“Don’t slam the door and take your shoes off if you’ve got mud all over them!” Joshua’s mother’s voice yelled out from the kitchens the moment he stepped into the house.

“Sorry, mom,” Josh apologized automatically, as he used first one foot and then the other to help him step out of both his shoes. Using his feet, he pushed first one shoe and then the other over to the corner of the entranceway, until they were almost in a straight line beside each other. “I’m going upstairs to change real fast,” he yelled back at her, moving to take the steps up towards his room two at a time.

“Don’t forget, you still need to carry in the firewood and feed the animals this evening,” his mom yelled back, naggingly at him.

“I know… I know… Just like every other evening,” Josh muttered under his breath. Honestly, sometimes he couldn’t believe his mother. Splitting and bringing in the wood, and feeding the animals, had been his evening chores since he was a child. You’d think that after ten plus years of doing the same thing over and over, his mother wouldn’t feel the need to nag him about them. “Besides,” Josh muttered moodily to himself, “why can’t she do them before I get home? All she does is sit around and watch soap operas all day.”

Snorting derisively, Josh tossed his book bag onto his bed and started stripping out of his school clothes. Rummaging around in his dresser, he quickly slipped into an old pair of comfortable sweatpants and hurried outside to get started on his work. Thanks to long ass route the school bus took to and from his house, Josh only had a little time left before it got dark outside and it was always a pain to have to work with nothing but the outside lights on the house to see by.

“Sucks to live out here in the middle of no damn where,” Josh mumbled to himself, as he hurried over to the woodpile and sat an block of wood on the splitting block. Grabbing the nearby maul, he slammed it into the block he was trying to split, all the while thinking once again about how unfair life was sometimes.

His parents had purchased their home at the end of the world, several years before he was born. Sitting right at the county line of a very rural county, the place was literally in the middle of nowhere, as far as Josh was concerned, and made life a real pain in the ass for him.

Since he was one of the people who lived the furthest from the school, he was always one of the first to get onto the school bus, and one of the last to get off. In the spring months, it wasn’t so bad, but during Winter, it sucked like hell. Having to get up at 7:00 in the morning was always difficult to do, and having to go outside and wait on the bus in the freezing dark at 7:30 was a hellish torment that he’d endured for all his school life. Kids who lived right in the town, and close to the school, got to sleep in for at least an extra hour each day, while he was stuck out in the cold and dark, absolutely hating whichever jackass came up with Daylight Saving’s Time.

It was still dark out when he got on the bus, and thanks to DST, it was almost dark when he got home. His whole existence, in the wintertime, thanks to Daylight Savings, was basically “go to school in the dark” and “come home and do chores before it gets dark”, followed by “homework before bed”.

Sighing, Joshua pounded out his frustration at the woodpile – like usual – as the evening got ever darker and night slowly descended on his corner of the world.

Supper was, as supper always was any more, for Joshua. Neither he, nor his mother, ate anything until his father came home from work. Supper was always supposed to be “family time”, but in truth it was anything but.

Never a giant of a man, several years back, Joshua’s father had been a lean, wiry sprout of a fellow, with nary an ounce of fat on him. However, thanks to a promotion to become the lead foreman at the construction job he worked at, and the ever persistent passage of time, he was now an older, balding gentleman, with a spare tire hanging across his belt. Time, and a sedentary lifestyle, hadn’t been the kindest to Joshua’s father, and by the time he got home from work, all he wanted to do was kick back and relax in front of the television with a beer.

And, since Joshua’s mother was constantly doing her best to try and help ease his stress and help him relax after work, she spent much of supper time on her feet, going back and forth from the kitchen to the living room. One trip to make certain he had a drink. Another to bring a knife. A trip to grab a soda — Joshua’s father never drank more than a single beer in one sitting — and then another trip to carry his plate into the kitchen, rinse it, and then take it back with dessert on it.

