To the readers
I appreciate any comments on the story.
Notes
[] are used to indicate stage directions
All dialogue follows a "Speaker: dialogue" format
{} are used for author comments.
CONTINUE
Disc: Can I come back in yet?
Conner: I need a respawn.
Korey: Me too please.
Axel: Can everyone get off my back?! I can't work like this.
Ethan: Dude. What's your problem. You don't need to get flabbed.
Ethan: So you can take over the world?
Axel: Yes
Disc: Wait, what about taking over the world.
Connor: Axel's being a super villain. Like theoretically or-
Hainer: Why would you want to do that? sounds like a lot of work
Axel: BECAUSE I HATE SCHOOL!
Everyone else: Wha?! [Everyone looks around confused.]
Axel: Do you know why we go to school? It started-
Ethan: Hang on I'll google it. "Factory owners required a docile, agreeable workers who would show up on time and do what their managers told them. Sitting in a classroom all day with a teacher was good training for that."
Korey: Where did you find that?
Ethan: It is literally the first thing that pops up when you google "how did modern education start?"
Axel: We're being trained as factory workers in a world where 90% of jobs in factories are done by robots.
Hainer: That can't be right.
Korey: It has to be, Axel said it.
The reason why we're going there, is essentially pointless. There's no point in learning history since we can look anything up instantly, they don't teach us any real life skills like money management or how to fix stuff around the house. And we're all forced to be in an environment that promotes tribalism. Think about it. What do you parents, older siblings, Alumni , even the councilors at Malhur, say about high school.
Conner: It's hell. Just get through it.
Axel: It's a completely unfair system bordering on torture. And everyone either doesn't care, isn't learning anything useful, or thinks they're superior because of grades or the social hierarchy, which don't matter after you graduate.
[Everyone nods, seeing his points.]
Axel: But games actually teach us. Hainer, what's the damage modifier on a fire attack against a ice-water dual type.
Hainer: If it has STAB, 1.5 exactly.
Axel: That. Right there. Memorizing type advantages is no different than memorizing animo acids or the treble key. That's why I'm bringing the virtual world here. I'm going to create an equal virtual world, use the supercomputer to bring it to life and use it to replace the education system. So people can actually learn what they want to learn. That's part of the reason why I made the remote control avatars. Making sure everyone can access the virtual world.
[beat]
Disc: Right but what does that mean? Bring the virtual world here?
Axel: Well, I mean I can any object from the virtual world real.
Hainer: So are you going to materialize a bunch of weapons?
Axel: NO! That's the opposite of what I want.
Disc: So how does the computer help you?
Axel: I … can use it to hack stuff and get in places.
Disc: So black mail?
Axel: Maybe. I guess along the way.
Hainer: So you don't know.
Axel: I don't know all the specifics yet.
Hainer: You don't know what you're doing.
Axel: It's a large scale operation. I have to be reductive
Korey: You just want to change the education system right? If you want to fix it so badly, just work your way up in like a government position.
Axel: Let me put it this way. It took me two meetings and multiple forms just to get posters for our club. Imagine what I had to do to get the boat outside. To be at the top and to make the changes I want to make... No, it's not just efficient to take over the world. It's the only way within a reasonable timeframe.
Connor: So How long is this going to take?
Axel: As long as it needs to.
Disc: If you are taking over the world to change it, You get to decide what the rules are. How's that make you any different from a tyrant?
Ethan: Why should he care what they think. [Everyone looks at Ethan who has just been reclining in an office chair eating snacks watching the show.] If he has all the power, you're the one who has to listen to his opinion.
Axel: You think it's too ambitious.
Hainer: Dude we think you sound like the quiet kid has had enough.
Axel: But I AM the quiet kid and I've finally had enough.
Mabel: Hey have you seen Ines anywhere? She was right behind us.
Zoe: She took off somewhere.
[Mabel runs out of the store while opening the app, LifeTracker 365. A map opens with a dot for her and one labeled mylilDetective.
