Boben46: Dude, you have no idea what Max just told me!

MarkOnFire: What happened now?

Boben46: Remember that girl we saw in the lounge? Well she totally got the hots for someone!

MarkOnFire: The one that kept looking at you bunch dicking around?

Boben46: Hey! IT was a game of mercy with our feet! And not us dicking around.

MarkOnFire: Whatever.

Boben46: Anyways, one of us could totally score it

MarkOnFire: Not interested.

Boben46: Come on, at least try to be interested >.>

MarkOnFire: *Sigh* Even if I guessed, it would take me about seven guesses to get it right.

Boben46: Just do it! Never let your dreams be dreams!

MarkOnFire: You, Jack, Shan, Peter, Max, Marston, Jerred?

Boben46: HA! All wrong. >

MarkOnFire: ffs… wait, that only leaves me…?

Boben46: You know what? With how quickly you catch on you might just have a chance with her

MarkOnFire: Would you stop using emotes? And I told you, I’m not interested. Besides, how did Max even find out?

Boben46: He said she asked about us, but mainly about the guy that pretended to be invisible during lunch. Apparently it worked, almost.

MarkOnFire: So Max the soccer player gets rejected again?

Boben46: Pretty much. So when’s the date?

MarkOnFire: I AM not going on a date with anyone.

Boben46: Too bad, all of us decided. We’re not letting you turn into a wizard, magical powers would corrupt you. If you don’t do it, we will record ourselves asking her out for you and post it all over.

MarkOnFire: You wouldn’t… no, you guys totally would.

Boben46: That’s the spirit! Oh yea, her name’s Jennifer. Good luck stud!

Boben46 went offline.

A conversation log between MarkOnFire and Boben46.

********

Rhythmic rise and falling was the sensation I awoke to. Not as good as leaning on a tree, but close- a white void scorched my vision blind after I opened my eyes.

‘Night vision off.’ With the increased sensitivity to light gone, I could take a look around me.

[Ah! You’re finally awake. Took you long enough, was starting to get worried you never would. ‘Been hauling your butt all over the wasteland!] Gash said. However, it did not get me moving, but did get me thinking, ‘why is he carrying me?’

[You going to get down now? Because I can keep doing this but you’ll have to repay the favour.]

Hell no.

‘If you could just stop for a moment, I’d get down.’ ‘Send one meter.’ Gash was more than happy to halt, and crouch down to get me off his back, literally. [You have arrived at your destination, please mind your hands and feet as you exit.] ‘What the heck?’

‘Where did that come from?’ ‘Send one meter.’ While waiting for the reply, I stepped down and relished the feeling of solid ground. The same, bleak landscape devoid of anything but fractured structures and parched dirt as far as the eye can see.

[Not sure, just something I remembered when asking you to get off.] That was a strange thing to remember, but where did he remember it from?

‘Have you said that before?’ ‘Send one meter.’

Gash gave me a look, [No, not counting this one time.]

Another mystery I needed to solve.

‘Here, why don’t I at least help you carry that arm.’ ‘Send one meter.’ Perhaps it was a bit of guilt, but knowing that they decided to carry me for so long it was the least I could do to help.

[Sure.] Gash handed me the spare hand that was dangling over his left shoulder. [Carry that for the rest of our trip and give me about ten percent of your energy and we’ll call it even!]

That’s right, I totally forgot the increased amount of work it took him to carry me the entire time. Meaning, it would be best if Gash relaxes until we find a way to recharge.

‘By the way, why didn’t you wake me up?’ ‘Send one meter. They couldn’t have ignored that option… could they?’

[Hah! We tried, shouting at you did nothing, shoving did nothing as well as a bit of force. If we had water we would have tried that.] ‘Well that explains that.’

[You could probably sleep through a dismantling, not that we’d try it.]

‘Hah, hah, very funny.’ ‘Send one meter.’ With the jokesters finished, I should take a look at the action list to see what else I can do with it, nothing better to do while we are travelling through more wasteland.

‘Command List!’ The blue, see-through list appeared in the centre of my vision once more. I could just see the world beyond it with enough detail to avoid any bumps and holes in the cracked dirt.

‘Let’s see how the allies function works. Add Ally.’ The list of all commands disappeared and a simple crosshair appeared in the centre. I looked over at Gash as he’s the safer bet on this.

[Entity Detected. Add as Ally?]

‘Uh, confirm?’ I watched on to see if Gash noticed anything…

There was a definite response as he came to an abrupt stop and looked around.

‘Did you get some sort of notification?’ ‘Send one meter.’

[How did yo-?] He looked at me.

‘It was me, don’t worry, it's perfectly safe. Tell me what is said.’ ‘Send one meter. Not that I tested this before, but adding an ally shouldn’t be harmful...right?’

