Allistor’s brain ached.  He wasn’t sure if it was from the foghorn assault or the flood of incredible information.  As he wondered whether he was suffering some kind of brain damage, another holographic screen popped up in his field of vision.   As a lifelong gamer, he recognized it as a character status.  Looking at his family, he asked “Can you guys see this?  My screen, I mean?”

They all shook their heads no, and Leah asked, “What screen?”

Allistor poked a finger at his own hologram, saying, “Try thinking ‘status’ and see what happens.   He watched as all three of them began to stare into space.  If he wasn’t so scared, he might have laughed at his family looking like game avatars with the thousand-yard stare as they checked their UIs.

He went back to examining his own screen as the brighter sun continued to rise.  In the back of his mind, he noted that his skin was warming quickly under the brighter light.

His stat sheet was pretty straightforward, and his numbers were pathetic.

A prompt appeared below the stats.

Human #1,512,241,003 would you like to change your designation?  Y/N

Allistor rolled his eyes upward at the question, looking to see if there was a ‘tag’ above his head with that ridiculously long number.  If there was, he couldn’t see it.  And there wasn’t one visible above any of his family members’ heads either.   He clicked “Yes” and a new prompt appeared.

Please state clearly your new designation.

He said, “Allistor,” while picturing the spelling of his name.  One advantage of the unusual spelling of his name was that even in games with millions of players, nobody ever beat him to his own name.   A quick check of his status screen showed his designation had been updated.   He took a minute to review his other stats, finding that if he focused on any one of them, more detail would appear in a secondary screen that was an opaque green.    Most of the stats were pretty clear, standard for many of the MMORPGs he’d played.  A few caught his attention, though.

He focused on Adaptability.  The detail read:  Inhabitants of backward or undeveloped worlds such as UCP 382 often have difficulty adjusting to the new realities of membership in the Collective.  Those with an initial adaptability rating of three or lower often perish in the early days of assimilation.  Higher adaptability scores enable one to better assess new situations and surroundings, identify potential dangers and benefits, and adjust themselves or their actions in order to achieve a more positive outcome.

He was moving on to read about Constitution when George stopped staring at his own screen to address his son.  “Any chance you can explain all of this to us old farts, kiddo?” He winked at his wife and daughter, trying to lighten the mood a bit.