Hey guys this is a story that I'm working on. Any help and feedback is very much appreciated about my writing. The synopsis is down below:
In the year 4042, human technology has become advanced enough to turn human beings into computer data. Thanks to the growing corporation "Virtual Works", founded by a former physicist Doctor William Bates, humans can travel inside computers and into their own virtual world. Ever dreamed of being inside a real life visual novel? Your own harem? Well ladies and gentlemen, with Virtual Work's newest home product, Reality Estate, you can live in your own reality of having as many male or female admirers as you wish, become a hero in your own adventure, or have yourself live in a peaceful village, away from the problems of the real world.
As the years go by since the release of the product, problems soon arise. Problems that can endanger humanity as a whole. Vice president of Virtual Works Harold Leecher, discovered the problem the hard way, and seeks help from an isolated young man named Leonard Stewartson to shut the product down. Can Leonard put an end to something this revolutionary to the human race?
Spoiler
The small office is dimly lit with fluorescent lighting. What shows is a small wooden desk, a few potted plants (that are brown and decaying as we speak), framed newspaper clippings showing headlines saying, “Advancements in Virtual Reality 4042” as well as “The Biggest Advancement to Solving Depression”, and sitting in the office chairs across from one another are two people considerably different in shape and size.
Sitting behind the wooden desk on a leather office chair is a man of stocky structure wearing a black tuxedo. His dark hair is neatly combed back, and a bushy moustache rests underneath his large nose. A few of the small hairs on his moustache sway a millimeter back and forth as the man takes in large breaths through his wide nostrils. The man’s dark irises lock onto the person directly across from him.
This man across, is an average sized young man with long brown hair that splits in the middle of his forehead. From looking at him, you could assume that this skinny man has lost weight as his navy blue dress shirt looks a bit oversized. His face is oblong and quite handsome, even when his blue eyes show confusion and fear at the stocky man staring intensely at him.
“Mr. Leonard Stewartson, is that correct?” The stocky man asks.
“Yes, that’s correct.” Leonard replies, his hands start fidgeting below the wooden desk, hiding them from the stocky gentleman’s sight.
“Very good. My name is Harold Leecher, Vice president of “Virtual Works”, I hope they informed you about the reasoning for being here.”
Leonard’s anxiety builds up, his left leg is performing small bounces as he sits with his fidgeting hands. “I actually have no idea, only that it’s a high paying assignment.” His voice cracked a bit on that last line. Oh boy is he nervous, and he should be. This is no simple assignment that they want him to partake in.
“Well then, this could be a problematic dilemma.” Harold croaks. “I know that I would have to spend a lot of time answering your questions.”
“It’s about that ‘Reality Estate’ product, isn’t it?”
Harold’s eyes widen a bit in surprise.
“ My family and I aren’t completely isolated from the world you know, we keep up with the times.” Leonard’s anxiety lowers substantially after seeing a shocked expression on Harold’s face. This is good, it means that whatever their planning isn’t completely foreign to him. He suspected that this recent product could be what he’s getting involved with, but that was only after he glanced around this surprisingly small office.
“Virtual Works”, is one of the biggest corporations in the world. Their biggest achievement was converting human beings into data(Gigabytes and Kilobytes mind you) and transfer them inside a computerized dream world of their own. This guy sitting across from him right here is one of the richest men in 4042.
Still, Leonard had no idea that he was being escorted to and was actually inside the main building of said corporation. The place was huge sure, high tech and high class absolutely, but there wasn’t even a hint of commercializing inside. Just white walls and ceilings, with the occasional raven colored line pattern slanted on walls. Oh yes, whatever they have in mind must be important.
Harold Leecher leans forward in his chair, his elbows on the table and his thick fingers intertwined. “So you are aware of our product?”
Leonard gives him a confused look. Are you stupid? Of course I know, the entire civilization knows. I might be religious but I’m not amish. Is what Leonard can only think of saying, but instead he replies bluntly in a stern voice. “Yes. I do.”
