SIM AC513

You have rolled SENSORY IMMERSIVE MODULE AC513.

Leigh’s CHIP immediately pulled up the SIM’s stats. She’d automated the procedure a long time ago.

Difficulty Rating: A6

Average Overall Completion Time: 00:31:36

Average Overall Completion Score: 5,746.24

Best Completion Time (Year) : 00:07:32

Best Completion Score (Year) : 22,820.79

Best Completion Time: 00:06:53

Best Completion Score: 31,992.44

Your Completion Time: N/A

Your Completion Score: N/A

Leigh’s eyes went directly to the AOCT. She’d been hoping for one of the shorter SIMs, so when she saw a Completion Time of over thirty minutes, she couldn’t help but click her tongue in irritation. She was quickly rewarded with two unwelcome notifications.

WARNING! 1 point deduction in Civilized Comportment.

Reason: [attached vid]

Leigh didn’t need to watch it to know that it featured her little tongue clicking incident.

WARNING! 5 point deduction in Anger Management.

Reason: Elevated heart rate, increasing blood pressure, elevated catecholamine levels, muscles tensed at 32% above resting standard.

Seeing as today was Selection Day, it was understandable for her stats to be a little off; she’d been aware of it to a certain degree herself, but Leigh hadn’t expected to be that far from baseline. Priding herself on being a level-headed person, she took a deep meditative breath to slow down her heart rate. She didn’t, however, bother to meditate her body out of its tense state. There were only thirteen minutes left on the Selection countdown, and she wouldn’t be at peace until the results were officially out. But releasing another slow breath, Leigh at least managed to get her vitals steady before she read on.

Recommended corrective measures:

Leigh contained an eye roll. She didn’t want to get slapped with another deduction, but the fact that the UE Government took the time to inform her of ‘corrective measures’ twelve minutes and fifty seconds before points would never matter again was absolutely ridiculous. It deserved some kind of outward display of irritation, but Leigh managed to control herself. She hadn’t gotten a score drop in weeks and to get two right before Selection would just be too embarrassing to bear. Instead, she took another deep breath and focused on the the standard UEG’s recommendations.

- Visit your local clinic for a verified calculation of your chemical imbalance regulation. Though improbable, it is possible that your CHIPs standard functions are not capable of…

- Participate in an Anger Management Seminar in one of the Centers near you. Possible options include, but are not limited to:

- Oulu Center, May 1st, 2992, 2200 ST

- Tampere Center, May 2nd, 2992, 1700 ST

- Turku Center, May 2nd, 2992, 1900 ST

- Helsinki Center, May 1st, 2992, 2000 ST

Leigh read just enough for her CHIP to mark the notifications as ‘received’. She’d read enough of them over the years to know exactly what it was going to say. She wasn’t missing anything, especially considering the fact that today was Selection day. The last sixteen years of her life had been built around this. It was the final judgment on every decision she’d made, every step she’d taken, every word she’d uttered, every action and reaction she’d had. They’d all been measured, gauged and scored; today she would now see if her decisions had paid off. The Recommended Corrective Measures no one ever followed through on were the least of her worries.

Leigh’s eyes habitually flicked to the top right of her virtual overlay, where she had both her Rank and the Selection countdown displayed. It was one of the few portions of her overlay that remained the same no matter which configuration she was using. Her SIM configuration gave her vitals more priority, her ‘burn’ configuration gave the Cognitive Exercises - or Cogs - more priority, her ‘coding’ configuration gave her automated functions - or Tofus - more priority, and so on… but the Rank and countdown display stayed, a constant reminder.

RANK: 986

[00:12:46]

Her heart stuttered in her chest at the sight, her Rank had fallen again. It had been at 983 less than twenty minutes ago. While lower Ranks tended to switch around a lot due to the close distribution of scores, the higher Ranks were supposed to stay the same. She’d been at 983 for over a week. It had taken her six months of ceaseless work to get her Rank from 1126 to 983 before the Selection. She knew the buffer she’d secured was more than enough to keep her in the top 1000, but seeing it dip so easily right before the Selection was taking a toll on her already frayed nerves. Her Rank was everything. A quantifiable measure of her worth, it defined her and would determine her path in life; she needed to be selected for First Academy.

There were 398,792,315 people in her Year. Only the top-Ranked 1000 would be selected for First Academy; the rest would be accordingly distributed to the seven other military academies. And though it was remarkable to get into any of the top three military academies, that just wasn’t going to cut it for Leigh. Her whole life, she’d had no life, everything done in order to maximize her scoring potential. She’d minimized her sleeping time so she could have more time to complete SIMs and Cogs, she’d chosen her friendships carefully, only interacting with those from who she could profit and she had no hobbies that she did for ‘fun’, only endless lessons. Sometimes it made her feel like a fraud, like a machine, but it would all be worth it when she got into First.

