Cryo-Scape 2052

It was a habit to create identifying points using triangulation. Once I was in a city though and walked for hours and hours and got myself thoroughly lost. I don’t even remember why I did that, I guess I was bored of my parents taking me around to museums all over the place and I just sort of...wandered off.

You would think that it usually wouldn’t be an issue, but in that city, I didn’t actually speak the language or have any money there. By remembering specific locations that I had memorised I worked my way back to the starting point.

Yup. I recognised the rough area around me. Given that I should have grown up here there should have been no question of finding my way around. Did I happen to have taken over the body or kicked an NPC out of their place? The philosophy of it made my head hurt. Way too complex to consider.

I needed to find a real player and try and explain my situation, maybe they’d help me or sell me off to slavers. Then again I never paid much attention to NPCs in games unless they massively overpowered me or were designed not to be beaten.

There was a water pipe running across the walls, or it held some sort of liquid. Concrete floor, more rag curtains for residential areas and then a turning path ahead. Let’s go with the left to work out this maze of detritus. I saw a brighter light at the end of this path, really bright which meant that it was using more electricity than normal.

Might as well try walking into the light to see if it was going to bring me a brighter future. Walking along I noticed that the ground was becoming slightly rougher. It was like someone had walked in a load of muddy boots across the floor and it wasn’t cleaned regularly.

Something looked different about the floor compared to the rest of the bare concrete that I had seen so far. Further down the lights became brighter and I saw they were shining toward me. I saw a shiny glint as I was walking closer.

[Player XXX has gained 2 points in Observation. System has added this to your character build.]

‘Thanks for the boost system. Choosing Mechanical Learning is paying off. Slowly, shame none of this is in actual combat skill though. I forget I’m in the body of an eight-year-old still. Wait, combat systems were locked before. Fine. Now, what’s that light and glint amount? Is that metal?’

The path was turning out to be a tunnel. I saw signs on the walls with yellow markings and a broken skull. Was that a CCTV camera with a flashing red light? An odd thing to have in a tunnel. Surprisingly high tech given the area that I was looking at.

A good excuse would me would be to say that I was sent here to polish the camera lens with my rags because one of the Masters or Mistresses told me to and I didn’t want my poor slave family to starve to death or all die of rats bites.

I hoped that those weren’t going to be radiation markers. Not that it would make a big difference in this place. Everything seemed pretty haphazard. Seriously, if you have slaves and families of slaves then surely you want to keep your labour force rather than let them all die a horrible slow death or radiation poisoning.

Or you could just use drugs to keep them under control. Yeah, or medicine. Wait. Did I just skip a whole lot of starter level quests and wander off into the high level player zone? This game sucks.

Given that this was a purely dystopian video game-style reality I’m betting that if I did find any guards, they’d have stuff like radiation counters on them or drugs that halted the development. Not everything had to make sense scientifically.

Raddy man. I’m keeping a close eye on you. You ought to be nicer to kids do not tell them that they have even more danger. I took a single step forward before a noise boomed out that immediately gave me a brilliant reason to stop and not move one centimetre forward.

My foot which was raised in the air hit the hard ground of the tunnel. This was going to end one of two ways, talk my way out or be shot at and hopefully enter rebirth mode. Or Raddy Man could appear and help out a poor kid who was going to die unless he found the time skip function and matured into a teenager without all the years of effort.

I wanted to be an awesome super soldier with an entire tactical squad backing me up and racing a jeep rescuing comrades from mutated cannibals. Not being a kid slave, I wasn’t even recognised as having a real player name yet.

I needed a gamer tag, something to make me stand out. Oh. Someone had been shouting at me for the last minute and I just kept on walking and thinking to myself. Raddy my man, why did you not warn me?

‘SLAVE. THIS IS A RESTRICTED AREA. STOP ALL MOVEMENTS. HOLD POSITION. DO NOT MOVE FURTHER. REPEAT. HOLD POSITION. STOP NOW. A GUARDIAN PROTECTOR IS ON THE WAY. HOLD YOUR CURRENT POSITION.’ A voice boomed out from further up ahead. It sounded like someone talking through a loudspeaker.

