OhmN

by M J Conlon

  The ANKH Resurrectionist Chronicles: OhmN

  A Survival LitRPG Series

  By M J Conlon

  Cover Illustration by John Pozzi

  Dedication:

  This book is dedicated to Paul, and Rindy, thank you both for supporting me every step of my journey.

  Prelude

  "We are extremely over budget for this trip, sir." Specialist Tract warned his commander as he reviewed the over one hundred million citizens that were being uploaded to the transport server.

  "I already have it covered." Commander Garret stated as he watched the lines of hundreds of new people enter the Virtual Reality pods in the hopes that their uploaded conciseness would be one of the lucky one million citizens who got to colonize the newly discoverable habitable planet LHS 1140 b.

  "How, sir?"

  "The odds of anyone surviving this are 100 to 1; just let everyone know they have to permanently surpass 99% of the population to ensure their spot in history." The Commander callously stated.

  "That isn't too bad of an idea," a commanding voice stated from behind the Commander and his Specialist. The two quickly turned, then upon seeing the person who broke into their conversation they both rendered a salute. "As you were" Admiral Tate stated, rendering a quick salute before walking to the giant window that separated them from the massive uploading floor below. "Give me a report."

  "Sir," Commander Garret stated, "planetary evacuation is proceeding as planned, though a bit slowly. As you know it takes up to 60 seconds per person to be uploaded properly, and another 45 seconds for the empty vessels to have their genetic material stripped down and sent to the storage containers, along with a unique vial of blood containing each participant’s unique DNA sequence..."

  The Admiral waved his hand as if he had heard all this before, which he had numerous times since the idea was originally proposed at the world summit meeting five years earlier. The thought that China and Russia already had their capsules in space heading for LHS 1140 b made his blood boil. He knew it would be at least 85 years before their advanced luxury liners arrived, and these vessels should be twice as fast as the Russian vessels and nearly four times faster than the Chinese vessels that took off almost immediately after the meeting adjourned.

  The only thing that delayed the American launch was they were awaiting details of the first inhabitants landing to Proxima Centauri b. It took automated AI reports to explain how each initial inhabitant had their brain fried during the trip. It was unclear whether it was the solar radiation, or the effects of having a cryogenically frozen body without keeping the mind engaged, but the results were all the same. The first colonists to land on Proxima Centauri b all landed as zombies, not the archaic mentality, but mentally debilitated and physically disabled bodies that were pale imitations of the brave men and women that first departed.

  "...Lack of true villains and constant respawns." Commander Garret’s words broke through the cloud of thoughts that were spiraling through his mind.

  "What was that?"

  "There will be a problem, as currently there is a lack of true villains, and the fact that everyone has constant respawns until they decide not to respawn anymore..." Commander Garret was of course thinking about The Expanse, the AI driven multi-verse that would be the playground for the one hundred million citizens who all dreamed of a new start on LHS 1140 b. The Admiral bit his bottom lip as he thought about the words, then a plan came to mind.

  "Right now everyone has unlimited respawns?"

  "Currently, yes. This is to keep it in context with other games."

  That is when the idea to save mankind, or at least ensuring the right number of people were deposited on LHS 1140 b took place in the mind of the Admiral.

  "No, just seven lives."

  "Seven?"

  "Yes just seven, and give the people incentives to give up their chances at extra lives. Give them powers or better starting stats...something like that." The Admiral wasn't completely aware of what the game had in store, but his weekly meetings had given him some understanding of what the worlds would be like. There would be five worlds, each responsible for hosting 20 million lives that could evolve from archaic medieval times to space flight where they could eventually interact with the other four planets. Each planet would have its own strengths and weaknesses. All very confusing, but clearly the game designers had put a lot of time and planning into making sure there was more than enough content for all 85 years of space flight.

  "That could be doable...sir" Specialist Tract broke in. "In fact we could make it a reward system too." Tract looked up to see the blank look of both officers staring back at him. "What we do is offer them an extra life for killing 20 other players, which they could keep for later respawns, or again turn in for more powers. The more they turn in, the higher tiers of powers to which they then gain access." He could see that they were sort of getting it, but needed a little bit more of a nudge. "Basically we reward the players for eliminating the other 99 million avatars from the game, making it so there isn't a bias but the lives at the end would be a reward for earning a spot on the new colony."

  "That is a great idea." The Admiral said, as he lifted his wrist to make a call from his wrist watch. Instantly a slight holographic of a young soldier filled the holographic projection on the Admiral's watch.

  "Yes, sir?" The holographic man asked.

  "Patch me through to the Dev-ops team for the LHS 1140 b expedition. We have an emergency patch to implement." The Admiral stated.

  "One second," the holographic soldier stated as he left the projection, a sign that he left the holographic projection field.

  "Sir," Specialist Tract stated while there was a pause in the conversation. "If I could also make one extra suggestion." The Specialist thought about how the massive fortune his family had, wondering if he could leverage a bit of those resources for a better starting position in the new world.

  "Yes." The Admiral asked, somewhat distractedly as he anxiously awaited telling the Dev-ops team about his new ideas.

