charbend

[charbend]

System Overflow Chapter 3

In the few moments before contact, he realized that thinking of it as a squirrel had been a rather hasty choice on his part. He could hardly be blamed for that, given the circumstances.

It wasn’t a squirrel, but it likely had been one at some point. Probably this morning. Possibly just before noon. Maybe it had stepped out for an early lunch, and got more than it bargained for.

Is this what that message talked about with terraforming? Frank thought dimly, as the once-squirrel bit his arm that he barely remembered raising. The clarity the pain brought helped him get a better look at the creature.

It had the same general shape of a squirrel, and would be easy to mistake for one at a distance. The proportions and the body were all wrong, however. Its snout had extended beyond the norm, and it had teeth protruding from its jaw at odd angles, a mess of snaggle-y spikes. Its spine was warped, and he watched in amazement and horror as it seemed to grow hard, calcified plates out of its back.

The poor, twisted creature let out a screech of pain as this happened, releasing its grip on his arm. He stepped back as it hit the ground, writhing. He made brief eye contact with it as it cried in distress.

His heart sank, but his body spun with adrenaline. “Ohh, I’m sorry about this buddy. I wish I could help you.” Without giving himself time to have doubts, he put the creature out of its misery.

Ding!

Warning! Unrefined aether absorbed. Unrefined aether is not suitable for living beings. Avoid coming into contact with sources of such aether, or contaminated creatures. It is advised to expel unrefined aether before reaching toxic levels.

Frank sighed. “Great. Another thing to worry about.” He glanced at the ex-squirrel, still releasing slight blue light into the air. “I’m sorry buddy. I would bury you, but that feels like a bad idea now. Besides, I have more pressing concerns right now.” With that said, and the surprise encounter bested, he made his way back into the office.

<O/%%%%%/O/%%%%%/O>

Tugging at the bandage on his arm, he tossed the first aid kit on his desk. Finding it had been fairly simple; the building was required to have first aid kits available and marked on their maps. It had always just been one of those things that you know, but never think about. He took a moment to thank everyone who’d ever pushed for safety regulations as he sat down.

“Okay, first order of business: see if I can reach my family.”

He slid open the drawer he put his phone in during work hours, and checked its charge. 73%. More than enough to call whoever he needed. Putting in his password, he quickly navigated through to his address book. With bated breath, he hit ‘Mom’.

As it rang, he couldn’t help but imagine his mom’s phone sitting on the freeway on the other side of the country, playing a song from her boyfriend's band, his name on the screen.

It rang.

And rang.

“The person you are trying to call cannot be reached right now. Feel free to leave a message after the beep.”

Frank paused for a few beats, disappointed. “Hey mom. I don’t know if you’re going to get this, but I just wanted to let you know I’m okay. If you can, please call, or leave a message. With everything going on, I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep my phone going, but I promise to check regularly. Stay safe. I love you.”

He stared at his phone for a few seconds, almost hoping for a call to come through. None did. “Well, that leaves me right back where I was, plus a bit of disappointment. Alex is still living with mom, so I can probably expect about the same result.”

Nevertheless, he clicked on his sister's name. The phone rang a few times.

A robotic voice came through. “The number you have dialed is unable to be reached at this time. It may be off or out of service range. Please try again later.”

“Damn,” he sighed, tossing his phone on the desk. “What use is a phone if no one is around to call?”

Frank tapped idly on his desk. “Ok. I’m alone in the office. I can’t reach my family. I still need to find a way to meet people, and try to figure out this system stuff. But, first things first: Let’s get some supplies together.”

He pulled his backpack out from under his desk, and started packing up anything useful he could find. The first aid kit, of course. Some office supplies, for taking notes, and as much food as he could find in the office. Jason’s desk was, as expected, a treasure trove for supplies.

“Talking about squirrels… Man loved to hide snacks everywhere,” Frank muttered as he shoved a bag of jerky in his pack. “Chips, ramen, jerky… Won’t be clean eating, but at least it’s something.”

A quiet ping pulled his attention. He looked up from his position kneeling on the floor of Jason’s cubicle.

Ping!

It was coming from Jason’s headset. Curious, Frank put the headset on and woke the computer to see what was causing it. “Why is he getting browser notifications?”

He scrolled through Jason’s tabs, ignoring the ones he was familiar with. “Wait, is this- How’d he get around the firewall?” Frank clicked into the suspect page: Reddit, still live and, evidently, still populated with actual people.

