The Laptop - Ch.54 - Back to School (Patreon)

Getting back to our room at the inn was easy enough, thanks to the laptop. We didn't even have to leave the archives hall, I just opened a portal right there. The three of us filed through, and ended up right back where we started.

Neither of my girlfriends commented or questioned it, but I was quietly pleased with myself. For one thing it confirmed what I'd already suspected, and also meant that we'd have no problem returning home again to my bedroom on Earth-742 when the time came.

Unfortunately the pizza and coolers had to wait, because as soon as we got back Annie was there to hit me with that quiz she mentioned earlier. Before we started though, I convinced Chelsea and Gwyneth to go explore the village again or hang out with Frank for a while.

I claimed I needed to focus on the test I was about to take, but the reality was I didn't want them to know the truth yet. I'd had my suspicions about the inventory thing since the day we arrived on Daearen, and I wasn't sure how to break that to them. Part of me was also hoping I was wrong, in which case there was no sense worrying them with problems that didn't exist.

"So what do you think Lisa?" the half-elf asked once the two of us were alone. "Why is using the automatic inventory updater to fix mismatches a bad idea?"

I sighed, "Because when it 'fixes' our inventory to fit in a given realm, it's not selective about what it modifies. It changes stuff to blend in if it can, and purges stuff that doesn't fit in at all. It also drops anything on our list that's not actually with us in the new realm."

She nodded, "Perfect score. As you travel around the realms you're going to pick things up wherever you go. Sentimental items, useful tools, clothes, weapons, toys, whatever. Doing that blanket update may seem like a time-saver, but it'll fuck up your inventory each time you use it."

"I noticed all the stuff we left behind at home vanished from our lists the first day we were here," I commented quietly. "Does that mean it's all gone now? Our house, Chelsea's car, our bank accounts... What about our education? Chelsea was almost finished her university course, is that gone too?"

Annie let out a deep sigh then nodded, "Sorry kid. That's not to say you can't get those things back? I'm pretty sure you already know the inventory updater works on 'intangibles' just like it does with physical objects. It updated your bank account and college registration to fit your new name. Then when you got here it purged all that stuff on Earth-742 because you no longer exist there. When you go back you'll have to recreate everything manually."

"What about the house?" I asked. "I have the location ID for my bedroom in the basement. When we go home are we going to find someone else is living there?"

She shrugged, "That depends. The place will probably show up as abandoned or owned by the city or however your world handles that sort of thing? It boils down to how fast your people deal with that situation. Would they auction it off immediately, or does it take months or years before the process is complete?"

"Either way," she added, "I wouldn't suggest returning directly to your bedroom. Aim for somewhere secluded that's nearby, like a park or alley or something."

"Shit," I sighed. Then I frowned, "We've only been gone a couple weeks. Neighbours might have noticed we're not around, but the government doesn't work that fast. The house won't have been repossessed or auctioned off or anything like that. I'm sure of it."

Annie didn't seem so confident. She gave me a sad look as she replied, "I hope you're right. And I hope you'll be able to return before too much longer."

"Still, it's best to take all this as a learning experience Lisa," she added. "I went through a lot of similar situations when I was just starting out."

That left me frowning again as I asked, "So how do you manage it? Do you just not own stuff? Rez up what you need when you arrive in a new realm, then delete it when you leave?"

"That's one way to do it," she replied. "It's not for everyone though, especially if you do get sentimental about things. Another option is when you find a safe or friendly realm, set up a little home for yourself. Or a lair, or hideout or whatever. A place you can safely store whatever's important to you."

Then she got on with the quiz again, "By the way, good job figuring out how to back-track with the expeditions app. I'll be honest, I was half expecting you to text me asking how to get back to Hoag's Hole again. Or a panicked message saying you and your girlfriends ended up back in that meadow, sixty klicks duskward of the village."

I rolled my eyes, "Of course, how to get back here was another test."

"Yep," she smiled. "Speaking of, what have you figured out about the location IDs? Have you cracked the code yet?"

That made me frown, and I had to open up the laptop to take another look at them. I only had a couple examples to work with, basically two from Daearen and the one from home. I discounted the one from Enðedd because Annie said it was special, and it showed up as 'invalid' in the log.

"I know they're presented as blocks of integers in hexadecimal notation," I replied as I stared at them. "And the documentation said they can be three, four, or five blocks long. I also know that they're encoded somehow, and accurate to within about ten meters."

Looking at the two from Daearen there were minor differences in the third and fifth block, while the first block was only off by a single digit. And blocks two and four were identical.

After a few more seconds I shook my head, "If I had to guess based on the samples I've seen, I'd say they must include a realm identifier, and probably something like lat-long coordinates. I don't have enough information to say for sure though. Only three valid samples, that's not enough to go on."

"Fair enough," she smiled. "Keep it in mind though, I'll be asking you about that again in the future."

I nodded, then since that seemed to be the end of the quiz I had a question for her. My mood got a little sombre as I asked, "Are digitization IDs the same as character IDs? I found a database in the archives that tracked every digitized individual. I could use that to find my mom, couldn't I?"

"Yeah," Annie replied with a sad look. "You could, but I still don't think it's a good idea. If you really want to do it I won't try and stop you. You already know how I feel about the subject though, so that's all I'm going to say."

Sure enough she left it at that, and instead we started talking about more lessons and training. We actually spent the rest of the afternoon on that, right up until my girlfriends returned to let me know it was pizza time.

Annie bid the three of us a good night, and after she was gone we locked the door so we wouldn't be disturbed. Then I used the laptop to conjure up a large pizza with all our favourite toppings, along with a half dozen bottles of ice cold cherry vodka cooler. I also got us some cans of cola and bottles of spring water. Then my girlfriends and I relaxed on the bed while we talked more and enjoyed our dinner. It almost reminded me of hanging out with them back home, except we were missing the big screen TV and the game consoles.

