Project Alpha_Book 1

by R. A. Mejia

  In addition to A’s in the classes, I gain three skills: Writing, Computer Knowledge, and Computer Interface. Writing at level 2 just improves my ability to put words into coherent sentences, but the guidebook says at higher levels it also stirs the creative writing juices. Computer Knowledge is precisely what it seems, it helps me absorb the technical details of what makes a computer work and at later levels gives insight into systems I haven’t studied yet. Computer Interface is really cool though. It enhances my ability to interact with any computer system. At the earliest levels, it makes the computer run faster as I use the interface. Which alone is great since it means I won’t feel like throwing my keyboard when the computer takes too long to do something. However, the guidebook says at higher levels I won’t even need to use a keyboard but will be able to communicate with computers directly. Almost like they’re NPCs from the dungeons.

  The spring semester starts almost as soon as the winter semester finishes. I sign up for another Algebra class, chemistry, physics, and a piano class just for fun.

  It’s about this time that more System based companies try to hire me away from Monsters Squashers Inc. I mean, I’d gotten a few messages after the Christmas party inquiring if I was employed by anyone. But those companies were merely interested in hiring an entry-level dungeon clearer.

  However, since Lillian registered me with her team, I’ve been getting System messages from companies offering thousands of credits to just quit my job at Lillian’s corporation and even more if I’d join them. It seems like they’re more interested in stopping Lillian from participating in the System Games than actually hiring me because I’m good at something.

  I politely decline all the job offers, but after a few weeks, some of the recruiters start to get rather aggressive. They issue veiled threats in the messages they send. Some of which come to my house in the ordinary mail. I don’t even respond to those messages, and when I finally tell Lillian about the offers she’s not surprised. Instead, she suggests we increase my training regimen in case anyone actually tries to follow through on their threats.

  I’d been training my skills in crafting with John over the last five months and get Trap Making to level 6, Gadget to level 4, Weapon Design up to level 4. Also, I’ve been training with Lillian in the dungeons on a combination of skills and abilities that work with my fighting style. Well, that training doubled once those creepy job offers started coming in. So, I ended up getting new combat skills and raised the ones I had higher. I raised Firearms, Ranged Combat, and Rifle to level 4. I got new skills in Laser Technology, Explosives, and Grenades and get each to level 3. While all that may not seem like a lot, it amounts to 492 hours of practice.

  After all that work, I’m decidedly glad that spring break is approaching.

  Interlude

  There’s a flash of light and a shadowy figure enters a darkened office in an undisclosed location. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkened room and see the outline of a man smoking behind a desk. The room has been designed to obscure everyone's appearance. Still, the shadowy figure has taken extra steps to conceal his identity and adjusts the mask he wears that has a custom ability to hide his name and level from anyone using Identify or a similar skill.

  The man behind the desk begins the conversation with an irritated tone, “It’s so good of you to finally show up.”

  The masked man shrugs unconcerned. He knows his worth to the company as a trouble shooter. “There was an unavoidable delay.”

  The smoking man harrumphs once and drums his fingers on the desk, obviously still annoyed. “I’ll let it go this time. Now on to our business. That girl and her company are becoming an issue again. Her father was a brilliant User and if she’s half as talented, then we can’t let her company enter the System Games. We have to win 1st place. We need that dungeon seed for our research department.”

  “Don’t worry sir. Her latest partner, Anthony Tinoco, is a loser. I’ve scouted him out, there’s no way he can make level 10 in time.”

  “Well, he’s already refused our offers to buy him off. We need assurances he won’t be a problem.”

  Thinking for a moment, the masked man says, “Well, from what I’ve seen. His weakness is his family. You should send a stronger message to him by threatening them. Nothing forceful yet, just an economic incentive to back away. If that doesn’t work…”

  The smoking man cuts him off, “If that doesn’t work we’ll consider him a ‘liability’ and let you resolve the issue. Permanently.”

  The man wearing the mask laughs. He enjoys his work so much sometimes.

  Chapter 35

  I’ve been looking forward to spring break for the last couple of weeks. Jeff invited me to take a road trip with him to Cancun, Mexico. I’ve never traveled out of the country and have heard that the parties down there get pretty wild.

  Unfortunately, my plans were derailed with a simple phone call from Lillian. The day before I plan to leave, Lillian calls and asks me to come over to the office. When I arrive, I’m dressed in shorts, a loose Hawaiian shirt, and a shell necklace.

  Lillian is sitting at her desk in dress pants and a sleeveless dress shirt. Sitting next to her is John, who looks like he’s sulking.

  Tilting her head questioningly at my attire, Lillian waves at me. “Anthony, thanks for coming in. I know you had some time off this next week and wanted to arrange to do some group training for the three of us. I have a lead on a dungeon that’s appeared in Southern California near San Diego.”

  “Really? I was leaving tomorrow for a…” before I finish, I realize how it will sound if I tell Lillian that I’d planned to go party for a week in Mexico. Instead, I finish, “… Umm…on a road trip with someone from college.”