Leigh brought up her brother’s stats as a reminder; she looked at them whenever she felt herself wavering. He was the reason she had to try so hard. Kyle was five years older and had always been exceptionally talented. When she was younger, she’d admired that in him, but over the years, as the burden of expectation placed on ‘Kyle McMann’s little sister’ increased, she couldn’t help but feel resentful. All she could ever remember was not being good enough, not as good as Kyle. Even now, she was barely scraping by the Selection, while her brother had been Ranked first in his entire Year. She’d be considered a failure if she didn’t get into First.

Leigh was wringing her clammy hands together when she caught herself pacing around her Housing Unit. Today was supposed to be a celebration, but something was making her uneasy. She was supposed to just be hanging out with Mikah and Vinnya in their usual virtual hangout until the Selection was over. They were the only two people in the world that she considered true friends. She would probably still hang out with them even if their parents weren’t important connections. It didn’t hurt, however, to get political bonuses while she was at it.

On the surface, everything seemed to be going as it was supposed to, as she’d planned. Leigh poked fun at Mikah for his longstanding not-so-secret, crush on Vinnya. She could see him flush even through his dark complexion and idly wondered what his stats looked like. Unlike Leigh, who was forced to keep her stats public for the forthright bonus points, his were private. He wasn’t, after all, trying for First like her. She, on the other hand, had to milk the points wherever she could, when every digit mattered.

It was why, even now, she had two windows open on her overlay, each displaying a different difficulty A6 Cognitive Exercise. Cogs were already quite rewarding in terms of points, but were even more so because of the multitasking bonus they offered when completed in tandem with other activities such as social interactions, SIMs or even showers. Thus, her overlay always had at least one section dedicated to Cogs; she’d been working on them for as long as she could remember. When she was younger, they’d been H7 and G2 Cogs, but she’d worked her way up the alphabet in difficulty. She’d had to in order to stay in the top 1000 Ranks. It had become second nature for Leigh to be answering these types of problems. In fact, it had become so natural to her, she barely even noticed them anymore. It was like, over the years, she’d managed to split her brain into two, one that focused on Cogs, and one that focused on everything else. The Cogs themselves ranged from every subject imaginable, from physics, to astrophysics, relativity, politics, xenology, xenobiology, terraforming, and even childcare. She was currently working on an two A6 Cogs, one in theoretical mathematics and another in DNA repairs.

In summary, nothing out of the ordinary, so why couldn’t Leigh stop nibbling the inside of her bottom lip? And why was she so damn anxious? She didn’t know when it happened, but a ball of tight dread had settled itself deeply into her stomach. She glanced at her Rank.

RANK: 987

[00:12:31]

Her stomach lurched. Thirteen Ranks between her and Second Academy was plenty, but something she couldn’t put a finger on made Leigh increase her Cogs’ difficulty setting to A4. Her Rank wasn’t supposed to be an issue, she’d made sure of it, so why was it dropping now?

RANK: 988

[00:12:30]

As if mocking her, it dropped again. Leigh tasted iron on her tongue and noticed she’d bitten herself in her agitated state. The dull throb of her bottom lip helped her focus. Leigh now realized she’d subconsciously rolled the SIM for a reason. She hadn’t taken a moment off in months and to be celebrating right before the deadline just seemed… wrong. Leigh was used to taking action and she couldn’t just sit around waiting for her Rank to plummet. She’d rolled the SIM because she needed to be doing something, even if she wasn’t able to finish it on time. She glanced at the countdown.

RANK: 990

[00:12:28]

Leigh frowned when she saw that her Rank had dropped again, this time it had dropped twice in the span of two seconds. Something was wrong. Top Ranks didn’t just shift around like that. They belonged to the outliers, the geniuses and ridiculously talented. More often than not, this talent was concentrated in one particular area, be it political adeptness, physical prowess, computational skills or any number of other areas. Leigh was amongst a much smaller group of individuals in the top Ranks that had bust their butts off on anything they could put their hands on, scavenging for points whenever possible, in order to make it there. Leigh didn’t even have a home-life that wasn’t monitored by her CHIP; that would mean missing out on all the personal exchange points she got from her rare interactions with her parents. She wasn’t ashamed to say that she exploited their fame to her benefit; the number of political connection points she got from them was huge. But as her Rank kept dropping, she couldn’t help thinking that even that hadn’t been enough.

