Ah. There’s that burrito. I thought, bent over staring at my sick. My stomach heaved a second time, but nothing came up. I’d released my grip on the tanto when I puked, and it vanished into thin air. A message continued to float in my view, though it was toward the top of my field of vision, rather than centered. I raised my head and the message moved back to its usual position.

  Ability: Absorption

  Temporarily or permanently gain abilities, skills, or memories by draining blood from others.

  Sipping a minimum of 3 blood points offers a temporary gain, while fully draining someone (or something) results in a permanent gain.

  Temporary gains fade after 1 hour. Permanent gains that require expenditure are fueled by your Matrix. Absorbed blood fuels your Matrix.

  “Yuck!” Jasper said, morphing into a puking face and back. “That’s not how most people celebrate a win.”

  I stood up, wiping my mouth, breathing hard. A small nameplate had appeared over the dead ninja. It read Fane Ninja (0%).

  “You can loot that corpse,” Jasper said. “Also, make sure you Absorb the blood! Waste not want not.”

  I closed my eyes again and slowed my breathing, focusing on the feel of it flowing in and out of my body. I opened them when the shaking stopped and looked at the body. Blood had continued to flow out of its severed neck and formed into a large pool on the marble floor. The idea of slurping away at that puddle to refill some weird power source inside me almost made me heave again.

  “Do I…” I said, then took a breath. “Do I have to drink it?”

  Jasper’s face squeezed into a laugh and a skull and crossbones floated up from its head.

  “Of course not! You aren’t a vampire. Just touch it.”

  Hesitantly, I touched a finger to the blood. A counter reading 17/20 appeared in the lower right of my vision. There was a kind of sucking sound, like what you might make when using a straw to get the very last bit of a milkshake from the bottom of the cup, and blood began to flow into my hand. I could see the pool diminish. In seconds, the counter had ticked up to 20/20. A new message appeared.

  You may temporarily Absorb a memory!

  Proceed: Y/N

  I clicked yes, and a new window about the size of a notebook appeared in my vision. It showed a city street at night with cars passing from one edge of the window and out the other. I could hear the traffic and see streetlights and a building across the street. The point of view moved, like I was playing a FPS, and I could see a purple neon sign above one of the doors on the building. Black Orchid. The scene repeated, looping back from the beginning. I noted a red X in the upper right corner of the window and concentrated on it. The window closed. A pair of new messages appeared.

  New Quest: Shots! Shots! Shots!

  Get a drink at the Black Orchid to celebrate your victory!

  Get a bunch of drinks! Buy a round for the house!

  Reward: Ring of Inner Peace, 200 Credits

  Tutorial Step Two Complete!

  HUD Fully Activated!

  A circular mini-map appeared in the upper right corner of my vision. It showed all the rooms I’d explored in the apartment, but the space beyond that was obscured with a gray fog. My position in the apartment was indicated with a white dot. I clicked on the mini-map and it expanded to fill my vision, the apartment centered on the map, but the rest of it was still grayed out. I exited the map and it returned to the upper right corner of my vision.

  “Don’t forget to loot the body!” Jasper said.

  I wasn’t excited about riffling through the corpse’s clothes, but I knew I had to get it over with. Gritting my teeth I reached out toward the ninja. As soon as my hand touched the body a new message appeared.

  Loot Fane Ninja?

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Y/N

  I clicked yes and new notifications appeared.

  You have received:

  DayBan Sunglasses, Flea Market Ninjatō, 500 Credits

  A window labelled Inventory popped into view. It had four rows of five boxes. The first box was filled with a pair of sunglasses and the second with a sword. The bottom of the window had a smaller section labelled Currencies with Credits: 500 below it.

  “Any looted or unequipped items will appear in your inventory,” Jasper said. “Your inventory is currently limited to 20 items. You can equip items directly from your inventory. Try equipping your new sunglasses!”

  I clicked on the sunglasses and felt them appear on my face. Reaching up, I pulled them off and examined them. They looked like cheap, gas station sunglasses, but did offer some benefits.

  DayBan Sunglasses

  Defeat early mornings with DayBans.

