Program WORLD

chapter 1: Introduction

Adam: ‘’audio check…. Can you hear me?’’

Eli: ‘’clearly’’

Adam: ‘’okay, system check: GLASS energy level 95%….. GLASS status online…. Connecting Gear…. Nerve system online….. Magi system Online…… gravity system online….. Weapon system online…… okay you’re good to go’’

Eli: ‘’logging in on account: Shadow_dragon_5432841251’’

A loading bar appeared before Eli, everything around it was still black but it only took a short while before the bar was fully loaded and turned into a logo in the form of the earth.

Steadily the black background turned into a medieval looking large town

All the glass of the window are black and there are a lot of people walking on the streets, some of them where dressed in fantasy game style outfits.

Adam: ‘’status online, now Eli I know I have warned you before about this, I was able to get permission only for today to regain your original profile name’’

Eli: ‘’jeez, after taking down hackers for this long, you’d expect I might have gotten a little more than just 1 day right?’’

Adam: ‘’well, it is a huge system override, but because it was done by this hacker the higher-ups agreed to oversee this one time’’

Eli: ‘’let’s just locate this guy and take back my name’’

Adam: ‘’okay one second….. Got him… wow, it seems he is killing every single online player within the shopping area’’

Eli: ‘’wait…. Shopping area? But that’s a safe-zone’’

Adam: ‘’he’s a low leveled player, but a notorious hacker, so fighting in a safe-zone doesn’t surprise me. He probably hacked the system there. What I find strange is that the players around him are getting killed at an intensely high rate’’

Eli started running through the medieval streets.

Eli: ‘’what is his level? Is he alone?’’

Adam: ‘’he’s alone… persona level 18, physical level 13’’

Eli: ‘’18 and 13? Even your levels are higher’’

Adam: ‘’*sigh* thank you for the comparison’’

Eli: ‘’There is something incredibly wrong with this guy’’

Adam: ‘’get his persona to log-out and I’ll do the rest’’

Eli: ‘’just like always’’

Adam: ‘’oh, and Eli. What happened to a normal good morning?’’

Eli runs through the medieval streets at high speed, he notices some crying children at the side of the streets Wearing modern day clothes.

Adam: ‘’seems like you’re going the right way, this area is full of defeated players who were forced to go offline’’

Eli: ‘’almost there, Adam close off the area so this guy doesn’t run’’

Adam: ‘’already done… oh you might want to take the roofs’’

Eli: ‘’come on, couldn’t you just wait a few minutes?’’

Adam: ‘’you told me you liked a challenge right, so special event!’’

Eli: ‘’what’s the reward?’’

Adam: ‘’your salary’’

Eli sighs.

Eli: ‘’thanks buddy’’

Eli jumps from window to window straight to the roofs of the buildings surrounding him. Up here he could see smoke in the direction he was heading. A light flash emitted from some of the streets followed by a strange laughter.

After getting closer Eli notices the hacker immediately, it is a middle aged fat man dressed in a too tight female officer uniform of some sort and had a huge gun attached to his arm.

The hacker is shooting the gun toward other online players and often at several stores around him while laughing in a weird hiccup walrus like manner.

Eli squats and hides behind a chimney, he focuses his sight on the deranged man when several information bubbles popped up.

Eli: ‘’yep, that’s him. The jerk who stole my profile name and it seems from his appearance that he’s an amateur underground hacker’’

Adam: ‘’ugh, the noobs always take away the fun, don’t they?’’

Eli: ‘’there is nothing fun about people destroying the biggest evolution on social gaming in the world’’

Adam: ‘’yeah, but I mean that professional hackers at least have some sort of objective, or at least they know what they’re doing’’

Eli touches the information bubbles around the hacker to enlarge the status on him.

Eli: ‘’name: The_Shadow_dragon…. Physical level: 13…. In-game level: 18….. Fighting class: gunner’’

He swiped away the information in front of him and air tapped towards the weapon attached to the hackers arm.

