"What the fuck?" Laura yelled. She was not standing or sitting on anything. In fact, she didn't even have a shadow. What's going on?
[Welcome to the G System alpha release 1.0. During the initiation phase, tutorials may not be skipped. Please press next to continue.]
Laura blinked at the pop-out screen in front of her. This looked very similar to the touch screens that she used to get her train passes topped up except, it was cooler. the moment the ex-dirt racer hit "next", the screen blurred for a moment and the words changed.
[Please press this button to go to your status screen.]
Laura followed the instructions. So far, it appeared like a normal home screen for a computer or a phone but much bigger. She had a feeling that the 'picture' of the room was not just a picture. After all, why would her room behave exactly the same as the inside of a device? She was no computer program, she had a name and identity. She had memories of her past and certainly didn't think that she wasn't alive. Programs don't have emotions but she did.
Laura was looking through the new features of her system to familiarise herself when she heard the door open. Although she still could not see anyone from her 'window', the girl was certain that the sneeze belonged to a man. She just managed to find her Task button when a half-naked man came into view.
He was very tall and pale with very messy ginger hair. Laura had seen her fair share of mixed-blood models in her lucrative career but she didn't think there would be anyone who would carry such beautiful genes in such a wasted manner. If only this man paid more attention to his looks, he would have ladies swarming all over him. Too bad Laura wasn't really interested in men even though they hovered around her all the time. For Laura, her love was only for the bikes and the dirt track. You can take the dirt away from the girl but you can never take the girl away from the dirt.
Laura watched as the nerdy half-Asian pulled over a crumpled shirt from underneath his duvet to pull over his messy wet curls. He then ripped the towel off his waist and the girl turned red and shut her eyes while the man searched for his underwear and pants. How could he do this in front of a lady?! Had he no shame?! Then again, she couldn't quite blame him. How was she going to explain to him her mission to be able to regain her body? According to the system, she had to complete missions given by the system in the Task menu. After completing tasks successfully, Laura can exchange the soul points for a reward in the Shop.
Her first Task was to introduce herself and it would give her just enough points to purchase one of the three upgrades in the Shop. Laura knew the upgrade she wanted. The first upgrade allowed her to move things for one second by one centimetre. Laura deemed it useless. Unless it was meant to annoy, scare or kill someone, Laura didn't want such a useless ability.
The second ability allowed Laura to see past her current field of vision. In other words, she was getting a 'window' expansion. That might be useful if there was actually something worth seeing in this room. If she was going to invest her soul points, Laura certainly didn't want to waste it here. The first upgrade she bought should help her advance to the next level easier and complete the task better. Thankfully, there was a promising third option.
"Don't you think that it's rude to change in front of a lady? Have some decency!" she shouted, unable to take it anymore.
Tynan who was scratching his sides jumped and banged his shin against the computer desk so hard that he teared up. Where was this lady watching him from? He was very sure none of the windows were open. The man lived alone so it wasn't possible to have anyone this near him. Why did it sound like there was a girl just two feet away from him?
"Over here, carrot head!" Laura was annoyed. The nerdy man was still searching the room although the racer was happy that he was now at least decent. She still blinked at his lame choice of clothes. While she had nothing against tracksuits because of how comfortable they were, she had never seen a tracksuit made to look like patch quilts. For someone who could afford a luxury phone, why did this man live in the dumps and wear rags? It was a mystery.
"Wha-? G-phone has an AI too?"
Laura raised a brow. AI? Did this geek really think that an AI would be this intelligent? Was he living in a fantasy world?
"No, I have a name. It's Laura and to be more precise, I'm currently an e-ghost. That means I am dependent on your power source in the phone and cannot leave the phone until I level up enough. For your information, this isn't a programmed back story, don't look at me like that. I'm a real human... was a real human anyway. I died many years back, I think."
Tynan didn't know what to say. There was a beautiful girl who looked and talked like a human trapped in his phone. If this was a realistic AI developed by G-phone, Tynan would gladly believe it. However, the way Laura behaved was too uncanny. She acted like a human down to the very details from the way her eyebrows furrowed to that judging stare. Especially that judging stare! How dare a common manufactured AI judge him! There was no AI in the world that would be so bold as to outrightly judge their owners unless they were, as Laura proclaimed, an e-ghost.
