Ruthless: Path of Conquest

The Florida sun was hot and bright in the sky, and James Robard suddenly felt every bead of sweat dripping down the back of his neck as the light fell on him through the shattered driver’s side window.

“Just put the gun down, man,” James said. His hands were up from sheer instinct. The man standing next to him, grasping him by his necktie, seemed far from stable.

“Keys, asshole!” the other man pronounced. “Outta the car, and gimme your goddamn keys!”

What the carjacker lacked in eloquence, his pistol more than made up for in bleak intimidation. The black barrel stared James in the eye, daring him to make a move.

Off to the side of it in his field of vision, the timer continued counting down as if mocking him. [01:11:32]

“Damn it!” James cursed under his breath. He could think of no way out of this situation that didn’t risk imminent death.

To think, just fifteen minutes ago, he’d been sitting in a dull meeting!

—

For the associates at Barry, Pesca & MacDougal, it had seemed to be a morning like any other.

The subject of the morning's meeting: integrating the latest developments in artificial intelligence into firm workflow. Computer geeks were labeling this latest stage as “true artificial intelligence,” annoying everyone else who didn’t understand the difference between this and the last six stages of artificial intelligence that had been trumpeted so loudly over the previous twenty years.

However, the firm’s founder, Brendan Barry, had insisted that every member of the firm participate in presentations on the new technology. So it seemed that everyone was about to learn those fine distinctions.

James, the only Black associate at the firm, had seated himself as far from the projector screen as possible. He was perhaps the least interested in the presentation of all the participants. Every face in the room was a gray blur. The voice of the presenter was a dull Charlie Brown-style “Wah wah wah wah wah wah.”

James wondered for the thousandth time if there was another profession he could have chosen where he wouldn’t feel this way every day. An unanswerable question, but one he was prepared to ruminate on rather than pay attention to this meeting. But before his mind could wander away fully, the monotony was interrupted.

There was a sound at the door, a shuffling scratching noise as someone pushed weakly on the other side.

Already keen to be out of there, James darted out of his seat before anyone else and maneuvered around the table to open it for Alan. The oldest partner in the firm, Alan Roget was rail-thin and pale-skinned. A wreath of ivory hair crowned the sides of his head, a thin layer growing ever-thinner.

“Thanks, James,” he said, slowly moseying in with his briefcase in one hand and coffee in the other.

“My pleasure, sir,” James said softly.

Alan was his favorite person in the office. Not just because he knew that the old man wanted to be at this meeting as little as James–though he did know that–or even because Alan was the nicest partner on a personal level–though he was that–but more importantly because the skinny old guy felt to James like something of an outsider too.

Alan was the only partner who focused on an area other than torts, and it was a mystery to James how the old man had ended up there in the first place. Alan’s laid-back style and background in trusts and estates seemed inapposite to the aggressive, competitive, efficient culture the firm fostered in all its associates.

James was grateful for the interruption Alan presented, knocking Sadie Bigelow off her presentation game. Distraction worth more than the old man’s weight in gold. It was a pity that Alan couldn’t more thoroughly derail the proceedings, maybe start throwing things at the screen and raving like the old newscaster from the film “Network”: “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

But of course, as soon as the old man was seated, the presenter launched back into her presentation. Efficiency triumphing over all once again! James died a little more inside as he heard the words, ““Where the real potential of AI lies, is in…”

What James wouldn’t give for a more lasting disruption. A fire drill. A power outage. An emergency alert that a giant asteroid was falling from the heavens, about to smash into their building first—right now, even that would be prefera—[Greetings, heroes!]

What the fuck?!

[Greetings to my dear villains as well! Greetings also to everyone in between! Greetings to all those lucky souls who will soon be initiated!]

The voice was silent for a moment, and the presenter issued an awkward chuckle.

“Heh. Well, I don’t know what that was—” she seemed to be preparing to resume.

[This announcement is to give everyone hearing it time to prepare. Your world is being processed into the System. Think of it as sort of like a software upgrade for reality. Upgrading from boring old Reality 1.0 all the way to Reality 5G, a multi-generation leap!]

Was that some kind of a joke? Do mass hallucinations have a sense of humor?

[For those of you wondering, this is a completely serious matter. Deadly serious, as in, by the time it’s finished, a sizable portion of your planet’s population will be dead. A sadly necessary sacrifice for the Orientation.]