Eli: ‘’Adam, what can you tell me about this weapon’’

Adam: ‘’don’t you recognize it? It’s a prototype plasma gun, you where one of the people who was in the test groups’’

Eli: ‘’oh yeah, I was….. On the wrong side of the barrel’’

Adam: ‘’come on man, you were the only of few who would fit as a perfect target for its abilities’’

Eli: ‘’this conversation is getting off track’’

Adam: ‘’oh right! After many tests have been done, the board called this gun too overpowered and put the whole idea of a plasma gun aside for further reconsideration in the future’’

Eli: ‘’then this man must have hacked into the main servers to collect this gun….’’

Adam: ‘’and while he was there he changed his own profile name to yours and yours into….’’

Adam starts laughing quietly.

Eli: ‘’don’t even say it’’

Eli swipes away the enlarged picture of the plasma gun to see behind it a shot of energy has been fired directly at him. Eli jumps out of the way onto the ground of the street the hacker was firing from.

Hacker: ‘’well, well, well, if it isn’t my good pal’’

Eli: ‘’stealing someone’s name is just low’’

Hacker: ‘’what are you talking about, I gave you a way better name in the progress… miss_pretty_fairy_unicorn_princess2’’

Eli: ‘’why the 2 at the end?’’

The hacker smiles manically at Eli.

Hacker: ‘’the one without it was already taken’’

Eli grabs 2 sword handles from his back while he moves to a low attacking stance.

Out of The two handles appear beautiful blades, the one in his right hand black and the other as red as blood. The hacker shrugs his shoulders and laughs.

Hacker: ‘’shouldn’t an admin at least give me a warning to stand down or something? Not that I would have to abide to it though’’

Eli: ‘’I am not an admin, and even if I was…. This one’s personal…’’

The hacker aims his gun at Eli again, it starts to light up as it charges up.

Hacker: ‘’fine pal, come at me’’

As the hacker fired another energy shot, Eli reacts quickly and moves with high speed to the side of his foe. He rushes in and tries to slash the Hacker who was too slow to see Eli’s movements. But when the blade almost touches the man, a glass-like wall appeares on that side of his body.

Eli: ‘’what the…..?’’

As Eli pushed on, trying to cut through the invisible wall, sparks emerged on the contact point followed by an extremely strong force throwing Eli away from the Hacker.

Hacker: ‘’do you think I would come unprepared?’’

Eli: ‘’Adam, what was that? I can’t remember any type of armor or item that’s capable of this’’

Adam: ‘’I don’t…. wait…. yeah! That’s it! It’s that weird uniform he’s wearing, he somehow changed the code to repel physical and magical attacks from the one side he’s attacked from’’

Eli: ‘’and here I thought he was some kind of perverted creep who likes to be dressed like that’’

Adam: ‘’he still chose the uniform himself when he changed the code’’

Hacker: ‘’what are you saying fairy unicorn princess? You don’t like my uniform?’’

A dark aura surrounded Eli as he dashed forward again to the Hacker shouting with a deep voice:

Eli: ‘’I am not a princess!!!’’

The hacker smiles and fires another energy shot at Eli. Like the last time Eli manages to dodge the attack with ease, this time the hacker followed his movement, but noticed it wasn’t Eli who was charging at him. Instead it’s a black shadow like figure, with only yellow eyes and grinning mouth glowing on its face, replacing Eli and was speeding toward him fast, making a sort of tackle against the hacker, which was deflected because of the invisible wall

Just when the hacker thought he was safe, at the same time he felt he was stabbed in his back. It was Eli who forced his sword against exactly the other side of the hacker’s body than where the shadow struck him. The hacker is launched into a wall of one of the stores.

Eli: ‘’it took just one shadow clone to take you out. I hate wasting my time on amateur hackers like you. If you make a defense system, don’t just make it protect you at the side you’re attacked at. Any higher level duo-team could have easily taken you out’’

The hacker drops to the ground as his clothes turned into a white dirty t shirt and dirty short pants.

