.1 LOG IN
"Thank you very much dad. " I said cheerfully, giving him a quick peck on the cheek. It was my 15th birthday and he had just bought me a new computer. My old one had died during the cyber attack known as Pluto's Kiss, two years ago. The stupid thing fried the motherboard and with the internet basically off limits to the general public, there was no real point in getting a new one. At least Until CC Corp. came out with the new ALTIMIT OS this year. Invincible to both viruses and hackers, it was the perfect OS that let the internet back into the daily lives of those who had lived so long without it.
"Ah, don't mention it." He grinned, pulling the small box CPU from the box, tearing the thin Styrofoam sheets off of it. I grabbed a few more books off of my cluttered desk and set them in a larger cardboard box. Those would end up on a shelf soon. My dad put the CPU down on the top of the desk and connected two of the wires to the back.
"Here, put some life into it." He said, handing me the plugs. I knelt down under the top of the desk and plugged them into the outlet. I could hear the hum of the computer as it started up. As I crawled out from beneath the desk, dad was hooking up the display; a nice 13 inch one too. The ALTIMIT logo flew up onto the screen while the data loaded.
"The graphics are so crisp." I commented. Indeed they were. The blue screen disappeared and a multitude of 3D icons spun around the screen before coming to a rest at the left side of the screen.
"Well, you have fun," my dad said giving me a pat on the shoulder, "I'm gonna go run a couple errands while you get this system figured out." I nodded, giving him another hug before he turned to leave. I took a seat in my computer chair and connected the last parts that were from my old PC. Thankfully keyboards, computer mouses, and speakers didn't need to be upgraded when all computers changed to ALTIMIT. Well, the speakers weren't exactly necessary for this model. The sides of the display screen had built in speakers, but I like to have my music at the best quality, something side speakers kind of ruined.
I looked back into the box that held the computer equipment for years, and noticed a white envelope with a red ribbon around it, underneath a batch of cords. I pushed them aside, and grabbed the envelope. It had my name written in scrawling script that I realized was my aunt's. I tore it open, pulling what looked like a credit card and a folded note. I set the card on the desk and unfolded the note:
Dear Catharine,
Happy birthday my wonderful niece! I hope you enjoy the computer your father bought for you. Now I know a computer isn't much fun without any games, so I've enclosed a debit card for your use. There's 100 on it, so use it wisely and don't get too carried away. And don't buy anything your dad or I
would find inappropriate. You know what I'm talking about. Be responsible and have fun!
Your loving Aunt Judy ()
I laughed, looking back at the card. In a way, my Aunt Judy is like my foster mother away from home. My mother became very ill had to be admitted to the hospital. She died a few months later after suffering a stroke and was declared brain dead. My dad tried to overrule her decision to have her life support shut off if she was ever considered brain dead, but the courts denied his request.
I've never held it against my dad. It wasn't his fault my mother went behind his back. But that left us with a good sum of money, with not much to do with it. My Aunt (my mom's sister) volunteered to step in and help my dad with finances and usually comes to visit during the holidays. Still, my dad and I live together in this three bedroom apartment out of necessity. If we were to dive into the money the insurance company gave us after mom's death, it'd feel like we were grateful she died. So my dad, Aunt Judy and I worked it out so that the money would go towards my schooling and his retirement. He still had quiet a few years until retirement, but he said it was just a safe guard incase anything came up. Aunt Judy wanted nothing in return, but my dad insisted he put away a nice sum for her to have access to if she ever needed it.
This year Aunt Judy couldn't make it to my birthday, due to work, but she promised she'd make it up to me. And a 100 debit card was a damn good gift to make up with.
I turned to my computer and scrolled through the different pre-installed programs with the thin silver left and right buttons on the sides of my mouse. Ah ha, here we go… I thought finding the mail application. I typed up her up a quick thank you note, making sure to lay the appreciation on thick:
Dear Judy,
Thank you so very much for the great gift! I love it! Don't worry; I won't buy any of those obscene Chinese comic books you hate so very much, : - )!
I laughed. About a month ago, Aunt Judy had come for a slightly unexpected visit. I had just recently bought myself a copy of Negima! a pretty well know Japanese graphic novel, that she had just happened to pick up and page through. I think she was embarrassed to see that I owned a copy of it, but she didn't scold me. She just questioned my father about my fascination with "Chinese comic books" and "why do they feel the need to put naked women in them". My dad laughed at her reaction and said he didn't really mind what I read, though it was a slight surprise. She still gets red every time I mention it.