[It’s something about someone wishing to add me as an ally to their list and if I’d agree.] After the initial surprise wore off, the three of us resumed our pocket position within the group.

‘So are you going to agree?’ ‘Send one meter.’

[Of course! Accept. Now what kind of benefits will this give? And are you going to send one to Nicks?]

[Ally added. Assign a Name: ]

‘Gash.’

[‘Gash’ added to Allies.]

‘Yea, of course. Just give me a second.’ ‘Send one meter.’

‘Command list, add ally.’

The previous thin blue crosshair appeared in my vision. I centered it on Nicks this time, ‘add ally.’

He did not hesitate for a moment, I could only guess that hearing Gash talking clued him in.

[Ally Added. Assign a Name: ]

‘Nicks.’

[‘Nicks’ added to Allies.]

[Gash, you didn’t mention it asking for first level editing permissions.]

‘What do you mean?’ ‘Send one meter.’ What editing permissions?

[A notification asked if I am allowing an external program to gain first level editing permissions.]

‘I’m not sure what the editing permission is for, but otherwise, I think it went well. Not having prior experience, we should be careful about this, but I should be able to send you guys private messages and detect you within 10 km of me.’ ‘Send one meter.’

For once Nicks’ interest was piqued as he looked over for over a second.

[Test it.]

‘Private message Nicks, Testing 1234321.’

[What are you waiting for?] The message must have went off, so I guessed it was Gash being impatient.

‘Did you get the message?’ ‘Send one meter.’

[Yea, same as when you speak, except it said Markon messaged.]

‘Interesting, so it says who the message came from, which is good I suppose.’

‘I’m going to try the detect one next.’ ‘Send one meter.’ The two of them looked at me but didn’t say anything, their faces not giving anything away.

‘Detect ally: Gash.’ I spoke the command in my mind hoping it would get across. Gash who had been walking in front of me, became outlined in a blue glow, with a small text above his head displaying the distance.

[Gash: 0.8m]

I waited for a bit but the outline didn’t disappear.

[Sooo, did it work?], Gash inquired.

‘Yeah, I tested it out on you this time, you became outlined in a blue edge and a distance displayed above your head. Except it’s not going away.’ ‘Send one meter.’

[That sounds awesome, how’d you do it?] Gash asked.

‘Earlier I was messing around and said command list, then a screen popped up with add ally, private message and detect ally. Don’t you guys have something similar?’ ‘Send one meter.’

I didn’t even notice that all the others stopped moving until I walked right into one of them.

[Watch it!] The same robot shouted.

I backed off and looked around, everyone stood still as a single unit. I did not see anything of interest or danger… ‘shit’.

The duo that had led us was storming their way straight towards me. All the other robots parted before them but I couldn’t even move. As the monk arrived right before me, I could get a closer look at his body. The metal adorning his body was scratched all over and the enormous golden ear-pieces didn’t have the same shine they had before.

[Did you perform an action?]

‘Y-yes’ I stopped myself, not wanting to sound like a complete coward and reset my thinking. ‘Yes.’ ‘Send one metre.’

I couldn’t match the lifeless gaze that bore into me; breaking, I looked at the surrounding robots. They had formed a shabby circle and watched in silence.

[Refrain from doing so without our permission and disable your current one.]

The message came through leaving a complete silence in its wake. ‘Disable what?’ I looked around and it was not until the sign above Gash’s head popped up that I understood. ‘Disable detect ally.’ With the message disappearing without a trace, the monk now stood motionless thirty centimetres in front of me.

‘Understood.’ ‘Send one meter.’

Satisfied, he turned and left without making a noise. Not a crunching sound beneath his feet nor the slight whirr of motors that came from the others came from him. I was left surrounded by the other robots as he walked away.

With the commotion over, the others bunched back into the their groups, but they all left more space between me, Gash and Nicks.

[Dude, what did he tell you?]

‘You mean you didn’t hear?’ ‘Send one meter.’

[Nothing! He just approached and stared at you for a minute straight. I could feel my motors lock up just trying to see underneath his hood.]

‘He asked if I performed a command and not to do it again.’ ‘Send one meter.’

[That’s not so bad in that case.]

[Actually it is. If he could tell you used the command, then others will be able to. You said that the detection range is 10km, then it goes both ways. Same as a tracer.]

‘Going both ways, tracer….what is that?’

‘What do you mean?’ ‘Send on-.’

[What’s a tracer? And what do you mean both ways?] Gash asked Nicks befor I could.

[It means that if they are able to, others can detect you within 10km as well. A tracer is a bullet that leaves a trail as it moves. This shows you where it went, but tells the enemy where it came from.]