  +5% Mental Resistance

  I put the sunglasses back on and didn’t notice a huge difference in my vision. I wasn’t sure if that was because of my Low-light Vision, or if the sunglasses reacted to the amount of ambient light. I tried equipping the ninjatō, and it appeared in my hand, but it was garbage. No stats, no damage bonus. I dropped the sword over my inventory, and it reappeared in one of the boxes. Noting the red X in the upper right corner, I closed the window.

  “You can open your inventory at any time by simply concentrating on it,” Jasper said. “You can pull up your character sheet and paper doll the same way. And you’ve already discovered how to close windows. Good job!”

  A pair of clapping hands appeared in front of Jasper, then winked out.

  “It won’t always be convenient for you to talk to me out loud,” Jasper said. “But I’m always available to you by chat.”

  A new window appeared in my vision, this one slightly lower and to the left. It was a chat window.

  Jasper (AI): Hello [Victor]!

  “Um, hello?” I said.

  Jasper (AI): No, no, silly! In the chat. Pretend you’re typing in the window.

  Victor: Hello?

  “Very good!” Jasper said, pooping out a small thumbs up. “You can also communicate with other Agents using the chat system. Just initiate a handshake to add them to your chat list.”

  “Like, a literal handshake?”

  A 100% emoji floated up and away over Jasper’s head.

  “You’ve said Agents a couple of times now,” I said. “I can almost hear the capital letter. What does that mean?”

  “Other people like you!” Jasper said. “Well, not exactly like you, each of them will have their own Archetype, though some Archetypes may be identical. Agents are active entities capable of influencing events and generating new opportunities.”

  “So, we’re like players?”

  Jasper’s face scrunched up and I got the feeling it was shrugging.

  “Eh, sort of,” it said. “The system is a bit more complicated than that. You’ll figure it out as you go along. Now it’s time to watch some TV!”

  Lights flicked on throughout the apartment, and I could see most of the walls in the living room were actually heavily tinted windows. An enormous TV was positioned in front of a black, leather couch and it had a glowing yellow arrow floating over it, pointing down at the screen. I walked toward the couch, catching a reflection of myself in one of the windows. The first thing I noticed was my hair. It was thick and black, and combed back in a slicked down style. I blinked. That wasn’t right. I always got a buzz cut because I couldn’t be bothered dealing with my hair in the morning, and it was comfortable short. My hair had never looked like this. Even when I was a kid.

  I scanned down my body, looking for other changes, but didn’t see anything. The FlexWeave suit looked nice on me, and I filled it out pretty well. Spending days carrying heavy shit, working out, and practicing martial arts will do that. I always wished I was a little taller than my 5’9”, but that hadn’t changed. Other than the hair and the clothes, the person in the reflection was still me, whatever had happened.

  I plopped down on the coach and the TV blinked on. For a minute all it showed was static, and then a film started. The image jumped and flickered, and had noise lines running through it like it was playing from VHS. It showed a city from overhead with the words, “Welcome to Anera!” superimposed over top of the image. The film started to go to a wipe cut, then the screen turned black again. A second later I saw the head and shoulders of a white dude wearing glasses and a headset staring out at me from the screen.

  He had short, spiky blond hair, a scraggly beard, and blue eyes and… he looked wrong. Generic. Like someone decided to use some AI slop for an actor instead of ponying up for a real person. Even the background, supposedly a library, looked off. It was disconcerting.

  “Great,” he said. “Good. Hello Victor. I’m Adam and I don’t have a lot of time, so this is a great opportunity for you to shut up. You’re supposed to be watching the city intro. Welcome to Anera! Here are the races! Don’t call them elves! Blah, blah, blah.”

  Adam took a breath and rubbed the bridge of his nose just under his glasses. I swear his left hand had six fingers.

  “Listen, I was hoping that this would all go smoothly, but it seems like someone noticed when I fired you up,” Adam said. “That ninja wasn’t supposed to be in the tutorial. It was just supposed to be some crackhead burglar that you’d beat down in two seconds. Someone changed it.”

  Adam leaned in closer to the camera and I could see how poorly his hair was rendered. It looked like someone had shoved half a fuzzy, yellow plush on his head.

  “I’ll try and figure out who it was, but until then, watch your back.”