Correct that, an angry voice shouting through a loudspeaker who was probably really angry at the extra paperwork I had just given him by doing an action which no slave would ever think of doing in their entire conditioned artificially shortened lifespan. Rats or radiation. Nope, starvation and malnutrition or being beaten to death by an angry overseer.

Right…restricted area. As in an area where slaves aren’t allowed to go on pain of death by gunshot or plasma or pipeguns or whatever the guards are armed with. I ought to lead a slave revolt and take this place down, not me obviously.

Of course, the slave’s movements are going to be restricted. I don’t know why I thought this would be a good idea. I’d played enough Post-Apocalyptic video games to know the strategies though and one of my favourites was to take a level 1 character and then walk them through super dangerous territory and end up with the best armour and guns in the game.

I stopped walking forward and stopped. This was going to be a suitable challenge given my complete lack of combat skills and the fact that I was a level 0 slave with no combat ability whatsoever.

Timeskip. C’mon, make this a cutscene and give me a timeskip. I’m owed that much at least for getting one of the worst starting characters ever.

‘SLAVE. THIS AREA IS RESTRICTED. HOLD YOUR POSITION. REPEAT. HOLD POSITION.

‘You got me. I’m not moving. Yup, I’m a slave and a kid. Holding position. I’m just standing here completely forgot my mental conditioning and the fact that slaves do what they’re told. Sorry, I’m a little nervous. And a kid, did you notice that?’

‘SLAVES DO NOT TALK UNLESS PERMITTED BY AN OVERSEER. A GUARDIAN PROTECTOR IS ON THE WAY. HOLD YOUR POSITION.’

‘I said I hea-‘

‘SLAVES DO NOT TALK UNLESS PERMITTED! THIS AREA IS UNDER RESTRICTION! WAIT FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTION!’

‘….’

I’m going to shut up and accept the situation. For now. Wait until this tutorial is over. Or I get blasted into a million pieces and game over man. Game Over!

That was the point that the ground began to start shaking. I recall a film a long time ago in my other life back on Earth where a group of people are trying to escape a creature. The footsteps of the creature cause ground vibrations. That didn’t make so much sense given that I was in a tunnel, could be a massive drilling or mining operation instead.

[Player XXX gains six points in radiation sickness. Due to the basic tutorial initial mode, this is current negated. Rady Radiation says kid, this place ain’t safe! Turn back kid, turn back!]

Six?? Is this a radiation dump? I’m going to track you down Rady and beat you up. Stop killing me and warn me. Oh wait, you just did.

Thinking about the character sheet I wanted to check my current stats. It seemed unlikely that I would be gaining radiation immunity but might as well check it out.

Player XXX: Character Build, Self-Improvement at the Cost of Bodily Health!

Level 0: Lowly Slave

Age: 8

Skills:

-Mechanical Learning

Beware the person who practices the same punch 10,000 times! You can learn by doing!

Health Points: 5

Strength: 1

Dexterity: 1

Awareness: 2

Endurance: 1

Intelligence: 3

Luck: 1

Charisma: 0 (1 temporary)

Available Character Allocation Points: 0

Weaknesses: Unknown (?) radiation count, constant radiation sickness, lowly strength of a slave, heavily malnourished, prisoner.

Usable Points:

Observation: 3

Procrastination: 0

Persuasion Technique: 1

Not much of a difference yet. I did not like the radiation indications though if my status and physical condition were to change it should affect my stats. Now to deal with a Guardian. Whatever that was meant to be, I had points in observation so using those ought to give me an edge. Now to work out exactly how to use them correctly to survive.

An electronic voice sounded out in the distance, closer to the source of light but far enough away from me that I wasn’t able to make it out clearly. If I was able to enhance my physical stats later then I’d do so if only to improve the quality of my vision at least.

Yeah, that voice is getting a lot closer now. I can feel the vibrations beneath my feet. Mini-boss or overpowered enemy NPC.