  Lillian raises an eyebrow at the obvious change. “Well, you’ll have to cancel your vacation plans. The System Games are only in a couple more months, and we need to get you to level 10. Otherwise, you can’t participate.”

  Aww man. Jeff is going to have to entertain all those bikini-clad ladies by himself.

  I sigh in resignation. Then remember that Lillian said the dungeon is near San Diego. There are beaches there too. I pull out my phone and do a quick search for San Diego + Beach Pictures. I get some scenic photos of the beautiful beaches. When I add the keyword bikini to the search, I get some even more interesting pictures. I mean, woah.

  “You ok, Anthony?”

  I look up from my phone and see Lillian giving me a knowing smile.

  “Uh, yeah. I was just looking up San Diego...for research.”

  “Ha. Yeah, I bet you do a lot of ‘research’ on your phone when you’re by yourself.” John chimes in.

  I feel my face flush, but try to keep a calm demeanor. “Well, I’m ready to go to San Diego when you guys are.”

  Lillian shakes her head at my sudden change of attitude. She likely suspects what I was researching. “We’ll meet here tomorrow.”

  Returning to Lillian’s office the next day, I’ve made sure to pack my inventory with stuff I think I’ll need.

  Inventory (9 spaces): Laser Pistol, Portable Class B Trap Construction Bench, Flash Grenade (5), Floor Trap II (15), Wall Trap II (15), M-98 Widow Sniper Rifle, Ammunition (150), and Caltrop Grenade (5).

  I leave one inventory space open in case I find something cool in the dungeon I want to stash.

  I’m wearing my regular street clothes, jeans, and a t-shirt. I also decided to keep my shell necklace on since we’re heading to a beach city and I want to fit in.

  Lillian greets me wearing a skin-tight blue bodysuit that covers her from her neck all the way down to her toes. With her blonde hair tied back in a ponytail she kind of looks like Samus when she’s not wearing her Metroid suit. John is wearing an even odder outfit; completely covered in black spandex, with various electronic parts attached to his body. His left eye covered by a holographic lens; takes me a moment, to realize that he’s dressed like a Borg from Star Trek.

  “Why are you two dres
sed like that? Halloween was months ago.”

  The two look at me curiously.

  “The better question is why aren’t you dressed up?”

  “Didn’t you get the memo? You were supposed to come dressed up.”

  John has a huge smile on his face. “You don’t know where we’re going do you?”

  My nose crinkles as I think about the question. “I know we’re going to San Diego. Should I know something else?”

  Lillian giggles, “Uh, nope. Let’s go.”

  She then walks over to the office door and pulls up the port interface and establishes a connection to somewhere in San Diego. The three of us walk through the door and exit into the bright sunshine of the golden state. A voluptuous woman in a blue two-piece bikini walks by, and my head follows her bounce as she walks away.

  I hear someone next to me cough and turn to see a smirking John and a frowning Lillian.

  Putting on my most innocent smile, I quickly ask, “Uh, so where’s the dungeon?”

  Lillian shakes her head and walks past me muttering something about ‘boys.' John and I follow her across a busy four-lane highway, and as we walk along the sidewalk, the breeze shifts and the smell of the salty ocean hits me. Man, I can’t wait to finish this dungeon and hit the beach. I bet there are a lot of bikini-clad ladies just hanging out on the beach. My imagination conjures up images of bikini-clad beauties giggling on a sandy beach. Some are sunbathing, while others bounce up and down in slow motion while playing volleyball and the music from Baywatch plays in the background.

  My daydream is knocked right out of my mind as I walk face first into someone’s back. I look up and apologize to…Batman? I hear laughter behind me and turn to see Lillian and John covering their mouths as they chuckle. Looking around, I see that we’re in a long line of costumed people. I see people dressed up from every popular comic, movie, anime, and TV show you can think of. A guy dressed up as Spider-Man is standing next to lady dressed up as Nico Robin from One Piece.

  Oh, that reminds me, I still need to watch the latest episode of One Piece. I’m sure any episode now, they’ll find Gol D. Roger’s treasure and Luffy will become the pirate king.

  Putting my anime list to the side, I ask Lillian, “Ok, what are we doing?”

  She smiles and tells me, “We’re here to find that dungeon. It just happens to be located at this convention. I sent you a message to dress up so we’d fit in with the rest of the cosplayers.”

  Cosplayers? Convention? Oh my god. Could we be at one of the fabled comic con conventions? I’ve always wanted to go to one but never thought I’d have the money to travel. I look around with fresh eyes and feel myself start to geek out. I feel a grin spread across my face as Steampunk Poison Ivy walks by and I wave, and she waves back. Turning back to my team, I can’t help but sqeee in excitement and hug both of them. They both look surprised by the hug, but I don’t care. I’m finally here, among my nerdy people.

