Chapter 1.03 CARNIVAL GOLDFISH BAGS

Kyle McCoy’s Apartment

Tuesday, June 10th

Kyle was excited when he woke up and heard the voice inside his head. For days the teen had been impatiently waiting for his new implant to activate fully. With Fantasy going live only a few hours ago, he was beginning to think he had been given a faulty implant.

[Greetings, Kyle McCoy. I am your personal Artificial Intelligence companion, serial number β.Ω.β.28.4.2.543278. My initial scans show you to be in full health, and I have already sent them to Neurolink for confirmation. Would you like to change my designation before we calibrate your new Delve Neurolink Implant?]

“I can’t believe the difference. It sounds like your speaking right next to me and not in my head,” said Kyle.

[I can speak to you internally like your previous augmented chip, but the connections through the nano carbon tubes to the visual and auditory centers allow me to control the way you perceive my voice and visual cues.]

“As for your designation, I think I’ll call you Bob. It’s short and simple and taken from your serial number. Beta Omega Beta. It’s great to meet you, Bob. I’ve always wanted an AI companion and look forward to getting to know you.”

[Thank you, Kyle. I've updated to my new designation. I am now, Bob. We will now go through the steps to calibrate your augmented interface. My records indicate you had a previous Holo Implant Implant, so this should be a slightly familiar process as I will take you through the steps instead of a nurse or doctor. Please locate a mirror, and we shall continue.]

Kyle walked into the bathroom, ready to go. Bob had him stare at objects in the mirror which were projected to calibrate the implant’s visual augment aspects. Customizing his notifications and other widgets in his augmented vision were completed next.

The AI verified his contacts and communication IDs with Kyle to ensure his applications were working correctly. Bob then had him move back to his bed after they were done with the implant’s augmentation setup.

[Kyle, when you wish to delve into the Virtual Verse, you must be laying down and say ‘commence delve.’ The implant will confirm you’re stationary with eyes closed before commencing. The implant will not allow you to delve while you are in a public location or on any PTC vehicle. This is a safety feature to protect you and prevent someone from taking advantage of you while your body is unconscious during your delve. Please speak the phrase ‘commence, delve’ when ready.]

“Commence, delve,” Kyle spoke aloud.

[Initializing Delve]

The words ‘Initializing Delve’ flashed behind Kyle’s closed eyelids. Within moments he felt as if he was standing on the Enterprise's main deck, watching the main view panel while they were at warp speed. A moment later, Kyle found himself inside an all-white space. He couldn’t tell how large an area he was in, as everything was the same shade of white.

Suddenly the white space shattered into billions of fragments. Kyle now found himself floating in outer space surrounded by billions of stars in every direction. Looking around, Kyle could see colorful galaxies with swirling colors.

It’s beautiful.

[Welcome. We are now inside the Virtual Verse, where you will select your MicroWorld. I can show you a random selection of worlds, or you can request the type of planets you would like to see. At any time you would like to see a new selection or a different kind of world, please let me know.]

Kyle’s attention was averted below, as hundreds of worlds in rows came into existence.

[If you see a planet you would like to call home, please point it out. If you think about getting close to any planet, you will find you can teleport closer.]

An alien-looking planet caught Kyle’s attention right away.

“Can you show me more planets like this one?”

Kyle pointed to a purple and cyan world. A moment later, forty-two planets came into view, the rest vanishing. The planets all had strange colors: purple and cyan, orange and silver, and black and grey. In comparison, Earth and most of the worlds first shown were green and blue. Kyle spotted a planet with two massive landmasses, and thousands of small islands dotted its oceans.

“How about this one, Bob?”

Kyle was instantly teleported above the planet. He could see a hexagonal grid laid over the world. Some of the hexagons in the grid were bright red.

[You may select any grid that isn’t red for the location of your base.]

Kyle teleported around the world, looking down at the grid for a while before finding a location he liked. Pointing to the tile that held a valley between three mountains on a coast, Kyle found himself transported down into the valley. Spinning around, he took in the view of his surroundings and found himself in awe of the silver and purple tree-covered mountains around him.

[Is this location satisfactory for your home, Kyle?]

“Yes, I love the views within this valley.”

The mountains were far more massive than he was able to tell from the model he had teleported around moments ago. The mountains had sheer faces facing the ocean coast and were capped with pure white snow. The ocean was the color of the brightest electric cyan Kyle could imagine. Kyle could see the beach was made of bright crimson-colored sand as he walked down towards the ocean. The entire location was so alien but called out to Kyle.

“This place is amazing, Bob. I can smell the clean ocean air and taste the salt as well. I can’t believe how lifelike all this is. I can’t wait to get into Fantasy and play. What’s our next step, Bob?”

[Next step is to select and build your home. Once you find a suitable location, I will call down a building pod at the site. You will use this pod’s interface to select your home. Once chosen, the pod will project a hologram copy of the building you can manipulate with your hands. You will need to position it exactly where you want it constructed. Once you’re satisfied, the pod will confirm your selection and commence building.]

Kyle walked around the valley for an hour before falling in love with a large hill. The hill was tall enough to see the entire valley and wasn't far from the ocean. Kyle let his AI know this was the location for his home. A minute later, a sonic boom could be heard above, and then a pod came rocketing across the sky towards the hill.

