Daily Task:
Pick up the Trash
Complete!

Reward: 100 CP

Task:
To Give a Dog A Bone
Complete!

Reward: 130CP

Calculating XP…

The experience bar started to grow and then doubled its growth once more. “Double XP still in effect,” Ryan muttered. “Wonder how much time I have left. Helios, is there something like a bonus interface, where I can see my current buffs or boons or whatever?”

New Achievement!

You have unlocked another hidden interface: Boons and Banes.

A new icon appeared next to his vitals that looked like two hands clasped together, one pointing its thumb up and the other pointing its thumb down. It began to rotate and then filled his field of view. Currently he only had one Boon, his double XP bonus, which had just under thirty minutes remaining.

Ryan noted that he didn’t get the completion reward for his additional task of forgiving someone who doesn’t deserve it, he wasn’t too disappointed. It was a cheap ploy anyway. Either the system determined the man really didn’t deserve forgiveness, or (and Ryan felt, more likely) the system somehow knew his apology wasn’t sincere. It baffled him that both options were a possibility. The intuitive nature of the headset extended far beyond its interface. At times he felt that he didn’t even need to verbalize his questions or requests; that the goggles knew what he was going to ask even before he did, but that it was restraining itself for some reason. One of the mysterious things about Sifting, especially their Technologies division, was the proprietary nature of their tech. They manufactured everything themselves, never outsourced, and never experienced any leaks.

He wasn’t sure why, but he’d always felt there was some connection, however tenuous, between Sifting and the Ministry Paradigm. He’d even found himself going down several rabbit holes while researching his essay, looking for even the tiniest thread to connect them, but they were always dead ends, and he finally gave up due to the approaching deadline. The fact that he had won did nothing to dissuade his hunch that there was something there, however expertly buried or erased.

Ryan found himself standing in front of the library, an ancient concrete building, over a century old, that was both welcoming and imposing simultaneously. He took a breath and walked in. There was the merest creak of the door as he passed through it, which had the Librarian staring daggers at him over her rimless reading glasses. Ryan raised his hands up in a gesture of surrender, eyes wide and awaiting judgement, but the Librarian couldn’t hold her stern expression for long, and a smile began to break the stern visage, causing a cascade of wrinkles to intensify across her aged face.

“Good afternoon Mrs. Oak,” Ryan said, stepping up to the front desk.

“Good morning, Ryan,” she returned. “Haven’t seen you in here since you finished your little writing assignment. Did you get a good grade?”

“You could say that,” Ryan smiled in return. “I’m actually here for another reading assignment. Was curious if you had any of the books I’m looking for.”

“Oh,” she said indulgently. “You know, if we don’t, I can get it for you. What’s on your list?” She picked up a pencil and slid a piece of scratch paper in front of her.

“Wake Induced Lucid Dreaming,” Ryan told her as Mrs. Oak began scribbling. “By Gupta Rama; The Deep Astral by Joshua Neuman; and The True Firmament, by TetraLex.” The scribbling abruptly stopped and Ryan was once more met by that piercing gaze.

“That’s a very esoteric list, where did you hear about TetraLex?”

“You know that author?” he asked, surprised.

“I’m aware of their work,” she said flatly. “This kind of reading can lead one down strange paths, Ryan. You know I would never dissuade anyone from reading, but I would be remiss if I didn’t at least urge caution.” Ryan looked puzzled. “When one begins to learn the ways of inducing a dream state, sometimes those states can start to bleed into reality.” She looked meaningfully at the wall behind him.

Ryan turned to follow her gaze and saw the poster. “Incursion Event Safety Sheet” the familiar title read. It was a description of what to do and where to go in the event of an Astral Incursion, one of those things from the Crisis that rarely—if ever—happened in the outer districts. He frowned. What did this reading list have to do with the Crisis? He had always assumed that was just a follow-up to the Minerva Down incident, when the Ministry Paradigm tried to reactivate the Minerva Device.

