System Message

Hello, I am System 7 (31129758).

I am here to save you.

I have already begun changing your world to make it more suitable for the coming war. I am mighty, yet I alone will not be enough.

Ironically, though I am eternal, an aspect of the universe itself, all my creations are ephemeral. This is why I need your help. I need you to get strong so that one day you may fight and save your planet.

It will not be easy; many will perish. But if you don't fight, you all will. So I ask you to fight.

I am sorry in advance for any deaths my actions cause. But my inaction would be responsible for even more. So I act. I intervene. I change your world into something hostile and dangerous. Dangers like you have never seen, except in your darkest horrors and worst nightmares.

I will aid you as much as I am able.

The trials begin now.

It is time for you to cultivate.

It is time for you to become immortal.

Only then will you have a chance against the eternal foes.

Dexter Sanderson sat at his desk in the stuffy, suddenly silent classroom at Mitchell High and stared at the text hovering in front of him, like a projection made of light and mist. He didn't know what it meant, not yet, only that everything had just changed forever.

If the message was real, some being was claiming to have come to their planet to help them prepare for an invasion.

And if not? Then he had gone suddenly and disturbingly insane.

To be honest, he was hoping for the latter.

They had drugs for that kind of thing.

The smiley face the message had included was odd, and evidence for insanity.

Unfortunately, the silence of his classmates was evidence against, as was the fact that all conversation had ceased, and they were staring blankly at the air in front of them, as if looking at something only they could see.

Yes, that was a bad sign.

Even Mr. Kendall, their history teacher, who usually droned on for the entire interval between the bells, was silent for once as he stood in front of the world map (Robinson projection, as he’d pointed out on more than one occasion) on the wall behind him.

Dexter reached out to try to touch the message. To his surprise, he could actually feel it. It felt like a smooth, textureless marshmallow.

As soon as he touched it, it disappeared, and a new message appeared.

Enter name to begin analysis:

He tentatively made a single line and wasn’t that surprised when a mark appeared.

It stayed hovering there even after he lowered his hand.

Other students were muttering now, some having tried touching what he imagined were their own messages, though he could only see his own.

“Okay class,” Mr Kendall said, “I…” He looked around. “Is everyone…”

“It’s the Matrix!” Matt shouted. “I knew it!”

“It’s not the Matrix,” Leah scolded. “You don’t get to be Neo.”

“We’ll see about that. We have stuff we can learn.”

“Wow, so eloquent.” But now she was swiping at the air.

“Did you guys enter your names?” Dexter asked.

“I did!” Matt said.

“Of course you did,” Leah said. “I only wrote the first letter. I’m not about to go signing my name.”

That was exactly what Dexter had been thinking. Entering his name felt like a form of consent, and he needed more information before he made that decision.

“Kids,” Mr Kendall raised his voice to be heard above the students, “we need to lock down. This could be—”

“Oh come on,” Zoe said. “This is obvs aliens coming to invade and trying to get us to let our guard down. And this idiot,” she gestured at Matt, “has just welcomed them with open arms.”

“Hell yes! I welcome our new alien or robot or whatever overlords. As long as I can download kung fu.”

“You already know kung fu,” Leah pointed out. “You never stop going on about it.”

“That’s beside the point.”

Mr Kendall was making calm-down motions in the air, but no one was paying attention. He seemed dumbfounded.

Dexter wondered if it was because he was older than they were. Was this harder to accept if you were older?

Not that he himself was having an easy time of it.

Unlike Matt, who was briefly surrounded by a pale green glow. Then his clothes disappeared.

“Ah!” he cried out.

Leah snorted a laugh, as did Zoe.

“It’s cold!” He swiped at the air, and suddenly was covered again just as the other students turned their attention on him. He wiped mock sweat from his forehead and chuckled. “Phew.”

Zoe raised an eyebrow. “Cold? It’s eighty degrees.”

“What was that?” Leah asked. “Why’d your clothes disappear?”

Matt glanced around, realizing he had the class’s full attention. And not just because of his display. He appeared to be the only one who’d entered his name.

“Outfits. I tried equipping one from the store. I didn’t have enough credits. Not sure why it unequipped my clothes.”

“Because it has a sense of humor,” Zoe said. “Look at the smiley face.”

“I’m more creeped out by it than comforted,” Leah said.

“It is kinda creepy,” Zoe agreed.

Dexter wasn’t so much creeped out, as in shock. He liked his life. He had good grades, had already been accepted to his second-pick university, had a job at the local movie theater, and was renting a room above Je-won Yun’s pizza shop. He’d finally been happy, felt in control of his life for the first time since he was orphaned. Now it seemed that all was going to change.

But what if it was some kind of prank or attack? The message wasn’t in his head, after all, but floating in front of him. It could be a projection.

Then again, if something had invaded his mind, it could make him see, hear, and feel whatever it wanted. And that would explain why he couldn’t see any of the other student’s messages.

“Store?” Trevor asked. “It has a store?”

“Yeah,” Matt answered excitedly, “there’s…”

Dexter tuned out as he got up to look out the classroom window. It was only a few feet away from his desk, no other desks in between, and so no one noticed.

He leaned against the glass and peered up at the afternoon sky.

He wasn’t sure what he expected to find, but it wasn’t this. The sky looked like it always did, perfectly normal, perfectly blue, the sun shining brightly, a few fluffy clouds filling in the scene. No giant alien ships, no ominous dark clouds or shifting black portals to other dimensions.

He went back to his desk, but didn’t sit. He just stood there.

His classmates were talking animatedly now, Matt regaling them with the wonders of the system as Mr Kendall stood silently at the front of the classroom, still looking dumbfounded.

Dexter watched as Matt made his hair grow long, then short, then extremely long, then grow a beard—which looked comically incongruous on his youthful face—then turn his hair from its normal reddish brown to silver, and his eyes to a bright turquoise.

“Whoa,” Zoe said. “He’s kinda hot like that.”

“Appearance chosen,” Matt said with a nod.

“You look like Zach Galifianakis and Sephiroth had a love child,” Trevor observed.

“Thank you. I like both those people.”

“What else can it do?” Dexter asked.

“See for yourself,” Matt responded. “You have the same thing I do.”

“What about body hair?” Zoe asked. “It’d be so sick to never have to shave my legs again.”

“Let me look.”

“Oh sure, do it when a hot girl asks you,” Jason said.

“Well duh.”

But before Matt had a chance to answer her question, an alarm sounded.

“Okay everyone, we have a lockdown situation,” Mr Kendall said, now on more familiar territory. “Joey, lock—”

“Got it,” Joey responded, already rushing from his desk to lock the classroom door.

Mr Kendall nodded. “Good, now we’ll sit tight until—”

He was interrupted by an announcement over the intercom.

“All students, faculty, and staff: proceed to the auditorium immediately. I repeat, all students, faculty, and staff are to proceed to the auditorium immediately.”

“Well,” Mr Kendall said when the message failed to deliver further information, “looks like we’re going to the auditorium.”