Josh hesitantly cracked open the door to the Biology room and slowly peeked his head inside. “Mr. Babs, are you in here? I came to get my phone back from you.” Glancing left and right hesitantly, he was half relieved and yet half annoyed, not to see his favorite Biology teacher around.

“Mr. Babs?!” Calling out once again, questioningly, Josh eased into the classroom and chuckled lightly to himself. “Damn, I lucked out,” Josh muttered softly to himself, as he hurried across the empty classroom, over to the teacher’s desk. Seeing his new uPhone sitting to the side of the class attendance book, Josh snatched it up and hurried back out the door. Dashing down the hallways to get on the buses before they left, Josh was whistling at his stroke of luck — he’d gotten his phone back and had managed to avoid having to listen to a half-hour lecture.

Rushing on to the bus, Josh flopped down in the first empty seat, grateful for the fact that he lived on the outskirts of his remote little county, and thus his bus carried relatively few students on most days. As late as he was running, had he been on one of the crowded buses, he might have to try and find a seat with someone else – and generally speaking, as one of the geeky outcasts of the school, that generally led to an unpleasant ride where both he, and his unfortunate seatmate, ended up having to ride in awkward silence, until one of them got off the bus.

As the bus doors creaked closed, Josh tossed his worn-out old backpack into the empty sit across the aisle from him and dug out his phone from his front pant’s pocket. Grinning happily with anticipation – he hadn’t had it all day, ever since Mr. Babs had caught him on it and took it from him in second period – Josh was looking forward to the chance to log back into the latest game that he was addicted to. With just a little more time and effort, he’d be able to move up from number three on the server leaderboards and take top spot!

“Oh…. Shit!” As soon as the screen powered up, Josh realized how wrong he’d been about his luck. He should’ve known better – he’d never been blessed with luck. If he had been, then it would’ve all been bad!

The moment there wasn’t a pop-up asking for him to input his security code, he knew something was wrong. Staring down at the screen, in shock, the only thing that greeted him was a single small icon of the flaming letters WRP, overlaid on a sunburst background, sitting prominently in the top left corner of the screen.

“Dammit,” Josh muttered softly, keeping his voice low so no one would hear him. He’d grabbed the wrong phone! Apparently, someone else had one of the latest models of the uPhone, and he’d grabbed it off Mr. Bab’s desk.

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Josh told himself, whisperingly. “I’ve never seen any phone where the only thing on it, is a single app. This has to be Mr. Bab’s ‘development phone’. I remember he’d told us all that he and Mr. Keith were working on making an app to help students track homework and keep notes and such.

“I wonder what the ‘WRP’ stands for,” Josh mused, to himself. “Work Resource Project? Workload Reminder Program? Weeny Retarded People?” Smirking slightly at himself, Josh hesitated for just a moment, and then pressed the icon to start the program. Mr. Babs was a fairly laid-back teacher – Josh was certain he wouldn’t mind him testing out their project for them – and it’s not like he had anything else to do for the next hour, or so, while winding back and forth across every secondary road on the outskirts of the county.

A few moments later, the whole screen faded to a starburst background, and the words, “World Renewal Project” slowly faded onto the center of the screen. A few moments after that, one of those standard, endless user agreements popped up, covering the screen.

“Not you too, Mr. Babs!” Groaning slightly, Josh began swiping the text upwards, until he reached the bottom of the EULA. “I never would’ve imagined you’d add this type of legal mumbo-jumbo to something you were working on! I expected better from you.” Sighing in disappointment, Josh clicked the “OK” button down at the bottom of the screen. A second later, a blue and white notification popped up in the center of the screen, making a slight pinging sound as it did so.

I’m sorry. You can not proceed with registration and installation, without first reading all of the preceding.

“But I did read it all,” Josh lied, clicking the button once again as soon as the notification faded away.

I’m sorry. You can not proceed with registration and installation, without first reading all of the preceding.

“How the hell do you know if I read it, or not?” Sighing deeply to himself, Josh couldn’t help but smile slightly to himself. Now this was more like the quirky, creative teacher that he knew and loved. Obviously, Mr. Babs and Mr. Keith had written this as some sort of means to annoy the students who always annoyed them.

