In one of the smaller cities there is a woman who lives in one of the many dazzling apartments. She is somewhere in her twenty’s, (how old exactly, you might ask? Well, that’s rude you never ask a lady her age is what she would tell you.) and she loves videogames more than anything in the world. She tends to spend most if not all her extra money on anything videogame related (well not just videogame related but mostly.) Of course she has the F.R.C.T.S, but with her love for gaming is so deep she has invested in almost every gaming system ever invented. With this being the case, you can find her playing with any number of “old world” hand-controlled gaming systems and since the leaps in technology all these systems and games have active servers even ones that had been long since shutdown.
Her name is Noyena Contra, and she is a rookie Imagineer still within her first six months in the field. A pretty girl, with what one could call an unassuming look her brown skin and slightly freckled face are complimented by a large neatly kept curly afro. Her bright brown eyes, though often covered by some kind of headset, typically adorned a pair of plain black rimmed glasses neatly barely hanging off her slightly pointed nose.
Currently, of course, she is in the middle of playing a game. One that she is having a tough time with, mainly because she isn’t particularly used to handheld controllers. (Not that she would ever use that as an excuse.) She is more accustomed to moving freely, and without the restriction or delay of hardline inputs. Regardless she plugs away all the while screaming obscenities into her headset while clearing adds in her game. Then an alarm goes off in the background…
“Shit! I gotta go guys! I’m heading out to grab the new Landis Falls for the Fracts, any of y’all getting it?”
Mightym0u23 “Hell yeah Ladytricksta, but I’m not getting it until next week you know it’s my rotation week”
Minister_Doom “Yeah same with me Mighty, it’s crazy they aren’t releasing it digital”
Hoosiersteady “Yeah I heard it has something to do with…”
Noyena, cutting off Hoosier, “too bad dude, I’m off rotation this week I’m gonna be hitting it hard; I’ll probably put 80-100 hours in this week alone…” They were all Imagineers, and highly talented ones at that so this was their normal banter, they only worked 200 hours total in any given month, so they were able to choose a schedule that most suited their preferred lifestyle. That was important for Noyena and she locked in on the career path when she was five.
(She would have much rather been a professional gamer but her parents were against always giving her some out there what if… reason.)
Everyone thought that Imagineers had it made because they worked such relaxed hours, but Noyena knew the truth. The work they did was such that it was for the very advancement of humanity plus that one guy figured out a few things about worker productivity. Thus, the development of the meta-cites: all-inclusive cities created by companies with educational institutions lower and higher, housing, shopping, leisure, and medical run by AI and highly trained individuals.
People in these cities are highly paid, and yet only work a set number of hours in specific rotation. Depending on their field the AI may end up taking up the remaining bulk of their work. But this was not the case for Imagineers. There hours on paper were far fewer, and their pay on paper was much higher, but one rotation, at bare minimum, had them work for 3 straight days and most of the times they would go well over the 200-hour monthly work limit. These four gaming buddies where all Imagineers so they knew what it meant to get some good old free time in.
Mightym0u23 “Lady, you’re crazy as always. I’ll check you next weekend, I’m out too. Gotta wake up early, and go in to the office.”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“Later Mighty!” a chorus of voices vibrates through Noyena’s headset, after she just shuts her system down. She’s never been too good at goodbyes to her they seem very final. Noyena starts running around, putting herself together to face the world for her this is very simple, she puts on sweat like casual pants, and an over shirt with a hood of a similar material, when a mechanical disembodied voice calls out questioningly to her.
‘Miss Noyena where are you going?’
“No where Tina, why do you always hassle me when I’m about to go out?” Noyena snaps back, slight agitation in her voice. Tina is the name Noyena gave her home AI system mostly because she didn’t like the manufacture name “Honey Sue”, so when she moved into this apartment, she changed her name and personality to be just a tad bit more doting.
