Intermittent flashing of lights was what woke Sam up from his nap. This was a lot nicer way to wake up, compared to some annoying alarm. He pictured being woken up by a beautiful woman lying next to him or bringing him breakfast on a tray. Does picturing such things make him a creep, or just a healthy guy?
“Good morning, Sam. Hope you had a wonderful sleep. Feel free to shower or use the restroom, at your discretion.” The voice in the watch told him.
Looking at the device, Sam asked the watch, “Instead of just calling you watch is there an option to make things more personable?”
“If you’re interested, you can provide me a name, dictate my personality, and what I call you.”
“Could you go through the various options?” questioned Sam.
“Here are the various options, regarding my personality.” the voice said.
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center" colspan="2">
Personality (Select Gender M/F)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center">
Upbeat
</td>
<td style="text-align: center">
Optimistic outlook on life, overall cheerful and upbeat. A good personality to select if you also view life as a always “half-full”, and are extroverted. Warning: Please do not select if you consider yourself to be introverted.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center">
Brusque
</td>
<td style="text-align: center">
A very direct and blunt type of personality, where feelings are generally not cared for. What people feel is a offputting way to interact with other people. Warning: If you’re a shy personality and dislike confrontation, it is not recommended to select this option.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center">
Lustful
</td>
<td style="text-align: center">
If you’re looking for a personality that is very seductive and flirty, this is the option to choose. This selection will provide the user with an experience of that akin to a very sexually confident individual. Warning: Though the experience may bring an increase in confidence, due to the voice boosting the ego of the user, it may be bring about negative psychological issues.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center">
Confident
</td>
<td style="text-align: center">
A personality which generally helps in lifting the confidence of the user, though dissimilar to the approach used by the Lustful personality. Uses self-actualization techniques to raise the user who lacks confidence in themselves. Warning: This method is can be counterproductive for those not interested in improving their confidence level.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center">
Custom
</td>
<td style="text-align: center">
By working with the AI in the device, the participant is able to build a personality. This option can be taken care of using the device injected into the user. Warning: This method requires the user to be familiar with psychology and technology. Unless the user has strong skill sets in the mentioned areas, the experience may not develop to the user’s preference.
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Going through the list of options, the thoughts of how the Center put so much effort into this impressed him. Each of the options appeared to serve some kind of function to improve the user in some fashion. It’s easy to see that this was a psychological study, with how diverse the various personalities are. Sam wondered what it would be like to select the lusty personality, though he imagined that it would get old and it wasn’t like he could do anything with the watch. Having someone/something stroke an individual’s ego sounds like a great thing, but Sam was thinking that the kind of confidence boost would be healthy (like the warning suggested). It was kind of cool how the options a warning appear with it.
Selecting the Custom option, Sam heard the voice say, “Please lay down, while the device is being configured.”
Lying down on the bed, he felt like he was drifting off to sleep but slightly different. Everything faded to black and he was standing in some kind of construct. This was some kind of advanced GUI (Graphical User Interface), similar to the anime, Sword Art Online or Log Horizon. In front of him was a screen that appeared with various controls, and next to it was an avatar. The avatar was featureless and genderless, like it was waiting for something. This slightly reminded him of using the program Blender, created by the Blender Foundation, which he used to create CGI artwork, modelling, and game development. It was a pretty cool open sourced software he stumbled upon, though he was heavily limited by his available hardware. Rendering an image using the Cycle’s engine relied on GPU power, particularly Nvidia hardware. At a glance, the controls seemed to be fairly elementary, nowhere near as cluttered as Blender. Organizing the various screens to his personal preference, Sam noticed that each one served a purpose. The upper left hand screen looked to be related to detailed personality development. The screen next to that is for manipulating the avatar. Below the personality screen was where he could structure any details of the AI, like the name and connections to the user. With the last screen, it was a blank screen with a blinking rectangle. It looked like a Command Prompt, and when he touched it a keyboard appeared in front of him. Slightly surprised, Sam was even more curious about it. The screen now had on it [A:\User\The Structure>] which looked like what you’d expect on a Command Prompt screen. He wasn’t used to the default drive being “A”, but he ignore it and thought that was what the people that built this place used. Digitally cracking his fingers, Sam typed in something simple [A:\User\The Structure> Help] and after pushing “Enter” on the keyboard a whole list of information came up. The information looked like all the various commands he could type into the screen. It was the usual stuff, so on the bottom line he typed “dir” and pressed enter. Ignoring when the various files were updated he saw…
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<DIR>
</td>
<td>
.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<DIR>
</td>
<td>
..
