-system online
-running craftOS 8.2.4
-initializing...
-Welcome, User.
-WARNING: OS is loading a video file automatically. Continue? y/n
\y
-loading video...
-playing "doomsday log_entry01"...
*the display comes to life, showing a young man in his late teens. Subject is grimy and looks exhausted. There are multiple bits of electronic implants showing on his skin surface - strips of metal popping up across major muscle groups and nerve clusters - and a holographic display hovering in front of his right eye, constantly shifting and changing. Subject has white skin, and dark (possibly brown) hair, but any further color analysis is impossible to the naked eye do to the darkness of the video.*
"Sup. My name's Riven, and I'm making this vid log 'cause it looks like we've only got a couple of days before the world goes boom. Uh, let's see... I'm a Crafter, which means I use technology wherever possible - Uh, if you don't have technology in the future, then it's pretty much just magic proven by science. Um, if you even have magic... Well, if ya don't have either one, just keep playing these videos, and you'll see. I'm recording pretty much everything our civilization has learned, so hopefully it'll help you guys, like, advance your society or whatever. My girlfriend Ti's doing the same thing -
*Another shape moves over the camera, and the sound of a slap is audible.*
"Ow!
I'm not your girlfriend!"
*Subject comes back into view grinning.*
"Well, obviously she's in denial, but - "
*A voice is heard off-camera, and he flinches. Subject speaks in a whisper.*
"But seriously, its probably only a matter of time!"
*At this point, Subject's face loses its slightly wild look, and his jaw sets. He sighs*
"Of course, that's why I'm making this. We're out of time, and we're out of options. Like I was going to say, Tierras is doing the same thing on paper, just in case the future people reading this don't know how to use computers.
*Subject sighs again.*
"Of course, if you don't know how to read, then you're all screwed. Still, I mean, we gotta try. We gotta try to pass on what we know. If there's another dimensional merging in the future, this means you can fight it. But yeah, that's pretty much what's happening to us - Another dimension is merging with ours. The only problem is that that other dimension is smaller. Well, kinda. It's hard to explain. I'll put some technical details in a file on this computer or something. Basically, its causing compression fractures in our world, and opening up these really freaky black holes, and spewing lava everywhere, and there's tons of these ridiculously massive earthquakes, and... yeah. It sucks. And we're all pretty much gonna die. Ti and I are holed up in a magically reinforced bunker right now, trying to record as much as we can."
*Subject's face grows even more grim.*
"We're pretty much just gonna keep recording until we run out of air. This bunker will keep the records safe."
*A pause while Subject stares at a point a little below the camera.*
"Ugh, this got really depressing really fast. Well, there's a lot to talk about, so I'm just gonna start recording these from the top. The Crafters weren't the only ones to discover the Merging, but I was actually working at the company in our nation that first detected it. It was pretty much chaos for the first little while, but we did develop some ways to stop the Merging. I guess we started way too late, though, and we didn't have enough time for any of the methods to work.
So yeah. Hope some of it works for you.
*Subject speaks off-camera.*
"Is that a dramatic enough ending? I want it to sound like yours..."
*There is a reply, but it is impossible to make out. Subject sighs and turns back to the camera looking extremely depressed.*
"Whatever. I'll put some of those technical files in. Play the next video whenever you're done with 'em."
*Subject leans forward towards the camera*
-end of "doomsday log_entry01
-next video queued and ready to play. Play now? y/n
\n
The General looked over the battlefield in triumph. The day was nearly won. He ordered a final maneuver, placing his most powerful soldier in position to strike down the opposing royalty. The enemy had obviously never seen it coming.
He looked up into the eyes of the opposing general, victory blazing in his heart, and spoke.
"Check, Keerik."
Keerik yawned and casually moved one of his knights.
"Not anymore. Oh, and also, checkmate."
The General stared at the board. He had been... Defeated...
"Aaaand I do believe that means you owe me some credits...