There on the front page, pinned at the top was a post. “The end of the world: a megathread.”

Frank clapped his hands together reverentially. “Thank you, honored ancestors, for blessing my generation with social media. Let’s see here… ‘Where did everyone go?’ ‘What does it mean to be a [Native]?’ ‘What is this System?’- That’s the one.” He expanded the comment thread, eager to see what others had figured out.

There were a lot of opinions.

‘Checkmate atheists.’

‘Does this mean we live in a simulation?’

‘Aliens finally decided we were ready to join real civilization.’

And so on. There were a few people who had actually found ways to access some information and menus in the System, so he took notes on those.

‘... It’s unclear exactly how to raise these ‘stats’ so far, but likely training or acquiring and allocating the ‘aether’ mentioned in System notes would be a way to do so. Likewise with Skills and Spells.’

‘Actually, I know how you can pick up a few of those! I was in the library when everyone vanished, and a bunch of books are showing up as Skill-books now! I think there’s a limit to how many Skills you can get from books though… I only managed to get 3. Now I’m stuck with [Beekeeping], [Charcuterie], and [Tactics] =(‘

‘Also, I’ve seen a few weird looking animals… Do you think we can get aether from them?’

Frank quickly responded to that comment. “Definitely do not go after the blue ones. The System doesn’t like when you pick up the aether they have, for some reason.”

Almost as soon as he posted it, someone replied. ‘Lots of animals are getting aggressive. It’s very dangerous to go outside. Definitely stay away from the blue ones, but they’re all bad right now.’

Well. Not great news, but he’d managed to warn people. Good deed done, he leaned back, looking over his notepad. He now had some information on how to navigate his new HUD, pulling up menus in the System that quantified how the System viewed him. Stats, Skills, Spells, and the like. There wasn’t much of interest for him there yet.

“Actually…” He stood, walking around toward Sanjay’s cubicle, “I’m pretty sure he had a book in here somewhere…” After opening a few drawers, he found it. A worn and bookmarked copy of Programming for Dummies.

As soon as he touched it, a notice popped up.

Consume Skill-book to learn [Programming]?

Y/N

Error! Skill [Programming] incompatible with System implementation.

Generalizing Skill…

Consume Skill-book to learn [Enchanting]?

Y/N

He sucked in a breath. “Magic? Oh man, am I about to learn magic? Sanjay, wherever you are, thank you for being career motivated. I forgive you for being a bit prickly.” He turned back to the book. “Yes!”

Instantly, it burst into small, dense particles of white light that landed on him, absorbing into his skin. As soon as the last bit of light was gone, Frank felt a rush as the energy implanted itself in his being. “Huh.”

He tapped his chin, looking around. “I think I’ve got what I need to test this out around here… Let’s see…”

***

You can find this on Royal Road (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/83902)

[charbend]

System Overflow Chapter 2

Frank sat in his chair, still spinning from his rough landing. He stared helplessly at the screen in front of him, which moved to keep itself a fixed distance in front of his face. He stood up sharply, his chair sliding back into the wall of his cubicle.

The cubicles next to him were empty. He could still feel the warmth from Jason’s hand.

His breathing started becoming panicked. “They’re gone. Okay. Some weird flash of light took my friends. Were we friends? Jason would probably think so, but I don’t know about Sanjay.”

He chuckled nervously. Probably not the thing to be worrying about right now.

Looking past his cubicle group, he tried to spot anyone else who might still be in the office. There weren’t many people on this floor, so a visual inspection was quick. He was alone.

“Is there anybody else here?” he called out.

All he heard back was the air conditioning kicking in.

Okay. Deep breaths. Maybe everyone who’s left will be at the emergency meeting site. Right? He glanced around. This feels like it could be considered an emergency.

He stepped out of his cubicle. The screen followed him, and he eyed it warily. “You told everyone that the teleportation thing was going to happen, right? Any chance you could tell me something helpful, instead? Something that will make me feel a little less like the sky is falling?”

The screen didn’t respond. It maintained the same message:

Unable to finish teleportation operation. Emergency procedures engaged.

Please wait while procedures are confirmed…

Error! Planet [Earth] does not fit any emergency procedure conditions!

Engaging Auto-Sweep to clean loose ends.