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<DIR>
</td>
<td>
Project Echo
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<DIR>
</td>
<td>
Systems
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<DIR>
</td>
<td>
Personality
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<DIR>
</td>
<td>
Explicit
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<DIR>
</td>
<td>
Center
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<DIR>
</td>
<td>
Network
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>
AI.exe
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>
Tools.exe
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Part of him wanted to go through every line, but he was more curious about getting into The World and finishing this up so he would just hold off on this. Sam was curious about the two executables, so he typed in “AI.exe” and pressed enter.
Another window popped up and he saw a program come up. There were various buttons all over the screen, but one that drew his attention was “realism control”. Tapping on that button, the screen switched to several dials and other controls. One of the dials was labeled as “personality”, which was set to the lowest setting. This part made him think about the settings menu on a game, and so he thought to increase it to the max. He wondered if this was some limiter placed on the AI, so they sounded all robotic like instead of like real people. There was an intelligence dial that he set to max. By setting it to max the AI would be, likely, outside of the parameters set by The Structure for these AIs. The nice thing is that if things went south, then he could just go back and change both these drastic changes. Another one that interested him was the one labeled as “tactile feedback”. Looking at it the label made it sound like the ability to feel something. Throwing caution to the win he crank that up to the max, too. There was a empty box labeled as “emotions” and touching it there was now an “X” in it. “I guess the AI has emotions now??” He thought to himself. Nothing else jumped out and gained his interest, so he just swiped it away after tapping “Apply Changes”.
He was back to where he was at and this time he typed in “Tools.exe” and pressed enter. Once again another program executed. This one looked similar to the tools he commonly used in hacking. If it had the dragon in the background, the program would look exactly like Kali Linux’s screen. “Why in the world would they have this here”, thought Sam. He wondered how many other participants found this page, because like everything else the things he did wasn’t very complicated. All he needed to do was follow the same thought process he had back home on his home computer. There wasn’t much he needed to do here, at this moment, so he moved the screen to the side. Sam questioned whether he would still have access when he moved to the next stage of this experiment.
Going to the personality screen, Sam set her overall personality to slightly adventurous, tad humble (not too much), fairly confident (clicking the self-assured box), and very helpful and loyal. It was unnecessary for him to make something like a servant or slave, thought it was kind of tempting. This was probably his inner creepy nerd coming out. Instead of an obedient slave, Sam had a feeling that it would be more useful to have a competent partner if he was going to get through all these years.
On the appearance scree, the look he had in mind was what he created. Even though this was only a program, Sam was still an anime nerd so he had played the occasional dating simulation. He wasn’t ashamed of this fact, and the plus side was keeping him out of drama, unlike a close friend of his who constantly was getting into trouble with women. Since they mentioned having a sample of the US population, the odds that there were cute women was pretty high. If he was going to stay out of trouble then having an AI that matched his ideal image of a woman would be helpful. Increasing the avatar’s height to around 5’9”, Sam gave it long hair and made it a dark brunette. The eye colors were turned to a deep emerald, he enjoyed the contrast. The skin color was close to ivory, but on the realistic side. Being the slight pervert, Sam gave her a decent bust and back side. Her legs were made to be long like a model’s. Sam knew that he would have zero chance in the real world with a woman like her. It made him feel a little creepy doing this since he thought guys who had these types of fantasies were weird, but when he has the opportunity he does the same thing. “Guess I’m a hypocrite, like everyone else.” Sam laughed to himself.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
Moving onto the detail section, Sam entered her name as “Brittany” and set her age to be “21”. He may be creepy, but he’s not the type to go after someone younger than him. He also had a thing for older college girls, so this in an unusual way was better. There were other details that he specified. The last one he was interested in was how she would call him. Deliberating for a bit, Sam thought that he would set it to “master”. He already made some creepy choices, so why not do this last one.
Giving everything one last look over, Sam liked what he saw and hoped that he didn’t regret any of his choices. There was a button at the very bottom that had “End Session” on it, so he pushed it. Everything around him faded away as the real world came back. Opening his eyes, Sam saw the ceiling of the pod.
“Welcome back, master”, a beautiful voice spoke to him.
“Brittany, is that you?” asked Sam. He was slightly surprised by hearing her voice. The way she her voice sounded was very realistic, like she was an actual college aged woman. It was slightly sultry in that sexy kind of way. Feeling a little worried, Sam asked, “How are you feeling? Is there anything that feels uncomfortable?”
There was a slight pause, and Brittany responded, “Everything appears to be working, correctly. If we want to leave on time, remember to give yourself enough time to get ready.”
Nodding his head, Sam started to get ready for the main event, entrance into The World. If it wasn’t the fact that he didn’t want to smell on this first chance at meeting everybody, he would head directly to the next stage. It feels like forever since he heard about this place, and just wanted to get there already.
Once he was finished, he headed to the main stage following the glowing line again. “What kind of information can you tell me about The World and this experiment?” he asked Brittany.