While it didn't quite make sense, Tynan wasn't going to quibble with that logic. They have e-books and e-shops so why wouldn't 'e-ghost' be a thing too? Surely there must be some kind of reason behind how Laura ended up as an e-ghost but for now, he would do the right thing and introduce himself in return.
"Ahem... sorry about that. I was just trying to process that in my head. Well then, Laura. It's nice to meet you. I'm Tynan Boey and I just bought this phone online. It was delivered about two hours ago so I was charging it. How are you feeling? It currently says that there are still two more hours to full charge. Is there anything you would like to do?"
Laura was slightly taken aback. "Actually, yes. I would like to take a little more time to understand the system inside this phone. Can you give me some time to finish my tutorial stage?"
As if the AI didn't just say something ridiculous, Tynan nodded and told her that he was going to make some cup ramen then play an online game. Laura smiled and waved until Tynan was out of her sight.
The e-ghost turned her attention towards the blinking Task menu and pressed on the notification.
[Congratulations! You've just completed your first task and earned 10 soul points. Head over to the Shop to purchase your upgrades.]
This time, Laura smiled. She already knew which option she wanted.
Heading over to the Shop menu, Laura scrolled down to the third option and pointed at it.
[Are you sure you want to purchase "Internet Consultation" skill Lvl 1? You cannot sell this skill back to the Shop.]
Laura looked at it. Although it only allowed her to ask the consultant one question every hour, it was the exact skill Laura needed right now.
After choosing the confirm button, the system levelled her status and more options were made available to her.
[Congratulations! You're now a Level 2 E-Ghost. You can now access the 'Observation Journal' and 'Reminder' menus to aid you with your daily tasks. If you require any help, go to the home button and type in the search bar. The system will source the best possible answer in its archive to provide you with a suitable answer or ask if you would like to use your Internet Consultant skill to search for an answer. Best endeavours!]
Laura closed the window and felt exhausted. She glanced up at the world clock and battery percentage. There was still about an hour and ten minutes left till full charge. Her Task menu had two new tasks and she decided to check them out while Tynan was still occupied.
[Task: Fill up the basic Observation Journal entry about Tynan. Reward: 20 soul points.]
[Task: Purchase 3 upgrades from the Shop. Reward: Level 3 unlocked.]
Curious about what kind of information the system wanted her to get from Tynan, Laura selected the Observation Journal menu and explored.
Name: Tynan Boey
Age: ???
Job: ???
Likes: ???
Dislikes: ???
The ex-racer rolled her eyes. Those were easy enough to find out from a simple conversation. Now all she had to do was wait for the man to finish his dinner and catch him before he started his game. The quicker she could complete her mission, the quicker she could upgrade the Internet Consultant skill to understand her situation better.
Getting Tynan Boey to talk to her and open up wasn't a very difficult thing to do. Laura knew that the best way to get someone to start talking is to ask about themselves and then lead them into talking about a topic they're enthusiastic about before falling silent to listen to their tale. In fact, Laura preferred listening over talking. One tended to learn more by listening to others than imposing their thoughts onto the world."My colleague Kamie always told me that if I didn't dress well, nobody would want to get to know me better."The biker slammed a fist on the virtual wall beside her but the sound resounded in the speakers. Tynan was slightly startled by the explosive reaction."How dare she judge a person by their attire? So what if people loved wearing what they feel most comfortable in? It's not against the law to do so, is it? What's her deal?"Seeing the E-ghost get so worked up, the IT g
Tynan was already on his way to the store he worked at when his phone rang. It was an unknown number but the programmer decided to pick it up anyway. Chances were, it was an insurance agent trying to sell him something but being the nice person he was, the man simply couldn't decline calls."Hello?""You doofus! You left your wallet at home!"Startled, the half-Asian nearly dropped his phone. "You- Laura? How did you get my number?"If he could see the e-ghost, he would have seen Laura rolling her eyes. "I have skills. That's not important, come back and get your wallet before you starve!"The conversation made Tynan smile. Having someone care for him just made him feel very warm on the inside. "I understand. How about I run back to get it during lunch break? I don't work very far from where I live, a ten-minute walk would suffice. Can you wait until then? Is there something you'
When Tynan came back from work, he was carrying two heavy bags of groceries. It had been so long since he last cooked that he had to get everything from sauce and oil to rice on top of the things Laura requested. The shopping trip took longer than he expected and he was slightly tired from such a long day.Laura was resting and trying to piece back her memories. How did she end up as a ghost inside a phone? Also, it seemed like every time she tried to find out more about herself using the Internet Assistant, the system would deny her request. It was as if it didn't want her to find out how she died. The worst part was how Laura was unable to recall anything about her family. She knew background information like her home and that she had parents and was an only child with a pet cat. However, none of them had a real image to the names she knew. It felt like an implanted memory and at this moment, the ex-biker felt confused about her identity.
