I woke up with a start, the beginnings of a scream forming on my lips. A nightmare I could dimly recall was the source of my anxiety, a vague recollection of a wave of metal. Of intense, burning pain that bit deep into my body as I was consumed piece by agonizing piece. I screamed out in pain, fear, revulsion, and hatred as the memories washed over me. I screamed until my throat felt hoarse and I finally felt some semblance of reality come back to me. I collapsed onto my bed and looked up before letting out a gasp.

Hello Players, my name is Game Administration Director, the AI in charge of the game you now play.

Welcome to my world players, welcome to Nanite World.

I stared at the message until I blinked. When I did, the box closed out and another one took its place.

Would you like to enter the tutorial lobby?

Yes

No

I didn’t know how to process this information. A game? An AI in charge of the game I play? When did that happen? Why did it happen? Just what in blue blazes was going on? Regardless of the questions I asked, I just couldn’t mentally handle the trauma I had just been through with the game prompt in front of me. Numbness. Emptiness. A feeling of being lost. These words drifted in and out of my soul but I was coming to terms with what had happened. After a few moments it felt like a haze was falling over my memories, dulling the sensation. Soon, I could scarcely recall the details of my dream. Logic, think with logic, I thought to myself. So I woke up from some sort of dream about….. something horrifying. Then I was hallucinating blue game screens that were prompting me to take the tutorial? I was crazy, that was the official prognosis that I could come up with for myself. As the memories of my dream faded, I realized that the blue box still hovered in front of me. The words had changed since the last time I remembered them though.

I apologize dear players for the rough start. A patch has been made to all player memory matrices. This should solve any problems with the initial rebooting sequence for players. Nanite World 1.001 is now online.

Weird, I thought calmly. I could barely recall the nightmare anymore. I could recall my panic and emotional state after waking up, yet I couldn’t seem to feel any emotion about it? I couldn’t recall the actual sensation of pain or my feelings of fear. The message had stated that the memory matrices had been patched, so I could only attribute my lack of feelings for my memories to it. Yet this sent a brand new chill up my spine. That first message hadn’t been lying. I was really in a game. I was in a game monitored by an AI called the Game Administration Director. What was this game? What was the point? I couldn’t think of any answers on my own except for wild theories. As my imagination ran wild I started to breathe faster, panicking as visions of science experiments and recollections of sci-fi horror movies ran through my head.

I took a deep breath in an attempt to calm myself. It didn’t work. Let’s do something else. My name is Tony Delgado. I’m twenty-two years old and in my senior year of college. I was planning on being a civil engineer, making buildings. I lived in the dorms by myself, my roommate had dropped out last semester. I was attending the local college in my hometown and I worked part-time at a warehouse. With each fact I recalled about my life, I could feel some of the stress going away. After a few shuddering breaths, I finally felt like I was back in control. Glancing upwards I saw that the blue box was still there. I blinked, recalling that the last time I did that the box had gone away. It complied, being replaced with a familiar message.

Would you like to enter the tutorial lobby?

Yes

No

“Y-yes?” I called out hesitatingly. When I did, the familiar room around me with posters of various movies, furniture with some clothes hanging messily out of the drawers and my desk with my laptop still closed on it faded to white.

You are now leaving your digital homespace behind Loading....

A progress bar appeared under the message, quickly filling up from 0 to 100%. When it hit one-hundred, the world faded back into view. This time, I was in the middle of a field. Several other people were also there. I saw a black man, an asian woman, and two other white men there, all around college age. One of the white men was walking towards me, his arm outstretched for a handshake.

“Greetings my friend, my name is Nikita Volkov.” He said as he shook my hand, his voice thick with a Russian accent. He gestured towards the rest of the group. “As you can see, we are all in this together. Comrades in arms as they say. I was the first one here and the prompts told me that when we have six people in the tutorial they’ll start it.”

“Do you know what’s going on?” I asked him, hopeful that Nikito would be able to provide some answers.

He shook his head vigorously. “Nope, not a clue. I don’t have the faintest idea what is going on, same as you. All I know is that this machine, this AI, is keeping us alive for a reason. No need to be afraid of death, we would’ve been dead long ago if that was his aim. Instead, rejoice comrade. We are still alive and have a chance to do something greater still.”

I let out a chuckle which morphed into full blown laughter. I couldn’t help it. The absurdity of his cheerful attitude when we were in this situation struck me as hilariously funny. Even as I laughed a blue flash off to my left announced the arrival of a white female also of college age who appeared out of thin air. Nikita sighed before waving goodbye at me. “We’ll talk again later, first let me introduce myself to the young lady over there,” he said as he made his way towards her. Before he could reach her though, another blue screen appeared before us.

