Hearing the ten-minute timer beep for the third time, Mark knew he had to get out of the shower. With a sigh he turned off the blissfully hot water and stepped out of the small enclosure. Water began pooling on the steel floor almost instantly and he hurriedly grabbed the towel off the counter and began to dry off. Towel now over his head, he frowned and looked back at the counter.

His bag was gone. The olive drab jumpsuit was folded neatly on the counter along with a set of underclothes and smart boots. However, everything else was no longer in the bathroom with him. A spike of worry wormed its way into his mind before he cleared it away. If Terra was going to betray him, she wouldn’t have left him clothes, she would have likely grabbed the bag and run.

Having settled his mind a little he finished drying himself off and dropped the towel into the drying unit. Slipping on the underclothes he felt them adjust their size to fit his frame. That settled he slipped on the olive-drab jumpsuit, again it readjusted itself to his body. Checking it over, he found a handful of pockets. Those would be useful going forward.

Lastly, he slipped on the smart Boots. He always got a chuckle out of smart boots, when he first put them on, he felt like a kid wearing his father’s shoes. They took a minute or two to fully adjust to his feet. During that time, he rose to the balls of his feet a few times and did heal toe steps around the small bathroom. Smart boots were great, but if you didn’t get a good range of motion in while they were sizing, they tended to be stiff.

Finished dressing he looked at the door. He knew he had been stalling, but the simple act of showering and getting dressed had felt so normal in this crazy situation. With a final deep sigh, he opened the door and walked out into the passenger area. Where he quickly found Terra sorting through both shuttle’s emergency packs.

She had already showered and dressed. Her rich brown hair had been pulled back into a thick braid. Her emergency bag clothes looked to be a desert tan robe with a belt around her waist, the belt held the dead pilots sidearm. It seemed the emergency bags were indeed meant to be found. His held clothing he was familiar with, and the same held true for Terra. He still didn’t know what time period she was from, but felt it better to avoid the question. After all, she thought he was the recording here so bringing it up wouldn’t help their current situation.

“Why didn’t you use these already?” she asked when she glanced up at his arrival. She had his bag open on a small serving table and was sorting through the items inside. She pointed to three small syringes she had set aside as she asked the question. Two of them were black, the other was green.

He looked at the syringes in confusion for a moment before scratching the back of his neck.

“Because, I don’t know what they are.” He admitted after a short pause. She stopped sorting at his words and looked up at him, her dark brown eyes piercing into his for an uncomfortable second before she sighed and looked away.

“Sticking with the newbie story huh?” She asked, then added “Ok guess I will play along for now. I am sure the Pilot told you about the augmentation pods and how they work, yes?” before he had a chance to answer she continued. “Well, there are a few ways to get augmentations. Performing great feats like surviving the crash on your first try or killing hostiles will award you augmentation points. You can see those in your interface.” she paused, giving her words a chance to sink in.

Mark blinked in shock. He hadn’t known that, as she spoke, he pulled up his interface and looked it over. It didn’t take him long to find a log section and open it up.

Tutorial Log

Survive 1st shuttle crash alive = 100 augmentation points

Kill first enemy while suffering a surprise attack = 50 augmentation points

Save aspirant Terra from death = 150 augmentation points

Total = 300 augmentation points

“Ok, seems like I have 300 augmentation points. How do I use them?” he asked after reading the log.

“What?” she all but shouted, “How in all the world’s do you have 300 points… never mind, it doesn’t matter.” She looked away in frustration before letting out a huff and continuing. “Right now, nothing. We have to Make it to Landing and find a shop…that’s where these come in.” she said indicating the syringes on the small table.

“These two,” she said indicating the black ones “are attribute enhancers. You do know what attributes are right?” she asked mockingly, when he shook his head, she sighed and explained. “Ok check your interface for your Character sheet and then Share with Terra so I can see it.”

Backing out of his Log, Mark found the indicated tab and pulled up his character sheet.

Character Sheet

Name = Mark Lee

Age = 96 years old

Attributes (human standard = 6)

Strength = 5 Endurance = 5 Agility = 5 Mind = 12

Skills

Human firearms, long guns = 2 Human firearms, hand guns = 1 Earth Military knowledge = 2 Business acumen = 8 Appliance repair = 5

Equipped

Olive-drab Jumpsuit Attribute cost = 0 Smart boots Attribute cost = 0

Once he read it over, he found the share option and sent it over to Terra. Her eyes went wide after reading his screen.

“Holy shit, you are 96 years old?” was the first thing she said, followed by “don’t share your Character sheet like this again unless you really trust the person. This information could be used to hurt you.” she then went back to reading his Character sheet.