The General was gracious in defeat.
"Yeah whatever. There."
"Thank you!"
The once proud General faceplanted on his desk.
"Get lost Keerik."
Keerik got up and left, chuckling. "See ya next week, bro. Bring credits with ya."
Riven looked up from the desk, unbridled fury in his eyes, and let loose with one of his most brilliant comebacks.
"No, Keerik... YOU bring credits next week." Thunder crashed, and the building shook. Or at least it should have.
"Mmkay. Adios!"
Keerik left. Riven sat there for a moment.
"What the heck does adios mean?"
Later that evening, Riven could be found in his living cell, tapping out bits of obscure code on a holographic keyboard. His eyes were red and watery, twitching occasionally. He was mumbling to himself.
Suddenly, the little pane of glass over his right eye came to life, green light flashing across it.
-Call from Keerik Tills
"Answer it."
-Connected
Riven greeted him.
"Sup Keerik."
"Yo!"
"What does adios mean?"
"Huh?"
"Nothin'. What's up?"
"Yeah, so I just got the track reserved. The Union approved our request."
"Sweet!"
"Yeah. But it's gotta be for early tomorrow morning. Is that okay?"
"Yeah, that's fine." Riven wasn't fine with that. He typically stayed up late and woke up late, but when it came to the Union, you took what you could get - so it would have to be okay.
Keerik spoke again. "Do you have that program finished?"
Riven stared at the screen for a moment.
"Uh... Yeah. Totally. All done."
"Cool, no bugs or anything?"
Riven scrolled past nearly four feet of error messages.
"Nope! It works perfectly. Can't wait to try it out."
"Cool. See ya tomorrow then. It'll be at 0640."
"Righto."
"Bye."
-Call disconnected
Riven stared blankly again at the screen. If this worked, the Union might reassign him to an actual tech development factory, not the mind-numbing mass-production he worked in now. Producing cybernetic implants for the military had sounded like a wicked awesome assignment at first, but it became monotonous after about the first hour. Welding the same piece of metal onto ten thousand circuit boards was awful.
Riven was pretty lucky, though; the union had allowed him to install some basic code-writing software on his home computer and personal implants. Not many citizens had the same opportunity to advance that he did. The day the union installed their own tracking cybernetics in him, he had at first felt utterly defeated. He was one of those citizens, now - one of the citizens that wasn't good enough on their own - that the Union had to micro-manage. It had seemed really shameful at the time. But he had since seen it as a way to easily get the Union's attention, and maybe get his ideas recognized - and this code would be his chance!
If it worked.
Well, no sleep for me tonight.
Pfft. Sleep. Who needs sleep?
Sleep is for the weak.
Real men don't sleep, they stay up and write tons of code.
They can stay awake for weeks, running on nothin' but the power of determination.
Yeah.
...
...Holy crap, I'm tired...
-Program compiled successfully
Riven was in shock. It worked. It actually worked! He began to laugh.
"Ha. Ha ha. Ha! HA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! YES!"
He quickly sent the program to his implanted cybernetic computer, grabbed his backpack, and sprinted out the door. The track wasn't very far from where he lived.
The panel to Riven's small, cube-shaped living cell slid to one side, and Riven burst out into a low, dark hallway. There was rows of panels that ran along the hallway for almost as far as the eye could see. Riven reached into a slot by his apartment, and retrieved a small, iron, handle-shaped object from inside. He spun back around, and jammed the handle into a long, thin groove that ran all the way down the hall along the ceiling. The handle magnetically locked in place, and a question appeared on his digital eye lens:
-Activate mag-rails?
"YES." He shouted.
The handle suddenly slid forward, dragging him across the highly polished floor. It was made out of a special material that stayed smooth specifically for this purpose. Riven began to pick up speed, and the rows of endless panels rushed past. Before long, he was slowing down, and approaching a large blast door at the end of the infinite hallway.