“Then here’s what you don’t know; we need you to shut it down. All of it.”
Now it’s Leonard’s turn to widen his eyes in surprise. “W-what? You want me to--”
“Destroy it, yes.” Harold Leecher finishes his sentence.
Leonard’s jaw drops, this money making product is a revolutionary artifact to mankind, and they want him to destroy it? “I-I don’t understand, you want me to destroy this thing? How? Isn’t that terrorism?”
Harold is remotely calm absorbing Leonard’s questions. “It’s not terrorism Mr. Stewartson. What you’re going to do is go inside the “Reality Estate” and shut down all the billions of networks. And before you say that’s impossible, let me tell you, there is a way. I specifically helped in the addition of this function that can end it.”
“Function?”
“Yes. There is a lone network that controls all of them. It’s highly secured by this corporation’s technology. We’ve had some attempted hackers, but with some help from the government, as well as our own professionals, we’ve maintained it.”
Leonard knows of the Reality Estate involving people going inside a computer, but what are the networks and how are they involved in this, he wonders. “I’m a bit confused, what do the networks have to do with this?”
“The networks are each a reality world that a single person, or multiple people are living in. They basically run a story game, as you might call it. Are you familiar with dating simulations or Visual novels?”
Leonard finds himself being shameful for actually knowing such items. Oh how he pleased his curious thirteen year old mind with the eroge containing innocent japanese school girls and long slimy tentacles that he read with his door closed and window blinds shut. Occasionally he would glance at the door in case his mother decided to parade in. But that wasn’t the only specific genre he enjoyed from such games. There were science fiction, Fantasy, horror, and thriller mystery stories. In short, at an age of 23, he loves visual novels, but he never openly admitted it, especially in front of his family. The only thing he’s allowed to read is a bible.
“Well...not really..um..are they picture books?” Leonard tries to fake his lack of knowledge, but his cheeks flush a bright red.
Harold Leecher pretends he doesn’t notice Leonard's face turning into a strawberry and carries on with his point of the mission he’s planned. “ The reality is, that reality sucks for both men and women of society...” Harold Leecher leans back in his chair. “..Pertaining to love of course. Visual novels--well, a vast majority of them anyway, are made as a dating simulation. There are a vast majority of attractive female or male characters that the player can choose to be with. The player learns that particular character’s likes and dislikes, their personality, and their fictional background.” Harold Leecher reaches for a number two pencil on the desk, and begins playing with it as he continues. “These characters that fall in love with you, never cheat on you, never cause aggression with you, and they are always there when they’re needed. This is where our company came in. In 4004, our president and founder, William Bates, wanted to expand the virtual dating industry to a more realistic level. Thus, with his large amounts of money he earned from his already successful game console known as the “Game Globe”, he did research on bringing these characters to life. Soon, ideas about converting humans to data was possible with the era’s technology and funds, so that’s where we stand today.”
“So what’s the problem then Mr. Leecher?”
“You go to school everyday right? In the city?”
“Yeah.”
“How many people do you see walking around outside? Or if you're striding through at night past restaurants or clubs, how many couples do you see? How many people are flirting with one another?”
Leonard’s face turns pale. As he remembers clearly, there were barely any people walking the streets in the morning. At nights the city was a ghost town, and now that he realizes it, it’s freaky. The mornings and nights he walked weren’t at all too early or too late for people to be out. He opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Instead, Harold Leecher answers.
“Barely any, that’s how many. The city’s a ghost town isn’t it?”
“Well, yeah but--I don’t understand, is it that good and realistic that people will stay in there?”
“Our technology produced characters with the realism of the five senses;touch, taste, smell, hear and see. They have the touch of the gender that the player desires, the sight of what the player is attracted to, and you know the rest. The only difference is that they don’t have the attitude of a real world spouse.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, Mr. Stewartson, what would you rather have? A real world girlfriend complaining about your day job and then cheat on you, or a 90% real Arumi-chan in a realistic virtual paradise making your meals and wait at your house everyday to make love to you?”