Well, you’re able to speak into all of our heads and alter what we see. Even if this is a hallucination, I have to take it seriously.

[You have one of your hours and twenty-three minutes until Orientation begins.]

A timer appeared in the corner of James’s vision with the corresponding amount of time. Great, he thought, now my hallucination has a sense of urgency!

[Please pardon the mess as you prepare for Orientation. Your new world is still under construction.]

What the hell does that mean? What mess?! And what sort of construction?!

[Take the remaining time to make your careful preparations for Orientation. The task we set before you is not easy, but whether you believe it or not now, it is necessary. In time, those of you who live may come to agree with us. We hope for the best of you to succeed. We’re rooting for you, James. You were meant for bigger things.]

He swiveled his head around the room wildly at that, looking to see whether other people were getting the same kind of personalized message as he was, but it was no use. They were all looking at their screens in varying degrees of confusion or alarm, but there was no expression on anyone’s face that would give away whether they had been personally singled out, as he just had. And he couldn’t see anyone’s screen but his own.

As the words sat in front of his eyes, a strange excitement came over him.

All his life, James had been singled out by teachers, aptitude tests, and peers as someone special, smart, a possible leader, someone whose future was written in the stars—and then nothing big or important had ever happened to him.

It was the disappointment of his life. He had not dared greatly; he had pursued natural next steps for whatever situation he was in. If anything, he had underperformed people who were similarly competent and intelligent to himself.

James had been his high school’s valedictorian! Some of his peers had gone on to military or business success far beyond what he’d achieved, while he had allowed himself to grow dull, complacent, a drone fueled only by caffeine.

It was as if he had been saving himself up for something, reserving his powers and strength for some critical moment all his life, but that moment had never come.

Until now.

Far from needing more caffeine, he was now filled with all the energy and tension of a coiled spring.

What to do with that energy? The announcement appeared to be over now. James wondered when the opaque screen would disappear, and as if in response to his thought, it did. I have a bad feeling about this. He experimentally tried thinking that he wanted to read the announcement again, and it reappeared in its entirety, taking up almost his entire field of vision, this time sans the voice of the announcer.

He rushed through it one more time just to take in any details he might have been too stunned to absorb before. It was unchanged. Am I hallucinating? Is this real? Is it a dream?

It felt more like a video game than anything else. Then he remembered what video games were like, and a silly idea occurred to him. Well, this would confirm whether or not it’s real, maybe…

Extremely self-conscious, he whispered the word: “Status.”

Miraculously, a new screen appeared in front of his face!

[Status

Name: James Robard

Race: Base Human

Class: Blocked

Job: Blocked

Health: Blocked

Mana: Blocked

Stats

Blocked

Skills

Blocked

Talents

Blocked

Titles

Blocked]

A popup appeared above his head just after the very unclear status menu had popped up.

Great, there’s enhanced spam in Reality 5.0, James thought. Now I can’t even escape by leaving my devices behind. Then he started to read it, and his mouth dropped open.

[Conditions met! New Title obtained: System Pioneer!]

System Pioneer? I wonder what that title does.

An explanation immediately populated.

[System Pioneer: As one of the first fifty humans in your universe to interact with the System beyond receiving announcements, your nature is like that of a pioneer, to rush forward into the unknown and embrace unquantifiable challenges. As such, enjoy a 10% bonus to all stats when entering a setting no other human from your universe has explored before or an engagement with a type of opponent no other human from your universe has defeated before. Don’t do anything too reckless, now!]

That sounds quite good, James thought. Besides that warning at the end. Since it’s a percentage increase, it’ll scale with my base stats and—James realized he was thinking about the real world like it was a game and forced himself to stop. Back to reality!

Now that he had semi-reluctantly accepted that this was real, James immediately felt a strong impulse to rush home to his wife, Mina. A burst of panic. He’d hesitated too long already. If people might really die during this “Orientation,” he needed to be there to protect her.

With a thought, he whisked the screens away. Other people were starting to murmur among themselves by this point. No one had disturbed him as he seemingly stared silently off into space. They could probably tell he must be doing something with the universe’s new interface, and anyway, he wasn’t that close to anyone here.

