the same floor as the unit I was in, where I spent twenty credits for some really shitty-tasting food. I used the money from the wallet I found in the apartment. It had a few bills that totaled 50 credits.
Credits was the currency used here, and they used plastic bills as cash, even though most transactions were done electronically. The wallet also contained an ID with my name and a matching photo that accompanied it.
Sigh…
As I walked back to my apartment, most people who went by completely ignored me, but I could spot a small group who was scanning everyone from the corner of my eye. They were doing exactly what I had done in the past when I was part of the gang.
They must be looking for easy marks to rob or something.
I quickly blended into the crowd, away from their attention, and hurried home.
When I returned, I immediately sat down in my living room, trying to accept the idea that I may have replaced an alternate version of myself or maybe some other hijinks at work. Either that or I had suddenly gone crazy and all these memories from another world were made up by my crazy self.
Either way, I will have to keep living here since I don’t know what else I can do. And to continue living means I need a certain something to survive…Money.
I found the banking app on the phone that was unlocked with my biometrics. I apparently only had around 2,500 credits left, after including my cash. But 2,000 credits worth of rent was waiting for me to pay in twenty days, which wouldn’t even leave me with enough to afford three meals a day until then if I didn’t do something.
I guess things don’t change even in another world. Money makes the world go round…Time for job searching. Sigh… I wish I still had my savings…
“Hmm…First job I see.” The man in front of me mumbled.
I subconsciously nodded after a second of delay before I stared straight back at him. It took me another second to realize he wasn’t even paying attention to me as his eyes gave off a soft blue glossy glow as he stared forward blankly.
While I may have read about them, I couldn’t help but feel a little amazed at cybernetic implants like his eyes. They were just everyday tech in this world that could be seen by the dozen out in the streets. Well…their price may start from several thousand credits at the very least, but were as common as a smartphone from my world.
It also wasn’t hard to spot a few metal prosthetic limbs here and there in my while going about my daily life. Though I didn’t think it would be something to worry about, as those were likely way out of my budget in the foreseeable future.
All the job postings I found required either prior experience in similar roles, degrees from some expensive corporate-certified school, or both, and I have neither.
My alternate self was an orphan who received the minimum required education, as the orphanage didn’t really care unless we showed promise. In that case, we would be whisked away by some corporation.
That brought me to this job at a convenience store that was only a few blocks away from my building. They offered twenty credits an hour for a dead-end job with no future prospects in sight, but I needed this to survive in the short-term.
Why couldn’t I change places with a version of myself from an alternate universe that was rich so I could take it easy…?
“Biweekly pay and shift changes, twenty creds an hour. You good with that?”
Trying to wipe the frown off my face, I answered back, “Yes, thank you for having me. When do I start?”
So it turns out there were some things that were different in this world: crime and safety.
Throughout the past few weeks, traveling to and from work, it was safe to say that there had been at least two shootings a day around me from the gunshots I heard. The news hadn’t even covered them, as it was too common throughout the city, barring the rich corporate areas.
Another difference was the word ‘phone’ that I had been using. It wasn’t even called that here and was instead called ‘terminals’. It was a blanket term for all computer devices, such as laptops, tablets, smartphones, etc.
I looked into getting a weapon to defend myself or something defensive, like a bulletproof vest to wear underneath my shirt. There was a shop conveniently located in my building, but their prices started from a few hundred credits. With my current income after taxes, I didn’t have much of a leeway so I cheaped out and bought nothing instead, and now I came to regret it.
Why, you may ask?
Well, what was another regular day at the job working the cashier, ended with two not-so-friendly clients, pointing their pistols at me.
I thought the only thing I had to deal with was to ring people out. Whether it be by cash, card, or more commonly, some wireless payment people did through their cybernetics,
Now, as much as I wanted to look brave and cool, not much got you shaking with fear as quickly as the thought of suddenly being murdered when you least expected it. My panic grew when I realized I had no control over the situation.
“Hey Co, you deaf or what? Give us the damn money already!” The man with the pure red cybernetic pupils said as he shoved the gun closer toward me.
I blankly stared straight at the unfamiliar gun, then towards him, before I snapped out of it and started to work the cash register. I complied, hoping he wouldn’t shoot if I followed his instructions.
There is still so much money to be made and so much to do. I don’t want to die here.
“HEY YOU, you ain’t leaving till you give me all you have,” I looked up at his words and caught sight of his partner in the back, threatening a customer who was trying to leave.
The customer, who was a man wearing shades and in a dark bomber jacket, looked completely relaxed and sighed before replying, “...You really want to do this?”
“DO I LOOK LIKE I’M JOKING TO Y…” The robber yelled at the customer and brought their gun up to point at him. An electric buzz rang at the same time as a bright flash of light that abruptly filled the entire store and blinded me.
Pain flooded my eyes as I could still see flashes of light in the back of my eyelids, as if to mock me with the futility of closing my eyes. I then heard gunshots that rang out in quick succession, which made me instantly duck down behind the counter for cover.
I may have gotten used to hearing gunshots from the daily commute between here and home, but hearing them so close without warning always makes me flinch. Damn shots are loud as hell.
As I slowly recovered my vision, I saw the robber who had been threatening me, lying on the ground beside me in a pool of blood. He was still breathing and was trying to get up, but it seemed like he could only move his head. It made for a comical sight, as if he was struggling to complete a sit-up.
He soon noticed my gaze, and his red eyes snapped towards me. He then tried to bring his arm up to point his gun at me, but he was moving as slow as a snail, struggling to make every little bit of progress.
God damn it! Give it a break already. What did I ever do to you?
I quickly scrambled up and decisively stepped on his wrist that was holding onto the gun.
“Stop that shit! I’ll call an ambulance for you, so just lie still already! You don’t have a death wish, do you?”
The man tried to speak but choked on his own blood and coughed instead. Then I felt his hand grab onto the ankle of my other leg that wasn’t pinning his wrist to the ground.
I reflexively raised my leg to break free from his grasp and succeeded but lost balance as my only other foot was stepping on an uneven surface that was his wrist.
As I felt myself fall backward, I hastily stepped forward instead to counteract the momentum with my recently freed foot. This resulted in me stomping right onto the robber’s chest instead.
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+10 EXP |
A notification suddenly appeared within my vision, coming from just above the robber’s head.
…What the hell?