13 [A Year]

Before Haley realised it a year had passed quietly and he had somewhat settled into this menial life he found himself in, he realised that without the pressure of debt and education on his shoulders he had finally had a good-night sleep every night since the day he decided to stay 'dead.'

His relationship with James had improved considerably as well, the old man treated him like a grandchild and although he maintained his cold demeanour he felt the slightest spark of joy every moment he spent with the man; the old man treated him like family without questioning his past and that was all that Haley could ask for and was thankful for.

It was new years of 4032, a day that Haley usually spent alone when the old man cooked dinner for the both of them and brought him a fully customised holo-desktop and had it installed in his room while he was working on the drones that had malfunctioned in the fields.

. . . . .

"Hahaha! v1 is selling like fire, it's time to release 'that' onto the market." Haley sat behind his screen as he watched the sales count of the Medical Analysis Modification increase by thousands at a time, it soon hit one-hundred thousand before it finally began to slow to a crawl.

Half-a-year ago Haley had finally managed to check his sales of v0.2 that he had almost completely forgotten about it, to his surprise there was over ten-million Luna laying dormant in the account which as soon as he transferred to his account 001 had appeared and awarded him 20 Points from which he figured that the conditions to receive points was based on his financial gain.

However, this idea was soon proved wrong when he released v0.3 of Medical Analysis that he realised he was wrong – although his sales increased, he didn't receive any points; he approached it from a different angle and after three versions he finally discovered the crucial key.

'If it doesn't benefit anyone then my points aren't increased, as soon as the old man used it according to 001, I received 0.0001 Points as a reward.' Haley had been surprised when he discovered the conditions, but it made sense, what use was a modification if it wasn't being used – if the person who utilised his creations benefited then so did he.

However, a scary thought did cross his mind it was both scary and beneficial considering on how you looked at it but to understand it you needed to understand how modifications worked on another person's HUD when they installed it. When a modification was installed the HUD would do an advanced scan to detect any backdoors and wouldn't allow the installation to occur if it detected any after a thorough scan of the code but to his surprise 001 was capable of monitoring the HUDs of those that installed his mods but when he questioned 001 about it he received the line he was now so used to seeing.

[User lacks the authority.]

That message had become so common to him over the past year he was tempted to smack his head against a desk just to try and harm 001.

Additionally, he had experimented with the data link that he more affectionally called the 'creepy tentacle' and had discovered that it could literally crawl out of any part of his body and interface with almost every type of tech as long as it had physical hardware for it to 'engulf' and establish a thread to his own mind.

That just about summed up his entire year, what remained now was him sitting at his desk watching the Mod Market with slow anticipation as he typed up a new modification that he had been developing over the past two months.

'Medical Analysis v1 will be the last version he released to the public for a while now, it's advanced enough as is not to mention the hidden health benefits that it provides.

He glanced at his own installed modifications, Medical Analysis v2.5 Installed.

The benefits he was reaping from the tech were far better than those that the v1 users were receiving for example v0.5 provided a 0.5x Improvement in a persons health whereas v2.5 provided a 2.5x improvement to his body; Haley currently had a body far healthier than the normal human, his build had become much leaner.

Only him and the old man had this version installed, the version significantly improved their lifestyles and thankfully James didn't question it simply because he didn't want to know to begin with.

"Do I do it now?" Haley muttered as his finger hovered over the button on the screen, with a simple press he was able to release something that could potentially cause a revolution in how the HUD was used across the galaxy – it could also get him killed.

AI Assistant v0.1

It was a simple name, so simple in fact that it seemed obvious that this should've been developed years ago and yet it hadn't, why? It was because including an AI into a HUD was practically impossible, the human brain couldn't withstand what was essentially a second brain despite it being stored on the HUD Chip.

'Risks exist for a reason.' He thought silently, he had already ensured that he was almost completely untraceable thanks to 001 – it would take the resources of the entire government and several skilled hackers to find his location and even then he had made sure to include a few 'traps' within the code protecting him as a nice surprise for them should they try.

He glanced to the corner of his vision where his HUD was currently displaying a screen of scrolling code, it was a screen that had been dedicated to 001 to fight these hackers who attempted to uncover his identity this would be the twentieth that had tried and the twentieth that had failed.

001 had managed to trace back a number of them to ModCo themselves but that was unsurprising considering the overwhelming reaction people had towards it after they realised the benefits it could provide for them long-term, he had read many comments of prominent people in the galaxy who had their lives improved afterwards and they had proposed their interest in buying the source code.

'Now to watch the storm…' He thought with a playful smile as he saw his modification had been added to the store, ignoring the river of comments that were now pouring in he turned off the hologram and relaxed back in his chair with a satisfied grin.