Mark felt annoyed at her casual tone, he didn’t have a clue what was going on though so he just kept his mouth shut. Hopefully she would explain how everything worked to him, that would save him a lot of trial and error going forward. He assumed that the test was designed to be learned the hard way and he wasn’t going to say something to ruin his chances for shortcuts.

He watched her mouth form the words as she read them. When she reached his skills, he watched her eyebrows shoot up in surprise when she reached the skill • Earth Military knowledge she didn’t comment however so he let it slide, only noting it for future reference.

“Ok, old man.” She said at last, having finished reading she picked up where she left off. “These are attribute enhancers; they will increase an attribute by one point. This one,” she moved her finger over to the green vial, “this one is a regeneration booster. It is full of Nano machines that can be actively triggered to boost the body’s natural regeneration by a few hundred times. They typically have 3 uses so only trigger it when you really need the healing.”

When she mentioned healing it brought to his attention that she looked perfectly fine. She’d had a knife buried in her side just yesterday and even with the healing foam she should be barely able to move right now.

“Is that why you…” he trailed off pointing at her side.

“Exactly,” she said with a smile holding up another green syringe that was already empty. “I grabbed it this morning from my shuttle’s emergency locker and triggered a healing. I feel fully refreshed and I’ve still got two charges left.” she tossed the empty vial away after showing it to him and went back to sorting the bags. “Understand?”

Mark looked down at the syringes on the table and then pulled up his character sheet again to read his attributes.

Attributes (human standard = 6)

Strength = 5 Endurance = 5 Agility = 5 Mind = 12

It looked like his mind score was double human standard. Guess that made a certain amount of sense, he was old and had used his mind his whole life. The same went for his physical attributes. He hadn’t used them much in years so they had degraded.

“Any suggestions?” he asked at last, looking back to her. She stopped sorting again and looked to him with a smile.

“Asking for advice, good. I see your mind attribute is good for something,” she said flippantly. “If it was me, I would bring up your strength and endurance to human norms. We are going to need to move soon and as is you will have trouble keeping up while carrying your gear.” He mulled that over for a time and found that it made sense.

“Got ya, so how do I use these things?” he said moving over to the table and picking up the attribute enhancers and the regeneration booster.

“Just push it against your skin, arm leg doesn’t matter, and hit the button on the end. Once it has been injected a prompt will show up on your interface asking what you want to do, its honestly pretty easy.”

Following her advice he picked up one enhancer after the other and shot them into his leg. Then going to his interface read the prompt in question. It was just as she said,

You have 2 attributes available, assign them now?

Strength =? Endurance =? Agility =? Mind =?

Putting one point into strength and endurance he selected enter and watched in fascination as his body changed.

His muscles swelled up and the fatigue he had been feeling since the crash faded away quite a bit. He flexed his arms and felt his abs. He hadn’t become a body builder or a track star by any means, but his frame had filled out to the healthy musculature he had once had before he spent decades behind a desk.

After he was done looking at himself, he pulled up his character sheet’s attribute page again to see the changes.

Attributes (human standard = 6)

Strength = 6 Endurance = 6 Agility = 5 Mind = 12

Next, he picked up the regeneration booster and looked at Terra

“What about this one, should I use it now or wait until I am injured?”

“There is more to that question then just yes or no.” she picked up the Shotgun looking weapon from the table and handed it to him. “Here, check the stats on this using your interface. It might be easier to explain the regeneration syringe if we start here.”

Frowning, he did as he was told. Looking at the statistics for the weapon on his interface screen.

Name = Mark III Rifle

Type = Human firearm, long gun.

Description = the mark III rifle is the human military standard issue weapon. It holds ten power cells that can each be fired once for a large blast, five times with less power or ten times with minimal power. Power cells are rechargeable in the field using standard issue solar unit.

Requirements

Strength = 2 Endurance = 1

Next, he looked at the attributes listed on his character sheet

Attributes (human standard = 6)

Strength = 6 (4 available) Endurance = 6 (5 available) Agility = 5 Mind = 12

“Ok, I am confused.” He said after looking over his varies tabs in his interface. There were more changes but they were all a variation of the same things. “Can you dumb this down for me please, how does holding a gun affect my strength?”

“It doesn’t, not really” she said with a shrug. “The character sheet isn’t gospel; it just has guidelines for easy reference. It’s an easy way for you to look and see quantifiable gains from augmentations. To ‘dumb it down’ for you, to wield that rifle effectively requires a certain amount of strength. The same goes for carrying it for any length of time. It is possible to do so, you yourself walked all the way here carrying more gear than you had endurance to handle and you managed just fine. You were just a lot more tired than you would have been if you had carried less or had more endurance. You follow?”

