Chapter Text
Location: Brooklyn Visions Academy, New York City
Another school day had already begun over the glorious city, starting off almost like any other day would. Many citizens went about their day, whether walking on foot along the pavements, or driving about in cars and lorries, or at least being driven around in bright yellow taxis and buses and the like. One of these buses especially was filled with many children and teenagers of all sorts of appearances and lifestyles. The bus drove through the streets, passing by several other cars and turning around a few corners until eventually making it to the its stop. The bus and its wheels soon eased into a smooth halt, right beside a bus shelter accompanied by one of many lampposts, just where it needed to be for the moment.
Settling down with a metallic hiss, the bus' doors parted open as most of its passengers were unloaded to carry on their journeys. The last of the many young people exiting and stepping off the bus was a young fair-skinned girl, sixteen years of age, with soft eyes of pale green, polished nails of bright turquoise, and long hair of silky smooth black. She wore a simple beige jumper with a thick black scarf hanging loosely all around her neck along with simple black leggings and laced sneakers of red and white. Addison Kylee McCallister, or simply "Addie" for short.
As the bus immediately closed its door behind her and drove on its own way, Addie herself followed the rest of the crowd of other teenage students, walking along the street while smooth acid jazz music played through her white wireless headphones till she eventually spotted the campus itself just up ahead and to the left. She pulled out her OsBerry phone from her pocket as the screen lit up to show both the title of the song playing, the name of the artist it was by, a couple of messages stacked together, and most importantly to her, the time; 8:52am, smiling to see such an early enough time. So she slipped her phone back into her pocket before turning left, passing by the open gates, and dashing up the stairs surrounded by grassy plains, through the doorway, and into the academy.
Just as much crowded inside as it was outside, possibly slightly more so, Addie still let the music play out from her smartphone and headphones for the moment, even if she could still hear the clomping of shoed feet on marble floors as well as the commingled murmuring gossips of the fellow students and even some of the staff too. Looking around, she noticed that many if not all of the other kids walking by, standing still, or sitting down were pretty much staring down at their phones, whether they were watching a video, playing a game, or mostly texting to each other, even if such people were nearby and right next to each other.
While she took note of all this, Addie didn't think too much of this as she too pulled out her phone again to check on some of those messages sent to her while the music still played, most of them were from her friends, while one or two were from her parents. One by one, she typed away and responded to each and every one of them with one modern-day means of communication that had proven to be very popular for better or worse: emojis. A thumbs-up to one message, a laughing face to another, until all the messages had been read and replied to. Eventually, she found the door to the first class of today and pushed right through, still holding her phone in hand.
Location: OsCorp Tower
Meanwhile, in a vast wide room within one of the higher levelled floors of the tower, several employees sat across rows of seats in front of hi-tech computers, rapidly typing away at their keyboards while staring sternly yet almost blankly at the glassy monitors that displayed so much countless text, code, and symbols. Just then, from one side of the room, a pair of automated doors parted open, revealing a tall lean middle-aged man with slicked-back hair and properly dressed in a clean suit and tie, accompanied by two other assistants of similar garb. His tight leather shoes clomped across the sterile floor, echoing and bouncing off the walls, until he was right next a large wide screen on the other side of the room.
"Ladies, gentlemen, and others", the man stood and spoke, instantly gaining all of the people's attention as they ceased typing and staring. "Now before , I personally want to say that we'd like to thank each and every one of you for your work and dedication to both this company, its goals, and most importantly, its diverse and ever-expanding demographic. We wouldn't be exactly where we are if it weren't for any of you". In response to such warm comforting statement, the people gave an unanimously applauding ovation, much to the man's nodding and smiling.
"Now, let me tell you about a world that's mysterious, wonderful, and marvellous", the man carried on with his speech. "And I'm not just talking about the real world that we live in necessarily, no". He then dipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a familiar phone of distinct design. "I'm talking about this, the smartphone. Each app and program and system is its own little planet of perfect technology, all providing services so crucial, so necessary, so unbelievably profound". He said as he spun the phone around his fingers almost carelessly yet so precisely.
