1 Welcome

On Monday afternoon, with the sun shining through the window and illuminating the interior of the classroom, about twenty students observed their teacher silently.

Their attention was split between the clock and the board, mostly thinking about what they were going to do tonight, already planning their Friday night. Among them, Isaac quietly read what the professor wrote, interested in the content of the course.

- "Okay, we're going to take a fifteen-minute break. After that, we'll start the root-mean-square convergence estimators and the confidence intervals." The professor then turned to the class, drawing the attention of the few people wandering in their thoughts. "Questions ?" He finally said before looking at everyone.

After a moment of silence, he resumed.

- "Good. You can take a break. Come back to class in fifteen minutes, you can leave your things." He said before sitting down on his desk and opening his computer.

Almost immediately the silence of the room was broken by the annoying sound of chairs being pulled and dragged along the floor. All over the place, the students gathered in groups of two to three, starting to chat as others walked out of the room.

Isaac, meanwhile, remained there, motionless, gazing lost. He turned to his friend, Mat, sitting on the next table, silently calling for help.

- "Okay. Let me guess, you haven't got it?" he asked starting to take his notebook, already knowing the answer.

- "But where do you know what a convergent mean quadratic estimator is?" With a positive, plaintive nod of his head, he then moved closer and came over to take a look at the notebook in front of him, reading intently.

His friend sighed, ignoring the mixer Isaac had just made with the words in class. "Meh. After a little while, it'll get some order," he thought.

Isaac and Mat were very different physically and mentally. Where Isaac was shy and lazy, Mat was very outgoing and proactive. The two young men seemed to be their complete opposite which left a little doubt as to why they were so close.

The first of a tanned complexion typical of his island, black hair and eyes, the second of a fairly pale complexion with black hair and irises of a brown color. The first tall and rather thin, even bordering on thinness, the second of medium height and quite muscular.

Mat and Isaac had been friends for 7 years already. Together since the second in high school, they have never lost contact with each other. After the Terminale, everyone decided to try things. Where Isaac tried a course in Accounting, Mat decided to go enlist in the army.

After a few years of service and a few steps up, his superior offered him the possibility of being able to take courses in an engineering school. After a quick choice, the two agreed to attempt to enter a course in Computer Science and after a year of reorientation, the two finally have to end up in the same class again.

Although for his part, Isaac has a very heavy technical background in Computer Science, especially after his years of self-study, Mat instead wanted to continue taking courses in mathematics. A little out of passion and also out of nostalgia, his level turned out to be very high, which earned him the interest of his superior.

Both from Tahiti, the change to the Metropolis was not without a shock. Starting with the temperature and the Internet connection.

"O my Holy Fiber Optic" were the first words he had while doing a quick connection test. "220MB per second ... that's my ping when I play games at home!"

The reaction was the same for Mat, but having already been in France for a few years for his military service, he had largely become accustomed to this new world.

Lost in thought, Mat didn't notice that Isaac had changed the direction of his gaze. His eyes initially on his notebook, were now fixed on the edge of the table in front of him.

- "Manu? Hey oh ..."

Manu was Isaac's middle name, a name that only people he considered close enough friends could use. Manu being diminutive of Heimanu, a Tahitian first name whose meaning was "Crown of birds".

Mat ran his hand over Isaac's face, a little surprised by Isaac's lost gaze. He followed his gaze to the ground without noticing anything. "Are you okay? You want me to call --..."

- "Hey ... Mat, do you see it too?" Isaac then came to point his finger at the void in front of him before returning his gaze to his comrade next to him, an expression of worry and confusion decorating his face. "Tell me I'm not crazy ..."

Seeing the expression on his friend's face, Mat then began to seriously inspect the place Isaac pointed, trying to find what he was trying to point out without being able to locate anything.

He returned his gaze to Isaac, whose gaze had returned to the strange apparition of which he was the only witness.

In front of him floated a slightly transparent bluish rectangle containing a series of a few lines of text as well as a loading bar. Unable to know how it appeared or how it floated, Isaac began to take an interest in its contents.

[Admin] "Haaaa. Well ... Sorry to be so sudden, but I can't wait any longer. Have fun :)"

[System] The System Administrator has granted you Administrator Rights.

[System] Transfer of Administrator rights in progress ...

- "Sorry mate, but I can't see anything. Are you sure you're okay? Maybe you drank a little too much last night, didn't you?" He finally said, laughing a bit to relax the atmosphere, his eyes worried and confused. "I'll call the nurse if you want..." he asked and waited for Isaac's reaction.

However, no reaction reached him. Isaac for his part was focused on the loading bar which was already increasing very quickly, reaching 84% in a few seconds.

Seeing that his friend was not moving, Mat then immediately walked over to the professor sitting at his desk, attracting the attention of Isaac who began to stand up to prevent Mat just as the sound of a bell rang throughout the room. .

Isaac suddenly blocked his ears when he heard the noise, closing his eyes because the sound was so powerful, his ears still ringing with a little sound in the background.

After several seconds of silence, Isaac began to open his eyes and look around before finding himself confused and above all shocked at what he could see.

The world was in black and white, like an image from the beginning of photography. But that wasn't what shocked Isaac the most.

No, what shocked him the most was his friend frozen and still, his foot in the air marching towards the professor.

- "Mat?" He looked around and then noticed the other students, all in the same state, frozen in all kinds of positions. Some at a normal angle, others a little less, like when pausing a video.

"What is happening ?" Isaac thought, trying to put his hand in front of Mat and trying to push or move him without much success.

Still confused, the floating text window then started beeping and new lines of text were added.

[System] Transfer completed

[System] End of simulation ...

He barely had time to read when the world around suddenly began to fall out. Black cracks began to appear everywhere, destroying the very fabric of reality before a rift opened beneath Isaac, tearing the world apart.

All around, the faces of the students tore to dust before Isaac's eyes. The chasm beneath him suddenly sucked him in, giving him time to watch his friend's body tear to pieces before darkness enveloped him.

In total darkness and in free fall, his face filled with dread and despair, Isaac could then hear a female voice, cold and emotionless speaking to him. The voice echoing in the void only uttered a short sentence. Simple words that echoed in Isaac's mind for a long time.

- "Welcome, dear Administrator."