  "What if we also allow people to spend their external cash and assets for starting gear, power, and more importantly extra lives in the new game?" A slight pause, "a sort of pay to stay function to the game."

  The Admiral quirked an eyebrow at the Specialist who just might have ensured his promotion.

  "Most of the people who are getting uploaded are poor and have no assets, but if we want to get more...affluent individuals to join we should offer a reward system for people who are giving up resources in this world so they can have a chance at a life on LHS-B."

  "LHS-B?"

  "Yeah, LHS-B, we should call it by a shorter name."

  The Admiral looked at the Specialist with a measuring eye, then remembered the Senator who came from the same state as the Specialist, then bells began to ring in the Admiral’s mind, as a smile broke out on his face.

  "Admiral Tate, how may I help you?" Brian, the Dev-ops lead developer broke the Admiral's spiraling thoughts.

  "We have come up with a plan to advance the game going to LHS-B." The Admiral stated looking at the Specialist with a new look of respect. "We need to limit the game to seven lives that can be traded for starting powers. Additionally, we need to develop a system for allowing people to become monsters in the game." The Admiral quickly added the last part, before going into further detail.

  Chapter 0

  “Give us your poor, your old, your disabled and we will give you your first chance at a new life, in the ANKH, the Artificial Neural Kinesthetic Habitat.” The recruiter’s voice echoed into my government forced audio feed player. Derick Draven remembered how people in the past all used to sit in a room and watch one television set? Was that the right word? The television set would be mounted on a wall or in the beginning stationed on th
e floor against a wall, from there people would get their video news feeds and access to entertainment streams. Derick had his upgraded for free once he joined the military at 17. From there it was no more free black and white productions and distorted voices, after that it was the good life, the most updated video streamers each year.

  The most up-to-date immunity boosters to help fight off the new plagues that swept through a population of 725 million people in the United States alone and that was before the annexation of Mexico. After the annexation of Mexico the United States became a lot less united and more disjointed. Derick had been deployed with his unit to protect the recently annexed country from hostile inhabitants who disliked the democratic system that they adopted wishing to join the rest of the United States.

  Derick made his name and unit a rallying cry for the media, especially after his unit survived the massacre at Zapopan. Derick’s fingers began clutching his wheelchair tightly at the thought of what happened nearly 20 years ago today. Derick looked at his calendar and was shocked to see that it was indeed the 22nd of November, happy fucking anniversary, Derick thought to himself as he slowly wheeled his way forward.

  There was a time when Derick would have had the most up-to-date wheelchair possible, a sign of how well the government treated its veterans, but those days had long gone. Now Derick had to push the electrical wheels forward by hand, forcing gears and motors to whir with each stroke forward. Derick couldn’t wait to get out of here, off this Godforsaken planet where breathing the air felt like inhaling pure tar into the lungs.

  Derick saw that many of the people who were in the lines were not the ones who openly wanted a new life, or new body on a recently terraformed planet, or at least a planet that would be ready upon their arrival in just under 78 years. The joint life project conducted by the big three, China, Russia, and the United States already yielded results with the confirmed successful terraforming of three different planets, though LHS-B was the only planet that had been deemed safe enough to send a colony.

  I wonder if we are ever going to hear from the people who landed on Proxima Centauri b? From what I’ve read the ship while having a successful mission through space was destroyed upon entry into the atmosphere. Though there were more sinister forums that spoke of how the inhabitants of cryo-sleep became zombies upon arrival and were now mindless murderers. Derick hoped the last part was not true, though he couldn’t help but feel there was a little bit of credence to the words of some of the forum speakers.

  Derick knew one of them was his Army friend Parker, though on the anonymous forum it was hard to tell which one Parker was at any given time. If given enough time, Derick could go back and clearly distinguish Parker’s writing voice from those in the crowd, causing Derick to pay more attention to those threads of his old friend in particular. His old friend was a conspiracy theorist, but his writings were still interesting to read. It was one thread that was written by a person he believed to be Parker that spoke of how rogue code had been added to the AIs and the gaming platforms for this trip to LHS-B. In the thread that lasted a number of pages, Derick read of a conspiracy to skew the gaming system so that there were a limited number of lives to be had in game, and that those who were rich and wished to join the expedition would be granted in game perks at the start of the game. These perks included natural starting abilities, additional lives, starting money, property, and so on. Many of these features were features that were already written into the game, but allegedly those who paid for this advancement would be granted the items and powers starting off.

  “Become the greatest you, in ANKH!” The advertisement went off in his mind again. With the government-issued implant he would now receive these constant advertisements every 20 minutes until he went to his local recruitment facility to get the advertisements turned off.

  Derick knew well in advance from his days of dealing with the Mexican uprisings that this was a way of quelling the population. Derick just made sure to do his homework beforehand. Derick read the forums where he knew Parker had posted warnings to the people as a whole, warnings that now seemed to have a lot more credibility to them, Derick thought as he saw a platoon of soldiers standing guard at all entry and exit points in the room.