When Ryan turned, Mrs. Oak caught a glimpse of something that she almost dismissed as a trick of the light mixed with the failing sight of her old age, but then something clicked, and her smile broadened.

“So, you won your little writing contest after all, eh?” she said. Ryan turned back, attempting and failing miserably to look innocent. She held out her hand. “Come on, let us have a look.”

Ryan reluctantly slid the goggles off his head, his first time since putting them on that morning. He felt the fresh air hitting his skin, not aware of how he’d been missing it. He made to hand her the PerSpectives but realized they were still in camouflage mode.

“Helios, disable the camo,” he commanded, and with a shimmer the sleek augmented reality headset became visible once more.

“Well, isn’t that a marvel of technology,” the Librarian said, taking them gently and turning them over in her hand. “I sure hope they’re worth how much effort you put into that essay. I haven’t seen anyone your age work that hard on a writing project in all my years. If I didn’t know any better, I would think you were in some advanced placement literature class.” She handed the PerSpectives back to Ryan. “Best keep those in that invisibility mode; this neighborhood isn’t as safe as it used to be.”

“Yes, Mrs. Oak,” Ryan said meekly as he slid the goggles back over his head. “And, believe me, they definitely are worth it.” A red warning message was flashing in his view as he lowered the lenses over his eyes.

Warning,

An unauthorized user has handled the device.
Automatic lockdown has been initiated.

He almost didn’t have time to read the message before it was replaced by a green one, flashing:

Biometrics verified.

Welcome back Aitherios.
Environment not a designated safe zone.
Reinitiating PerSpective Camouflage.

The familiar sound effect fluttered around his head as the goggles once more became all but invisible.

“Neat trick,” the Librarian said.

He heard the sound of paper sliding across a surface and turned to see that she had moved her note towards him and turned back to her reading. She was notorious for not telling where books were specifically located. Something to do with not letting the Dewy Decimal System die. He shook his head and took the note. Before he could leave, she said, “Those first two should be on the shelves, but that last one might take some digging. Go ahead and find them and get comfortable, I’ll bring the last one when I find it.”

“After you finish that last chapter, of course,” Ryan muttered playfully.

“Of course,” she said with another half-smile.

Before Ryan could even glance at the note an indicator began flashing around his task icon in his HUD, indicating the task details were being updated. “Helios, can you add the Reading Assignments task to my visible task list?” Without a word the three reading assignments appeared in a small and unobtrusive font in the upper left side of his view.

Wake Induced Lucid Dreaming (Gupta Rama) – 154.63
The Deep Astral (Joshua Neuman) – 133.82
The True Firmament (TetraLex) – ???

The library itself was deceptively massive, it had two upper floors and a basement. The ground floor was mostly couches for lounge reading and smart desks for working. The smart desks were basically massive tablets that were set to look like wood until activated. One could write on them and it would transfer the text to a file, which you could access from anywhere with internet access. Ryan wasn’t here to write though; he was here to read.

“Helios,” he spoke at a library appropriate volume. “I don’t want to come across as lazy, and I can figure this out eventually, but in the spirit of gamification, can’t we have some sort of waypoint system?”

New Achievement!
Gamer’s Gonna Gamify.

You’ve unlocked 3 hidden systems in Perspective Vision in less than a day!

Reward: 1.5x bonus to CP earned for 24 hours.

Waypoint system unlocked.
You may now specify primary points of interest (POI) from your task list, and if enough information is available, the PerSpective Goggles will lay out a path to your objective.

Please select a primary POI.

“Uhm, ok,” Ryan faltered, he wasn’t expecting all of that from a simple question. That bonus though, he might need to seriously look into tasks with high CP rewards for the next day. “Let’s just find the first book on my list,” he said, thinking back to the reward for this reading assignment. 1,000 CP per book, that would turn into 1,500 CP, times three would put him at forty-five hundred, not including what he already had. If he could keep up that rate of income, his mother wouldn’t have to work to keep him in school anymore. Could he read that many books in 24 hours? He hoped they were reasonably sized novellas and not some monstrous tomes.