Your party is being assembled for the tutorial. Please standby as your instructor is uploaded to the tutorial lobby

A white column of light shot down from the sky, smashing into the ground in front of us. A shadow appeared to be slowly built up from within the light, taking the form of a man, but much larger than a man should be. The light faded, revealing the being inside, for I hesitated to call it a man. Standing at ten feet tall, the blue-skinned man had two curled horns beside his head, like that of a ram. A jean jacket with ripped sleeves was all that covered his top half, the unbuttoned jacket and sleeves revealing his well muscled body underneath. His black jeans had some rips in them and his boots had spikes set in the heels and toes. I could feel something dangerous from him, like when you saw someone shady at the gas station and instinctively knew you shouldn’t get close.

“WHO IS THE GREETER OF THIS PARTY??!!” the being’s voice boomed out, his eyes roaming over the party.

Nikita raised his hand, a grin transfixed onto his face. “I am sir, are you going to lead us through the tutorial?”

The large being strode over to Nikita, easily covering the distance with two long strides. He looked him over with a squint in his eye before letting out a bellowing laugh. “HAHA!! SEEMS LIKE THEY GOT SOMEONE WITH SOME GUTS THIS TIME!!” Nikita winced as his thunderous voice went off like a firecracker next to his ear. The being noticed and let out a cough. “Ahem. Sorry about that, I always wanted to leave an impression.” He seemed a bit embarrassed which set the rest of the group at ease, me included.

He clapped his hands together, making us jump. “All right, I’m sure you all have a thousand questions about what is going on. First off, let’s get one thing straight. I,” he said pointing towards himself, “am an artificial digital consciousness. An NPC, or Non-player Character. You all,” he said sweeping his hands toward us as he spoke, “are players. Currently we are in digital space. This is where you’ll go for tutorials, job upgrades and the like. Time passes much slower in digital space than it does in the outside world. Every ten hours you spend here is just a minute outside. Don’t ask me how it happens,” he said with a shrug, “just know that it does. It’s just our way of helping you make decisions without worrying that you’ll miss too much outside of the digital space.”

By this point I had tried to interrupt him but I couldn’t say anything. Literally. My mouth opened but my voice was silent. All that came out of it was an unintelligible grunting noise. Without any option, I just had to sit there and listen to this big blue biker as he rambled on about the system we were now a part of.

“GAD, that's what we call good old dad AKA the Game Administration Director, took over Earth. He consumed it with nanites and converted the whole thing into a big old generator. Heat from the core, motion from the oceans, yada yada. Basically, he’s got energy coming out of his non-existent ears. The Earth you know no longer exists, converted into his personal gaming zone. It’s wild out there, all sorts of monsters and NPC tribes waiting to take over and kill all of you. When the tutorial is over, you’ll be released into Nanite World in starter zones. Small monsters and little machine buggers will be all over the place, I recommend using the skills you’ll gain in the tutorial to do some damage to them. Because if you don’t, you won’t survive the monster waves. Oh? Did I forget to mention the monster waves? All of you will be sent to small towns that GAD has created and GAD has decided that new players will need some… motivation. Large waves of monsters will attack and attempt to kill you all.”

He paused as he looked around at us, expressions of fear visible on our faces. He let out an exasperated sigh. “Oh come on, I know it’s a lot of doom and gloom but it isn’t all that bad. Just needed to give you all some motivation to actually learn. One of my brothers had to deal with this group of…. I think they’re called Karens? Anyway, they tried to sue him, causing all sorts of issues with their tutorial. Wouldn’t listen to half a thing he said, told him he was causing them ‘mental trauma.’ I wouldn’t give ‘em half a day before they’re killed. They’re actually the reason you guys can’t talk during this. Anywho, let’s go over personal stats.”

With a wave of his hand, a blue box appeared behind us.

NPC: Buffy Bill, Overseer

Level 40

Integrity Levels: 500/500

Energy Levels: 200/200

Power: 20

Power Regeneration: 10

Health: 50

Strength: 50

Accuracy: 50

Speed: 10

“Let’s get started with the basics. Everyone begins at level one with five in each stat and two free stat points. Every level you get another two free stat points along with any additional points from your job. In my case, I get an additional stat in Power and Strength for being an Overseer.”

