"Wel-Welcome to registration, please connect to registration center to reserve the next available station." A monotone, metallic voice chimed over a speaker. Tyler looked around himself, making sure he wouldn't accidentally hit someone walking closely behind him through the door. Seeing nobody, he raised an eyebrow, sure people have told stories about the AI not being perfect, but never had he seen a glitch with his own eyes. Entrance notices were practically everywhere in his tower, never had he seen, or even heard about the notice stuttering like that. He tapped a note into his H-Pad, a plugin that allowed easy transfer of data from HYTOMA to the Tower, reminding himself to call a Tech about the glitch he saw. AI has been known to reward people well for reporting undiscovered bugs in the system.

Tyler approached the welcome podium and passed his wrist over it to connect in to the registration center. "Welcome Tyler, you are number 1, please proceed to Station number 1." Tyler smiled as he approached to a small alcove with a small globe sitting on a pedestal, he passed his wrist over the globe to signal he was ready. A small whirl came from the globe, followed shortly by a 3D display hovering over the globe. With every step he took, he knew he was one step closer to digitization.

In the middle of the display, a box appeared with the text 'Upload Tower ID to proceed'. Tyler detached the flexible screen from his H-Pad on his wrist, then pulled on the corners to expand the screen, finishing with a flick on the corner making the screen go rigid. He opened his Tower ID, and pushed it to his out box.

While his tablet was open, he decided to check in on his auctions while his H-Pad organized the required information for registration. He got his hands on a couple items he hoped to sell to one of his low-tier raiding contacts, but unfortunately they weren't interested. With him right around the corner of being digitized, he hoped he could sell off the items quickly, even at a loss, if it meant he had just a few more gold to work with. The last thing he wanted to happen was to find himself a few days in, and not having any gold for food.

"Tyler, are you sure that you were ready to register for HYTOMA?" Tyler almost jumped, the monotone AI voice kicked him out of his review of his auctions.

"Yes, I'm sorry. I would like to register for a scan to create an avatar for HYTOMA access." He lifted his wrist to chest level and spoke into it, "Syrix, can you please upload my Tower profile to the terminal."

"Accessing out box" A male voice came from his wrist, his companion AI responded. "I'm uploading it now, would you like to continue browsing the Tower auctions for purchases while you wait?"

"No, it's probably better that I don't get distracted right now. I don't want to get a temporary ban for wasting Tower resources." He flicked the corner of his tablet, and returned the flexible screen to his wrist. He activated his 3D display, and followed the directions to his assigned 3D scanner.

The Tower profile contained his general history in the Tower. How he spent his time, what kind of interaction he had with Tower Security, and his network activity was. All this information was helped to establish character statistics, and determining the start location for new players. While it was possible to build your character to any specialization you wanted, there were huge advantages of having related base stats to your desired character build. This is why children would be put into training regimes by their parents at the earliest opportunity possible. Children would study literature if they wanted intelligence statistics that would boost magic power, others would enter weight training to build the strength stat, some would do ballet and gymnastics for the agility stat. It still wasn't clear how to build up luck and alignment, but it was rumored that Tower AI would build up these numbers based of internal scans of how the person acted day to day, much like how Karma was built.

After a few turns, Tyler was directed through a door, and entered what he thought was a junction room. The room had 4 black walls, which were somehow producing light throughout the room, causing the room to be void of any shadows.

Closing the door behind him, a gentle buzz came to life, a small X appeared in the middle of floor in front of him. "Welcome Tyler, please stand in the middle of the room with your arms held out at shoulder level. The scan will begin when you are in position." The monotone voice said from what sounded like came from all the walls.

Tyler stood on the small X on the ground and held his arms out. He couldn't help but smile, just a few more minutes and he would be ready to go. "Scanning commencing, please refrain from moving during the scan. Two minutes remaining."

A small click came from the walls, Tyler assuming that it was the scanners, he continued to enjoy the monumental moment in his life. All of a sudden, he felt burning in his left pant pocket. Not wanting to ruin the moment, he gritted his teeth and remained standing. While he thought he kept still, the AI had a difference of opinion. "Please remain still while scan is in progress, this is your only warning. If the scan fails, you will be charged for wasting Tower resources. One minute, fifteen seconds remaining." The burning sensation now gone, he let out a small breath of relief, this time successfully staying still.

"Scan complete, assigning scan to HYTOMA profile Pylioth." Tyler smiled as his game name hit his ears. Since the name Tyler had been claimed over 50 years ago, his came up with Pylioth. "Profile complete, please log into HYTOMA to see results."

Taking the cue that the scan was complete, Tyler made his way out of registration. As he began to look across the Access floor, a scream hit his ears. "THAT’S HIM!!" Before he could even react, he was tackled to the ground, again.