The following morning my mentor returned after breakfast to continue my lessons, and that sort of set the tone for the next week or so. It was almost like being back in college again, except there weren't any other students and the classes ran seven days a week. It was just professor Annie and myself. Or sometimes my girlfriends sat in on the lessons, but mostly they found something else to do with themselves during the day, while my teacher answered all my questions and more.

In fact it almost felt like one of those 'careful what you wish for' situations. I'd gone from being almost desperate for answers to having more information than I could handle. My new prof even had me reading the SysAdmin Handbook, just so she could quiz me on the different chapters afterwards.

I also had to wonder now and then what the innkeeper and his wife thought about us. We took most of our meals in our room, but very few of them came from the tavern. The rest were all summoned up with the laptop. If our 'landlords' were curious though, they never let on. As far as I could tell they were happy to keep taking our silver coins for as long as we wanted to stay there.

After a little over a week of 'classroom' theory work, Annie finally decided it was time for another field trip. Except from the sound of it, this wasn't going to be anything like the first one.

"I'll be coming with you," my teacher stated, "And to be honest it's probably safest if your girlfriends stay here. We're not going to be gone long, there isn't going to be anything terribly interesting where we're going, and none of you are going to be wandering around exploring."

I glanced at my girlfriends then asked warily, "Why not? You're making it sound like we're going someplace dangerous, and if that's the case then I have to ask why we're going there at all?"

Annie looked and sounded serious as she replied, "It should be safe as long as we're careful and you do what I say. On the other hand, it can be very dangerous if things go wrong, which is why the moment we get there I'll be engaging 'safe mode' for myself. And I suggest you enable it on your own character sheet too."

"Crap!" I muttered to myself. Then I admitted, "I completely forgot to do that after we got back from our last field trip. I won't forget this time though."

Gwen added, "Safe mode or not I'd rather stick with you Lisa."

"Same," Chels nodded.

I smiled, "Thanks you two. I'd rather we stayed together too, but I don't want to put either of you in any unnecessary danger."

Annie cleared her throat then continued with what she was saying before, "As for why we're going to this specific realm? It's the most advanced sci-fi realm I know, so you can upgrade your admin interface. We're going to the same place where I got my neuro-optical implant."

"If you want to go the same route," she added, "Then I suggest you start thinking right now about which eye you'll want to use, although allegedly it's best to use your off-eye. And if you want any cosmetic enhancements with the implant you should think about that as well."

Gwen's eyebrows shot up as she stared at the half-elf, "Hold on! Is that why your eyes are different colours? That's why your left eye's purple, because it's the one with the implant?"

"Bingo," she smiled.

She got more serious again as she told me, "You don't have to do anything fancy like that if you don't want to. Leaving your eyes looking the same is definitely an option. The only thing you really need to decide is which eye you want to put it in, and it's best to make that decision in advance. I'd rather not spend more time in that other realm than absolutely necessary."

I frowned, "What makes the place we're going so dangerous? I'd have thought some advanced sci-fi realm would be safer."

"Why don't you open up the expeditions app, then I'll give you the location code and you can read up on the place for yourself?" Annie suggested.

That only took me a minute or so, to open up the laptop and get into the correct app. Then I nodded to her that I was ready for the code.

"Delta charlie eight alpha," the half-elf recited. "Two foxtrot alpha one. Zero niner seven echo."

It only took me a moment to realize she was spelling it out using a phonetic alphabet, then I quickly keyed in the ID. DC8A 2FA1 097E was the shortest I'd seen so far, but at least it looked more legitimate than the one for Enðedd.

A moment later the information popped up on my screen, and I frowned as I read it out. "MGAS Popławska? That doesn't sound like the name of a planet."

"What's MGAS mean?" Chelsea added.

Rather than reply Annie remained quiet and let me keep reading. Which was fine, I found the answers just a few seconds later.

I looked up from the laptop and stated, "It's not a world, it's a starship. The Multi-Generational Arc Ship Popławska is flying through inter-stellar space, on its way to colonize a new far-off planet."

Gwen frowned at my teacher and asked, "I thought you said Enðedd never invented interstellar travel?"

"Neither has Earth-742," Annie shrugged, "But that hasn't stopped your world from basing endless entertainment franchises on the concept."

Chels nodded slowly, "Right. It's not really a starship, it's just another simulated world full of digitized people. It just happens to be shaped like a ship travelling through space, instead of a planet orbiting a sun."

"Why's it so dangerous though?" the little catgirl added as she looked back and forth between me and my mentor.

I gestured at the laptop screen as I relayed what I'd just read, "It's a generation ship that's more than seven hundred years into their mission. There's literally no way for travellers or adventurers to just show up. They do not get visitors, ever. So if they notice us, they'll freak the heck out."

"And being a highly advanced sci-fi civilization, they have some very nasty toys at their disposal with which to 'freak the heck out' all over our asses," Annie added grimly.

That made me frown, "Is this another realm we're going to have to 'fix' at some point?"

The bard shook her head, "Actually no, not really. Their society functions pretty well, the folks living there are generally happy and get along ok with each other. They have excellent health care, there's no poverty, no inequality. The only flaw as such is they're kind of brutal when it comes to dealing with crime and criminals."

Gwen asked, "This isn't one of those sci-fi morality tropes where everything's totally cool but you get executed for stepping on the grass or something, is it?"

"Not at all," Annie laughed. "Their laws are fairly sane. Basically it's a good positive society, but if you kill or rape or intentionally injure someone you're completely fucked. And they're equally harsh on outsiders, since our existence breaks their understanding of reality."

"And on that happy note, why don't you open a portal so we can go visit?" she added as she flashed me a smile.