  One woman pleaded with the guards to let her out, stating she would just deal with the lack of sleep and the constant advertisements, but to no avail. The guards detained the woman and took her to a side room for questioning. A few hours later Derick saw the same woman get back into line and wait quietly, though she clearly favored her stomach with her right hand. Bastards. Derick thought to himself, as he wheeled himself one roll closer to his inevitable future.

  Derick knew he would join the game or go mad from the constant commercials that had their intervals constantly dropping., Originally they would come on once a week informing him of the possibility of a new life. Then daily, then every eight hours, then every hour, then every 45 minutes, every 30, and now every 20 minutes. Sleep had been tough to get for the past few days, lots of quick cat naps and a lot of lethargy had forced Derick to come here. There was a rumor that the timer for the commercials would shorten and shorten until every second, but only once the time to upload had ended. Those who tried to fight the broadcasts would eventually be nothing more than mindless husks. Derick saw the effects of this on some people. He remembered the people of Zapopan having a reason to be angry and hostile. He even felt sorry for having to secure the city for his government, the same government that now used the culling-the-herd mentality on him as was used on many of the inhabitants of Mexico. Sorry, Derick thought, a tear forming in his eye as he remembered hating the insurgents who were attacking him and his unit. He remembered especially hating them when one took his legs by running him into a wall with an armored vehicle. The bastard pinned me to the wall and left me for dead. Derick thought to himself, before patting his stumps as a reminder that they were still missing that the horrible event had actually occurred.

  “What are you waiting for? This is your last chance to become something greater than you ever could be on Earth? Want a tropical island home? Build one. Want to become a sea pirate? Then go to the ocean planet of Triton. Want to battle dragons, go to Draco. Want adventures with beautiful elves? Go to Argoth. Want a typical blend of all races and cultures? Then visit Gennymeade. Want a mysterious adventure? Go to Polaris. Remember all players will start at the Underworld, where they will all be level 0 until they exit. While in the underworld you can unlock your profession or professions. You will be able to choose where you wish to go, or you can let the randomizer sort you to the planet with the least amount of people by asking any non-player character to “send me on my adventure.” In ANKH all things are possible.” The announcements were getting longer and more useful the closer Derick got to the loading pods. No doubt this was meant to encourage people about the choice of staying in the game.

  Finally it was Derick’s turn to enter the pod. He was grabbed by two different soldiers, one under each arm and practically thrown into the pod. Once inserted into the pod a number of wires were attached to his brain, neck, arms, waist, and finally caps were placed onto his stumps that were left for his legs. Derick sighed as the pod began to close around him, covering him with a polarized lens that blocked all light from coming in and as Derick observed while in line, it also blocked any light from going out.

  The metal wires that connected to his brain injected a cold fluid that burned into his body. Derick read that this was the tranquilizing medicine that would hopefully block out all pain receptors as his body would be harvested for living tissue samples during the uploading process. Data from his headset was uploaded before him, showing his age, sex, and past history.

  “Welcome Master Sergeant Draven, it is a pleasure to serve you.” The voice of the pod spoke as tiny pin pricks could be felt entering Derick’s body from all over.

  “You are aware of the procedures that will soon take place, as you read all the legal documentation while in line.” Derick rel
axed, as it was one of the few times his mind would not be forced to listen to the endless commercials for joining the adventure of a lifetime. Derick also went over his mental notes that Parker had uploaded as his last post almost six months ago, about a rogue patch, an Easter egg of sorts that was meant to give the common man a chance to survive in a game system that was already biased against him and the other undesirables from the start.

  “Breathe in, this will only hurt a bit.”

  Breathe in? Derick had a second to fill his body with air, when over a thousand metal spikes entered his chest piercing every major organ in the process. Then a slight cold sensation could be felt at the base of his spine as another needle began injecting more burning fluid under his skin. Derick tried not to scream, tried not to cry out, but the pain was too intense. Instead, two metal fibers pierced his vocal cords, paralyzing all movement, and ensuring Derick would have a silent death.

  Everything went dark for a moment, then suddenly Derick’s eyes were filled with a beautiful mountain view that Derick had seen while traveling to Zapopan. It was every inch as beautiful as he remembered it and more. During the hard years of his deployment, Derick thought of visiting that mountainside and watching the water roll down from the heavens into the tiny lake below. He imagined being there with a wife and kids, though the wife and number of kids varied from dream to dream, but the mountain view never changed. Is this heaven? Derick thought.

  “No, this is just a scene of tranquility that will be added to one of the game worlds randomly, thanks to your contribution of memories.” A voice spoke in his head.

  You can read my thoughts?

  “In a way I am your thoughts, as I am all the processes and memories you have used to define yourself over the years.”

  How?

  “Your thoughts have all been recorded since your first implant at six months old, then your capacity was increased once you entered the military, then again when you were allowed to retire.” The voice said the words ‘allowed to retire’ in a choked voice as if it was having a hard time finding the most acceptable way of stating how Derick had been made a poster child for the war and then discarded once the media hype died down and the last inhabitants of Mexico fully allowed themselves to be assimilated into the United States.