“Hmm. No. Well, I guess I should get to my own ‘emergency procedures’ then.”

He tried side-stepping the ominous message, but it remained resolutely in the center of his vision. Frustrated, he swiped his hand at it, and it slid to his peripheral vision, compressing into a neat little notice with an exclamation mark.

“Oh, great. I have a personal heads-up display now. Just what I always wanted…” With his vision now clear and feeling like he had a bit more control over the situation, he set off. 

Okay, first step in meeting at the evacuation site: find a map to the evacuation site.

He heard a crashing boom from outside.

I’m sure that’s fine.

<O/%%%%%/O/%%%%%/O>

It was not fine. He stood on the second floor landing of the stairs, where he had found emergency exit procedures. He’d had a moment to look at them before his attention was drawn out the window beside the map.

Frank worked in an office that its architect might sell as a ‘timeless look for industries of all kinds’, but could charitably be called a brutalist enclosure for humanity. ‘Office’ and ‘Park’ were not words that should be joined together.

This office was considered accessible, which meant that it sat right off the freeway. From the window that Frank stood at, he had a good view of the road.

He was glad he hadn’t gone out for lunch yet.

The entire roadway was a wreckage of steel and wheels, the occupants having either crashed when magic screens showed up in their faces while driving, or disappeared entirely, leaving vehicles to drift aimlessly.

This was the first time he’d seen people since his coworkers had been teleported.

Unfortunately, this was also the first time he’d seen dead people. He turned away, queasy.

This isn’t good.

With a little prompting, he pulled back up the notice.

Error! Teleportation capacity exceeded.

8,126,934,201 / 7,000,000,000

“This is happening everywhere.” He glanced back out the window before looking away. Guess it’s not gonna be climate change that gets us.

He dismissed the notification again, letting it collapse to the side of his vision. He stood back up, and continued down the stairs. The assembly point was downstairs. Hopefully someone would be there.

<O/%%%%%/O/%%%%%/O>

Even after waiting for a while, no one else showed up. He was alone at the office.

Frank sighed. “I never thought I’d find myself wishing remote work was abolished.”

He looked around the little courtyard. If it weren’t for the unwelcome notice in the corner of his vision, it would be a lovely day. The sun was out, giving a nice, gentle warmth as he sat on a bench in the middle of the nice, manicured lawn. There wasn’t even a single plane in the sky to break the calm of the day.

Suddenly, a new screen popped into view.

Auto-Sweep process engaging.

Errors to resolve:

[Users] on world

Unusual energy signatures on world

Unknown Skills detected

His stomach sank. “What now?”

Resolving: Unknown Skills detected

Categorizing Skills...

Integrating Skills...

Unknown Skills no longer detected

Resolving: Unusual energy signatures on world

Analyzing energy signatures…

Integrating energy signatures…

New Skills created!

Resolving: [Users] on world

Error! [Users] on world that has been evacuated.

Recategorizing [Users]...

Another pop-up appeared in Frank’s view. This one appeared to be a status sheet, though it was filled with all manner of data that he couldn’t parse at a glance. What did draw his attention, however, were a few lines at the top:

Frank Vila

Human [User]

As he looked, it changed to:

Frank Vila

Human [Native]

Then it disappeared.

Resolving: [Users] on world

Error! [Users] on world that has been evacuated.

Recategorizing [Users]...

[Users] recategorized!

[Users] no longer on world.

All errors resolved!

Beginning terraforming…

The blue screen stopped updating, and a green screen appeared. Frank ignored it, compressing it to the side of his view immediately. He laid down and looked at the sky. “I was not ready for today.”

The clouds scudded by as he lay there, letting himself have a moment to just be, without worry.

Distantly, another explosion sounded.

“Yeah, okay, so much for that. Let’s take a look at the information I have, shall we?”

He flipped open the blue screen, the log of messages he’d received still present.

“Whatever this is, it looks like it was trying to teleport everyone on Earth. Obviously, it failed. That means there are definitely still others out there. At least…” He squinted at the numbers. “One billion and some change. That feels like a lot, at least.”

He scrolled up further. “I guess the 7 billion lucky winners are off in the ‘tutorial phase’, whatever that means. Jason and Sanjay are probably there, and…” he was struck by a thought. “My family! They’re caught up in this too.”

