N.E.C.R.O.

Part 1 - Chapter 3: MAXC Secret

-Ten Years Later-

I am Nile Sarcophagus. I'm twenty-five (-six this year) and I am currently a 'Standard Citizen' of the world. This simply means that I, like 97% of the world's population, am not working. Since my parents are both working, they live in a huge house of tier 2. And since I don't work, I live in a 0-tier (standard) house. Here is how tiers work...

Tier ≈ Number of Working Family Members ÷ Sum of Job Type Integers

Job Type Integers for Various Fields

Entertainment Field (Special)*          0.7

Entertainment Field (Others)             0.9

Discovery Field (Science)                     0.2

Two of my family members – both my parents – are working. My dad programs games, and my mom is a researcher (scientist). Thus, the sum of job type integers is 0.7 + 0.2, which is approximately 1. 2 ÷ 1 = 2. Thus, they get a 2-tier house. A family (or individual living alone), which has no working members, lives in a 0-tier house, under normal circumstances. And I am a pretty normal citizen, I live in a 0-tier house.

I say 'under normal circumstances' because people can own up to a 3-tier house just by getting prizes. For example, let's take a situation where the traffic system malfunctions and a kid jumps in front of a car. If a person runs and saves this child, she/he will be rewarded with a higher standard of living by the country. This incident had actually happened four years back, in Origin-Terrain.

From the time of my second Intelligence Test (the Laura Incident), the cases of errors caused by AWMI has gradually been rising. Numerous programmers have been recruited for the debugging but the number of lines of codes is so much, that they demand an 8-tier house as reward! So, they raised the reward from a 4-tier living standard to a 6-tier living standard. Even I had written to them (the WO**) requesting them to recruit me, in the greed of a better livelihood.

I got a response in less than a day. It was an affirmative reply with an 'Editor's Pass' that would allow me to enter the building. They were expecting me the next day, so I had to hurry and pack up and leave.

I left my house at 16:09 (04:09 p.m.) that day. Just as I left, I glanced at my 'Editor's Pass'. That's when I saw that it gave me special permission to use the teleportation station from any part of the world to the teleportation station at the Marie Byrd Land HQ of AWMI in Antarctica. That means that I get a free teleportation. The teleportation system was allowed for use by only people who own a lifestyle of Tier-4. Getting a free pass to something like this was a fairly rare event.

As soon as I had reached the Origin-Terrain Teleportation Station, the doors shut right at my face!

"You should have a lifestyle of at least Tier-4 to enter this area. If you have a special pass, please place it here for scanning," the AL said, stretching out an arm with a scanner on it. I placed the pass on it and it said, "You may proceed. Thank you for journeying with us. Happy journey, from OTTS!"

The doors slid open and I was allowed in. This was the first time I was entering the building, but it's been made in such a way that you never get lost, even without the GPS. Then I was made to enter cabin Cab.03.3PolSth on the third cabin-room set to teleport to Location – 3 i.e., Marie Byrd Station in the South Pole, Antarctica.

"Ready? The journey starts in exactly one minute. If you want to delay the journey, please say so. 58, 57, 56, 55..."

"I confirm that you can start the journey," I said.