Cut to Mr. Frosch carries Ines over his shoulder. They're in the loading garage for the mall with a line of shutter doors for delivery trucks, pallets of supplies scattered about with forklifts carrying them. A bunch of monitors listing delivery orders are on the far wall.
Mabel is sneaks through the back halls in a crouch walk and sees them.]
Mabel: [thinks] Mr. Frosch? What is he doing there? What is he doing with Ines?
[She opens up a call to Zoe.]
Mabel: Guys I'm seeing Mr. Frosch kidnapping and tying up Ines… No I'm not speaking in metaphors. Get over here and bring security.
[Mr. Frosch slams her down in a folding chair and ties her hands and feet with wire controlled by electromagnetism.
Back in the hallway, Landry and Zoe have arrived with more security guards.]
Mabel: My friend is in trouble. She's being assaulted.
[She points to the loading bay. The guards rush past them.]
Landry: What's going on?
Mabel: I don't know. They should get the story from Frosch.
[The security guards appear from the hallway.]
Guard: Freeze. Step away from the girl.
[Guard takes out a phone.]
Guard 2: We have a "White Bentley has its lights on". I repeat, a white Bentley.
[He listens for a response, but only hears strange popping from the speaker. The phone deconstructs itself in his hand and the pieces swarm him like flies.]
Guard: What are you doing?
[Frosch has his hand raised.
They hear electrocution noises and all three peer around the corner.
The two security guards are down: one looking like he'd been stun by a swarm of bees if not for the plastic and wires in his skin and the other was twitching floating near the ceiling floating in a cloud of blue electricity.
[Axel hears something, a high pitch, and looks at the supercomputer room down below.
Ai's hologram pops up on the stairs
Ai: Ines is in trouble. Her earpiece and glasses went dead.
Axel: What?
Ai: Also vibrations like last time a tower went online.
Axel: This is exactly what I'm talking about. How are we supposed to get anything done, when we have to deal with monsters every other day. Also, We really need a better alert system than vibrations.
Axel: Guys, tower activated. [Team EXO looks confused] Loser version of Skynet is attacking. I can't physically fight, so Ethan you come back-
Ethan: No.
Axel: I can't fight in the real world.
Ethan: Not my problem
Conner: What if we help?
Korey: Yeah if we help with the attack, you have to let us join the team. You keep working on the world conquest pitch.
Disc: Yeah not I'm not sold on that yet. But the VR world...
[Looks to the other members of team EXO and they nod]
Axel: No, I absolutely, do not... [thinks] You can use those controllers to help Ethan with the remote control avatars. If you do a good job, I may consider virtualizing you.
Disc: Ethan already got to do –
Axel: Ethan got impaled and his arm cut off, Ingret got assaulted by Men in Black agents. They understand what's real and what's going to get us arrested or killed. If you want to help, this is how.
[Show everyone in the tower fortress on the Annex. They are about to head out on the bridge.]
Ethan: Wait, you're forgetting something. Korey, can I see your gun? [hands him his master rifle] Thank you. [shoots Korey dismissably in the face with his pistol while handing the master rifle to Ai.] Seriously, you being unarmed was ticking me off.
[Korey, who just respawned runs after them.]
[As Axel is running out to the boat, his phone buzzes.]
"Mr. Frosch is possessed by XANA. He kidnapped me, I got free. Need help" -send by Ingret Pier
Axel: Possessed?
[Axel looks from the school's boat, to Ethan's boat. Axel hops in Ethan boat and drives off.
Cut to Mr. Frosch holding Ines's phone. She's still tied up. Her phone shows the conversation with Axel. He destroys it with a flurry of blue lightning.]
[Ai, Ethan, and the different colored copies of Ethan's avatar jump on an elevator platform that takes them closer to the inner shell. They ride down through an opening in the shell. Then something happens. They all begin to flip.
Connor: Are you doing a hands stand?
Korey: No why are you?
Disc: Why are we floating?
Ethan: Everyone get down to the second level! [points at the ramp to where the roof and floor of the elevator platform form a room with no walls.]