Really, thank you, and I'll make sure not to waste it! I'll even show you how to play whichever game I decide on!
:)
-Your extremely appreciative niece, Catharine hugs
I sent it off, leaning back in my chair. It'd been so long since I'd been on the web; I didn't know what type of game to download. I fired up the search engine and looked for popular games. Instantly I became confused. There was only one definite result while the others linked to news articles. I clicked one of the news articles and briefly scanned through it. One paragraph caught my eye in particular:
"After the incident of Pluto's Kiss a conference was called within CyberConnect Corps. lead programmers. It was decided that any large scale online games would pose too much of a risk and opportunity for net terrorism to take place. CC Corps. Lead Representatives suggest that with the new operating system (now a world wide model), there is no room for net terrorism to occur. They also state that they have done testing in the past for their beta game, Fragment and that with programming unique to their company, have been able to avoid any viruses or hacking.
Other companies that produce online games such as these (know also as MMORPGs) have not been able to produce such claims, and therefore been told to take their games offline…
…As of right now, the only MMORPG in the world is CC Corps. "THE WORLD"…
"Well then, I guess I'll have to try this thing out." I said to myself, clicking back to the results page. The one link at the top of the page no longer looked surprising. I browsed through the webpage's information on the game and the basic system requirements, as well as the download section. I keyed in the number on the debit card, along with my email and IP address. Within seconds the game was installed and the splash screen painted onto the display. Apparently, if you have a Playstation 2, ALTIMIT has a nice little USB plug that the PS2 controller can be plugged into, and used for THE WORLD.
I looked over into the computer box again. It took a fare amount of digging and cord untangling, but I managed to get one of the controllers out of the mess. The left joystick didn't move to well, but I hoped it'd work well enough. I didn't have any of the gamer goggles the site advertised, but if I liked the game enough, I guessed I could look for a pair of used ones at the local Game Stop over the weekend. Thankfully the game didn't cost that much.
I toggled the right joystick and selected CREATE A NEW CHARACTER. First, I had to decide on a username and a character name. The game had different language selections, so I quickly flipped to English, and made it easy and made them both the same, typing it in through the letter selection on the screen.
WELCOME MIDORI. PLEASE DECIDE ON YOUR CHARACTER CLASS. I looked at the selection of "classes" trying to make heads or tales of what they meant.
"What the hell's a Wavemaster?" I asked no one in particular. I flipped back to the website for the game and clicked the GAME INFO tab. Apparently, each one of the classes is a different type of weapon user. A Wavemaster was a magic user and a Long Arm was a spear user. I could figure out the rest just based on their names.
"Man, which one…" I selected the FEMALE gender, and was shocked to see a girl avatar with less clothing than a bikini.
"Geez, what were the programmers? Perverts!? Well, I guess I shouldn't talk…" I scrolled through the different clothing options. I finally decided on a dark purple sleeveless turtle neck and a black skirt with red trimming. I also threw on a pair of black leggings underneath that reached the center of her calf. I made her hair short and mousy to match my own originally, but nixed the idea once I saw the ornate styles and colors that could be used for hair. I eventually decided on longer light purple hair that reached the middle of her back, held together with a gold clip near her shoulder blades.
Satisfied with the major design, I toggled the selection to DETAILS. According to the instructions you can add things like belts, jewelry, and tattoos, as well as select unique eye colors. I quickly flipped back and shortened the bottom of her turtle neck, revealing her navel, and selected a thin red belt to go around the bottom of the shirt. I added tattoos that looked like two red claw marks on her shoulders and a so-purple-it's-nearly-black one over her left eye. I decided on piercing red eyes instead of the original green ones.
"That looks good." I sighed, happy that my avatar didn't look like a tramp. But, I still hadn't decided on a class, and that would affect certain attributes of her appearance and abilities. I toggled to Long Arm, and a long silver spear appeared in her hand. The idea of using a spear in combat didn't really appeal to my so I toggled again, to Twin Blade this time. Along with the two ruler length daggers in each of her hands, her skirt had been shortened up to the middle of her thigh. Frowning, I toggled to Blademaster. Her skirt returned to normal and the two smaller blades were replaced by one long, wicked looking one. I liked how that looked, so I glanced over at the stats of the class.
"Well that's good." I sighed. Her stats placed her in an equally balanced range between offensive and defensive as well as magic and physical attacks.
I selected the SAVE CHARACTER button.
"Might as well actually start playing." I selected the LOG IN button and the US server.
WELCOME TO THE WORLD, MIDORI