He reached for the phone in his pocket, before he remembered that it was still at his desk. I need to check in on them. Right now I have no leads on what is happening to them, or where they are. I’ll need to get my phone, but I’m concerned about this latest message. All the [Users] on the planet, which I assume is everyone, are now considered [Natives]. He tilted his head. “Hmm, feels a bit like a downgrade, but I don’t know where everything fits in. It said it’s some System, right? So, a [User] feels pretty straightforward, but [Native]? I have no idea.”

He glanced at the green notification at the side. Maybe this will give me some clues. He pulled the green notification over, letting the blue screen disappear.

Type changed to [Native]!

[Native] : generally reserved for unintelligent life, [Native] provides System access. This access can expand and change as [Native] is affected by terraforming. For more information, see [Lifeform] type.

The screen vanished shortly after he finished reading it.

“Okay. So, definitely a downgrade,” he said shakily. “Subject to terraforming can’t be good, can it?”

He stood up on wobbly legs, and gave one last look around. No one had shown up yet. It was time to move on. He started heading back to the office. “If I can get in contact with my family, great. If not, maybe I can reach out to someone else. Sanjay seemed to have an idea of what was going on; maybe someone else does as well.”

His stomach growled. Jason had some food stored away, too. Anxiety straddling his shoulders like a child he’d never had, he made his way back to the office, eyes peeled for signs of this ‘terraforming’.

It didn’t take long to find him, as a glowing blue squirrel jumped him on his way in the building.

***

You can find this on Royal Road! (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/83902)

[charbend]

System Overflow Chapter 1

Hello Tumblr! I recently started writing a web novel on Royal Road. I wanted to post the first chapter here to try and get it out there a bit. Let me know what you think!

===============================================

Frank sighed, glancing at the flashing icon on his screen. The shrill ring of the call waiting for him, should he choose to accept it, blasted through his headset. He glanced down at his hands, counting his fingers while the call sat, waiting for him.

“Ten. Not dreaming, then.” He shook his head. After a year working here, he’d developed an almost Pavlovian response to the various chimes and ringtones the company used to let their servants know that, in fact, they should take on another support case, how wonderful it was that they wanted to work all gas no brakes for the company.

When he’d first heard the notification sounds in his dreams, he’d had mixed feelings. On the one hand, nowhere was safe. On the other hand, in his dreams he could at least leave or, better, burn down the building. 

“Hey Frank,” he jumped at the voice coming from right over his shoulder. “It looks like you’ve got a customer waiting. We wouldn’t want them to get impatient now, would we? Not with how this month has gone for you.”

He turned, barely able to hide his scowl as his manager clapped him on the shoulder. “No, sir. I was just getting myself in the right mindset. Need to really give them the classic J.M. Tech welcome!” he said, forcing a smile.

His manager stepped back, nodding. “That’s what I like to hear, Frank! That’s what I like to hear. Now, don’t let me keep you,” he gestured at the computer. “Go on and give it to ‘em!”

Frank turned to the computer, his personal karmic punishment for some truly horrendous acts in a past life, and accepted the call. “Hi! Thanks for contacting J.M. Tech, this is Frank. How can I help you today?” 

He seethed as he felt his manager’s presence behind him, listening in.

<O/%%%%%/ A Bit Later /%%%%%/O>

Frank pulled his headset off, swiping his hand down his face in exhaustion. He stared at the screen in front of him.

No more calls today. Just emails. Someone else can pad their numbers with them instead.

He leaned back in his chair, letting it roll away from his desk. As he did, he caught sight of a pair of eyes silently peeking into his cubicle.

“Hey J. You want all my calls today?”

The peeker snorted. “Nah, I’m good. I’m pretty sure you’re cursed, dude. You get the worst customers on the phone. Now, Sanjay’s calls? I’d take those all day.”

“Over my dead body.” Their neighbor called lazily from his cubicle.

“Is that a challenge? I could take you on, couch potato.”

“I’m not a potato. I go to the gym.”

“What, once a month? We’re in different weight classes, small-Jay. I could crush you.”

“You’d have to catch me first, and I know you don’t do any cardio.”

“I get plenty of cardio. Just ask your mom.”

Frank let their friendly bickering wash over him, luxuriating in the brief moments before he needed to pretend to look productive again. Times to relax were not common here.

He heard a faint ping through his headset, sitting on his desk. Glancing down, he saw he had a notification from the latest support case, the call he’d just been on. Clicking through the menus, he saw a familiar notice in the correspondence.