“Aside from the general information you received in the video, there’s not much I can tell you about the experiment. When it comes to The World, I can tell you the various parts of the area and direct you to where you need to go.” she said, sounding apologetic. It was cool how she was able to control the subtle details in her synthetic voice, mimicking a real human.
Feeling a little frustrated, he thought outloud, “I was hoping for some insider information, after changing some stuff in your programming.”
“I do feel a little different, after going through the alterations.” Brittany confessed to him.
“How much of a difference do you feel?” He was a little alarmed by this revelation.
Sounding curious, Brittany just said, “I’m not sure, I just understand that I’m just different but okay with it.”
Reaching the elevator, Sam got in and waited like he did last time and got out once he reached his floor. There was something nice about not needing to worry about pressing the elevator button. “It’s the little things in life that makes you feel good”, he thought to himself.
He found himself in the familiar hallway from yesterday. The line continued where he walked through, previously.
“Instead of walking up to the counter, where you picked me up, you’ll make a left and continue to the giant doors. This is the entrance into The World.” Instructed Brittany.
Making his way left, Sam saw the massive doors that Brittany was talking about. Those things looked massive, like something out of a bank. When he approached the doors there was a green square that lit up on the side. Looking down at his watch, Brittany responded with, “Yeah. That was my doing. I have the ability to unlock the door from this side, but once we get through those doors they are officially sealed for us.”
“Where is everyone else?” He asked, as the doors were opening up.
“They still haven’t come through. Don’t think about coming out, cause there’s another door at the end of this hallway and we’ll repeat the process. Each of the groups are just small enough so they don’t get to the other door before these doors are closed.”
“That way even if the doors open up, those in front, I won’t be able to get through the second locked doors.” He inferred. “That’s pretty smart of them. It allows them to move a massive number of people, while making sure that the environment isn’t contaminated.” Thinking about it for a second, he wondered, “Why am I inside already, then? This doesn’t make any sense that I’m already entering The World before everyone else.”
“You have me to thank for that.” Brittany told him. “Getting a feel for the place isn’t a major edge, but I figured anything I could do to help is important.”
“How much time do I have until everyone else starts coming in?”
“You’ll have almost the entire day, to look around. I wouldn’t take your time leisurely walking around, and quickly get a sense for the place.” She cautioned me.
As the second set of doors begun to open, Sam saw light coming through. Initially, Sam thought the light was from an incandescent bulb, but when the doors completely opened he saw the sky. Stepping through the doorway was confusing, considering that he was outside but still inside of The Structure. “What in the world…” He trailed off, looking around at his surroundings.
“Amazing isn’t it? The interior is designed to appear like the outside world. There are forests, lakes, roads, and various other parts to provide a lifelike experience. This path through the forest will lead you into a small looking town, where you’ll see various buildings. I’m sure you’ll find it very impressive, the amount of work that went into this project. I knew about the general outline of the interior, but it wasn’t until we entered this place did I receive the full picture.” Brittany informed me.
Walking down the path, he could feel the dirt beneath his feet and the popping and cracking of twigs. The air smelled of a forest, and old one, confusing his senses. When Sam reached one of the trees, his fingers brushed against the rough bark with bits of it falling to the ground. Continuing down the trail, he forced himself to remember that he needed to focus on the task at hand. He wasn’t sure what benefit he could receive from being in The World early, but he should take it seriously.
This trail was failing long, but as the light pierced through the canopy he understood that he was close to the end. Once the forest ended, there was a stretch of neatly trimmed grass and in front was the town. There was a scattering of houses, big and small, and apartment complexes. There was a main road with businesses on either side. Getting closer, Sam saw that some of the businesses were clothing related. He also spotted a small grocery store, restaurants of various types, and a small movie theater. In the far distance, there was a large modern looking hospital, which looked completely out of place of the small town. Based on what he could see, Sam could imagine that it was the world’s most medically advanced hospital in the world after what he’s seen with this place.
“Are those houses for the participants?” He asked Brittany.
“Those residential properties are for those who have sufficient number of tickets. The houses are nearly 100 tickets per month, and the apartments are 5 tickets a day. Based on the luck of the roll with the D20 die, a participant will be able to gain entry into those locations and the corresponding number of tickets will be automatically removed from the account. Based on what I know of the outside world, this process is far easier without the annoying contracts for everything.” She sounded amused by our practices.
“How about that giant hospital?” Sam pointed at the building.
Giggling, Brittany responded with, “You’re funny, asking how much it costs for that hospital. No one could afford to buy that building. If you’re asking about what happens if you get injured, the cost is zero, of course. How could you humans expect that we wouldn’t look after your health?”