“Does this work with a timer, or what?” Josh mused, as he stared down at the screen. Perhaps his teachers had taken time to read over the text themselves several times and had timed how long it took them. Anyone who clicked the button before that amount of time had passed, would get the annoying, “Go sit and read your homework” type message that both of the teachers were so famous for.

“But how long of a timer did they set,” Josh questioned. He started to click the “OK” button once again, and then thought better about it. “What if the timer resets every time the button is pressed? I wouldn’t put it past those two to write it in such a way, just to annoy the hell out of all the impatient students out there!” Smirking slightly, Josh could just imagine the brain-dead jocks breaking their phones out of frustration, as they endless clicked “OK”, waiting for the program to unlock.

“Ah well! It’s not like I have anything better to do…” Scrolling back up to the top of the screen, Josh took his time and began to read everything that was written. “Might as well go over it go, since I stole his phone,” Josh told himself, promising to be a good beta-tester and proofreader for his teachers. Maybe they wouldn’t be so upset with him when he returned the phone tomorrow, if he could offer them some nice feedback or editing advice.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

“Wait a moment! Did those guys just steal the Bible for their project?” Laughing slightly, Josh could hardly believe that a teacher could get away with such blatant plagiarism! “I suppose it’d not technically plagiarism though,” Josh corrected himself, “since the copywrite has to have expired on the Bible a looooong time ago!” Turning his attention back to the page, he continued reading.

As time passed, God created man in his image, and said, “It is good.”

But, all was not good, for man was flawed and fell to temptation by the serpent. Edicts were ignored, and man was pushed by being exiled from Eden and cast out to wander lost upon a foreign world.

And still, mankind was unable to learn from the error of their ways. Babylon was destroyed. Egypt was cursed with multiple plagues. The people were forced to wander lost in the desert for forty years, with their leader dying before ever reaching the promised land.

And yet, mankind did not learn. A flood on rain poured down and washed away the people for forty days and forty nights, leaving only a handful of humanity to survive.

And yet, mankind did not learn.

Mankind struggled on, clawing its way ever forward, unlocking the secrets of fire, of war, of atoms, and of genes – but through it all, mankind never found its way any closer back in to the embrace of its creator.

And thus, just like when the plagues occurred, or when the flood washed away the blighted from the world, it is time for the world to be renewed once again.

Welcome to the World Renewal Project!

“Wait… Wasn’t Noah before Moses? How in the heck did they get something that fundamental backwards?” Frowning, Joshua reached across the aisle and tugged a notebook and pen from it. Flipping open to a blank page, he scribbled, “Biblical timeline wrong”, before sitting them down, and picking up the phone again.

“And here goes nothing,” he muttered, clicking the OK button once again.

For several long seconds, nothing happened – the screen didn’t change from what he’d been reading, and the dreaded “you haven’t read this” message didn’t appear. On fact, nothing happened for so long, Josh was getting ready to click the button again, thinking the last hit must not have registered, when suddenly the screen faded out and a pale blue welcome screen slowed faded across the phone.

“Welcome to the World Renewal Project.” A soft feminine voice spoke from the phone, as the words slowly wisped themselves onto the screen.

“One moment please, dear user, while we perform an iris identification authentication,” the woman’s voice gently spoke, while an image of a set of eyes slowly moved back and forth across the screen.

“So that’s how they did it – Iris Recognition Software!” Chuckling lightly, Joshua was quite impressed with what Mr. Babs and Mr. Keith had pulled off. If his guess was correct, their program used the phones in-built camera to scan a user’s face and track the movement of their irises, as they read from left to right on the phone. It was cutting-edge facial technology and wasn’t something which he ever would’ve expected to see two of his teachers implementing on something as simple as a phone!

“User not recognized,” the soft female voice told him, as the screen slowly changed once again to a standard log-in interface.

User Name User Password

“Please stare directly at the screen and plainly state your name,” the soft voice prompted him.

“Joshua Campbell,” Josh answered, faithfully. He was too impressed by what he was interacting with to even think about not doing so. Iris recognition, speech synthesis, and voice recognition – all from an app on a phone, which his teachers were creating! Honestly, he had to admit, his mind was blown – at least, a little bit!

“Checking account records. Please wait for just a brief moment,” the female voice told him, politely, as the screen updated to show his name on the screen.

