Happy Harbor
May 28, 21:14
"Welcome back, sir."
Tie loosened and coat unbuttoned, I kept both hands in my pant pockets and walked out of the tube, staring Mike down.
"Hey man. What's this? Sir? Really?"
"I've been thinking about the nature of our relationship. We are friends, yes, but my parameters are clear. That is not all I'm supposed to be. My main purpose is to cater to your every need, not a partnership of equals, but that of a master and a servant."
This wasn't the first time Mike had said some shit that made his alienness more apparent. In this case however, it has superseded the persona he normally showed, his human… side. Yeah. Let's call it that.
Choosing to remain calm and not authoritative, I stepped closer and asked. "What brought this on? Wait, is this about my date?"
"Partially. The thought of your nascent relationship with Miss Smoak made me think of ours and what it would evolve to."
"And what did you see?"
"Nothing I wanted."
"You want… this?"
"Yes. Being your butler encompasses the entirety of my current responsibilities and more. There will be no change in how we relate, only how I refer to you and you me, if you so wish."
"And that is the 'sir'?"
"Yes. My initial choice was 'Master Elliot,' but I foresaw you refusing that vehemently."
"You're damn right," I said and palmed his shoulder, squeezing a bit and feeling the hardness of his metal shoulder. "Fine. You can do what you want. Just… if you want to be a butler, why are you in a t-shirt?"
"The suit is being printed as we speak."
"Heh," I shook my head and pulled him along. "Where are the guys?"
"They are in the lounge. I believe they are on number two of their Star Wars marathon."
"And which one is that?"
"The Empire Strikes Back," he said and paused for a bit. "I admit, I am perplexed you do not know this."
"Don't be. My interest in Star Wars started and ended with how the force and lightsabers worked. Maybe I'll join them and rectify that mistake. I do live in a space age universe now. There's bound to be some inspiration."
"Before you do, please take a look at this."
My watch did its notification thing and I opened the packet of information Mike just sent. Captain Atom had finally come through. Two days ago when he quizzed me on the learning materials he'd had me study, I passed with flying colors.
He congratulated me and scheduled a live training session after that, and I gave him a counter proposal; using his expertise to create a virtual reality flight simulator.
For this endeavor, I had everything I needed to make the hardware and software. In fact, with the inclusion of psi tech, Cyberpunk's VR technology would be taken to new and more impressive heights.
But what was the point of having a virtual plane in a flight simulator built with the purpose of mastering real life piloting if you didn't have the needed knowledge and skills to complete the software part.
That's why I pitched this idea to my mentor, and he was surprisingly all for it. The ease with which he accepted confused me a bit, but I chalked it up to him being busy and my idea freeing up his already tight schedule.
So with both of us in sync, we started this mini project that very day, my role being the design and testing of the improved VR headgear, a super slim and sleek pair of goggles.
The data pad had tons of flight simulators in them, so tweaking one of the better, corporate ones to meet my standards and then loading it onto the goggles was no easier than moving a hand.
Truly, it was staggering the amount of programs dedicated to this exact purpose of creating an easy, efficient and reproducible means for masters to disseminate their skills to a large group of trainees.
Those cyberpunk corpos looooved war.
Nevertheless, their knowledge was all mine to use and benefit from as I saw fit. And benefit I would, because the captain had done exactly what we discussed and poured his knowledge into the thing.
I could see that he'd created 10 levels of piloting mastery, with only the first three currently unlocked. Maybe because he hadn't gotten around to completing them yet or maybe he wanted me, or us to finish the three first.
Whatever the case, it didn't matter, because I'd given him full control of how fast we would proceed. He would check and review our performance and then decide from there.
I wanted to be a competent pilot before the Zephyr was up and running, so it seemed I would have to ditch the movie. Sorry, Star Wars. I'll watch you later.
Before I could strap in and take flight though, there were some few configurations that needed to be done.
"Mike, I need to check things over before I can dive in—"
"Already done. I'm at level three."
"..."
"You… fine. Get me a headset then. Wait, I'll join the boys in the lounge and ask if they want in. Be on standby to bring more just in case."
"Noted, sir."
I almost corrected him on the sir thing and recalled our earlier conversation. Huffing, I went opposite the direction he took and soon found myself in the lounge.
All the boys were there, seated at various points with their gazes glued to the big screen. Following their lead, I watched Darth Vader order an admiral to get their ship out of an asteroid field before he walked off screen.
Next scene he reappeared descending a small set of stairs before stopping on a small circular platform where he went on one knee. He made a heavy, breathing sound that sounded machinic before saying, "What is my bidding, my master?"
A towering effigy of an old man with a hood appeared before him, and my eyes went a bit wide when I recognized Palpatine, the guy from the memes. Only in this case he wasn't shooting lightning from his fingers and shouting "unlimited powaaaah."
Wait, isn't his title Emperor Palpatine? And the title of the movie is The Emperor Strikes Back. Doesn't this mean this is the Dark side and the Sith striking back against the Light side and the Jedi?
Was that the plot of the first movie? Or was it something else?
"Hey, Elrath," a voice yanked me out of fantasy land. Drawn back down to earth, I found a number of eyes set on me. Someone paused the movie and I took that as a cue to respond.
"Hey guys. What's up? How's the movie?"