Leonard doesn’t need to answer him, as Harold Leecher already knows his response.
“Life is cruel here, Mr. Stewartson.” Leecher drops his pencil to the floor. “Hell, I would stay in there too if I wasn’t in this position. But I would also not have been able to pick up the main problems that our product is causing towards mankind.”
“Population decrease?”
“Yes, that’s one, but there is also more. Our economy has decreased immensely since barely any people are taking jobs. Authorities are having difficulties getting people out of their virtual world and getting back to work, and our tech teams get thousands of calls a day because they need help reeling them out. It barely works though. I believe we ruined mankind the day we made our device a home console as reports from family members of the people who own our product have reported them missing to police. The government threatens to shut down our corporation but are stopped by the powerful lawyers of our company president.”
Leonard’s face shows off a concern, but inside himself he feels excitement and has not been listening to a single thing Harold had said. When do I get to use one of these things? He thinks to himself. When do I get to go into a virtual world of my choosing, with the perfect friends, and the attractive ladies, and--He shakes his head very slightly, blinking his eyes twice to push off the lust. This is bad. Mr. Harold Leecher sitting right here is giving him this assignment specifically because he thinks Leonard has no real interest in the Reality Estate, but here is religious Leonard now, thinking about all the things he could do in the world of his own, the network world that he would rule.
“There is another major problem. It’s probably the biggest of all.” Leecher leans forward again, his fingers are intertwined once more.
Leonard is brought back into full focus, his face showing real nervousness.
“There have been several cases of homicide in the last two months, and, after hard long weeks of tracking down the suspects since their reported crimes, police have found the perpetrators, but the suspects have no trace of identity as a legal citizen, or a person for that matter.”
“What?”
“These ‘People’ that have been committing murders are not people born from the human womb. The computer characters have escaped their owner’s network and walk around the cities killing people, a task that only the villains of the game were programed to do. We suspect most of them to be what anime otaku call ‘Yanderes’ or just psychotic maniacs that the player is supposed to defeat to be crowned hero of his or her world.”
Leonard is dumbfounded, but soon finds the whole thing possible. We created a way for people to go inside computers, he thinks to himself, it should be no surprise that we can make digital people go into the real world. A real question pops into Leonard’s mind, and he feels it’s necessary to ask.
“How is it possible?”
“Pardon?”
“How is it possible for the computer characters to go into the real world? I mean, I’m sure the Reality Estate is programmed to bring people back into their actual human body, but how can they bring something back that didn’t have a human body to begin with?”
Harold Leecher looks back at him, his mouth agap. He honestly did not expect to hear that question, so specific as it sounded, come out of this kid’s mouth. Perhaps he’s smarter than I expected, he thinks to himself. This religious kid is probably in a high honors science course in some university. He realizes that he has been paused for a brief moment, and he clears his throat.
“Honestly, we don’t know. But we do know that the people coming out of our product are not the people that went in. We recognized perpetrators as having the same descriptions of our characters from the eyewitnesses that are actually still around here.” He pauses for a moment, thinking back in time to something that he saw. It was one of them. The more he kept seeing it in his memory, the less human it looked. Those black eyes, that stretched smile it gave him, knowing that it would end his life ...thinking anyway. Leecher gets up from his chair and presses on his desk. “Right now I don’t care how these things do it, I just need them gone. I need this whole thing gone. So what do you say? Will you go in and help me shut this thing down?”
Leonard looks at the man before him. Leecher’s dark brown eyes look tired and scared, but there was also determination in those eyes. Leonard stands up from his chair and reaches his right hand out towards Leecher. “Alright, I’ll do it.”
Leecher’s eyes gleam at the sight of Leonard’s extended hand, then up at Leonard’s face. He smiles, and grabs the extended hand to confirm an agreement.
Topic: "Virtual Works" --first chapter (Read 1826 times)