[Ethan uses the recoil of his pistol and master rifle to shove himself in the zero g environment. As soon as his hands pass through the opening for the ramp "up" to the ground level above their heads, his hands seemed to slam "down" against the ceiling of the 1st floor. He pulls himself up to the through the ground and rolls onto the ceiling.
The others follow suit.
Ai climbs on top of Korey (the yellow visor copy of Ethan's avatar still in its standing pose {cause axel didn't make animation for zero g environments.}) and yeets herself up through the opening.
The elevator slows to a halt and what used to be the roof, now the floor, is level with the room. She looks around, Ethan is already walking over to a rectangular opening in the room the elevator stopped at with rays of light peeking around the corners. She starts walking over then she looks down at the ground.]
Ai: Is the ground, curved?
Hainer: Even gravity is wack here. [jumps higher than normal]
Ai: Huh, so the gravity switched to the inside of the sphere. I guess we didn't notice the curvature before because the angle was too wide.
[They walk outside. There, as far as the eye can see and stretching up into the sky were pillars of the same blue materials as the platforms they rode in on. Pillars clustered together form mountains and other general landmarks. Various bridges connected pillars forming pathways upward.
The floor of the inner zone was in fact curved as the zone was a sphere. They could see the horizon where the landscape wrapped around and up into a sphere. This caused all the straight spires to point toward the center where hanging in the air high above them was another sphere with rings decorated with structures orbiting it. It took up a third of the zone, but seemed to be emitting light as it didn't cast shadow. The were some towers on various levels of the pillars with the wires twisting around the blue metal before reaching up into the sky and joining with the ball. They almost seemed like the roots of the trees of a curled up forest.]
Disc: So do you guys have a transport chopper or 6-seater I can drive?
Korey and Hainer: Shotgun
Ethan: I wish.
Ai: We just have to jump to higher columns and cross bridges to make our way higher.
Conner: I'm guessing that pink candle is what we need to go to.
[Show the activated tower surrounded by a pink aura with the dark black room structure floating behind it.]
Ethan: Why go through the trouble when I can finish that skivey bit off. The dark room a toss away.
[Ai, taking advantage of the lighter gravity, jumps up on one pillar, and starts making her way to the tower with the dark room above by jumping from pillar to pillar. The rest follow.
The Dark room starts moving, Barrage of lasers appear from behind it. One Lands a shot on Ethan.
Ethan LP: 100 - 80
Ai sees the dark room, but it disappears into the core. Watches as it flies up into the core, parts sliding out of the way for it's passage.
They hear humming.]
Hainer: What is that? Is our audio broken?
[They see from behind the space with the dark room appears five hovering monsters with tarantulas riding them. These new ones had the appearance of hummingbirds except they had four yellow wings, a green body, an enlarged peaked head holding a giant eyeball with the Annex eye on it, a long beak with a split down the middle, and circular pad on their stomach. Giant turbines were set in the place of feathers on their four wings and tail.]
Ethan: What are those?
Ai: I don't know. Those hummingbirds are new monsters.
Disc: Why do the monsters get vehicles?
[Everyone takes cover behind curvature of pillars forming the valley they are in as the tarantulas drive by firing at them. They begin to swing around for another pass. Ethan and the others return fire with their rifles. Humming birds use quick lateral movements to dart around, making all of their shots far off target. The projectiles land a few stray hits on the belly of the new monster, but they seem unperturbed.]
Hainer: So the eye is the obvious weak point. Any others?
Ethan: Probably just the turbines if any. They're flying smart. We need to get them to stop moving if we want to snipe them out of the sky.
Connor: 8 o'clock, above us.
[Everyone fires using master rifles. They miss as the vibroform zips around. It's too fast.
Ethan and tarantula have each other in their sights.
PRUNG
PHLEW
Tarantula spills light from its wound, but recovers and keeps firing.]
Ethan LP: 80 – 60
Connor: They're out of our range.
[The hummingbird cyborg has its beak start to glow, then as the energy gathers in its throat, a bullet of light spits out, accelerating down the split in the beak and explodes the fireteam apart.]
Ethan: Hummingbird cyborgs with railguns for beaks. Alright alright.
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