‘That makes sense, but where did he hear of a tracer?’ And if I asked I doubt he would know, much like Gash. We continued to travel the lifeless land. All excitement and wonder of the first day had worn off and it became a monotone chore.

At first I debated whether I should use the other commands, worrying if they might notice. However, the inescapable boredom trumped over the fear of them detecting anything.

‘Command List’

I scrolled past any that seemed like they could alert them and stopped on the final one.

Create New

Open a console to create a new command.

‘Create New.’

[Error: Access Denied. You have zero out of three (0/3) complete tasks. Do you wish to proceed? Yes/No]

‘Access denied? By whom? Didn’t the monk override the controls so I’m fully in control of my body?’

Either way, it would not hurt to see what these tasks are. ‘Yes.’

An enormous window filled up my vision, it was a translucent, light-blue with white text on it. Anywhere there was no text, I could make out the ground with enough detail to keep walking. I got to reading the actual information.

[Task 1: Crash Course]

[Read the following information, trace the examples and complete minor modifications. A test will be conducted at the end.]

The message persisted for a few more seconds before being replaced by a wall of text; it was enough to make me look away only to be horrified when it tracked my vision.

Once the initial shock wore off, I began to study the contents.

‘Programming 101: Since this is a condensed course for reasons you will either figure out or be told about later, we skip the elaborate descriptions because you should know them all by know. Without further ado, here we go:

The first thing you want in your head are variables, they are the x and y’s of algebra, without them, there’s no point in coding…’

Variables? Sounds familiar...aren’t they for representing data or various information types?

‘...you got the primitive types that everyone should know: boolean, integer, float, and char. In their respective order, those can store true or false, an integer value, a decimal value and a single character. Integer and float have different kinds for memory management and other minor reasons but you will learn those on your own. Chars are…’

As I kept reading all the information there was no strain to understand it. In fact, it felt like reading a book for the second, third or fourth time. Heck, I may as well have written it myself. But again, how would I have known this information before? I haven’t encountered it anywhere…

‘...now what you want to do with those variables is shove them into something called objects. Much like you a robot, and those around you are robots, you have similar characteristics. Like arms, legs, a brain of sort and so on. An object would also have certain variables present in them, such as a string for a name…’

There was no way I wrote this, but the way it refers to me and my situation with such precision, it’s as if someone created this for me, knowing what would happen.

‘...With that out of the way, next you have to worry about visibility; you don’t want every robot to share the same arm or everyone being able to access each other's mind right? In which case you have to use various modifiers to achieve the desired result…’

I stopped reading for a moment and started bobbing my head at awkward angles to see past the text and get a good look around. Satisfied that nothing changed and we were still walking, I resumed the lesson.

‘...another important component you need to understand is data structures. Just like the array in previous examples that holds a certain amount in certain locations (indexes), there are more complex options to fit your needs. Some basic ones include linked-lists, binary trees, stacks and queues…’

I’m not sure how long I was reading for, time became a forgotten notion as I soaked all of the information until there was nothing left. It went on to cover sorts and then something called the big O’notation. Odd name, but it mattered little.

[You have reached the end of the course, begin the first task? Yes/No]

‘The heck? I didn’t spend those hours for nothing, yes!’

[Complete the following questions within an hour.]

Like the ones before it, the message remained in the same spot for a while before countless multiple choice questions flooded my screen.

Which of the following is a mechanism that allows several objects in a class hierarchy to have different methods with the same name? a) Aggregation b) Polymorphism c) Inheritance d) None of the above Object that collects data on request rather than autonomously is known as a) Active Object b) Passive Object c) Multiple instance d) None of the above

I stopped myself from skimming ahead after the first two, with the time limit there was no point in wasting time. The questions individually were not difficult but being forced to answer two a minute spiked the difficulty.

Unfortunately, I did not realize this until completing the first ten and it switched to the next page and said, 10/120 finished, which took me seven minutes; two more than allowed. Despite their numbers, no two questions felt similar or gave the answer to another. Not that I could flip back to the previous ones anyway.

This kind of pressure brought an uneasy feeling, almost a throwback to something I went through numerous times, but could not remember when or where, much like everything else I seemed to remember.

Regardless, I kept answering them without double guessing myself and finished with a spare five minutes remaining.

[You have finished with a score of 109/120. Acceptable.]

‘Acceptable? With each question worth just under 1%, 11 wrong gives me about 90%! Who the heck wrote this sh-’

[Your progress has been saved. Do you wish to proceed to the second task? Yes/No]

If my progress is saved…I should come back to the real world first. ‘No.’

The message vanished and my view returned to normal. I looked around for Gash or Nicks, but they were nowhere to be found.