Blast door. Why the heck do they have blast doors in the living cells?
Probably in case the Union ever needed to shut us inside.
It was a grim thought, but Riven had seen it before. An entire living cell block had been locked down, and then the police squads had run in. The next day, the Citizen's Newsfeed had extolled the Police's efforts to put down the violent rebellion that had taken place inside a local cell block. But Riven knew better - there was no rebellion, there was no violence. Not from the citizens, anyway.
But it never did any good to fight against the Union. Better to impress them, and convince them you were worth keeping alive.
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
Riven got the blast door to open and then found himself gazing at the cityscape as he sprinted down an outdoor catwalk. The catwalk hugged the side of the cell block very tightly, and eventually reached the entrance to their block's gymnasium. Skyscrapers and factories dominated the air for miles around, and the rising sun had turned the smoggy skies into a deep red-orange. Huge digital displays on the sides of nearby buildings flashed blatant propaganda at him:
"THE UNION KNOWS BEST."
"THE UNION IS YOUR FRIEND."
"OBEY THE UNION."
Riven reached the gym, as indicated by a holographic sign reading "gymnasium." He dashed through the sliding doors, and made a beeline for the back of the facility.
The place was massive, albeit with a very low ceiling. There were rows upon rows of various weight machines, treadmills, and dumbbells. Every Citizen of the Union was required to work out for a certain amount of time here each week. He made the trek to the back of the gym, and walked through a pair of doors labeled "Running track."
This ceiling here was much bigger, and the entire track resembled a massive subway tunnel, traveling for quite a ways before curving left out of view. There were lights above, and along the edges of the track, illuminating white runner's lines and various obstacles placed along some of the routes. Riven was standing in a fair-sized warm-up area just inside of the doors. There were lockers for the runners, holographic displays positioned above little podiums to track them with, and other such conveniences.
"Riven!"
Riven turned to his left to see Keerik jogging up to him.
"There you are. Got the program?"
"Yeah."
"Sweet. Let's give it a shot. Gimme a sec to get the terminal ready."
Keerik walked over to one of the displays nearby and turned it on. He would be using it to track Riven's distance and heart rate, as well as remotely monitor the newly-written code.
"Oh, and Riven, this is Commodore Bling." Riven could hear Keerik's voice shaking ever so slightly. Keerik gestured towards a darker corner of the staging area, where a man in military uniform had stood quietly. The man walked forward into the light, and Riven could see that he had a kind, open face - not something you usually saw in a Union commodore.
Oh, crap. Ohcrapohcrapohcrapohcrapohcrap... Why does he look so nice? UNION PEOPLE NEVER LOOK THIS NICE!
The man extended his hand as he approached. "Hey. You must be the one Keerik said wrote the code." He was smiling.
Riven smiled nervously back. May as well make a good first impression. He shook his hand. "What kind of name is Bling?"
Dude. Really? Moron.
Fortunately, the Commodore seemed to take it well. "A fairly strange one, I know. You can call me Seth."
"Cool. I'm Riven." He smiled again and internally facepalmed.
Idiot! He already knows that!
"Yes you are. Well, I'm here for the Union. I normally work in the redstone labs, but some higher-ups pulled me out for the morning. Apparently, someone saw your code during a security sweep and thought it had promise. They sent me to get a personal opinion."
"Oh. Wow. Uh, cool. Well, I guess I should... Um... Go try it out, then?"
The Commodore (Riven couldn't think of him as 'Seth') seemed to be holding back a laugh.
"Yes, I guess you should."
Riven licked his lips and walked out onto the track. Keerik called out to him.
"Kay, I'm ready for you to sync up!"
Riven tapped his right hand finger to his thumb, the signal for his eye lens to turn on.
-Ready for command input
"Launch endurance track dot e-x-e."
-Launching ...
-Beginning system diagnostics...
-All biological implants functional
-Gathering caloric data...