A few years back, before his father’s promotion, supper was a sacred time where they waited on Joshua’s father to get home, then they all ate and talked together, and everyone shared all the details and concerns for their day. Now, all that was left of that special tradition was waiting on his father to get home before eating. Today, like most days, Joshua waited on his father to get home, then he fixed himself a plateful of food — hamburgers and French fries this time — before going up the stairs to his room to eat it.

“Is everything done outside?” Like usual, his father’s voice called up the steps after him.

“Yeah, pops! I’m going to get started on my homework.” Slamming his bedroom door behind him, Joshua went over and plopped down in the old office chair in front of his PC. One quick bite from his burger, and then he was logging in to his favorite game. Without the needed extra time in game, on his phone, there wasn’t any way he was going to move up in rankings, but at the very least, he didn’t want to fall any lower in them.

“Reeee… Reeee… Reee…” Joshua’s phone woke him early the next morning, causing him to groggily fumble to hit the snooze button on it. “Ugggghhhgg…” Groaning like he was dying; Joshua pulled his covers back up over his head and rubbed the dried and crusted matter out of his eyes. A sharp stinging pain flared up in his left eye, causing him to wince as tears slowly leaked out the corner of it.

“Aww, shit. Just my luck, I got a sty in the eye.” Holding his left eye, Joshua stumbled up out of his covers and over to his dresser to see how bad it looked. Squinting, he forced his left eye open and stared into the mirror. There, hovering almost translucent between him and the mirror, was a dark blue notification window.

Welcome to the World Reclamation Project. User OS has been successfully upgraded to version 13.0-beta.

“Welcome to the World Reclamation Project,” Joshua read, slowly, still squinting from the ache in his left eye. “User OS upgraded, my ass,” he snorted, waving his hand in front of his face, trying to touch the message which hovered so diligently in front of his eyes. As expected, his fingers didn’t feel anything — not even when they passed completely through the translucent message.

“What the hell is going on here?” Frowning, Joshua blinked repeatedly, closing first one eye and then the other, before shaking his head in disbelief. “I must still be sleeping,” he tried to tell himself, as he realized the display was only visible while his left eye was open.

“Josh! You up yet? It’s almost time for the bus,” his mother called up the steps.

“I’m up,” Josh yelled back, startled by how normal everything was, except for the window hovering in front of his vision. “I’ll be down in just a moment!”

Rushing over to grab up his discarded pants which he’d changed yesterday, Joshua hurriedly dug through all the pockets looking for the phone he’d picked up off Mr. Bab’s desk yesterday. “Come on,” he half whined. “Where are you?” Once he had proven beyond a doubt to himself that the phone wasn’t in them, Joshua tossed his pants to the corner and began rummaging through the rest of the pile of discard clothes, hoping it’d fallen out somewhere.

“Joshua! Breakfast is ready! Hurry up if you’re going to eat this morning.” His mother’s voice echoed up the steps, causing Joshua to curse softly and regret setting his alarm so late every morning. How the hell could he ever have predicted something like this happening in his life?!

“Coming!” No matter where he looked, Mr. Bab’s phone wasn’t anywhere to be found. “Dammit!” With time running short, there wasn’t anything left to do, except get ready for school and try and sort things out later. Josh certainly wasn’t going to go downstairs and tell his mom anything like, ‘Mom, I used my phone in class yesterday, so my teacher took it away from me. In return, I stole his off his desk at the end of class and lost it. And, oh yeah, before I forget, I’m now seeing imaginary, transparent windows floating in the air in front of my face, telling me I’m now an upgraded human.’

Hell, before he did that, he might as well just go downstairs and say, ‘Blabbity blah bloo! My mind went a poo poo! Call the psychoo! Blibbity bobbity boo!’ It probably wouldn’t sound any crazier than the truth!

Quickly yanking his casual clothes off, Joshua hurried into the first clean set of clothes he could yank out of his drawers and rushed downstairs. “Sorry,” he lied to his mom, “I almost overslept.” Grabbing a plate of sausage, eggs, and toast, Joshua gulped down his food, almost without chewing, and then washed it down by quickly chugging several deep gulps from the jug of orange juice sitting on the table.

