Chapter 11: Relaxation, Quick Keys, and Originality

  I used the long weekend to relax. The opposite was true for Tess, as she tried to run off her anxiety over Kolin. She set some impressive, personal records on her [Courier] jobs. We spent some time ruminating over our brain implants, comparing and contrasting what the [Mark .07]’s did for each of us. That was when she wasn’t running from her feelings. Me, I had plenty of time to think. As it has been established, that was not one of my favorite pastimes. It could be downright dangerous. So, I concentrated on working out what we did, and did not, know about what the Orc-tech could do to help us out.

  It was assumed that the orcish experiments had a reason behind them. They had obviously been a technologically advanced race. Spaceships, ray guns, and abducting humans in the moonlight kind of gave it away. Not to mention, the matter-transmitter array that allowed us to escape their flying saucer—I still insisted it was a saucer. "Klaatu barada nikto."

  That led to thinking it was the [mana] the orcs were after. We had not even known [mana] existed when we’d been caged up in outer space. The idea of fantasy Orcs as aliens had come from me, my mind labeling the unknown to make it more palatable. Over time, the others with me had adopted the descriptor. It wasn’t a very hard stretch from there to think of our captors in those terms. Their looks painted a pretty obvious image. Throw in the Elf-like civilization they were spying on, and there you go.

  We had inherited some of the technological knowledge contained in the implants. Take the direct downloading of [Skill]s such as [translation; superior] into our minds as evidence. We weren't aware of any directives or settings at the time. We could suddenly understand the orcs for the first time—when they let us, via some toggling command—and even interpret some of the writings we saw. Thinking back to my earlier observation, I now realize it was an option and not a glitch in that regard. Not that Ricki had gotten the chance. Her brain had exploded as soon as the implants had come online. Gray matter literally painted the walls of her cell. Mine was across from her, so I saw it happen. My own excruciating pain had not been enough to hide the details from me. It was the first time I had wished for something to hurt more than it did.

  That particular day held a lot of firsts, for me.

  I think that there was some other bleed-through of knowledge, too. No pun intended—*shiver*. We seemed to just know things, at times. Also, I couldn’t help but think that the [System] aspect that presented itself then had been born of my influence—' I’m an influencer!' I had been the first to put names to what we were all experiencing, with Steve’s knowledge of Anime thrown in. Too much of everything aligned with my experiences of reading LitRPG. In my mind, this proved a back-and-forth exchange between my thoughts and the software of the [Mark .07]. This transfer must go back to that absolute worst of days.

  On average, I read more in one day than the next three people my age put together. I even had hard copies of some of my favorites. It made me a dinosaur, compared with the majority of my peers. Tess and Carmen were readers, too, but not the same stuff as me. I was partially responsible for Steve’s Anime addiction. Carmen was into what they called ‘erotica’. I was afraid to ask any more after they told me that. And I’d seen Tess with some bodice rippers, their covers bent back and the characters half-naked. No judgment from me. I had a good friend who had made a successful living writing romance novels, and the best advice she’d given me on the subject of writing was not to take myself so seriously. “I don’t care what people think,” she had said. “I like writing commercial fluff.” I think her name might have been on the covers of some of the books Tess read. So, I enjoyed my fantasy novels, despite being called a nerd for it. According to Stephen King, and I’m loosely paraphrasing here—don’t call me out too hard on any of this—any writing that was not strictly factual could technically be considered fantasy.

  I did judge Tess for creasing spines and bending covers. Sacrilege! That was a big advantage in favor of e-books, in my mind.

  Brilliance. Distraction.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Back on topic.

  “Do you see an old-school, green, type-text?” I’d asked.

  “Like "Wargames", right?” So, Tess had seen it, too. “Yeah, but not at first. It started out as a wire grid overlaying everything I could see.”

  “Me, too,” I replied. “But after a while, it seemed to settle on a theme, of sorts.” I then told her about my theory of subconsciously influencing the manner of things. Tess thought my reasoning had merit, especially as I had been the only one with any sort of coherent thoughts on the matter.