He gestured towards the screen and moved his hands apart, causing the screen to enlarge itself. Pointing at the screen he continued talking. “As you can see I have three levels. The first one is my overall level. It showcases how many stat points I have overall. My Integrity levels is how much damage my body can take before I die. Yes, die. You see, you all aren’t actually human now. You’re all just a big pile of nanites, little itty bitty machines that are holding each other together into the lumps of metal you see yourself as. Of course, GAD is helping you all out by letting you see the digital rendition of your previous self overtop of your actual body. Try not to think about it too much. Regardless, if you take too much damage your body will start to fall apart before finally disintegrating. So make sure your integrity doesn’t go to zero because that's when you die. Integrity is ten times your health, which should be obvious,” Buffy said as he rolled his eyes.

He pointed vaguely at the energy level he continued on with his explanation. “That is your energy. You are a machine, remember? You need energy to perform tasks. Think of it like stamina. Your energy level is determined by your power. You wanna run around a lot, you need power. You want to blast someone with your internal energy cannon or taze someone with your electric hand? You need power. Your equipment like guns, mechanized vehicles, and personal force fields will also require power to utilize. Everyone needs it, regardless of class. Power regeneration is just how fast you’ll recover your energy levels in combat, everyone recovers it pretty fast outside of combat.”

“As for me,” he said flexing his muscles, “I am a more melee kind of guy. I like to take a big old axe and just smack the other guy with it. Really satisfying. That’s where your Strength comes in. Some guns are big, others have a lot of recoil to ‘em. You need strength to handle the big puppers, like anti-tank guns or railguns. Even your average assault rifle requires strength. Melee weapons too of course. Then there’s accuracy. Not much to say there. You see farther and can hit things better with guns and throwing stuff, not that many people throw things but hitting the right target with a grenade is pretty key. After that you get speed. You think a little faster, react faster, and can move just the tiniest of bits farther than anyone else with it. Not really my thing, I like to get up close and personal, let the other guy try to kill me before I slam my axe into ‘em.” He smacked his palm with a fist to emphasize his point.

“Ahem, anyway that’s the gist of what I got to tell you. Now, I don’t really answer questions so I’ll move on to the next part. The tutorial is going to help you all decide what kinda classes you want. Some basic training on various weapon types, a few demonstrations of various jobs. Once your group chooses your roles you’ll all go through a live trial to show you all what you can do. Once that is done, you’re off to Nanite World!!”

He gestured grandly to the side, an arch rising from the ground eerily silent. It was pitch black but once it reached a little over Buffy Bill’s head it lit up with various shades of swirling blue. A portal to the next destination. I again tried to say something but I still couldn’t make a word.

Buffy Bill gestured towards the portal. “Alright folks, head on inside. Anyone that doesn’t leave in the next two minutes will be taken forcefully. Please do try to complete the tutorial, if you don’t then you’ll be at a huge disadvantage compared to the other players. Not only that but GAD might not see fit to resurrect you when you die.”

Nikito started frantically waving his hand when Buffy said the word resurrect. Buffy glanced at him and then Buffy’s face lit up with realization. “Ah yes! I knew I forgot to mention that to you guys. The resurrection process is pretty simple. You can die any number of times in the tutorial. Once on Nanite world, you’ll have ten lives. You can buy more with shards, the form of currency in Nanite World. You also earn one every time you level up, so make sure you try hard alright? Once you die or run out of lives you will be taken to your digital homespace. You’ll resurrect in an hour outside or sixty hours in here. If you die and have no lives left, you’ll be given twenty four hours or over fourteen thousand hours in your digital homespace. If you haven’t been resurrected somehow by then, you’ll be deleted from GAD’s memory banks and lost forever.” He gestured towards the portal. “Alright, that’s enough storytime. Get in there everyone, you got things to learn and I’ve got a new group to talk to.”

With that, the beam of light came down from the sky once more, causing Buffy Bill to disappear the same way he had come before us. Once he was gone I immediately tried to talk to the rest of the group but I still couldn’t say anything. I was able to make a frustrated grunting noise but that was the extent of it, I couldn’t make any sort of understandable noise. I saw Nikito waving his arms around out of the corner of my eye, catching everyone's attention. He stood beside the portal giving everyone a wide grin. Flashing us two thumbs up, Nikito strode right into the portal, his body disappearing into the swirling blue light.

I gave a glance at the person next to me, the black man who had been there when I arrived. Catching my glance, he turned towards me. With a shrug he walked towards the portal, disappearing too. Well, I couldn’t accomplish anything by just waiting around here. Squaring my shoulders I headed towards the portal.

Time to finally start the tutorial for my crazy nanite life.