System Architect

The mandatory quest weighed on my mind over the next few days. With the seriousness of it, I spent time studying. I wasn’t learning anything new. Rather, I was reviewing things I hadn’t touched in well over a decade. Honestly, it wasn’t bad. Testing was something I had always been good at—so while I was a little stressed, I wasn’t too worried.

I nervously paced back and forth where the line of cars stopped to pick up their kids. Car after car passed to take another child. It felt like I waited several hours—but it was probably only around twenty minutes—when finally a silver sedan pulled up. I didn’t recognize the car, but I saw Grandpa Joe waving and I went in the back.

“Hey, kid,” Grandpa Joe said when I’d buckled up.

“Grandpa, good to see you,” I replied.

“So, kid,” he said as he began to drive, “your mother told me a bit about what happened, but I want to hear it from you. I still find it hard to believe.”

“I still can’t believe it either. It’s a cup of time travel with a dash of monster invasion for good measure.”

“Not a good cocktail, eh?”

“Definitely not.”

“Is there a timeline on all of this?”

“Yeah. Christmas Day in about fourteen-and-a-half years everything goes to shit.”

“Hmmm. Was this something that happened before you came back?”

“No,” I said shaking my head. At least, not that I was aware of if it did.”

“So how’d it all happen?”

I told Grandpa Joe the story of the Aztec bowl and the drunken wish-gone-wrong.

“So you fucked up, eh?”

“That I did,” I shrugged. “Not much for it except to un-fuck everything as best I can.”

“Then your plan is to build this System thing and hope for the best, right?”

“Yup.”

“We’re so fucked,” Grandpa muttered, shaking his head.

“I have more time than it appears,” I interjected.

“Oh?”

“There’s a way to return back to a few weeks ago and build the System more, with the downside that all the monsters get stronger.”

“I see. Do you intend to do that?”

“I have no choice, really. The math says it’ll take me at least five times to get the system done.”

“Hmm… so then we have time to work on a plan for how to maximize the ‘un-fucking’—as you call it—of the world you doomed. With as many times as you’ll be doing this, I guess we can try a few things to see what works and what might be going a bit too far. What were you thinking?”

“I thought about writing some stories that are about system apocalypses like will happen. That way people might be at least aware of what to do when it actually happens.”

“That’s a good idea. I think you can go farther than that. Maybe not this go through, but on the next one for sure. You’ll need a lot more money for what I have in mind.”

“That was something that came to mind,” I smiled. “I plan on studying the market so I can exploit it on subsequent loops. Maybe the lottery too.”

“I would expect nothing less,” Grandpa Joe laughed. “Though I wouldn’t do the lottery—at least not the winning numbers. There’s fame and then there’s dangerous fame.”

“I hear you. I’ll need your help when it comes to some finer points of the System, but that’s several loops from now. You’re the person who knows the most about people. There are ways for me to enforce some baseline morality using the system, but I’m hesitant about doing that. I want to incentivize doing the right thing—like not murdering other people for no reason—rather than strictly enforcing it. One of the biggest obstacles to humanity’s survival—if not the biggest—when the monsters come… is going to be other humans. I can’t let that doom us all more than I already have.”

“I see,” he said thoughtfully. “I don’t have a good answer for you, but I’ll think about it. I’ll make sure to tell you my ideas before you jump back into the past again so the future-past version of myself can continue where I—we?—left off.”

“That sounds like a plan,” I agreed.

Grandpa and I continued to chat for the rest of the ride. From school to the college campus was about a twenty minute ride. When we arrived, Grandpa Joe parked the car and led me towards the main administration building.

The campus wasn’t huge, but it also wasn’t small. The lot we parked in was for guests, but there were several others throughout the college to serve all of the major buildings with classes in them. The buildings varied in style somewhat but were primarily of a modernist or newer design. Between the buildings were small green spaces with benches and pathways meandering through them. The one thing those open spaces were missing was trees. There was just no shade anywhere outside of the buildings.

I nervously followed Grandpa Joe into the oldest building I could see. It had a sign out front indicating that it was the place we needed to go. I both hated new things and craved them. On the one hand, new things were scary and different. On the other, there was a rush of excitement that came with being free of whatever rut I was in. It was a good form of anxiety but anxiety nonetheless.