“Don’t drink out of the carton!” Slapping him upside the back of her head with the flat of her hand, Joshua’s mother instantly admonished him for his barbaric behavior.

“Sorry,” Josh apologized again, before getting up and wiping his mouth with the side of his arm. “I’m off,” he waved, as he hopped up from the chair, grabbed his pack, and dashed out the door. After working his way down the driveway, he didn’t have to wait long before the bus showed up right on time, the same as always. Getting on, he quickly sat down in the first empty seat and tried to sort out exactly just what the heck was going on with his eye.

It just didn’t make sense. Honestly, nothing was making any sense, anymore. Technology which could read your thoughts simply didn’t exist in the world. At least, not that he’d ever heard of. Exactly why the heck had he been so accepting of what was going on yesterday? Why didn’t warning bells go off in his head? What had happened to the phone? And what the heck had happened to him?

Upgraded to a different human OS version? And why version thirteen? Had there been twelve versions of humanity already? Maybe… If one started counting at the caveman level, and counted each evolution from big browed Neanderthal to the current Homo Sapiens, would there be a dozen evolutions?

Josh honestly had no idea, and he had no clue who to turn to for answers. To be honest, he wasn’t even certain anymore if that was even Mr. Babs’ phone he’d grabbed yesterday. After all that had happened, it honestly didn’t seem as if it was something which even belonged in this world. Was it some form of alien technology? Or was it, as that small intro he read yesterday suggested, some sort of divine instrument?

World Renewal… Noah and the flood… New versions of humanity…

GAH!! It made Joshua’s head hurt, just trying to think about it. He hadn’t even graduated high school yet! How the hell was he supposed to have any answers! For half the ride to school, Joshua just sat and stared forlornly out the window as the bus picked up other students.

Finally, unable to ignore the notification hovering in front of his left eye any longer, Josh tried his best to stare directly at it, while thinking, ‘Notification close.’

“Ping!” A slight audible ping sounded in his ear, and the notification window closed, leaving a much smaller “WRP” icon hovering at the far edge of his vision.

‘WRP close. WRP end. WRP quit. WRP hide.’ Joshua thought several things towards the icon, without any changes, until he told it to hide, which caused it to ping softly once again in his ear, before fading away completely.

‘Well, at least everything kind of seems normal now,’ Joshua thought, trying to comfort himself. For an upgraded human, he certainly didn’t feel any different than before. And, since no one had been screaming, pointing, or yelling, “MONSTER!!”, it was fairly obvious that he didn’t look any different than before.

‘Maybe I should just pretend like nothing’s happened,’ Joshua thought, to himself. ‘If that wasn’t Mr. Babs’ phone, then whose was it? What would they do to me for stealing and losing it? I think I’ll just play it cool until I can learn more about what’s going on,’ Joshua convinced himself.

‘WRP open. WRP start. WRP resume. WRP expand. WRP show.’ Once again, Joshua thought a flurry of commands in his head, with none of them having any effect until he imagined the word, “show”. With another “ping” echoing lightly in his ear, the small “WRP” icon reappeared in the corner of his vision and simply hovered there.

‘Open. Grow. Expand. Run. Display. Status. Main menu.’ Joshua concentrated on the icon and tried to focus various thoughts towards it, before finally hearing that ping in his ears as the main menu popped up hovering in front of his eyes.

User: Joshua Campbell Eternally Loyal Companion: Olivia Davis Eternally Loyal Companion:

“There’s more options now,” Joshua whispered to himself. “Heck, I even have options for Olivia now. I wonder what I can pull up about her,” he mused quietly, to himself, before thinking, ‘View Eternally Loyal Companion Olivia Davis.’

The “ping” he’d grown adjusted to hearing rang once again in his ears, and then the menu changed and opened in front of Joshua’s eyes.