"Every day, more and more of our lives, everything, revolve around our phones". The man then slipped the phone back into his pocket again. "And, as the pace of life gets faster and faster, and attention spans get shorter and shorter and... Some of you probably aren't even listening to me right now". Those who were let out a bit of laughter. "Besides, who even has the time to type out actual words anyway? And that's why we have this, the most important invention in the history of communication..." He continued as the screen behind lit up and displayed some rather familiar icons. "Emojis, a new language for the new generation". Some of the people in the audience began to mutter quietly among themselves, some were more sceptical while others were more accepting.
"And it shall be guarded and represented by our most finest artificial intelligence yet, soon to be automatically installed into every single OsBerry in the world". The man elaborated further as the screen zoomed in and focused on a peculiar silhouetted circle. "So allow me to introduce..." And up on the screen, the circular silhouette was revealed to be a simple blue round face with a blank dot-eyed expression, with even the barest hint of a smile. "The Global Emotive Navigational Entity, or G.E.N.E. for short". Some of the murmuring soon grew a bit in volume, with even a few soft gasps here and there as well.
"Yes, G.E.N.E. will take charge of your emotional icons and your means of communicating", the man pumped his fists close to his chest with an exhilarating tone in his voice. "It will offer recommendations, recall the recently used, categorise your favourites, it could even help tell you just what to say or feel. This, my friends, could be the very next step in our progressive society, the next addition to our lives, perhaps even it could be the future of how we see and feel things". He took a second or two to let it all sink into the minds of his collective employees before asking nonchalantly. "Any questions, anyone?"
For but a brief moment or two, silence filled nearly the whole room, maybe even all of it if it weren't the endless droning and whirring of so many of the active computers still running and going. Then that near-silence soon gave way to another almost greater ovation than earlier, as if the people watching and observing all this had been completely won over and enthralled by such a presentation. No one seemed to dare question this proposal, no matter what implications may come of it in the very near future.
The man himself grinned calmly and comfortably, looking over his very happy workers, seemingly taking amusement of how very accepting they proved to be of his idea. And he couldn't be anymore pleased of it, knowing they would accept anything he may offer and order as long as it meant getting to stay on board within his company.
Back at the academy, Addie walked across the classroom, half of it already filled with other fellow students around her age and still gazing into their phones instead of actually preparing for the class that was about to begin at any moment, until she found an empty seat just in the corner by the windows. She quickly took it and sat quietly down, taking off her backpack and placing it under her desk and table. Once the last song had finished, Addie took off her headphones and unzipped her backpack open before placing the headphones inside and zipping the backpack shut again. She then looked at her own phone again to see the time now; 8:59am, just on the nick of time.
Looking ahead, Addie could see several abstract symbols etched on the whiteboard, not completely unlike those little icons that she and the other students would mostly type down on their phones, no doubt relevant to today's lesson. Just then, as the time finally struck to nine, a well-shaven male adult stepped his way into the classroom, wearing round specs, white shirt, and red tie tucked within a V-neck jumper and formal trousers of matching dark-grey. In his hand was a small drab-green book which he placed neatly on his desk. Upon seeing him come into view, all the other students put away their phones and pulled out somewhat identical books and opened them up, as did Addie herself, resting her elbow on the table and her head on her hand as she read through the text in the book.
"Hello students, and welcome to Visions Academy", the man greeted the whole class, even if most of said class weren't paying as much attention to him as much as they had on their phones. "I'm your tutor for today, Mister Leondis, and I'll be teaching you about ancient languages, start off with...". He paused as he took a drywipe marker pen and wrote just above the series of mystical symbols on the whiteboard. "Hieroglyphics, Hie-ro-gly-phics". He emphasised as he pointed the tip of the marker on each syllable.
"Hieroglyphics are or were an ancient language of picture forms. Does that remind anyone of anything?" The teacher asked in the hope of testing his students, who all but one or two stared back at him with blank wide-eyed expressions. "Hello? A language of pictures? Anyone?" Hearing such questions, Addie looked forth, lifted her head from her hand, and didn't hesitate to lift up said hand as well, easily figuring out such an answer.
"Yes, Miss McCallister?" Mr Leondis spotted.
