I woke up suddenly to the feeling that thousands of ants were crawling across my face. It was Choco with his beak, he drilled me gently to see if I would come to my senses at once.“Shock… what happened?As golden and legendary as it was, the chocobo did not speak.All he let out was a grunt of pain that felt like my own.He had been shot and was on the ground trying to get up without success. He was exhausted, his last strength had been invested in saving my skin.Before he suffered any more, I thanked him and made him disappear.He did not feel the rest of the summons; no sign of Kody, Harpy, Fuego, nor of course Rexie.Losing consciousness was reason enough for the summons to dematerialize. I didn't understand Choco, but I had seen before that the golden chocobo seemed not to be subject to conventional rules."Have you come to yourself yet?" said a voice he hadn't expected.I tried to get up, but I only managed to sit down and had to hold on with my hands to keep from tipping over.
It was curious to see how the leaves of the few trees that were left standing in that immense garden were stopped in the sky. The wind wasn't blowing, Gina didn't move a hair, and the black dot that the Leproiners' helicopter had become was still on the horizon. I walked around the place trying to figure out what had happened, wondering if it was the power of a path.What I didn't know was why only I could move."You have pronounced the magic words," I heard a deep voice full of wisdom. I couldn't explain it, but it was like that.I looked around, but I couldn't find the owner of the voice. I drifted away for a bit, but it wasn't long before I was back with Gina.I was astonished to see that there were two people next to her.“Who are you?They were an old man and a young girl who looked very much like Gina. I was blank and not knowing what to say."Wow, we do look alike, yes. “His voice and hair were the same, but the way he gestured and his firmness were not so similar. She wasn't a
“Are you ready? asked Patrick Cork, stroking his beard."Yes," I replied. I had been waiting for this day for a long time.I was nervous, it was the day of the worldwide launch of Allsium.Millions of people queued at AfroCrop headquarters to have the chip implanted that gave them access to the system.Allsium would go on the market with two game modes.The first was the one I had experienced five years before: stories lasting a maximum of ten days, that is, a year and a half in Allsium. They were adventures of an individual type, everything was created by the experience, fears and dreams of the participating subject.The second dealt with massive virtual reality. Worlds that AfroCorp had created so that all the players in the world could go on adventures and interact with each other. It was something like the evolution of massive online role”playing games, a game mode that would take entertainment to a new level never seen before. Players could experiment, as I had done in Allsium in
Tutorial «Allsium is a massive virtual social network whose learning can be assimilated by our brain in reality. By being able to incorporate this knowledge into the real world, the human being will reach a new level of evolution. Patrick Cork, scientist who created Allsium in the year of its creation. “What a pain in the ass with Allsium! Allsium here, Allsium there..." said my mother, "If you stay connected to that nonsense for so long, you will forget how to live.I didn't even look at the holographic screen that announced the virtual reality system as the greatest technological and social revolution in history. My mother was a bit old”fashioned, one of those who still liked to go shopping for bread instead of using the virtual bakery. Allsium not only made it possible to live in an alternative world, but it was also capable of instantly materializing anything purchased on its system with a simple blink of an eye. Gone were the two”day delivery online stores or virtual reality v
Two seconds later I was in Allsium.“I'm back, guys," I said excitedly, as if it was the first time I had ever logged on. Did you miss me?“No way, Gunner”san. Has Mom changed your diapers yet?Zen was kind of obnoxious, but I had to put up with him. He was one of the people I shared life with on Allsium since I logged on two years ago. You couldn't access the Allsium worlds freely until you were sixteen, but you could go to school on virtual Earth, something I had never done because my mother was old”fashioned, but which millions of people took advantage of because it was free.Zen, like me, was one of the many geeks who spent almost twenty”four hours a day hooked on Allsium. He told me that the good stuff started from virtual coming of age and claimed that soon the real world would be invaded by Allsium. That was similar to what the Allsionists were saying, a new social and virtual movement that was gaining many followers in both worlds.For the Allsionists the real world was a mere
Initium"In Initium, the first lawless planet, we will learn to fend for ourselves. We will be able to go through the available Guild Source and begin to live the true experience that is Allsium. But beware, there are many dangers waiting out there....".Manual of the good player. Allsium Systems: Initium.“I'm very nervous," said Dagon, "It's the first time we've left virtual Earth.“What a bunch of shits you are, ragazzi. “Greek was much more determined than the rest and liked to play the role of leader. We've been working hard, but we've finally got everything ready. Initium, here we come!The four of us were in virtual London, at one of the many control panels from where worldwide flights could be purchased to any part of the virtual Earth and also to the systems of illegality.There, in Piccadilly Circus, our great adventure would begin.“Zen Oda, Dagon Basel, Gunner Kid and Greek Marion," Zen read aloud, "do you wish to travel to Initium and are you aware and knowledgeable that
From now on they would be forced to live forever in reality.I had never seen two people shot to death before and it was hard to react, even though they were virtual lives. So much for their adventure; there would be no more virtual shopping for them, nor many of the huge facilities that Allsium provided.By now they would have been in their respective homes cursing the wretched Italian who had stitched them up with bullets and returned them to their dark existence. Although that didn't save the fact that both Zen and I were very surprised to see that Greek had kept an ace up his sleeve in the form of a Beretta.“What are you fools standing there like passive stares? “said Greek as he approached the leader to strip him of all his belongings. Search the other one before they come back with more people. Come on, dammit! “He let out a big laugh. This idiot had a hotel room of his own on him. We've won the lottery, ragazzi!I didn't even know how to respond to that. It was great news, of
It was a planet devoid of color, except for our novice clothes, something that announced us as easy prey and that we had to solve sooner rather than later. There was no green, no red, much less blue, but there was grayish green, grayish red and grayish blue.It seemed like London on any given day.Initium was the world of the beginning, a planet where freedom and illegality went hand in hand to steal and kill without anyone lifting a finger to protect you. It was the law of the strongest, so when Greek pulled out the Beretta, I knew that without him we would not have lasted more than ten minutes of adventure.Although that didn't mean forgiveness, as we still had a group conversation pending for having withheld such important information from us.Initium was similar to Earth, although without seas and instead lakes of great capacity. The best place to take shelter at that time was in the outskirts of the capital, since rushing to get to the hotel room after killing the leader of that