Hi there, my name’s Jim. This might sound unusual or far-fetched, but I’m from a different world from you. Or, rather, a parallel world. However, I live among you now. I really have to say, you guys have it lucky. You guys still have a chance.
Curious as to why I would say that? Well, you’re in luck. Although I can’t tell you my last name or where I live, I can at least tell you my story. A cautionary tale, as it were.
Although, I do miss my old world sometimes. Specially the video games we had.
Alright, storytime.
*Ahem*
I was born in the grand old year of 1994, and...
Wait. Actually, I need to go a little farther back so that you have some context. You see, although religion was present during our middle ages, it wasn’t nearly as prevalent. Thus, without religion holding technological progress back, scientists were able to bring unparalleled technology progress to our world.
In fact, my old world had utilized electricity in its dwellings since 1757, and we’d had smartphones since the 1930s, which was nice. Your current phones are a little… basic, let’s call it. But, that’s besides the point.
Anyway, all of this technological innovation meant that there was a lack of guidelines to govern said innovation, and this resulted in the biggest difference between my world and yours, which is why I am writing this book.
During the Conference of Versailles in 1996, country leaders from around the world agreed to implant the world’s population with computer chips.
The chips were personal systems, meant to be personal assistants for their hosts. And really, they were quite useful. It meant that you had your personal AI in your head, helping with all facets of life. But, they also ended up being tracking systems. Not just location trackers, mind you. The chips were designed to read brain waves, so not only could those in control of the chips know what one saw or did at every moment of their lives, and the chips could even detect when one was happy, angry, or sad. These functionalities were simply explained away by the authorities as crime and terror prevention measures. Further questions, inquiries, and protests were ignored.
And it was true. When even an unwanted bastard born in the middle of the ocean was found and immediately implanted with one of these chips, it was quite literally impossible for criminals and terrorists to operate. Small groups were sometimes able to surgically remove these chips from their heads, but doing so was extremely risky, for two reasons. One was that because the chip was directly connected to one’s brain, any mistakes during the procedure were extremely costly to one's mind. The second, was that drones, human police, and even soldiers were allowed, and in fact ordered, to shoot any non-chippers on sight.
So the safety was great, but it definitely came with costs. Your first kiss, your first love, your first breakup. Heck, your first wank. Big brother is watching.
Makes you cringe and shudder a bit, doesn’t it?
At the time, I was just two years old.
I know what you’re thinking again. How the hell did everyone just sit around and let this happen?
Well, given how much earlier our technology had developed, by 1980, most of the world was controlled by a few technology companies. Country leaders weren’t much more than pawns, and even if anyone wanted to fight the technology companies, what could they do? Plan a protest? Overthrow them?
Technology companies controlled the paths of communication. Did you want to plan something offline? They had video cameras and microphones everywhere. All of society ran on the technologies these companies controlled. And this wasn’t even mentioning the tracking chips in their brains.
Besides, many people had grown used to the simplicity associated with handing over their personal lives over to giant tech corporations. When the personal assistance chips came out, it was just another new technology being inserted in their lives.
It was just some AI chip. Who cares, right?
However, this gave rise to something else.
At the turn of the millennium, the year 2000, the four largest technology companies, known as the BATCs, came together and created a new social system that fully utilized the capabilities of the implanted chips.
Life:Life
Every action that one performed, any thought, feeling, or emotion that one had, was to be tracked and scored. Depending on if it was deemed positive or negative to society, that action, thought, feeling, or emotion would be scored positively or negatively. One’s score would determine the schools one could attend, jobs one could get, what partners one could look for, and even where one could be buried.
That’s right. Every person would be scored. Every person in the world, for the first time ever, had an exact value put on their life.
I was just 6 years old.
But for your sake, I’ll skip ahead a bit so that you’re not bored by my childhood. Nice of me, right?
Hello Jim, please wake up for your interview at 9:00AM today.
“Five more.”
Minus five personality points for sleeping in.
“...S, that’s not what I meant.”
Oh right, S is the name of my system. He’s in the new world with me, too. I’ll explain eventually.
Minus five personality points for arguing.
“Alright, alright, I’ll get up!”
Minus five personality points for thinking about cursing.
I’m 20 years old here. It was April 1, 2015, and I was looking for an internship before my senior year of University. Unfortunately… it wasn’t going too well.
It’s not my fault I’m lazy, okay? It’s in my genes.
Anyway, I told you about how the BATCs made it so that everyone was tracked and scored like a game, right?
Well, here’s my stats as of April 1, 2015
Intelligence: 99/99
Mental Ability: 99/99
Health: 99/99
Fitness: 99/99
Personality Points: 9999/9999
Social Points: 9999/9999
Bank: $9,999,999,999
Citizen Class: VVIP
Notes: Voted #1 Most handsome male on Earth, #1 Highest IQ on Earth, #1 Most respected human on Earth.