User Name Joshua Campbell User Password

“There doesn’t appear to be any account associated with Joshua Campbell, at this time,” the lady in the phone informed him, gently. “Would you like to register a new account, under this name, at this time?” The voice asked, sounding almost encouragingly.

“Sure,” Josh told the phone.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite get that. Would you like to register a new account, under this name, at this time? Please say yes or no,” the voice chided.

“Yes. Sure. Whatever.” Sighing, Josh couldn’t help but think that no matter how advanced technology became, in the end, it was still nothing more than a huge pain in the ass. A simple set of old-style “YES” and “NO” buttons would work just as well, without their being any chance for misinput.

“Besides, what about any student with a speech impediment, or who can’t talk?” Mumbling quietly under his breath so the phone wouldn’t pick up on it, Joshua picked up his notebook and scribbled a few more lines of feedback.

“User Joshua Campbell, please stare directly at the screen again, and think your private security password now,” the phone prompted, drawing his attention back to it.

“Wait a moment? Think a private security password? What the hell?” Sitting the notebook back down, Josh turned his attention back to the phone and stared directly at it. What the hell did it mean, think of a password? He could think of a lot of things, but how the heck was the phone going to know it? For example, Boobs covered in Cheetos – he’d think about those.

“Ping!” The phone happily chimed, as the screen updated itself once again.

User Name Joshua Campbell User Password Boobs covered in cheetos

“Is this acceptable?” the phone asked, causing Joshua’s jaw to drop open in shock.

“What the hell?! How the hell?” Blinking several times, Joshua couldn’t believe what he’d just witnessed. ‘Yes’, he thought towards the screen, wondering if it’d be able to replicate the feat he’d just participated in, again.

“Ping! Thank you for registering for The World Renewal Project. One moment, please, while we initialize your user data,” the voice in the phone told him, softly, as the screen slowly faded back out to a solid sky-blue. After a few moments of nothing happening, a new screen slowly faded onto the phone.

User: Joshua Campbell

“And what the hell is this?” Blinking, Joshua stared at the screen for several moments, trying to sort out what might come next. Frowning, he slowly put down the phone and picked up his notebook once again. Scribbling, “Impressive log-in, but needs expanded user-interaction information,” he was trying to best to be a subjective tester.

Putting the notebook back down, Joshua picked the phone back up and tapped across the screen several times, looking for any type of program interaction. Specifically thinking that the name, or dot before it might do something, he tapped them multiple times, but nothing changed. “This really needs some sort of help menu, or better explanation of what to do next,” Josh muttered under his breath.

Staring directly at the screen, Josh felt rather foolish trying to think different things at it. ‘Plus. Open. View. Quit. Kiss my ass. Boobies covered in cheese.’ Wrinkling his forehead slightly, Josh grunted in frustration. Nothing was seeming to work!

Leaning back against his seat, Josh took a moment to look outside and clear his thoughts. They were just passing the haunted old White estate, so he really wasn’t that far from home. From his house to this old wreck, wasn’t any further than about a tenth of a mile, but thanks to the route the bus took, he still had another half hour of travel before he’d be home.

“Exactly what am I trying to accomplish here,” Josh muttered softly to himself, before picking back up the phone, to stare unblinkingly at the screen. ‘Expand user Joshua Campbell,’ he thought at the phone, feeling foolish.

“Ping!” The phone chimed in response and expanded the text on the screen.

User: Joshua Campbell Points Skills/Abilities Items/Gear Titles/Awards

“That’s both damn amazing, and damn lame,” Josh muttered, under his breath. He had no idea how the hell the phone was interacting with specific thoughts of his – that absolutely blew him away -- but an expandable text menu interface? His poor teachers were showing their age here!

Sitting the phone down for a moment, Josh scribbled another note. Needs modern GUI interface for students. We’re not dinosaurs! Picking the phone back up, he stared at the screen once more and thought, ‘Expand All’.

“Ping!” The phone chimed in response and updated the screen once again.

User: Joshua Campbell Points User Points: 10 Companion Points: 10 Skills/Abilities None Items/Gear None Titles/Awards First Participant in World Renewal Project (FCHS) Award: Eternally Loyal Companion Award: Eternally Loyal Companion

“User points? Eternally Loyal Companions? What the hell is all this?” Frowning, Joshua tried to make sense out of what he was looking at. From what little he could remember about Mr. Babs talking about the project they were working on, it was supposed to be something which would encourage the students at Floyd County High School to study more, and which they’d enjoy using.