-Gathering other biological data...
At this point, the code began to scroll upward a dizzying speed. It stopped very suddenly, right after "Jimmy-rustling maximized"
-Program has been calibrated with system and biology
-Ready for command input.
"Sync with that console!" Riven ordered, pointing. His cybernetics followed his pointing, and began working.
-Sync with trackCon23?
"Yeah." All nervousness was gone now, and he realized he was grinning wildly.
-...Sync complete
"Got it!" Shouted Keerik. "Streaming your data now. You can start running whenever!"
This is working so well! Ha!
Riven began to jog at a light pace, watching the world bounce up and down slightly as he went.
"Check endurance!"
The display over his eye changed.
-Calories burned: 6
-Speed: 689cph - (chunks per hour)
-At current pace-
Endurance time left (safe): 18:49
Endurance time left (injury): 23:32
-Optimal speed: 852cph
Riven increased his pace, now at closer to a run, and kept at it for a minute or two.
"Check endurance!" He called again.
-Calories burned: 39
-Speed: 876cph
-At current pace -
Endurance time left (safe): 7:44
Endurance time left (injury): 10:24
-Optimal speed: 852cph
"WOO-HOO!" He felt elated. The program worked perfectly!
He slowed to a halt, panting.
-Call from Keerik Tills
"An... Answer it."
-Connected
"Dude, it totally works!" Keerik sounded just as excited.
"I know!"
"Try the pathfinding part of it next!"
"Yeah, I was just about to."
Riven walked into one of the obstacle lanes - mostly used for parkour training.
"Dude, do you even know how to parkour?"
"Uh, kinda."
Riven took a deep breath, oxidizing.
"Pathfind."
-EnduranceTrack Pathfinding system initializing...
An array of green lines appeared on his lens. There was a large, thick one that traced out a three-dimensional path for him to follow, as well as speed markers and even an event horizon.
-Pathfinding system initialized
"Track endurance."
Some numbers appeared at the lower right of his view on the eye lens.
Speed: 0cph
EndT(S): -:-
EndT(I): -:-
This would keep a running tab on his endurance and speed times.
"Running" tab. Ha ha ha...
Riven took another deep breath, and tensed up.
Go.
He sprinted forward towards the nearest obstacle - a low wall. The pathfinding program even showed him where to plant his hand as he vaulted over the top. He continued sprinting as fast as he could, chest heaving, body twisting, flying over walls and under beams.
It was aweosme.
Riven came jogging back into the warm-up area, breathing heavily.
"Riven!" Keerik came running up to him. "It works! It worked! We saw everything from the terminal! The Commodore even took a look at your raw code!"
Riven was panting too hard to celebrate.
Commodore Bling was approaching. Riven tried to straighten himself, and not look like he had just run a few hundred chunks.
"Riven! Very impressive!"
"Th... Thank you, sir."
"Oh, for heaven's sake. Don't be so formal. Listen, I'm going to tell the Union you'd be way more useful in a redstone lab than that factory. And, between us, I'm pretty high-ranking, so they'll take my word seriously."
Riven felt bits of him starting to go numb. "Wait wait wait... So... You mean... I'm working in a redstone lab now?"
"Well, that's up to the Union." He winked. "But trust me, it's pretty much certain. See ya in a few weeks, kid. Hope you like the smell of redstone." He walked out of the track area.
Silence.
Keerik spoke, "Mother of Notch..."
Riven turned around and tackle-hugged him.
"HAHAHAHA! YES! REDSTONE LAB! A REDSTONE LAB KEERIK!"
"Dude... Get off me..."
Author's Notes:
Hai thar.
If you've made it this far, congratulations! Your attention span is powerful, indeed. Say, as long as you're here, you may as well rate mah story and leave a review! I answer every one I get, so please don't be shy! I'm always happy to get critique or grammar corrections, just be gentle. :)
Pwnsbey out.
PEACE