Chapter 1: Press Start
A young black man stepped on a subway, wearing a fedora, jeans, and a vest over a t-shirt. As he got on he saw an old friend.
“Seamus, is that you?”
“Yep. I figured I’d see you off your first day. That and I take this line too.”
“What’s your first class?”
“Computer use. It will probably be a drag.”
“You might be surprised who’s your prof?”
“Some guy named Henri Jean.”
“I know him. Dude you're in for one wild semester.”
“What’s he like?”
“He’s… well…You’ll just have to meet the guy. I’ll tell you this though He just graduated last semester and he’s kind of a campus legend.”
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you later. Besides, wasn’t that your stop Mal?”
Then Malcolm turned his head shouted, “Shit!” then pulled the line.
Malcolm ran to the Gates building . Entering he asked the first person he saw, who was talking on a payphone “Where is room 115?”.
“Its right there ya noob. I can’t believe you’re wasting my time like this.”
After entering the room Mal saw a tall kid with broad shoulders reading a comic book with his feet on a chair. He was spread out along two others.
“Howdy.”
“Shhhhh not now. Double-shot is trapped in a room with Aeros and he doesn’t have his crossbow,” he said without looking up from the comic.
As the class began to fill up everyone stared at the comic reader.
A blond haired girl asked where is the professor.
“Yo,” The comic reader said as his arm rose and his head lowered into the book. “Lets give it another five more minutes. There are probably a few lost freshies and I really want to finish this thing.”
After a while the kid stood up. “Okay this is CSC 104 computer use. If that’s not where you’re so suppose to be geeeee-it out.” His thumb moved over his shoulder. And the class gave him weird looks “Tough crowd. Anyway, It’s required by the university. I had to take it. You guys have to take it. That said it is a cool class. That and I’m a cool guy. I don’t like checking papers and that doesn’t really prove if you know how to use a seed anyway. If you do what I tell you you’ll have fun and you’ll probably get an okay grade. That said you’re going to have to demonstrate you know some stuff”
“Like what stuff,” said the blond girl.
“Uh for the next few weeks I think we’ll stick to the basics. Avatars, constructs, but before we get to that stuff you guys need seeds. Seeing as a lot of you are probably freshies I’m guessing you don’t know where the school computer store is. I thought it would be a good idea to go there together.”
As the class walked the TA called to the blond girl. “I didn’t have time to say but you remind me of someone. What’s your name?”
“Alexandria Katrina.”
“No way you’re Silver Cat’s sis?”
“Yeah how do you know sis?”
“We go way back.”
“Yeah everyone knows Silver Cat.”
“She never mentioned me?”
“Now that you mention it you never told us your name.”
“Doh, well it’s my first day on the job. Yo everyone could you stop for a sec. Alley Cat has just informed me I stupidly forgot to introduce myself. I’m Henri Maccabee Jean. Call me Hank It looks like we are here. This is the union. Trust me you guys are going to spend a lot of time here. The store is in the basement. Come on.”
“Seamus you work in the computer store,” Malcolm says.
“I gotta make bread somehow.”
Henri turns to them. “You guys know each other.”
“Since were babes,” Seamus replies.
“You know Seamus maybe he could join in the match Saturday?”
“I’ll ask Silver but you know what she’s like.”
“Just a thought. Okay so since everyone here looks like they are under 25 I’m going to guess you guys have the id chips. Let me lay a little history on ya. Yes I know most of this stuff is common knowledge but I’ll tell you anyway. In 2020 to prevent ID theft the government started installing Id chips into the brains of its citizens. I know its creepy but you see those chips started to get more complicated. Now a days we do some pretty cool stuff with them. Mainly the chip can communicate with one of these.”
“Yo hammer they know all this stuff just let them buy some seeds.”
“Yes I know your job is to sell but mine is to teach these guys how to use these things. Anyway those ID chips have been modified over the last few decades to allow these things to communicate with your head.”
Pulling out a Mjöllnir pendant from under his shirt Henri said, “This is my seed.”
“See ladies and Gentlemen we have all sizes all shapes, all colors, hell if you give us a week we can make a custom one just like Henri’s over there. Yep we can customize both the looks and the specs.”
“Yo forge could you shut up a sec.” Henri held out the pendant and light came from it. The light became larger and became the image of a man in armor holding a large war hammer.
“This is my avatar. This guy is how I look when I’m cyber trancing. Think of cytrancing as lucid dreaming. Alright before I do what I am about do I got to warn you guys not to move.” The light engulfed the room and soon the room changed. It became a medieval hall. “This is my construct. Be careful its only a hologram. You guys might bump into a shelf or something but I thought you should see it. I can manipulate the trance but when I first enter it this is where I go. I can change the construct if I want but I like it. Its kind of like a second home to me. Next class I’ll show you guys how to make one. The hologram faded and the room returned to normal.”
“Yeah yeah you did enough now let them buy their seeds.”
“Okay here is the deal a certain amount of your first year tuition was devoted to the purchase of a seed. If you buy one that costs more than that you have to pay the difference. I think its like 700 creds but Seamus here knows better than me.”
“Step on up ladies and gents. I got watch seeds, necklace seeds, bracelets seeds, laptop seeds, pda seeds, earring seeds. What do you want? What do you want? What do you want? Keep in mind they have different capabilities. If you get confused just ask me.”
Alley was looking at a necklace seed.
“I think that would look nice on you. Alley right,” Mal said.
“So what’s going to be your choice.”
“I think I’ll go with the glasses. Kind of like Seamus.”
“Somebody call my name.”
“Yeah you said each shape had different capabilities.”
“Right, where to start. Well the cool thing about laptop and PDA seeds are the screens. Some people like ‘em but others think they’re clunky. Which is why we have the others. Don’t get me wrong they have cool functions of their own but the main thing about them is that they can be worn or kept in a pocket and some are fashion statements. Like I said that pendent of Henri’s it’s a custom deal. Anyway standard necklaces are pretty much no frills. I mean they can have as much computing power as you want, but they’re main attraction is that they are small and light. Also they look cool. Glasses on the other hand arguably have the most features. See the glasses act sort of like a worn screen. And the side peaces are close enough to the ears that they act like head phones. Now you can put sensors in pretty much any seed but in glasses those sensors without linking to your mind can transmit data through the speakers and glass. That said they can make you look like a nerd but…. Nerd Power.
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