Ha, just kidding. April Fools! It’s April 1st, remember? Here’s my real stats.
Intelligence: 82/99
Mental Ability: 83/99
Health: 30/99
Fitness: 9/99
Personality Points: 126/9999
Social Points: 10/9999
Bank: $530
Citizen Class: C
Notes: Had good potential as a child, but incredible laziness and poor social skills have inhibited his growth. Future is in question.
Just so you know, for stats out of 99, 50 is average, with normal distribution. For stats out of 9999… well, at the time of, most people had personality points of around 4 thousand, while most people had social points around a thousand.
So yeah, if you were to say my stats aren’t great, I’d have to agree with you.
But hey, at least the system says I’m smart! As for Mental Ability… that’s more or less how sane you are, how well you cope with pressure, stuff like that. Mental health, basically, but with some add-ons. It also adds in “other” forms of intelligence, other than strict “book” intelligence. In general, though, it’s so the health insurance companies (yes we had those too) don’t fuck you over by saying they didn’t know you had mental issues or something like that.
For your sake, I’ll give a little more information. I’m six feet tall, have black hair and eyes, and I’m Asian. I don’t think that’ll help you recognize me in the new world.
Anyway, with the system yelling in my head about how shitty of a person I was, I quickly donned my best (and only) suit and hailed an autocar to my interview.
As it turned out, It was just one of those pyramid schemes. Join us! Recruit your friends! You’ll all be rich! Yeah, those were somehow still common in the old world, despite our technological and cultural advancements. I have no idea how those made it past the Life:Life system, but there you go.
Well anyway, after the shitshow of the interview, I basically had to run out of there in fear of them abducting me. I was able to make it out though, and found myself outside the building, on the street.
The building had a fairly unique location - it was right between the wealthy and poor districts. So, to my left were tall, fancy, modern buildings. To my right, were some older buildings that weren’t quite falling apart, but definitely looked well past their time.
Instinctively, I turned left. “S, get me an autocar. I’m heading to the Gallery.”
Will do.
A few minutes later, I stepped out of the autocar and craned my neck up high.
“Damn, I never quite get used to how high the Gallery is.”
From the front steps, it was as if the building soared forever into the heavens. But of course, it didn’t. It was just about two hundred stories high, no big deal.
Okay, fine. Two hundred stories was enough to make it the second tallest building in the city, and one of only five buildings that was over thirteen stories high. I was just trying to make my old world sound cool, okay?
I stepped in and took the elevator to the 88th floor, home of the city’s best Chinese restaurants. Oops, I’d gotten off on the wrong floor, I quickly walked back in and pressed 37 instead.
Ahh, Korealand. I may be Chinese myself, but truly, Korean food and women are the best in the world. I headed over to my favorite restaurant and ordered some grilled beef and spicy tofu soup.
It was easy enough to call the autocar and walk into the Gallery, but there were systems at work behind the scenes. In order to call even the most basic of autocars, one had to be classified as at least a Class D citizen. To even enter the Gallery, one had to be classified as Class C. Some of the elevators, even floors, were inaccessible without the proper citizenship level.
Without high enough a citizenship class, one would be blocked off from the majority of the world’s services, benefits, and resources.
…
Meanwhile, about a twenty minute drive away, some recruiters from C Systems, the C of the BATCs, were looking at my personal profile.
“Do you think he’s a candidate?”
“Could be. His physical attributes can be trained, as long as his bone structure is good. As for mental attributes, they’re fairly high. His intelligence is in the 94th percentile, while his mental ability is in the 97th.
“Furthermore, although he is a civilian and has no combat training, he has… almost professional esports level performance in VR FPS games. There’s some potential crossover there. Call him in and we’ll take a closer look. The best part is, his family is small, and he has few friends. ”
“Yes, sir.”
As I devoured my grilled beef and kimchi bibimbap, I received a message from S.
Hello Jim, C Systems is expressing interest in you and would like to interview you. How shall I proceed?
“Ugh, another fake? Delete it like the rest.”
Successfully deleted.
On C System’s side, the recruiter’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. They were C Systems! A mere college student was declining their invitation? It was the common goal even amongst the world’s geniuses to land a position at one of the BATCs, but this idiot had actually declined them? And even immediately deleted their invitation?
“Uh, sir? He uh… deleted our invitation.”
“I see it! Send it again, and patch me through to his chip for observation.”
On my side, I received another notice from S.
Hello Jim, you have received another invitation to interview with C Systems. How shall I proceed?
“What the hell, man. Can’t these assholes leave me alone? Delete it and block them.”