RANK: 991

[00:12:24]

Her dread was quickly being replaced by panic. A few seconds, ago she’d meant to do the SIM as a form of insurance or maybe even as a way to gain back a couple of the Ranks she’d just lost. Twelve Ranks had seemed to like an impenetrable security blanket, especially with only twelve minutes left on the clock; she’d felt safe. Now, with her Rank dropping by the second, completing the SIM before the Selection cutoff had become a necessity. She was petrified. How had it all come down to this? Where were all these points even coming from?

Leigh didn’t have time to go into a full-blown investigation, but she needed more information before she started the SIM. Going in blind without a clear target would be stupid and potentially harmful. According to the predictive Tofu she ran, she’d be out of the triple digits within the minute and around Rank 1050 by the Selection; strangely, the difference in points between Ranks increased greatly after Rank 1020.

At the same time, she ran a detailed analytical Tofu on SIM AC513. She’d rolled it, and unless she finished it, she wouldn’t be able to roll for another until an hour later. Although there was never any direct information available on the SIMs, on account of people not wanting to give others an advantage over them, Leigh had found ways for her Tofu to work around it. The only publicly available information on SIMs were each individual’s CT and CS, so Leigh had programmed the Tofu to find the correlation between the best scorers. Usually it would find a trait or ability that they all shared or sometimes a skill or field of knowledge that they excelled at. Usually this narrowed down the field the SIM would concentrate on, be it Xenology, Astrophysics, Quill Relations, Planetary Studies and so on. Unfortunately, the results for SIM AC513 were inconclusive; the error margins were too high. They only suggested that Endurance, Speed, Height and or Pattern Recognition could be vital to success.

Leigh clenched her teeth. The results only told her that it would be physically demanding and seeing as Height was included, she guessed there would be some jumping involved. She wasn’t the biggest fan of jumping, but she could do it if she had to. Pattern Recognition on the other hand, basically told her nothing. Most SIMs required Pattern Recognition in some way, shape or form; it was one of the skills the UEG loved to stress the importance of.

If Leigh didn’t manage to finish the SIM on time, she wouldn’t get any points, not for the SIM or any of the Cogs she completed while doing it. The only other option she had was to focus purely on Cogs, foregoing the SIM completely. It was the safer option; however, she’d miss out on the big SIM multitasking bonus and the SIM completion points. If she somehow managed to beat this Year’s best time, she might even get a bonus on top of that. She’d only broken 127 SIM records to date, but she might be forced to get one today. By the way things were panning out, it might be the only option available to her. The Cogs just simply wouldn’t cut it. She needed more points. Her future depended on it; she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she made it this close to the finish line only to stumble and drop the ball.

She still didn’t understand how this could be happening. There were no unknown variables in Leigh’s life; she’d made sure of it. The only explanation she could think of was that people were handing in last-minute extended SIMs. Unlike regular SIMs, they were linked to the events of the real world and often went on for weeks, if not months. They were also very high in point rewards. It made sense that people wanted to get their SIM points in before the Selection; what didn’t make sense though was how close they were cutting it. Leigh had handed in all of her own extended SIMs the previous week. This lack of preparation was not what First Selectees were known for. Then again, maybe they were so prepared that they could push it to the last minute. Leigh shook her head. Ultimately, the reason didn’t matter; she just had to make sure she was on the right side of 1000.

RANK: 997

[00:12:09]

Leigh had spent more time gathering information than she’d intended to. She wanted to be in the SIM before she dropped out of the top 1000; she just wasn’t ready to see it become reality. She needed to go in the SIM, kick some butt and come back with her Rank secured. The predictive Tofu she ran gave her an 89% chance of Ranking in the top 1000… if she broke the Year record of seven minutes and thirty-two seconds… and completed at least twenty A5 Cogs. She could do this, she would do this. Unfortunately 89% did not seem like very good odds to her, not when her future depended on it. She needed to beat the all-time record of six minutes and fifty-three seconds. If she managed to do that, her chances of success were 100%.

Nodding to herself, Leigh hurried to the corner of her Housing Unit where her second suit and SIMsuit were stashed. In its stand-by mode, the suit looked like a nearly black cube; it was made up of 94% nanites and 6% synthetic fiber. It was by far the most nanite-rich, and thus most valuable, object in her possession. Leigh grabbed the cube and smashed it against her chest; a metallic liquid coolness spread over her chest like water and then surrounded her from head to toe, sparing her face. By the time the SIMsuit had finished its three-second boot-up, Leigh had already activated her grav-plate. Without a moment of hesitation, she took a deep breath, held it, and jumped up into the mini-gravitational field. Instead of coming down like the Earth’s gravity demanded, Leigh continued to hover about half a meter from the floor above the grav-plate. The motion was so practiced that Leigh made it seem effortless.

RANK: 999

[00:12:02]

She was in the SIM a second before she hit the quadruple digits.

You have commenced SENSORY IMMERSIVE MODULE AC513.