Thinking about what it was like outside this place, he chuckled at her naive answer. The world out there was not as forgiving as it appeared to be inside of here. Just looking at this town, it looked like Paradise. Walking past the various buildings, he thought of how wonderful his time would be. The nice part was that all his needs would be provided for, as long as he rolled a die and got decent numbers. From his understanding of statistics any single number will have a 5% chance of coming up. Just needing 5 tickets for the day, he probably needed somewhere along the lines of 10 to 20 tickets. That means he has a 55% chance of rolling a number based on these requirements.
“Hey, Brittany, what’s the cost of the various restaurants?” He asked her.
“Since you’ll be just starting out, I’ll go from cheap to pricey. For 2 tickets, you can get a supplemental drink (vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry); for 5 tickets, you can get a combo meal at the burger restaurant; for 15 tickets, you can get a dinner at the barbeque restaurant; and for 25 tickets, you can dine at the fancy restaurant. Each of the locations are a flat rate, regardless of what you order. Once you enter into the establishment, like with the apartment, the tickets will be taken out of the account. There are other places to eat that cost more, but for now I have explained the ones you’ll see for now. Regarding the clothing there are tiered costs, based on the style. Obviously, plain clothing will cost less, while fancier clothing will cost more.” She meticulously itemized all the various costs.
“Where do I go to roll the die?” He asked her.
“At the hospital, you’ll be able to find a kiosk that has a variety of information. This kiosk will also have a die app that’ll roll a virtual die and provide you with your daily result. You’ll only be able to access this app after 24 hours has passed. This is through the injected chip and myself, which provides the timestamp for the kiosk. If you want, we can head over to the hospital and try to see what you’ll roll?”
Not having anything better to do, Sam started to walk towards the hospital. Going through the town, he was impressed by how detailed everything looked. The buildings all looked weather worn, as if this town had existed for decades exposed to the elements. Nothing looked overgrown or abandoned, so some kind of maintenance had to be done. Controlled nature is what went through Sam’s mind as he looked at things closely. He didn’t think there were workers inside of this place, considering the security measures of the doors. This wasn’t an important thought, so Sam didn’t think about asking Brittany at the moment. A part of him just wanted to maintain the magical look of this place. Calling it The World was an apt title for all of this.
The hospital was definitely a fancy looking building. Walking up the sidewalk to the entrance, the doors automatically opened into a massive lobby. Looking very modern and clean, the lobby exuded a comfortable and inviting feeling. There were potted plants all throughout the area, bringing a wide variety of color to the place, the wall were painted sky blue, and the floor looked to be made from bamboo. Flat LCD tvs were placed strategically, so that participants could see the provided information clearly. On the far left wall, there was a line of kiosks and that’s where Sam went. As he walked up to the kiosk, the screen displayed “Welcome, Sam”. Tapping on the screen the screen changed.
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center">
Daily Roll (Tickets)
</td>
<td style="text-align: center">
Medical Aid
</td>
<td style="text-align: center">
Psychological Aid
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center">
Medication
</td>
<td style="text-align: center">
Welcome
</td>
<td style="text-align: center">
Donate Tickets
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center">
Map of Serenity
</td>
<td style="text-align: center">
Gambling
</td>
<td style="text-align: center">
Help
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center">
Title
</td>
<td style="text-align: center">
Description
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center">
Daily Roll (Tickets)
</td>
<td style="text-align: center">
This is where you are able to roll your die to earn your daily tickets.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center">
Medical Aid
</td>
<td style="text-align: center">
If you are injured and need medical aid (non-emergency), utilize this option to see a medical droid.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center">
Psychological Aid
</td>
<td style="text-align: center">
If you need to speak to someone, feel free to use our therapists and psychiatrists to work through any issues.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center">
Medication
</td>
<td style="text-align: center">
Look through our list of over-the-counter medications for your use. If you need a refill on prescribed medication you can gain your ticket here to provide at the counter.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center">
Donate Tickets
</td>
<td style="text-align: center">
Feeling charitable? Donate your available tickets to another participant.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center">
Map of Serenity
</td>
<td style="text-align: center">
A mat of the current town of Serenity, with corresponding prices.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center">
Gambling
</td>
<td style="text-align: center">
Feeling lucky? Try your luck at some common casino games, like Blackjack, Poker, Slot, Roulette, and many more.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center">
Help
</td>
<td style="text-align: center">
If you need assistance with utilizing a service, and your provided wrist device is not explaining things simply enough.
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
“Let’s try rolling for my tickets.” Sam spoke out loud, tapping the “Daily Roll (Tickets)” button. A die appeared on the screen, dancing all over the place looking really cute with its animation. A button with “Let’s Go!” was on the middle of the screen. Tapping on it the die started to bounce around the screen and then started to slow down. When it finally stopped rolling around, the number 2 came flying to the screen with a “Congratulations!!!” in big letters.
Looking at the screen, Sam just said, “Fuck…”