"Well, we've watched it before so it's Superboy you should be asking that. But forget that!" Wally said excitedly and vanished from his seat, leaving a few flying cheetos in his wake. "How was the date? Can we see her picture?"
"Slow down lover boy," I rolled my eyes and pushed the boy's head back. "It's the first date. Wait for the third or fourth one or maybe never. Then I'll show it to you."
"Unghh. Come on. We're the good guys here. Heroes," Wally swallowed what he was munching and waved at those still seated. "It's not like we're going to investigate her or seek her out anything."
'Robin will definitely investigate.'
I swept my eyes across the room, giving his pleading expression and the mild curiosity of the others and Robin's aloofness a look and rounded back on him, flashing him a grin. "No."
Before he could make a further protest, I focused on the others. "I came here to invite you guys to a VR training session. Captain Atom finally came through. We can start flight training now. But I see you guys are busy so I'll go ahead first. You guys enjoy the movie."
"What? Are you kidding? Instead of watching planes on a screen we get to fly them. Sign me up."
Wally's outburst unveiled similar sentiments across the group, but I wanted to make sure. "Any more takers? Mike is preparing the headsets so if you want in say it now."
"I'm in." "I'm in." "I'm in." "I'm in." "I'm in." "I'm in."
"We're all in. Come on, let's go!" said Wally before speeding off.
"Haah, and he wonders why he's out of energy all the time," I said and found myself a seat near Superboy.
"Aren't we supposed to follow him?" Rob asked.
"Naah. Mike is bringing the headsets here," I said while sending the android the message. "It's just a pair of goggles. No need for anything else."
Roy pressed play in the meantime and I got a few minutes of what had captured so many young minds back in my world and this one apparently. Star Wars in DC. A space age universe within another space age universe.
Talk about trippy stuff.
Displaying an unexpected benefit of his impulsiveness, Wally returned and zipped about the small space between the couches, leaving something for everyone.
One second my lap was empty, the next, the goggles I designed lay there. Unlike the two separate lenses of most goggles, these consisted of just one that was supposed to run the width of its wearer's face.
"Okay boys," I picked up my pair and looked around. "Using them is real simple. Just make sure you're in a relaxed position before putting them on. This is a full immersion, meaning there will be no accidents from moving about out in there."
"In where?" Roy asked.
"You'll see," I smiled and brought the headset over my face before slotting them in place over my eyes. "When you're ready, you just do what I did and tap here, see? Okay. I'm going in now, see you on the other side."
Everything grew dark when I pushed the button, but something took hold of my senses right after the activation, the sensation slipping away right after and making room for… this.
Like turning on a million tiny lights at once, the world came alive bit by bit, pixel by pixel at an astonishing speed, changing from a dark void to an airfield that seemed to expand with each passing moment.
There was a sudden welcome message which I dismissed just by thinking about. Once it disappeared, a game menu appeared and I gave it a short glance before looking down at myself.
Instead of normal skin and clothing, I was just a mass of shifting light dots and lines. Another thought later and that also changed, returning to my own skin and now wearing simple clothes.
When I looked up again, I noticed the others had arrived.
They must've seen me change because they were in the process of transforming their avatars as well. Wally had started running even, but he stopped suddenly when he tripped over his own feet, the realisation that his powers didn't carry over hitting him hard.
"Dude! My speed!"
"Hahaha…" Rob did a full belly laugh we all heard. Guess they figured out the voice chat function all on their own.
Appreciating the fact that he couldn't zip close to me like he always did, I answered him and brought up the game menu. "That's in the works. This was a rush job. Now choose a plane and skin and let's get started."
The others mimicked me and selected what aircraft they wanted to use and what they wanted to look like. Most of them would have chosen the airforce flight suits no doubt, but when they saw me in the jacket with the pants and aviator sunglasses, they all followed suit.
As for the planes, they were more liberal with their choices. Well, considering there were only two options—the rest had been locked—it wasn't that big of a deal.
Having already done this song and dance during my tests with the headset, I was also the first to open the cockpit of my Diamond DA20 and jump into it, following the message prompts one after the other.
Once inside, another prompt appeared and I lowered the canopy, shutting myself in. The next one directed me to some latches on my left and right and I moved them into the "CLOSE" position, securing things tight.
What followed was a series of pointers and messages appearing and connecting to the various parts in the cockpit, each giving a brief function of what everything on the dashboard did.
Ever since I got Maker Affinity, I hadn't forgotten anything I learnt, so I only needed one go to understand and imbibe everything, despite Tech-Adapting's uncharacteristic silence. I guess this simulation wasn't real enough for it.
"Okay boys. Whenever you're ready," I said and began the multistep process of starting up the plane. There were a series of clicks as I flipped switches and turned knobs, the experience making me smile.
This was just like the movies.
"Hey Elrath. Let's make a deal," said Wally.
"Okay?"
"This is a game right?"
"Yeah?"
"So there'll be challenges."
"Yeah." Where was he going with this?
"If any of us win, you have to show us a picture of your date."
Ahh. There it is. "What do you mean by win?"
"The one with the highest score."
"Really? Do the rest of you think that?"
It was a resounding yes on all fronts.
"Wow. You guys have a deal then."
"Awesome. Let's kick his ass."
Inside the cockpit of my Diamond, I smiled and shook his head. "Just when I was thinking of taking it easy on you guys."
~Sigh.
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1-10 advanced chapters on: https://patreon.com/MasterReigen