Mark put the rifle to his shoulder and sighted down the barrel, being careful not to point it anywhere near Terra. It was in fact easier to maneuver than it had been before he had taken the injections. He picked up the metallic club next and read its stats.

Name = Billy club

Type = human melee weapon, bludgeoning

Description = an 18-inch-long club made of light metal alloys, designed as a non-lethal self-defense tool for non-combat personnel.

Requirements

Strength = 1 Endurance = 1

When he checked his attribute page again and saw that his strength and endurance had each dropped by one available point. Next, he picked up the bag that was partially filled. Again, strength and endurance went down by one point. He slipped the club into the bag and his strength and endurance each rose by one point.

He thought he understood the system after that. It had only counted the club’s requirements when he had it available to use. Once he put it into the bag it didn’t affect his ability to fight anymore. It was a little cumbersome, but he figured it would make more sense to him as he went.

“I think I follow,” he said setting the bag back down. “So, what is the deal with the regeneration booster then?” he asked picking the syringe back up.

“Good,” she said nodding in approval at his experiments with the club and bag. “Again, these stats are all just reference and guidelines. Your skill level with an item has an effect on your ability to use it as well. That rifle is another excellent example of this, the way you moved it just now shows familiarity. You can use your fire arms skills to offset a lack of attributes because you know how to balance the weapon and hold it properly. Where someone without any experience with a firearm might struggle even if they had twice your level of strength.”

She moved over to a chair and dropped into it. She was clearly still not completely healed whatever she said.

“Strength, endurance, and agility are the three physical attributes.” She continued, “Nearly everything will be dependent on one of them or a combination of the three. Keep from going over your limit and you should be fine. Mind is a catch all attribute for everything else. This” here she pointed at the green syringe, “uses the Mind attribute. Each regeneration charge uses one point of mind. You, with your old man brain, could theoretically shoot up with four of these and have twelve doses available. However, it would mean you couldn’t use anything else. It balances things out, preventing someone from buying their way into power.”

“How do you know all this?” Mark asked as he stuck the regeneration booster to his leg and injected it. He checked his character sheet and saw that his available mind had indeed dropped to nine. He figured he was safe doing so, he was still higher than human standard and he didn’t want to die from being overly cautious. A new tab appeared and he opened it, it simply read

Regeneration boosts available = 3 use one now?

He backed out of that window, earmarking its location in his mind in case he needed to activate the nanites in a hurry.

“I told you, I have been around for a long time. I managed to make it to Landing a few times but I always die eventually. Each time I end up back here in this damn crashing shuttle. To the best of my understanding, you have to finish the tutorial to be allowed to leave the simulation, and I never managed to do it. That doesn’t mean I haven’t learned a few things along the way.”

He nodded his head at that, it must be tough getting so far and then having to start over. He vowed to himself right then that he would do everything he could not to die. Starting over again from the beginning didn’t sound like his idea of a good time. Besides, he didn’t have time to spend forever in here. He needed to get out of this simulation and make it to the test planet to find his granddaughter.

“Understood.” He said with a nod turning his attention to the two open bags and their contents spread out over the small table. “So what do we have here, I see you went through it all already. Also, last night you mentioned that ‘they’ would be here soon, who are they?” he asked hoping to get this show on the road.

“Right,” she said with a sigh getting back to her feet. “There wasn’t much in these bags honestly, the one from your shuttle had slightly different gear than mine, but I put that down to our cultural differences.” She pointed at his jumpsuit and her robe. “To summarize; we each have a fire starter, water container, and a weeks’ worth of food, if we eat sparingly. We already put the clothes on, and the normal communication gear these bags hold got left out because there is no one here to communicate with anyway.” She added with a shrug, “oh and we each have a flashlight plus the weapons from the locker. The mark III also has a charging blanket or something.”

She gestured at the pistol on her waist then to the floor beside the table. Upon closer inspection Mark realized the pistol was actually a folding hand-held crossbow. The items on the floor were a larger crossbow and a short sword. His locker had held a rifle and a Billy club, while his pilot had carried a pistol. He thought the differences were strange but no stranger than everything else that was happening around him.

“Not all that much when you think about it, but it’s better than nothing I suppose” he said. “How about ‘they’ you talked about, and wasn’t there going to be food?” he asked trying to move the conversation along so they could get moving.

