The aim of man above all things is to survive.

  The world ended. It left us, me, derelict with only the possessions of the system to assist me. The day it occurred was March eighteenth of the two thousand and twenty fifth year. I remember the day specifically because I was with my father, which was not an often occurrence with his busy schedule; he was a captain in the US Military.

  We met at a cafe, no, it was a bar, to discuss my schooling. The captain–how I referred to my father–was angry with me for dropping out of school. The name of the university now eludes me, but his fury was clear in my mind.

  “Dropping out of fucking school Hiro! The fuck is wrong with you. I bet you think this shit is real fucking funny. Wasting my money, my fucking benefits. Huh? It wasn’t a rhetorical question. I want a fucking answer,” Captain yelled.

  The patrons in the establishment didn’t even flinch. It was a military bar. Cursing out arrogant young men was likely a typical occurrence. And I probably had a smirk on my face as I often did, so I fit the part.

  “School is fun, but it's just not right for me. I’m sitting in these Gen-ed classes bored out of my mind, and I’m still not even sure I know what I want to do. I think I need time off to just figure things out,” I said.

  “No, what you need to do is to make a decision on your major. Sitting in those Gen-ed classes ain’t going to fucking cut it anymore. You hear me? You're going to stay in school, choose your major, or you’ll enlist. No son of mine is going to be lounging around trying to find himself. This the real fucking world, not no TV show or a fucking book. The decisions you make or lack thereof define you, and as of now they define you as a real fucking loser.”

  The captain continued to speak for long after that, but I chose to sulk like the child I was. Our inability to meet eye to eye on things had turned me away. I know now that there was wisdom in his words, but at the time the wisdom wasn’t so obvious.

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  While I rotated between staring out the window at passerbyers and pretending to listen to the Captain the ground started to rumble. It was an earthquake caused by the arrival of the system. I didn't know it was the system at the time, but I knew something was wrong. I could hardly remember ever getting an earthquake in Virginia.

  When the shaking finally stopped, Captain and I, along with the other patrons, got a message delivered directly to us by a strange screen. The screen floated in front of our faces like a hologram. It said: [Welcome humanity to the system’s embrace.]

  I looked to my father. “You seeing this? Is this you guys?”(referring to the US military)

  “Yeah, I see it, but I don’t think it’s us. But maybe it is. I wouldn’t have the clearance to know,” Captain said. “I need to get back to the base.”

  I glanced at the people around us. They were staring forward and swiping at where the system screen would be, obviously they saw it too. The system had delivered the message to everyone; man, woman, child, None of those distinctions mattered to the system. All that mattered to the system was its purpose, to spread.

  “Let’s head back to my car,” Captain said. He had a grimace on his face and I could see stress lines forming on his forehead. They’d been a permanent fixture on his weathered face since I was a child.

  “What about aftershocks,” I asked.

  “Doesn’t matter. We need to get back to base,” Captain said.

  The drive back to base that followed was quite intense; Screams of anarchy had broken out in the streets. The freak out was because the system screen refused to disappear. The best you could do while the screen was active was move it to the edge of your vision with a feature that most didn’t figure out till the tutorial.

  As we pulled through the Base’s barriers which were surprisingly undefended another message appeared on the screen. It said: [Prepare for system integration.] The car swerved as the new message blinded Captain, but he managed to pull safely to a stop on a sidewalk.

  “Take the apartment key from my pocket. I need to go check in with the commander. I want you to wait in the apartment, ok?” Captain was flustered; showing emotion was so unlike him. Even as I search my memory I can’t remember him showing any emotion other than either anger or the occasional smug satisfaction. But in that moment, in the car, I remember seeing fear in his eyes, and I haven't forgotten it.

  “Yessir,” I mumbled in agreement, but my mind was elsewhere, thinking of what the messages could mean.

  “Hey Hiro,” Captain said, drawing my attention to him one last time. “We’ll continue our conversation about school later, once things have calmed down.”

  With those parting words, I stepped out of the car and watched him drive away. And that was the last time I saw my father.