You have received a low-rating in this correspondence. Please review and evaluate your responses with a manager to determine best steps to improve the customer experience.

A pit formed in his stomach at the little red note. He sighed, feeling acid rise through his throat.

“God, I hate this job.”

Jason, also known as J, glanced back over into his cubicle from where he was pointing at Sanjay. “Bad review?”

Frank just nodded, already typing up a summary of the call, both to send to the customer and to cover with his manager.

“Man, that sucks. You’ve been getting nothing but bad customers lately.” Delicately, he dropped a bag of chips over the divide between their cubicles. Frank glanced at the flavor. They were crab, of course. “Hopefully Stupid Steve doesn’t come down too hard.”

A notice on the support case popped up, showing that Sanjay was looking at it. “Looks pretty cut-and-dry,” he called from his cubicle. “Nothing we could have done for them anyway. Wouldn’t be surprised if the Big Man makes a stink though. He’s had it out for you for a while. Probably has you ear-marked for the next round of layoffs.”

Frank grunted. “Probably. Bastard.”

Jason glanced over at Sanjay, chin resting on crossed arms on the cubicle walls. “Why do you call him Big Man anyway, Sanj? You don’t like him either.”

“I call him Big Man because he has a big ego. I know it’s an insult, but he doesn’t so I can call him that to his face.”

“Ooh! Devious.”

Just as Frank was finishing up the last few lines of his email, he got one from his manager, Steve. It was simple, and succinct.

Hey Frank, I see another customer gave you a low rating. I’ll swing by in a few so we can have a talk about next steps, and work on a Performance Improvement Plan for you. We can do this!

There it was. The beginning of the end. “You guys know any places that are hiring?”

“Would we be here if we did?” Sanjay asked.

“Yeah, fair point.” He hit send on his case notes, and leaned back in his chair again. He felt… not relaxed, exactly, but more unburdened than he had in a while. Almost at peace. 

“Guys, I think this job is bad for my health.”

Sanjay snorted, and Jason just nodded at him placidly. “Mhmm. Hey man, have some jerky.”

Frank took it, idly rolling it in his hand. “Oh, by the way, Steve’s headed over here.”

There was a clattering from both of his neighbors as Jason rushed to get off his desk, and Sanjay hid whatever he was wasting time with.

“Tell us sooner!”

“Man, hide those snacks I gave you, he’ll know they came from me.”

“He hasn’t cared about you having snacks before.”

“No, but if he clocks that we’re close, he might toss me out on the same boat as you.”

“Oh ho! So you’re abandoning ship, like a rat at sea.”

“You know it man, I’m a rat, through and through. Every morning I groom my whiskers, eat cheese and… do other rat things.”

Frank chuckled as shoved the chips in a drawer under his desk.

He stopped chuckling as a screen appeared in front of him.

Congratulations inhabitants of [Earth]! Your planet has completed the requirements to enter the second phase of System integration!

Standby for teleportation to your planet's tutorial phase!

He banged his head on the bottom of the desk as he stood up, looking toward his coworkers in his panic.

“Do you guys see this too?” “Holy Shit!” “What’s happening?”

They all spoke over each other, flustered. Sanjay cut through the confusion, equal parts excitement and fear in his voice. “Are we getting summoned? Are we about to get mother-freaking isekaied?” He was practically bouncing.

Jason just looked over, panicked. “What are you talking about?”

“We might get magic, dude! And a harem, and adventure! God, or System or whatever, my body is ready!”

Initiating teleport in 3…

“Yes!”

2…

Jason reached over the cubicle, face strained with fear.

1…

Frank reached out and grabbed his hand. “It’ll be okay!”

Teleporting. Good luck!

There was a flash of light across his vision blinding him, and he felt himself being pulled, like there was a hook through the core of his being, pulling him through space.

And then the hook vanished, and he landed roughly in his chair, disoriented, alone, and spinning.

Error! Teleportation capacity exceeded.

8,126,934,201 / 7,000,000,000

Unable to finish teleportation operation. Emergency procedures engaged.

Please wait while procedures are confirmed…

Error! Planet [Earth] does not fit any emergency procedure conditions!

Engaging Auto-Sweep to clean loose ends.

==============================================

I'm currently posting this story on Royal Road if you want to follow along! You can find it here: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/83902/system-overflow