‘Miss, you never activate your location monitor when you leave so I must know to activate it myself, remember Y…
“My safety is your top priority I know Tina, I know. I’m just heading to the game store I’ll be back in like an hour!” With that she closes the door gently behind her, the sound of a two deadbolt locks clank behind her and then Noyena turns towards the elevator. Her apartment is in the residential district of one of the first Meta-cites founded, and the shopping district in her spire was 12 floors down, it wouldn’t normally take an hour to get to the game store and back, but Noyena was feeling a bit lazy so she took her time. When Noyena finally makes it to the game store, (there where many of them but this one she liked the most.) she peruses around thoughtlessly, looking at various collectable items, and different games most of which she has already. She bumps into an individual rocking back and forth muttering to himself inaccessibly:
“You shouldn’t have played the game… You knew it was a trap… You knew it would trap you; it would kill! you s-shouldn’t play… kill you!” His head snaps towards Noyena, and he stares her directly in the eye; she feels as if he is peering into her soul looking for gods’ final judgement.
This makes Noyena uncomfortable so she backs up slowly waving her hands. “Dude you’re crazy, what the hell are you talking about no game can trap you or kill you this isn’t that wicked old cartoon ‘Sword Art Online’ no one can get trapped in a videogame…” (Weird-o she sighs to herself) Just then, a female voice over the loud speaker calls for her
*Noyena Contra your order is ready*
‘Miss Noyena, your order is ready, hurry home.’ Tina’s voice chimes in her ear out of nowhere throwing Noyena off a bit.
With a disgruntled mumble she returns “Okay Tina. You know, I can hear the freaking announcement; Boot up my system Tina, I’m going to scan my digital copy to you, so it is loaded up when I get there.”
Why did she get both a digital copy and a hard copy of her game you might ask and that answer is simple it was a practice she picked up from her father. He always told her ‘You can lose a digital game any number of ways, but if you have the hard copy, it proves your collection.’ She figured it came from some deeply personal experience, and didn’t really understand what he meant. Nonetheless she still would always (and will always) purchase both.
‘As you wish Noyena, would you like dinner made as well’
“You know it, Spinach and fried mushroom pizza please!”
‘As you wish.’
“I Love you, Tina!”
‘I love you too!’
“Really?”
‘It is what I am programmed to say’
“you’re no fun...” Noyena liked to play like this with Tina as she knew that was in her programming. She wanders over to the outdoor park instead of going directly to the elevator. She finds a bench and takes a seat. *yip*
“What was that?” she mumbles to herself.
*yip* *yip*
She hears it again, and jumps up immediately to look behind the bush near where she was sitting. “Awe, look at you!”
‘A puppy! Just abandoned here? That’s strange’ she thinks to herself. She debates on whether she should take the dog, but then decides against it. ‘Today has been an odd day, and I have way too much gaming to do, I don’t have time to take care of anything else.’ With this decision she moved the puppy to a more visible location hoping that someone else (definitely not her) would come around and take it.
“Tina… I’m home” Noyena says in her best masculine accent “Is my dinner ready? If not, you got some splainin’ to do.”
‘Affirmative, your pizza is ready on the warming counter Miss Noyena’
‘Awesome’ Noyena slides off her shoes and heads to the kitchen… “PIZZA!” (mouthwatering) “Thank you for the food, Tina”
‘You’re welcome, Miss Noyena!’ as she knocks back a few slices she ponders the dog {I hope someone finds her} the thought slips through her head as she downs her last slice.
“Alright, Tina I’m ready to play, is everything all set?”
‘Yes, Noyena your game download has been completed, you may start it in your leisure, which is to say whenever you would like’
“That’s what’s up Tina! High Five… Bwahahaha just kidding”
‘I am programmed to understand jokes…”
‘Did she just get sassy with me…?’ Noyena questions before booting up her F.R.C.T.S ‘Whatever doesn’t matter, here we go Landis Falls, show me what you got!’