Eternally Loyal Companion: Olivia Davis Points Stats/General Characteristics Skills/Abilities Items/Gear Titles/Awards Restrictions/Disadvantages Tasks/Quests

“Several more things in her menu, than what mine had before,” Joshua mused, softly. ‘View stats,’ he thought; his natural gamer-mentality curious about how this “new-human” system might rate them. With a “ping” only he could hear, the menu changed to accommodate his desire.

Stats Strength Agility Endurance Aptitude Luck General Characteristics Appearance Personality

‘Appearance?’ Joshua’s curiosity accidentally triggered the menu option, causing it to ping and stare at the screen in embarrassment. Height. Weight. Breast size. Hip size. Shoe size. Leg length, arm length, finger length, ring size — it was all listed in there, in multiple formats. English (British) measurements. American measurements. Feet and inches, meters and centimeters. Pounds and kilograms. Every aspect of Olivia’s measurements and description was laid out in unadulterated, full detail.

‘Umm… Strength,’ Joshua quickly tried to think of something else. There was so much personal information in front of him, it made him feel like some sort of creepy stalker-pervert freak. With a soft “ping” in his mind, the screen thankfully changed to accommodate his wish before he found himself blushing brightly.

Rather than being a singular stat, like Joshua was expecting, Strength was divided into four different categories – Physical, Mental, Mystical, and Spiritual — with each category followed by a value of ten. For all his gaming experience, Joshua couldn’t help thinking, ‘What’s up with all the strength stats? I’ve never played anything that broke stats down like this before.’

‘Agility,’ Joshua thought, followed by, “Endurance,’ after viewing the screen for a moment, after it changed.

‘They’re all the same,’ Joshua thought to himself. ‘Physical, Mental, Mystical, and Spiritual.’ After spending a few moments thinking about it, Joshua thought he finally understood the system somewhat.

‘Strength (Mental) would probably be like psionics, and work towards one’s ability to mentally attack another,’ Joshua told himself. ‘Agility (Mental) might be like creativity, or the ability to abstractly think outside the box. If I assume mental attacks are possible, it might affect the chance to avoid those. Endurance (Mental) would probably be something like willpower, and affect one’s ability to resist, or endure, such attacks. Aptitude (Mental) probably affects the skillfulness of mental attacks, and the chance to make them work.

‘Four stats,’ Joshua reasoned, ‘for damage, avoidance, resistance, and accuracy, with whatever bonus luck might apply afterwards for physical, mental, magical, and divine abilities and attacks. It’s odd that all of them are the same value of ten though.” No matter how he tried to think about it, he couldn’t come up with a reason why everything would be the same.

‘Unless, of course,’ he reasoned, ‘they’re simply placeholders for something which hasn’t been implemented yet. This is still considered to be a beta version, if you go by the human OS message that popped up earlier.’

‘Regardless, there’s nothing I can do about it now,’ Joshua shrugged silently to himself. ‘Let’s see what else is new. View Eternal Companion Olivia Davis’ Restrictions and Disadvantages.’ With a gentle “ping” in his ear, the screen changed once again.

Restrictions Can not deceive, betray, harm, or disobey Eternal Lord (Joshua Campbell) Bound by WRP-Beta EULA and NDA (336 days) Disadvantages Spiritual Inability (All) Duty (Familial, Matriarchal)

“What the hell?” Whistling under his breath, Joshua couldn’t believe what he was reading. Couldn’t deceive, betray, harm, or disobey him? What did that mean? How absolute was it? ‘If I gave her an order to strip naked and do the hula-hula in the middle of class later, would she do it? If she can’t disobey, that makes her sound more like an eternal slave, than a companion!’

‘WRP hide,’ Joshua thought, causing the translucent window to fade and disappear from the corner of his vision. Leaning his head hard against the cold window of the bus, Joshua remained lost in his own thoughts for the rest of the ride to school.