Adam: ‘’okay stand back Eli, we’re setting his Nerve system to in custody until we’re done with the name swap’’

Eli puts away his swords as he calms down.

Eli: ‘’man, it scares me sometimes to what you guys can do to players like this’’

Adam: ‘’yeah well, it’s all in the terms of agreement. The creators knew the GLASS would become a great success so they made sure there where absolutely no legal issues. Immobilization can be used only on defeated players, so they will have a fair fight’’

Eli: ‘’why not just immobilize anyone who doesn’t abide to the rules?’’

Adam: ‘’it would scare off the public too much. No one would play if we could do as we please. A fair fight won gets us access to some privileges. Of course only available to employees in the control centers’’

Eli: ‘’any progress on this name stuff yet?’’

Adam: ‘’calm down, almost ready. What’s the rush anyway? It’s just your profile name’’

Eli: ‘’Adam, I have a image to protect’’

Hacker: ‘’you’ll always be a pretty princess to me’’

Eli: ‘’shut up before I pummel you offline!’’

From the rooftops a giggle is heard, Eli sights who it is.

Eli: ‘’I had hoped you wouldn’t be around on this humiliating day’’

A girl drops down to the street wearing dark and light blue clothing, she is holding a decorated javelin. She looks up with a serious look on her face. A silence reigns over the empty mall streets, only a single gust of wind could be heard.

Kyara: ‘’seems like I didn’t come here in time….. Otherwise I could be of help…….’’

Her serious face quickly turns into an uncontrollable laugh.

Kyara: ‘’ miss_pretty_fairy_unicorn_princess2’’

Eli: ‘’shut up!’’

Kyara: ‘’you should have heard yourself just now; ‘’I am not a princess!!’’ hilarious!’’

Eli: ‘’shut up, before I make you shut up!’’

Adam: ‘’would you two calm down already. Eli, we’re done with the name transfer’’

Eli: ‘’ah, the shadow dragon has been returned to his former glory!’’

Kyara: ‘’good morning Adam’’

Adam: ‘’SEE! She can do it normally! Good morning Kyara’’

Kyara ‘’anyway, what do we got here?’’

Eli: ‘’a simple amateur hacker who stole some prototype weapon, changed in-game data and…’’

Kyara: ‘’….and got you known as a pretty princess’’

Kyara starts laughing loudly again.

Eli: ‘’you are not allowed to say any of this to anyone understood!’’

Kyara: ‘’yeah yeah’’

Adam: ‘’Eli it doesn’t really matter anymore. The higher ups had to know whose names were going to be swapped…. Soooo…..’’

Eli sighs and dramatically drops to the ground.

Eli: ‘’when is this nightmare going to end?’’

Adam: ‘’okay you two, enough chick-chat. You got a mission from control center’’

Kyara: ‘’man they’re not giving us a single day of peace do they?’’

Eli: ‘’hey, we were lucky to be employed by HQ. Would you rather have another boring desk job?’’

Adam: ‘’my job is not boring Eli’’

Eli: ‘’sorry, I didn’t mean it like that’’

Adam: ‘’jeez I will help you again when your name is stolen again’’

Eli: ‘’I said sorry okay!’’

Kyara: ‘’ADAM! What about the mission?’’

Adam: ‘’yeah yeah, we’ve had some reports of unusual glitches near the open wasteland area just outside of town. Over here, we can’t see anything strange in the program, so we want you two to go there and see these glitches for yourselves. I will be keeping track of everything you guys see.’’

Eli: ‘’just go there and look around?’’

Adam: ‘’maybe take out some hackers, if necessary’’

Eli: ‘’see, I knew there was a catch’’

Kyara: ‘’anyway let’s go and finish this as soon as we can, I promised Mai to supervise her training’’

Eli nods, and they both start running out of the empty mall streets. Leaving the creepy hacker immobilized behind.