1 A Birthday Present
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PLANET EARTH, Orion Arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo Supercluster
World Media, Atlanta, Georgia, United States
2021-10-18 06:18 am Eastern Standard
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It was a normal night at work, nothing exceptional. A few requests for assistance from the various operators at the television station had come in, via phone call and text chat, and James Allen Westley had dealt with them all. Most of the requests ended up having one of two solutions. The first was that when he arrived at the operator's work area to look at the problem, the problem was gone, because most computer problems disappear when the IT guy walks over to look at the issue. The other solution is generally some variation on turning it off and back on again.
There was one issue with some particularly difficult display software that he would have to pass on to the next shift, but it was the weekend and the end of the overnight shift, so James was not particularly concerned about that. The day shift could handle the issue better, and the vendor would be more likely to have people that are awake and helpful during the work week than they would at three AM on a Monday morning.
James was walking to his car, having completed and sent the shift report, when his phone buzzed and dinged.
"I wonder what type of notification that was" he thinks, then he pulls his phone out of his pocket. His phone was not one of those top-of the-line FruitPhones, nor was it one of the high-end Nebula phones. It was a mid-range Nebula, costing about $150, It didn't have a fancy case, nor did it have the fancy glass on both sides, but it was a serviceable phone that fit his hand well. He looks at the lock screen, and most of the notifications were from the Dissonance, the chat app, and were various comments in play-by-post games that he was lurking in.
There was one notification that he had never seen before. The notification had an icon that sort of resembled a door hung in between two stones, with a larger stone on top and grass on the ground. It was labeled "Portal to the Dungeons", and the notification said something like "Welcome new player..." with the rest of the text cutting of due to the side of the screen. He selected that notification, then unlocked his phone, curious as to what this "Portal to the Dungeon" application was.
The app took about 5 minutes to load, which seems like forever in app load times, and showed him a number of lush and interesting backgrounds as it did. The screen said "Loading, please wait", and the app prompted him to download data so that the app could launch. "It is still early in the month" he thinks "we should still have plenty of data left over, as it is only the middle of the month", so he downloaded the files over the air instead of waiting for Wifi.
"Did my princess buy this for me on my birthday"? he thinks, wondering if his wife had purchased the app for his birthday as a surprise. "Well, we shall see. She knows that I enjoy role playing games, and if what the lock screen shows is true, it seems to be a very well-done app."
The music begins to play as the app finished loading, and then the screen played a short video detailing a number of worlds... some peaceful, some full of war, some with forests, some with wasteland, and many other biomes. "Welcome, Mysterious Mink, to the Portal to the Dungeons. Click the [Start] button to begin a journey into a new perspective on the world that you love in that will lead you far beyond the star you were born on."
James presses the [Start] button in the app.