She laughed at his mention of food and moved over to a heating station reminiscent of a microwave and pulled out a can of soup. Moving over to him she handed him the can along with a plastic spoon.

“I ate mine already, someone spent 3 times as long in the shower as they should have.” She said with a grin. Mark ate his breakfast while she continued. “The ‘they’ in question aren’t always the same. Like the crash, sometimes the pilot is alive and sometimes he is dead. Sometimes the ship blows up and other times it has been intact. When I woke up and saw that he was alive I decided to just kill myself and start over again with an easier run. Only…I missed anything vital, that’s why I was injured but alive when you got here.”

Mark blinked in surprise. He couldn’t imagine killing himself just to set up an easier scenario, he supposed he might begin to think differently though if he had done this run a thousand times.

“Anyway” she continued, “On runs when the pilot is alive the ship gets swarmed by frog people after the sun sets again. So,” she glanced to the side, he assumed she was checking her interface timer. “We have at most 5 hours before the sun starts to go down and we get swarmed. The frog people aren’t all that big or strong, but there are a lot of them. With 2 of us we could probably win, but it would eat into our munitions. I think its better we get going and save the ammunition for what comes next.”

Mark shrugged at that. He had never been here before and didn’t think it wise to contradict her yet.

“Works for me, let me finish eating and look over my gear real fast and we can get going?” he asked as he continued to shovel soup into his mouth with abandon.

“Agreed,” she said with a nod.

Having finished his food, he rinsed the can out and put it and the spoon into his bag. He got a funny look from terra but he ignored it, one never knew when an extra container would come in handy. Afterwards he checked on the rest of his gear. Most of it was self-explanatory, but the description on the pistol was interesting.

Name = iteration III (IT3)

Type = human fire arms, hand gun

Description = the IT3 side arm was designed as a backup weapon for non-frontline personnel. It holds 5 rounds of ammunition; each round is a very hard and highly condensed alloy and they are fired with incredible pressure. This allows for the weapon to pack a big punch. However it results in the gun being unusable after the magazine is empty.

Requirements

Strength = 1 Endurance = 1

It looked like the side arm was even more powerful than the mark III, however it had a limited lifespan. He had already used one of the five available rounds, so he decided to save the pistol for emergencies. The mark III rifle rounds were rechargeable, even if he hadn’t taken the time to learn how it was done yet.

Once the back pack was strapped on and he had situated his IT3 and Billy club, Mark picked up his rifle and gave his character sheet a once over

Name = Mark Lee

Age = 96 years old

Attributes (human standard = 6)

Strength = 6 (2 of 6 available) Endurance = 6 (3 of 6 available) Agility = 5 Mind = 12 (9 of 12 available) 3 regeneration boosts available

Skills

Human firearms, long guns = 2 Human firearms, hand guns = 1 Earth Military knowledge = 2 Business acumen = 8 Appliance repair = 5

Equipped

Mark III Attribute cost Strength = 2 Endurance = 1 10 fully charged power cells IT3 Attribute cost Strength = 1 Endurance = 1 4 rounds left Billy Club Attribute cost Strength = 1 Endurance = 1 Bag contents, open?

“Well, guess I am good to go. I’ll be damned though if this isn’t going to get confusing.” He said, letting Terra know he was ready. She had also finished prepping her equipment and had been waiting on him.

“Honestly Mark,” she said as she checked to ensure the bolt sat securely against the string. “I only explained all that to you so you would understand how Mind worked. It’s really the only one that matters, the rest is common sense. If it’s too heavy, don’t use it. If you don’t know how to use it, either learn or don’t use it.” she shrugged, “the interface can be useful but don’t get so bogged down in it you forget that this is real life.” Mark nodded, she had a point and he would keep that in mind.

“You ready?” he asked, and at her nod he moved over to the hatch leading to the outside. They had talked about what exit to use, Mark had wanted to crawl back out through the belly of the ship so they could still use this place as a camp. Terra shut that idea down hard, saying that it wouldn’t matter once the frog people got here, they wouldn’t be able to come back anyway.

With effort, he managed to open the hatch using the manual override. When the hatch fell away he stepped back inside and shouldered his mark III, ready for anything. Thankfully the coast was clear, and he hit the button to deploy the inflatable ramp. Watching with interest as it unfolded and filled up. Turning to Terra he asked.

“Ladies first?”

She scoffed at him and slid down the ramp, immediately bringing her crossbow up to her shoulder and scanning the surroundings before motioning him to follow.

“Here we go,” he said as he slid down the ramp behind her. The tutorial was turning out to be more interesting than he had expected, and Mark was ready to find out what happened next.