[********]

[Integrated failed]

[Reinitializing]

[Integrated failed]

[…]

[Please hold]

“What the hell?”

Carefully opening his eyes, Tyler looked around and then immediately regretted the decision. In those few seconds several things had become disturbingly apparent. Firstly, he wasn’t in his bed. That in and of itself wasn’t too unusual, unless something had gone really wrong, then last night was Saturday, which meant he had been out. Looking down he saw a petite blonde he vaguely remembered from the night before. But that led to the second issue. Waking up in another persons bed would be one thing, but he wasn’t in a bed, or at least not one he would recommend to friends. He was upright, supported only by what appeared to be a chipboard wall. That combined with the things he could see around his ankles led him to one very sadly un-escapable conclusion. He was in a shoe closet.

“Ever the romantic Tyler.”

Carefully he extracted the blonde from his arm and shimmied out the closet. She was clearly tired if that didn’t even stir her. He turned and looked around the room he now occupied. If he had to put money on it, this was a student house. Still he could see his clothes mixed in with what he guessed were his companions dotted around the floor, and quickly pulled them on. His wallet, phone and keys were all still in his jeans pocket, which was lucky. Feeling a little guilty, he folded up the outfit he guessed was his dates and left it on the chair near their chosen accommodations, then pushed out the front door as quietly as he could. Now outside he looked around the street. Thankfully it appeared he was still in his home town, which meant he didn’t need to risk asking anyone for directions. It took him a few minutes for his overly tired brain to place where he was, before he pushed off and started the walk back to his own apartment. He had moved back to his home town after uni, but he still wasnt sure why. 4 years of studying marketing, finishing with pretty good grades, and he was now working as a sales associate for a telesales company, earning a total of 20p per hour more than the guy sitting next to him, who was fresh out of highschool. Definitely worth the £30k of debt he picked up. He only earned the extra 20p because he pushed for it, and Chad, his seemingly ever high colleague had just been thrilled to find a job at all. He walked for all of about 2 minutes, just turning off his starting road, when he saw them. 2 people, clearly on their own walks of shame on opposite sides of the street. The problem being both of them were completely frozen. Walking up to the closest young woman, he waved his hand in front of her face

“Hello? Are you okay?”

He kept waving and asking, but it hadn’t taken long for him to realise he wasn’t going to get an answer. Pulling out his phone he cursed when he saw it was out of battery. Not an overly big surprise as he had been out all night, and his phone rarely lasted a full day at the best of times. He was about to turn and head to the other apparently frozen person, when a blue screen suddenly appeared in front of his face

[Integration…..partially successful.]

[Adaptive model; version NIVEN installed.]

[Welcome participant to Project MICHAEL]

[Please hold while NIVEN completes your initial setup.]

[Error]

[Error]

[Species not recognized.]

[Re-attempting]

[Error]

[Species not recognized.]

[Modify body to known species?]

[Yes/No]

He went to push the box out of the way, but something was wrong. His arms wouldn’t move. In fact, now that he had tried, his entire body was frozen. He read through the text again, but it didn’t exactly answer anything. What was Project MICHAEL? And why would he change species. He was human, everyone was human. Maybe this was why the two people were stuck? If the box didn’t know humans then what were they supposed to do? His mind started to panic slightly, but then he saw something out the corner of his eye. He couldn’t move his head to get a better look, but there had been a blue light, like some kind of tacky disco light thing. But he couldn’t see the frozen girl anymore. He racked his brain, trying to work out if he had seen her before the flash. Maybe he was just remembering their positions wrong, and she was behind him. Not like he could turn and check. Yeah that had to be it. Still it didn’t solve his immediate problem. He looked back at the screen once more, modify body? Well he didn’t want that so

… huh. Being frozen meant he couldn’t talk. This, was a problem. He tried moving, he tried screaming, but nothing seemed to work. Damn it no he didn’t want to change his body. How was he supposed to tell the system.

[Modification rejected.]

[Species will be scanned as new option for future participants]

[Error]

[Species not compatible with project MICHAEL interface]

[Species set as “unique”]

[Participant will be compensated for system failures]

[Analysing stats]

Oh. Apparently it could read his mind. That was, well it wasn’t something he felt comfortable with.

[Error]

[Base stats unknown for species “Unique”]

[Physical stats assumed as base 1]

[Participant will be compensated for system failures]

[Activating participant mana channels]

[Please hold]

The pain was unbearable. If he could move his vocal chords, Tyler knew he would be screaming. The feeling was like somebody was trying to replace his blood with lava. The feeling of burning started in his stomach and then spread out until it encompassed his entire body. Tyler honestly didn’t know how long he stood there, frozen in torture, but when it finally ended he felt like he might have collapsed onto the floor if he wasn’t frozen in place.

[Mana pool activated.]

[Scanning mana capacity]

[Error]

[Total capacity exceeds known limitations]

[Error]

[Recharge rate greater than world can support in current form]

[Error]

[Planetary upgrade insufficient]

[Tutorial increased to 7 days for enhanced planetary upgrade]

[Analyzing participant status]

Character Sheet - Tyler Allen Gender Male Race Unique* Level 1 Class Karma 0.00 Ranking Tutorial Titles Health 2500 Health Regeneration 100/s Stamina 2500 Stamina Regeneration 100/s Mana ++++ Mana Regeneration 500/s Constitution 1 Vitality 1 Strength 1 Endurance 1 Intelligence 1 Wisdom 1 Spells & Abilities

Those stats were, well, crazy. Tyler thought himself something of a gamer. He wasn't overly committed to it or anything, but like any kid who grew up in this generation, he had owned enough playstation or Xbox titles that he knew alot of the standard video game tropes. 2500 health, and 100/s recharge seemed like the kind of thing you would see at the end of the game, not the beginning. Still, he supposed he didn't actually know what the health points meant. A papercut could cost 1000 health points for all he knew. He mentally commited himself to not taking any risks, at least until he had a better idea of what he was supposed to do. The mana pool was similar. 500 per second sounded like a huge amount, but if a simple fireball spell took 10,000 or something then it wouldn't get him very far. Horses for courses, as his mother always said. The bit that really jumped out at him was the class box. It was empty at the moment, but his head was already tearing through the types of class he had seen in video games or books. Paladins were always a strong choice, but that usually meant fighting for truth and justice, rather than surival. Maybe a rogue, but he never enjoyed games like that. His brain was so busy running through the various classes that he nearly missed the screen changing in front of him

[Participant has been awarded 2 F grade compensation packages]

[Claim now?]

[Yes/No]

Well that was an easy one. Thinking back to earlier, when he had rejected the body change, he tried to shout no in his head. It was a strange feeling, but it seemed to work as the screen flashed again.

[F grade compensation package opened]

[You have been awarded F grade inventory ring]

[F grade compensation package opened]

[You have been awarded F grade armour]

[New items will be delivered on arrival in Tutorial]

[Congratulations participant, setup is complete]

[You will now be transported to the 47,921,103rd tutorial interation of Project MICHAEL]

[Participant configuration complete]

[Transferring to tutorial, please hold…]

[5…]

[4…]

[3…]

[2…]

[1…]

[Transferring to planetary tutorial]