< IDENTITY!>

And I’ve annoyed it by not giving it my proof of identity.

‘I’m a slave yes and today is my birthday.’

Ouch sucks to be me.

I…I didn’t get given a name so far. My parents didn’t tell me, nor did my brother or the system give me anything beyond a title. Level 0: Lowly Slave. Is this an in-game thing that I didn’t fill in?

‘I’m a lowly slave. Level…0?’

Hopefully, that works.

‘SLAVE HOLD YOUR POSITION. GUARDIAN PROTECTOR IS NOW NEAR YOU. WAIT. REPEAT WAIT.’

No need to shout. Jeez. I’m not going anywhere.

With that, a humanoid in a suit of jet-black power armour slowly walked up towards me. The eyes were covered completely with the helmet and all I was able to see was my reflection in the matt black eyes.

[Player XXX gains fifteen points in radiation sickness. Due to the basic tutorial initial mode, this is current negated. Rady Radiation says kid you need to get to a safe zone or you’ll become melted flesh. It’s not a good thing to be melted flesh. Get out of there!]

No, that didn’t sound very nice at all. This video game world was entirely broken if this was meant to be a tutorial starting point. A whole bunch of slaves, radiation, some old guy in a red priest outfit giving out drugs and every time someone coughs on me I get a point in radiation.

By this point, I was tempted to punch the guard with my eight-year-old weak hand and risk death to see if the game had a save and loading function.

I decided to instead try and use my whole point in persuasion technique to try and make myself safe even temporarily. It felt as though any hostile move on my part would lead to instant death with one punch from this armoured giant.

It struck me exactly how quiet the surrounding area had become, there were no other signs of other people around me and all I was able to hear was this pneumatic, slow hissing sound. Something so large that towered over me as the figure in power armour shouldn’t be able to move as quietly as it did.

Then it was there, right in front of me and it was huge. How the heck can they make something that big? It’s like a mini mountain! Wait, I’m a kid, the suited figure was probably just a bit larger than a bodybuilder.

I was stuck standing there given the fact if you usually ignore a verbal warning from armed guards several times, they have a strong tendency to open fire on me. Also, there was no way that I was going to get any closer to that broken skull image with the yellow markings.

‘SLAVE HOLD YOUR POSITION. GUARDIAN IS SCANNING YOU. WAIT. REPEAT YOU NEED TO WAIT.’

Wow, the guard with the loudspeaker had a conscience after all. They never told me that I’d be beaten to death by this gigantic figure in jet-back power armour. At least I think it was power armour, for all I knew it could be an exoskeleton. Video game physics. Who knew?

I was grateful that I didn’t pee myself yet. Having an adult mind with rational maturity and experience meant that my body wasn’t shivering in fear at the sight of this thing. Scared yes but not terrified. Uh, I made a serious mistake. Whoever was further down the tunnel had some means of monitoring my actions, your average adult slave ought to be down on their hands and knees in supplication giving thanks to the great guardian mini-mecha.

By not showing any reaction I was showing myself as an oddity. When you give the wrong response in a video game-like walking up to a guard and punching them in the knee, they usually become hostile and turn on you. Before I dropped to my knees and burst out crying the voice of an old woman called out.

‘Guardian. Stand down at once. You are there at the checkpoint, make it return immediately. Identify verification code: Dr Hanber, Tee-Niner-Six-One. Stand down right now.’

Still standing there I was amazed to see this older woman in her fifties at least wearing a paramilitary uniform with a pair of bright orange plastic goggles resting on her head. Her hair was tied back into a bun at the back and she was wearing heavy-looking boots.

If she was a doctor then she must have been the military type, I’d be more worried if she was a researcher looking out for an abnormality like myself who showed a complete lack of fear and disobedience compared to the rest of the slave population I had seen earlier.

[Game Hint: Check Inventory. Do it now. Right. Now.]

Well, that was a new thing. I guess that I strayed way too far off track from the tutorial mode that an effort was being put in to make sure I didn’t die too easily. It’d explain why the guard with the loudspeaker had told me to hold my position and wait.