He wouldn’t have wanted to join any of the clustered whispering groups anyway. He didn’t like any of these people that much except maybe Alan, the only person besides James who was still on his own. Typical.

He rose sharply from his seat. If what he was thinking was right, this job didn’t matter anymore. These people, whose opinions he had spent hours worrying over and trying to shape in his own favor, were now of no particular account. Thank goodness. Now I can finally be myself again, and do what I want.

All eyes turned to him, as he was the only person standing.

James ignored them, apart from taking a dark satisfaction in ignoring them, and he marched out of the conference room.

As the door slowly closed behind him, he heard a scraping of chair against floor as someone—two someones?—got up in a hurry. James turned his head to see who was following him.

“Just where the hell do you think you’re going?!” Cliff Rogers demanded. “A little light show, and you think you can just waltz out without a word—”

“I have to see about my family, Cliff.” James found himself unable to just completely walk away. Cliff was moving as if to cut him off.

“What, you think this is real?” Cliff said. “Just hackers, man. Probably fuckin’ Russian hackers! They got into the projection system, and they got into the loudspeaker system, and that’s all it is!”

“And they somehow projected individualized messages in front of all our faces?! What’s wrong with you?!” James voice rose unintentionally to a near shout, and he controlled himself. “Just—I have to leave.”

He brushed off Cliff’s efforts to grab him and pushed through the double doors.

Cliff shouted after him: “You leave here, you’re done!”

James didn’t even turn his head. As far as he was concerned, he was done at Barry, Pesca & MacDougal.

But another person darted through the doors after him.

“James!” This other voice was more reasonable, and James felt compelled to at least respond to it.

He turned and said: “Dean, I can’t stop to talk right now! I have to get to my family!

“Okay, I get it, man,” Dean Crocetti said. “I’m not trying to stop you. Just wanted to encourage you to come back, with the family, if you can. If the worst is happening, the office is as good a place as any to make a stand. The walls are good material, there’s plenty of space, and there are people you know here.”

That last was certainly true. Whether James really wanted to know these people anymore was another question. If the System was real, and not merely mass hallucination, it was a very open-ended question.

But James trusted Dean’s survival instincts, at the very least. The forty-something partner was something of a prepper, and he and James had occasionally kicked around ideas about how to survive possible apocalypses. James thought Dean was a survivor type.

“Thanks for the invite, Dean. I’ll keep it in mind. Really.” Both men turned away from each other, and James rushed toward his Honda Civic, keys in hand.

He unlocked the old car. Got in. Started the engine. Began driving.

His mind moved a mile a minute as he sped away from the office, trying to process all the implications of the world being “processed into the System.” Do people have levels now? Special powers? It was weirdly energizing to think about.

We’re rooting for you, James. You were meant for bigger things.

He felt goosebumps rise on his skin. Then he shivered slightly and smiled to himself.

James turned right at the gas station nearest the office, but then he met traffic and had to slow down to avoid hitting the driver in front of him. He leaned his head out of his window to see how many cars were ahead of him, and it was quite a line. The further he leaned out, the more he could see, stretching off into the distance on what was normally a quiet road. But this was anything but a normal day.

“Damn it!” he swore loudly, punching the dashboard.

He checked the timer that still hovered at the corner of his vision, absurdly video game-like. [01:16:21]

Stuck in traffic, he thought. What a mundane thing to keep me away from Mina and Yulia on the last day of the world. He shook his head.

Whatever. He wouldn’t let the traffic get him down. He took his phone out, opened his favorited contacts, and tapped the top slot.

He could at least dial Mina and see if she was okay.

Or maybe he couldn’t.

A popup appeared–on the phone screen, rather than simply in his field of vision this time–indicating that he had no service. James looked at the phone more carefully for the first time since unlocking it and saw that he had no bars.

There went any plans to call Mina, Yulia, or his mother. He sighed, shoved the phone back into his pocket, and began to turn to look back at the road.

And then there was a smashing sound at the corner of his awareness. Shards of glass entangled themselves in James’s hair and clothes, and as he turned toward the noise, he was lucky that none of them struck him in the eyes.

“I want the car!” a wild voice declared.

James turned to see a Caucasian figure with darting eyes and long brown hair, but he found it difficult to focus in on any of the details with the black handgun shoved directly into his face.