“In the end, it looks almost as if they’re trying to implement some sort of game to draw the students into it,” Josh mused to himself, before thinking, ‘Spend User Points’.

“Ping!” The phone responded and the screen changed once again.

Skill Acquisition (10pts available) Active/Triggered Passive/Inherent

“So only two items of interest here, huh?” Staring at the screen, Joshua rubbed the side of his face as he pondered the interface. It needed something more to jazz it up, but he wasn’t exactly certain what that might need to be, at the moment. In its own way, the simplicity of the old-style interface was almost charming; nostalgic in its own way, reminding him of some of the old, vintage PCs which his Dad kept in the basement.

‘Expand both,’ he thought, wondering if the system would be able to understand such a command.

“Ping!” Once again, the phone changed to show it’d successful read both his thoughts and his intent.

Skill Acquisition (10pts available) Active Physical Mental Mystical Spiritual Inherent Physical Mental Mystical Spiritual

‘Expand physical,’ Joshua thought, staring directly at the phone.

“Guess not,” he mused, as nothing changed. “It must not be able to tell the difference between the Active and Inactive Physicals,” he guessed. ‘Expand Inherent Physical,’ he thought, fully expecting it to work this time. He wasn’t certain how the hell this phone could read his mind, but Josh was starting to take it as a given and just go with it.

“Ping!”

“Holy shit!” Joshua’s eyes opened wide as the screen suddenly changed and a river of text scrolled down across the screen for several moments. “What the hell is up with all this! What did those guys do, toss in every word in the English language and call it a skill/ability?” Reaching down with his finger, he scrolled the screen up several times, and then slowly began to work his way down it, talking out loud softly as he did so. “Acrobatics… Agility(enhanced)… Ambidextrousness… Breathing(shallow)… Breathing(silent)… Breathing(resistance)… Climbing… Contortion… Dodge… Fire(Resistance)…”

“Just what the hell is up with such a long ass listing? There’s got to be at least a thousand things here, if not more than that, and a player only gets ten points starting out? That’s bullshit!” Sitting the phone down on the seat beside himself, Joshua picked up his notebook and began to scribble out his frustrations.

“And that’s just for one damn skill tree,” he muttered to himself, sighing as he put down his notebook and picked up the phone once again. “Let’s just choose a few of these and be done with it, so I can see what’s next. I can’t imagine any game in the world needing so many different factors in it,” he told himself. “These guys are just really overreaching and have to tone it down quite a bit before they release to the public.”

Running his hands back through his hair, Joshua breathed deeply to help himself focus on the task at hand once again. “So, what in the heck can I take out of this doesn’t sound too whiney or dorky, so Mr. Babs won’t laugh at me when he sees my beta-profile?” Scrolling back up to the top, he slowly began to work his way back down it again.

‘Learn dodge,’ he thought towards the phone, causing it to, “Ping!” Looking down at the screen, he now had 9 points to spend, and the skill Dodge had now changed to Dodge(II). For a brief moment, Josh was temped to spend points to acquire the second rank, but then he thought against it, since there were so many things overall to choose from.

Scrolling on down the list, the next few things Josh chose were all incredibly close to each other, ‘Learn Enhanced Computation. Learn Enhanced Intelligence. Learn Enhanced Memory. Learn Enhanced Computation Two. Learn Enhanced Intelligence Two. Learn Enhanced Memory Two.’

Glancing back at his points remaining, Josh was disappointed to see that he’d spend all ten of his starting points already. “At least it makes it seem like I’m interested in my school studies,” he muttered softly to himself. Apparently, each of the level one skills cost a single character point to get, and the level two skills each cost two, for a total of three each. Three skills at three points each, and one point in dodge, and his starting points were all spent already!

‘Go back,’ Joshua thought towards the screen, though once again nothing happened. ‘Status screen,’ he thought, followed by, ‘View user Joshua Campbell.’ Finally, the phone pinged, and the screen went back to the opening screen.

‘Expand all,’ Joshua thought, staring at the phone.