  As the line moves forward to get into the convention, Lillian hands me a lanyard with the convention badge for me to hang around my neck. When we pass through the glass doors into the convention, I’m handed a thick brochure printed on recycled paper. Inside are all the panels and presentations. Quickly flipping through it, I see weirdly titled panels like: “Facebook and you. Social media for the Indie writer.”, “How to Cosplay in 10 easy steps.”, “Romance novels, yeah we’re still a thing.” And “Holograms, a new dimension of media.” What catches my eye is one of the celebrity panels. There’s a panel for Jay, and Silent Bob Get Old with Kevin Smith. Man, I love that guy. Even though he’s like 70, he’s still funny as hell. Heck, he’s the only reason that I took a job at a convenience store. I figured, ‘if he was a convenience store clerk and did well, why can’t I?’. That and we needed the money.

  Lillian and John are walking ahead of me now, and I have to squeeze through the crowd to get to them. I pull them away from the crowd of convention goers and ask, “Hey, do you two think we have time to catch some of the panels? There are a couple that I want to see.”

  Lillian shakes her head, “No. We’re here to do a job and get you leveled up. We’re not here to see panels.”

  John, flipping through his convention brochure says, “Wait. The boy has a point. I mean, we’re already here. Why can’t we see a panel or two?” Pointing to the brochure he continues, “There’s one where the entire surviving casts of Star Trek Voyager and Deep Space Nine are coming together.”

  Lillian pauses her automatic head shake, “Wait, is Captain Janeway going to be there?” John nods and Lillian’s eyes light up. She looks at me, and I can tell she’s rethinking her position from the way her mouth is quirking. With a loud sigh, she says, “Oh, ok. But just a couple. And we still have to work.”

  John and I agree immediately. The three of us decide which panels we want to see and estimate when we’ll have to leave the dungeon to catch them. Lillian sets an alarm that will notify us when we have to leave the dungeon each day to catch the panels, and the three of us set out to find the dungeon entrance. I use Dungeon Scan to home in on the dungeon, but we are slowed down by photographers and convention goers that want to take pictures with John and Lillian in their cosplay outfits. As we get closer and closer to the dungeon, I notice more frowns on people’s faces. I know it’s a small thing but ever since Lillian showed me the effects of keeping a dungeon around too long, I’ve been careful to note these kinds of things. I’d guess that this dungeon has only been around for a couple of days.

  Eventually, we reach an old unused part of the convention center on the ground floor near the docks in back. Just like the mall, it seems like people unconsciously avoid the area. A few minutes of visual searching and we spot the red door that leads to the dungeon. A quick use of Dungeon Inspect on the door provides us information on what we may be facing.

  Dungeon

  Type - Future

  Restrictions - None

  Recommended for levels 10-15

  I’m pleased to note that practicing with Dungeon Inspect and increasing the skill to level 3 increases the amount of information the skill provides. I pass on the information to the rest of the team. With a quick nod to each other, we open the red door and step onto the bridge of a starship. I recognize it as a mash-up between the bridges of space ship shows, but there are also a variety of uniforms on the crew members. There are ladies with afros and short red dresses, men in black and yellow pajamas, and even a couple of guys in the skirts featured in the first episode of Star Trek-The Next Generation.

  A seven-foot-tall man with orange skin and spikes protruding from his forehead walks up to us. “You three are not supposed to be here. Identify yourselves.”

  I’m not sure what to say, but Lillian steps forward with an answer. “We are new ensigns recently assigned to the ship. I apologize for our tardiness.”

  The orange man considers us for a moment before sighing and saying, “No one ever tells me anything around here.” He then pulls a datapad out of a pocket and taps on it a few times. He has each of us press our thumbs to the pad, and our eyes are scanned to log us into the ship's database. When we finish, he escorts us to the ship's supply room and hands us each a uniform and small tablet. Once we’re dressed the orange man introduces himself, “I’m 2nd Lieutenant Arbitrator Deflux. I officially welcome you to the United Confederation of Planet’s ship, Titan. Your data pads will inform you of where you will be stationed and what tasks you can perform to help the ship.”

  He then walks away, leaving us alone once the doors to the room slide closed.

  Once the doors to the room slide closed with a whoosh; I practically jump up and down with excitement. “How cool is this? We’re in a Star Trek knock-off!”

  Lillian smiles at me, happy to see me so excited, but there’s also a thoughtful look on her face.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No, it’s just unusual that the dungeon does something like this. It’s probably related to the convention announcement that
the fifth Star Trek reboot was delayed because the production company fired their third director and the A.I. playing Khan is holding out for more screen time.”

  Well, regardless of why the dungeon turned out this way, I’m looking forward to exploring it. The three of us quickly change into our new uniforms. I’m sorely tempted to try to sneak a peek at Lillian but refrain. Lillian however jokingly calls out ‘hot stuff’ when John and I are changing with our backs to her.

  Checking out my datapad, I see a series of quests that have to be completed before the dungeon is defeated.

  Easy quests: Adjust the triilithium matrix with the Irish Engineer. Listen to the android member of the crew at a recital. Help the alien chef prepare dinner.

  Medium quests: Survey an alien planet. Negotiate a treaty. Solve a mystery involving a space ghost and a red-headed doctor.