Laura was excited. She was able to see more of the world outside now that Tynan was bringing her to work. In the twenty-first century, it wasn't uncommon to see people holding their phones up and talking to themselves. People would assume that they were on a video call and Laura made it very convincing that she was someone calling from the other side of the line.Tynan showed her around town as he walked to work. The e-ghost smiled at the peaceful town. There were a few cars and only a few people because it was afternoon. Tynan's shift started after lunch and ended around dinner time. He was covering for Kamie who called in for an emergency leave today.The first thing she noticed was how crappy of a human the manager was. He was an overweight man who looked extremely greasy and didn't clean up after himself very well. While Laura tried her best not to judge a person by their looks, it was a clear case of human ga
It was a lazy weekend and Tynan didn't have to go to work. Initially, he intended to spend the day lazing in bed until noon but when he saw his new phone, he was quickly reminded of Lauren and swallowed thickly. The realisation of his feelings last night made him feel a little awkward around the e-ghost who was now very silent.Getting out of bed, Tynan wondered what would be a good breakfast for the snoozing e-ghost. After a few days, Laura and Tynan discovered that while Laura didn't need sleep or food, she would sometimes go offline for a few hours. During that period, the phone would work like any other phone and Laura couldn't be contacted.It was a scary thing but Laura explained it as a power outage of sorts where the system wouldn't allow her to view the outside world and she would feel a very strong feeling lulling her into a half-asleep state where she could not open her eyes yet could still hear faint stuff going on around her. Laura didn't know what she was
Tynan was taking a break. He'd call it a rather productive day as the game was making good progress. The first dungeon stage was complete and he tested it several times to find bugs. Laura even helped out as the game reset, giving him comments about where she found it lacking or difficult to cope with. He didn't know that the e-ghost was a gamer but Laura turned out to be rather decent with games even though she claimed that she didn't play games often in the past."You're actually quite good at this," Laura commented and Tynan rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment."Thanks. I actually wanted to work in a game development company that's why I studied programming. It's hard to get into that market here in Australia. I did think about moving abroad to America but nobody would employ me. The dream company to work for would be Playrix in Russia but I don't speak Russian so that's a huge no-go. Getting a job at that shitty convenience store was the only thing that al
Laura and Tynan settled into an easy routine after a while and just like that, two weeks flew by. The dirt princess was slowly but surely levelling up her housekeeping skills but she was unable to complete the new task the system assigned her. She wasn't able to improve Tynan's financial system and that was becoming a little bit of a nuisance."Why wouldn't the system level up already? Surely it wouldn't take much longer to get Internet Consultant to level 2, right? I'm already level 10 with cleaning, level 3 with cooking and level 7 with comforting!"The system addressed Laura's complaints with patience.[The ratio of xp to level up purchased skills from shared xp in trainable skills is 5:1. Replying, a total of 30 levels must be achieved in trainable skills to level up purchased skills once. Shared xp function works collectively, purchased skills will be levelled up at the same time.]Laura read the explanation twice and threw her hands up in frustratio
The strong chemical smell of hair products invaded Tynan's nose as he entered the salon that he hasn't been to in half a year. His hair was already touching his shoulder and the natural waviness of his red locks was becoming a tangled mess since he hadn't maintained it.It didn't take long for Laura to figure out that Tynan hated the hair salon with passion. The man kept fidgeting and scowling whenever the stylist touched his hair and praised it. The lady with rainbow fringe kept asking him a volley of questions that Tynan didn't know how to answer or particularly care for.Hence, the e-ghost took matters in her own hands and texted Tynan to communicate with the distressed programmer.Laura: Do you want to keep it long or short?Tynan looked up from his phone and asked the hairstylist if he could maintain the length of his hair. It was a pain to keep coming back to the salon because his hair grew as quick as the unattended grass outside. He didn't want to