Companion Points: 10 Skills/Abilities Inherent — Dodge Inherent — Enhanced Computation (II) Inherent — Enhanced Intelligence (II) Inherent — Enhanced Memory (II) Items/Gear None Titles/Awards First Participant in World Renewal Project (FCHS) Award: Eternally Loyal Companion Award: Eternally Loyal Companion

“These guys need to choose a smaller font size, if they’re going to go with this type of menu system,” Joshua muttered to himself, picking up his notebook and writing in it once again. The top of his information had been cut off, as it scrolled up past what the phone could display on screen at a single time.

All his points had been spent, but he still had the two “Eternally Loyal Companions” to choose – though he had no idea what the heck that meant. Putting his notebook back down, Josh glanced outside the bus window and saw he only had a few more minutes before getting home. “Let’s just choose anything,” he told himself. “I don’t want my family seeing this. They’d drive me crazy pestering me about leaving my new phone at school, and bringing someone else’s home!”

‘Choose Eternally Loyal Companion,’ Josh thought towards the phone, causing the screen to briefly flicker and update.

Companion Points: 10 Skills/Abilities Inherent — Dodge Inherent — Enhanced Computation (II) Inherent — Enhanced Intelligence (II) Inherent — Enhanced Memory (II) Items/Gear None Titles/Awards First Participant in World Renewal Project (FCHS) Award: Eternally Loyal Companion Award: Eternally Loyal Companion

‘Wonder Woman,’ Josh thought to himself, smirking slightly. He had no idea what the heck an ‘Eternally Loyal Companion’ was exactly, but you couldn’t go wrong with Wonder Woman. A superheroic amazon demigod who was all the rage currently in the news, movies, and television. Nobody would laugh over such a choice, and if they did, he could blow it off and dismiss it easily enough as, “just goofing around.” Unfortunately, the phone didn’t like that choice, as a deep blue screen popped up over the middle of the other one.

I’m sorry. Wonder Woman can not be found upon this plane of existence. Please choose another Eternally Loyal Companion.

Smirking, Joshua almost laughed out loud. If that wasn’t a perfect example of Mr. Bab’s snarky nature, he didn’t know what was! “Not found upon this plane of existence… Ha!”

‘Bailee Smithton,’ Joshua thought towards the phone. One of the world’s top teen supermodels, nobody would think it was weird to want her as an eternal companion. Unfortunately, the phone once again disagreed.

I’m sorry. Bailee Smithton has been located, but the distance is too great to establish companionship. Please choose another Eternally Loyal Companion.

Once again, Joshua couldn’t help but almost laugh. “Apparently this thing has a database of students who attend our school, and they want us to use one of those names,” Joshua reasoned. “I bet it’s so the teachers can pair us up with the other person quickly, for group projects and such.”

‘Olivia Davis,’ Joshua thought, smirking as he did so. One of the top beauties of the school, Olivia was a very busty cheerleader, and was a shoo-in for Prom Queen. Good grades. Good athletic abilities. Popular. Wealthy parents. All in all, she was one of the annoying somebodies in the school, while he was just a fat, geeky nobody. Josh was certain it’d annoy her to no end to be stuck having to do all her assignments with him, and that made him grin evilly to himself.

“Advantage to being first to sign up,” he chuckled, watching the screen update itself.

Companion Points: 10 Skills/Abilities Inherent -- Dodge Inherent -- Enhanced Computation (II) Inherent -- Enhanced Intelligence (II) Inherent -- Enhanced Memory (II) Items/Gear None Titles/Awards First Participant in World Renewal Project (FCHS) Award: Eternally Loyal Companion Olivia Davis Award: Eternally Loyal Companion

Sure enough, this time things went as expected. As long as it was a student from the school, the app updated without any problem whatsoever.

Choose Eternally Loyal Companion,’ Josh thought again, rushing to fill in the last blank before arriving home, but the phone wasn’t having any of that, as the deep blue warning popped up once again, notifying him that it wasn’t possible.

I’m sorry, choosing a second Eternally Loyal Companion is not possible until the User Operating System is upgraded. Please try again later.

Tucking the phone into his pants pocket, Joshua was smiling broadly as he gathered up his stuff as the bus pulled up in front of his house. Couldn’t choose another until the User Operating System is upgraded! Another classic Mr. Babs moment, which was his way of saying, “Wait until everyone else has logged in and chosen one person to group with.”

The early bird might get the worm, but it can’t keep all the worms for itself.