=================================== Transfer - A short story by Jakash3 =================================== October 2011 This was a class assignment, supposed to be my made up greek myth story. Even though I got off track from having it be a greek myth, people still thought it was pretty good so I will share it. The title is .Transfer.: Chris was nothing more than what appeared to be an average boring highschool loner. He lived around an urban city, where life moves fast in accordance to the state of trance everybody goes through from weekday to weekday. The alarm goes off; the sound of bustling cars, pedestrians, and the various music that comes accompanied with hologram street advertisements starts playing. Chris grudgingly gets up, selects his outfit for the day from the menu displayed on his mirror, and after a few more preparations he.s off to school. As soon as the streetlight gave the signal, everybody including Chris started to walk to the other side of the street; everybody facing forward, walking at the same pace, having the same blank expression on all their faces. However, when Chris got to the other side he came to realize that he.s more late than he thought and decided to take a shortcut through an unfamiliar area, where an abandoned factory is located. As it became apparent that he was breaking off his daily trail, his pet hologram which was part of his reality augmentation vision spawned into his view. These pets are assigned to every student in the district, their artificial intelligence are based on the assigned student.s schedule. Whenever the student gets off track from their destination, these entities hint to their user where to go. The software includes an agenda, date and time display, school news feed, student.s schedule and ID, and among other things a signal to allow the student.s location to be tracked. The digital shark began to speak and said: .Chris are you lost? School is that way!. as he pointed to the opposite direction of where Chris was walking. Chris always gets annoyed by this startup spyware program, and with a little hack he terminated it. When Chris reached the factory, he decided that he was just going to ditch school today. He.s already very late and the whole place looked interesting to explore anyways. He effortlessly pushed an already partially open metal door. Inside you could see mostly empty space, with trees and plants growing in and around the pillars and cracks. You could also literally see the light rays shine through the windows on such a bright morning. What made it even more interesting was that none of the walls had animated interfaces or location labels and the floors were lacking moving directional arrows. It was a plain old factory probably built at the beginning of the 21st century. .What could it have been like?. Chris said to himself. .I know.. said a female voice from an unknown direction. .What? Who are you? Reveal yourself!. .Calm yourself child.. From behind the palm plants, a really hot 18 year old girl walks out. Wearing nothing... except a plain white dress. .Child? We.re like the same age. And why are you here?. .Same reason. I love candy.. .Did you follow me here?. . Why would I follow a hopeless mortal like yourself? I am Artemis: Goddess of the Forest, and I.m here to eat your soul. . "...okay. . But seriously this is my house. Why would you come here? Don.t you usually playwith your devices of electronic computation like the rest of the other humans? This place is too boring for you. . .I don.t know, I.m tired of doing the same thing everyday.. .Ooh a free thinker, you must think you.re special.. .Just leave me alone.. .Again, it is actually you that must leave me alone. This is my house.. . Whatever you are not fartemis or whatever it.s called. Where did you get a funny name like that? . . All of mankind.s information at your fingertips anytime you want and yet you are still ignorant enough to not know about Greek mythology? Hades has done a good job at brainwashing all of you. . .Hades who? Never mind, I.ll just go home.. .Good.. Chris walked out of the building. But instead of going home like he said he would, Chris went back into the factory from a different entrance. As Chris explored the factory, weird things started to happen. Droplets of water would stop in mid-air, a rush of blowing wind would be followed by a rush of sucking wind as if time would be going backwards, generally many things that didn.t follow the normal rules of time and gravity were happening. Of course, none of this phased Chris as the distinction between reality and virtual reality has been blurred in this time period. Chris thought to himself: .Maybe this factory is newer but it.s graphics have been messed up from not being maintained... Chris soon realized that there was something not normal going on when he found that he was able to control objects with his hand gestures despite not having a system operator.s access card. The objects he was manipulating were even solid, that means they were real! In experiencing the pure magical precision, Chris came to realize the obviousness of reality. Chris played for hours using his new found powers. He would jump high in the air and fall down on his back slowly and gracefully as if he was underwater. Everything would just flow naturally in slow motion like feathers, even the reflections that would shine from water droplets in the air would slowly change shape as they became affected by the diminished forces of gravity. Chris came to appreciate the beauty of seeing the results of molecular actions at a tempo where he is able to comprehend and predict everything that would happen. The rainbows of light rays even adjusted to this precision of gravity, blinding the now meaningless issues of the outside world. At this point hours have passed into late hours of the day, Chris has lost all track of time and continues to amaze himself even though he is in a spooky factory at night now. Good things can.t last forever. Even though Chris is experiencing a whole new reality, he cannot leave behind the reality of his own world. Black cars show up outside the factory. Men with jumpsuits barge in and invade. Chris comes back to normal as they shine flashlights in his eyes and handcuff him. When Chris is taken outside, he is blinded by the lights of the cars. Everything happened so fast now and it was all just a blur to Chris, the last thing he remembered was seeing an agent in a black suit making the command: .clean it up.. The entire factory was blocked off, chemicals were sprayed everywhere, and then the building was dismantled. Chris woke up in his bed the next morning not knowing what to believe. He went back to the factory only to discover that it has been replaced by an empty parking lot. At this moment nothing felt more lonely and empty. To lose something that he only got to experience once in what is otherwise a boring life filled with boundaries. No one will ever believe his story, as he can barely even believe it himself. It.s something that he wouldn.t even be able to describe in words of what happened; something that only the person experiencing it would understand. He looked back at the city where he saw his classmates walk across the same street going to school in almost identical expressionless fashion again. Always looking the same direction, everybody else doing the same thing every morning. With nothing left but curiosity, Chris began his research on Greek gods.