The inside of the building had the same smell as the judge’s office—old and musty—but with a hint of citrus from a recent cleaning. Grandpa Joe got directions from the front desk and we walked through a couple of corridors and then down a flight of stairs before we were in the right place.

The room was painted a light gray with white trim. Dividing the room in half was a large, long desk with two clerks seated on stools. Behind them—where filing cabinets might have gone in years long past—were printers and other office equipment that didn’t quite fill up the allocated space. Along the walls on the side I was on were several benches. Thankfully, there wasn’t a large line in front of us, and we were able to talk to one of the clerks—an older man—right away.

“What can I help you with?” the man asked.

“Junior over here,” Grandpa Joe said, waving a hand in my direction, “needs to get his ID for school. He’ll be starting in the fall.”

“Isn’t he a bit young?” The man questioned with an eyebrow raised.

“His mother called last week, I think, and he was to do some testing to see what level he was at?”

“Hmm, and his name?”

“Milton Teller the third.”

“Let me see… ah here it is. Yes, looks like you’re set to take the tests today. Do you have his documents?”

Grandpa Joe handed the man a thick envelope. The clerk pulled out the papers from the envelope and rifled through them.

“Alright, it looks like you have everything here,” he said. “While I do this, Milton can go to the Shepherd Building for his testing. Make a right as you leave this building. It’s the one next to this. You’ll want to head up to the third floor.”

I nodded and left with Grandpa Joe. We made our way out of the admin building and into the other one. A short elevator ride later, I found myself in a waiting room. After convincing the lady who was in charge of testing that I was the one there for the exams and not Grandpa Joe, I sat down and waited for my name to be called.

Around ten minutes later, I was led through a door into a room with several rows of computers. Each computer was surrounded by cubicle walls to isolate each testing station from the others. Three of the computer locations were in use by what I assumed to be students. My station had a couple pencils, an eraser, a few sheets of paper, and headphones.

“I see you are taking several tests back to back,” the woman said. “Each exam is timed. When you submit your answers for one, you will get immediate feedback before the next one starts. If you need more paper or to go to the bathroom, raise your hand and I’ll come to you. Ok?”

“Yes,” I nodded.

“Good luck,” she smiled.

As soon as she left, I put the headphones on and began the first exam—math. When I started solving the exam problems, the anxiety I had been feeling fell away leaving my entire focus on doing my best.

The problems started off simply with arithmetic before moving on to fractions, algebra, and so on, before finishing with calculus. Most of it was incredibly easy. Even if I hadn’t used most of it for years, the couple of days of review had been enough to get me though most of it. The calculus was hit or miss, but that was college level so I wasn’t put off by that.

After fifty minutes of problem solving, I was done with the exam. I quickly checked over my answers before submitting. The results were good and I smiled. I took several minutes to get my mind off of the math and prepared for the next exam.

The nerves came back—temporarily—between each of the tests. In sum, they weren’t difficult, though the English one was probably the hardest for me. By the end of the nearly four hours, I was exhausted… happy, but exhausted. I had passed all of the tests to a sufficient level so as to be qualified for college-level courses in the fall without any really boring prerequisites.

Grandpa Joe and I went back to the admin building where a bored clerk was waiting for us. He handed the envelope back to Grandpa and had me stand for a picture. Once the ID was printed, Grandpa Joe and I went back to Mom’s place for dinner.

“How’d it go?” Mom asked.

“Great!” I said. I had gained the 400 experience from the mandatory quest, so I was well aware of how I’d done.

“That’s good, sweetie. Did Eddy give you any troubles, Dad?”

“Nah, he was good,” Grandpa Joe smiled.

“When does he have to sign up for classes?” Mom asked.

Grandpa Joe handed Mom a folded sheet of paper with all of the relevant dates on it. Mom read it over and nodded.

“Alright,” she said, “there’s time. Eddy, I think they have a course list online somewhere, so look that over when deciding what you’re going to study. Your father and I will figure out how to pay for it, so don’t you worry.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I said.

We all chatted while we ate dinner. After helping Mom clean up—and seeing Grandpa Joe off—I went up to my room to get ready for bed. All of the testing and traveling meant It was past my usual bedtime, and I was very very tired. Before my head hit my pillow, I did one final thing.

Feature Unlocked: Crafting Experience

Current Exp: 316