The pod stopped its descent abruptly with a blast of its jets and popped out four wings seen on most modern drones. The pod hovered over to the hill, landed perfectly centered atop the hill, and retracted its wings. A display panel flipped open, and Kyle walked up to it.

The display panel showed rows and rows of buildings, most having themes. Quite a few of them were based on prominent earth cultures. Kyle could see Chinese, Nordic, Egyptian, Japanese, and modern steel, concrete, and glass themes. Other themes looked alien to him, like a beehive or anthill. Some were also right out of fantasy books, like a hobbit hole or an Elf’s treehouse. Kyle thought they all looked amazing.

Kyle finally settled on a modern two-story Japanese style house with a wrap-around deck. Hitting the confirmation button on his selection, an orange outline of the structure flashed into view around him.

Walking out of the outline, he could see the two-floor house with a deck and pavilion attached to the back that was twice as long as the house. Using simple hand gestures, he found he could move the outline. Kyle pushed the hologram to make the deck hang over the hill facing the ocean, and so the house sat perfectly center atop the hill.

He found points in the hologram that he thought of as dissection points going around the house. He was able to cut the four-part deck in half. Kyle then split that piece in two quarters. Kyle moved each of the deck quarters to the main deck’s sides, effectively creating a “T” shape with the house at the bottom and the top of the “T,” the deck now a long rectangle extending past the house, no longer square.

Finished, the stone pavilion with gazebo centered itself on the half of the deck attached to the house. Kyle couldn’t find a way to move this part and assumed it was automatic.

Walking through the outline hologram and up to the pod, Kyle hit the confirmation button and was prompted to place secondary buildings. The display showed more deck pieces, stairs, and a koi pond with a 300 squared symbol next to it. Kyle wrapped the house in the smaller deck pieces, making a perfect square again with the house centered at the bottom. He placed stairs at both sides of the house, leading onto the now terrace.

In front of the house, Kyle was able to point to the koi pond symbol that floated in the air and point to the ground to edit and shape the koi pond’s boundary. With some experimenting, Kyle placed the pond’s boundaries close to the house in a rectangle shape, starting at the edge of the left staircase to the terrace, up to the right staircase. He then took three of the remaining deck pieces and placed them over the koi pond making bridges to his front door and two side staircases.

Finished, he went up to the pod and pressed the complete button. He was immediately prompted with a message saying all unused furniture and building pieces would be stored in the house inventory system. Closing out the prompt, he selected the confirmation button again. This time the screen blanked out, and a prompt said once he left the outlined space, construction would begin.

Leaving the highlighted space, he found a spot to sit down to watch. Minutes later, multiple sonic booms were heard in the distance. Looking up, Kyle could see multiple large containers coming into view. As they landed and opened, spider-shaped robots came out with materials stacked neatly in their arms attached to their bodies’ top. The robots got to work building the house in real-time. Kyle counted at least twenty-five of these robots, and they were building out the house incredibly fast.

One of the more massive spiders had a drill at the end of an arm that started to dig the holes as another behind would drop the support beams into the hole, then fill it with a liquid from the tank on its back. Kyle watched as the spider team made short work of the house and then built the deck.

After the house, deck, and stone pavilion were completed, two spiders dug out the koi pond, the rest of the spiders brought what Kyle would only describe as giant goldfish bags of water with koi in them from one of the containers. Once the two robots completed digging, the rest just opened the bags and poured them into the hole. The robots then all climbed back into the containers and shot off into the sky.

That had to be one of the craziest things I’ve seen in a game. It was almost comical how fast they built everything, not to mention the goldfish bags. Why didn’t the game just poof the building into existence? What was the spider’s purpose, entertainment?

Kyle walked over the bridge, looking down at the odd-looking koi and into the front door of the house. Looking at the first floor’s open floor plan, he could see a living room area with a large tv screen and two chairs with a rug under them. At the back of the kitchen was an open sliding door to the terrace. Kyle could see a shiny black pillar under the gazebo through the door.

To the front door’s left side was a staircase going up to the second floor. Kyle stepped out onto the massive wooden terrace built out of reddish wood walking through the back door. The large stone pavilion with a pagoda-style gazebo had to be at least twenty feet wide, ten feet in front of him. Kyle walked up to the pitch-black stone monolith directly at its center. As Kyle got closer, he could see a doorway cut into the monolith, and the word Fantasy, made out of purple and green crystals, glowed faintly above the door.

[This door is used to login to Fantasy, Kyle. When other worlds and games become available to you, their entries will be created here so that you may travel to them from this location. If you wish to start your adventure in Fantasy, you may open the door and walkthrough. If you ever want to exit your MicroWorld or game, all you need to say is ‘Exit Delve’ out loud. Remember within games; this could have consequences as your game avatar will always remain logged into the game once you’ve started to play them]

Kyle went back into his house to check out the second floor, then a couple of extra moments taking in the mountains and the ocean again. After watching the odd-looking koi in his pond, Kyle walked back to the pavilion and up to the black monolith. Opening the door, Kyle walked through.