  “It does make sense.” She didn’t sound skeptical, making my ego swell a touch. “It needed a way to frame everything in a way we could understand.”

  “That’s me, influencer to the stars!” Ha, I managed to insert my joke into the conversation. It was a proud moment.

  She gave me the same look I used on Dad, suffering through his frequent dad jokes. My ego deflated somewhat. “Do you get it? Stars? Outer space?” I made it worse. If a joke had to be explained, it wasn’t much of one. Or in my case, a good one.

  She didn’t bother to respond to it, instead saying, “It’s developed, since.”

  “Have you configured the display?” It was time to cut my loss on the joke.

  “Yes, I keep everything off to the sides, out of my way.” Always the practical one. “The last thing I need when running is a distraction.”

  I had the digital time displayed in the top-left, and my [mini-map] opposite it on the right side. Then I had a section for my drop-downs, [Skill]s and [Spell-slot]s. I was thinking about adding numbered quick keys along the bottom.

  Tess had discovered her own version of my [ink; common] cheat. Hers was [sprint; common], with no 'poor' prior interaction, so it must have started better than mine. Typical. The quality qualifier itself may have passed to me from Master Alric, I supposed. Did the locals see the brackets we did? Not the first time I’d wondered about it.

  [Sprint; common] gave her that additional edge that she sometimes needed at the end of the day. Or when she felt like it, for fun. Runners be crazy. She liked my quick key idea, so I gave her points for that, crazy or not.

  Our muscles must be upgraded, too. We’d each had incision scars over the long bones of our bodies. They had long since faded, but there was no doubt they’d been there. Sophisticated servos, maybe? Or nanites. A big science fiction buzzword; nanites. I’ve mentioned how my heart seemed much stronger than before. The strength and endurance parts were much more noticeable for Tess, most likely from her [Class].

  [Class]es didn’t come from my influence, I’m sad to say. We found early on, within those hectic days at the beginning, that the society we’d landed in had a hierarchy of [Class]es that determined a person’s place. Not in a caste sort of way, but more…profession? No, it was more than that, but never in a derogatory nature. A non-judgmental labeling system that just was, since everyone lived it from birth, never having to explain it. It had only taken a half-dozen comments from the first elves we’d come across to figure it out, especially among the younger elves who were quick to compare with each other. As it turned out, we were lucky as we were both around the same age, and elves tended to choose their [Class], so it was easier for us to blend in. Also, I could hear the capitals when Master Alric spoke of other Master crafters.

  Wow, I’m really starting to go in circles here, huh? "You spin me right round, baby, right round…" I couldn’t be in a LitRPG world without plenty of 80’s references. Boy, was I the right guy for that! "Wargames" and Dead or Alive lyrics flowed effortlessly off my tongue. At least I wasn’t making "Airwolf" cracks. Cool theme music, I have to admit. I betcha you can’t name the last series I’d read before my unexpected, intergalactic romp. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, or so I’ve heard.

  Tess had chosen [Courier] without much hesitation after it had been offered. Offered by who, or what, was still unclear. Again, there was no real need to explain it, since there were no outsiders. The only answer we’d ever heard given was, ‘The Mother of Trees willed it.’ Bless her roots. What if the [System] did not come from my influence? It was crazy egotistical of me to think it. It was possible that I wasn’t special. Was our [System] merely a translation of magic to science?

  I really want to add ‘fiction’ to the end of that, but here we were living it. Still, the overlap was uncanny to my pre-conceptions, where all the stories I had read explained this as a sort of cosmic slippage, different worlds influencing one another. That was the dimensional reasoning—at least from authors, so take that as you will. On a more scientific stance—no fiction—these trans-galactic similarities could be a case of the collective unconscious. If so, we were far from the first humans thrust into a situation with a [System]. The concept had to come from somewhere, after all.

  There are no original ideas left, just variations on a theme, thus cliché becomes reality.