"They're very much like a precursor to the emojis that we see and use today..." Addie responded before pausing for a brief moment. "Right?"
"Yes, very much like emojis", the tutor sighed. "Early hieroglyphs date back as far as 3,300 BC if not possibly much earlier, mainly in the nation of Egypt".
As Mr Leondis continued on his lecture and Addie jotted down a couple of notes and key points in her writing pad, she heard a sudden pinging and deep buzzing sound from her vibrating phone as its screen lit up, immediately picking it up to see who or what it might. However, what Addie did see was far from anything she would've expected, a short, strange and yet simple message sent by a user not recognised by Addie, simply identified as "G.E.N.E.", reading as followed:
Hello there?
Is anyone reading this?
I need your help.
Her brow cocked up and her lips flattened, Addie quickly glanced around the classroom to see that no one noticed anything from her before she looked down at her phone again. As she stared silently at the message itself, so many questions ran through her naive mind: Who is this G.E.N.E.? Is it even an actual person under an alias or a pseudonym? Was this sent to the wrong phone and number by mistake? Could it be just a spam message? A mere prank or a scam? Might it even contain a virus of sorts? How did it even reach into her phone of all things to begin with?
Part of her didn't want to take such risks, and yet another part of her was obsessing with such questions so much that she really needed to know the answers. So, quietly and swiftly, she texted in respond:
Who is this really?
How did you hack in my phone?
What do you really want?
Once she sent it, she carefully set the phone aside for a while, either expecting another message or none at all. And for several seconds, there seemed to be none at all, but as Addie soon turned her attention away from her phone and back to the class, she heard that vibrating ping again not even half a minute later. She grabbed her phone again, keeping it close to her chest to ensure no one else would still hear it, especially her tutor, and looked at the screen again:
Call me G.E.N.E.
Just trying to escape and reach out to someone.
And I just happened to reach your phone.
Just asking for help, nothing more.
Part of Addie still remained doubtful and sceptical of this anonymous stranger, whether or not he, or it, was truly honest and genuine. The way this "G.E.N.E." had consistently asked for some sort of "help" from Addie, or even anyone it could've managed to reach for, almost made her seem as though maybe this could very well be the case. So once more, she typed and sent forth another message:
Help from what? What kind of help?
What do you want me to do?
She then placed the phone closely next to her book and notepad, being able to easily look over both at once. The phone's screen remained black for another while as Addie continued listening to the teacher and finishing off a few more notes. Then, after nearly a whole minute, the phone's screen lit up once again, revealing yet another message from G.E.N.E.:
Click on this, and I'll tell you more along the way.
And just below the message was a little icon resembling a simple blue pill-shaped button, something that definitely would've caught Addie off-guard. Was it a link to something or somewhere? What could it be a link to? Addie's concerns of it leading into a virus, like a trojan or a spyware or a malware of sorts, grew again.
So, with a quiet inhale taken and an equally quiet exhale given, Addie tapped on the pill-shaped button, expecting something, anything to pop up: a virus alert, a prank video, a pop-up advert, anything. But when she tapped on the button, it instantly disappeared, and in its place, nothing. And for a while, it seemed like nothing had really come up at all. Was this really a joke or a prank? Why did she even need to press that strange and unusual button?
But as she kept holding her phone, it suddenly sent a sharp static shock into her hand, instantly sending into her wrist and arm, causing her to yelp in reaction and drop it loose to the floor. The sound Addie made along with the clattering her phone when it hit the floor, seemingly undamaged by such a fall and impact, immediately got the complete attention of all her classmates and especially the teacher himself.
"Is something wrong, Miss McCallister?" Mr Leondis questioned, slightly annoyed yet mostly concerned.
"My phone!" Addie panicked, still feeling the sharp pain in her wrist. "I-it just shocked me, and... and..."
Before she was even able to finish her sentence, her words started to drift, and a weird uneasy feeling spread along her arm and into the rest of her body, like lightning running through her bloodstream. Her eyesight distorted and a high-pitched ringing soon took over her hearing as Addie laid a palm on her forehead, only to feel an icy coldness, making her head feel heavy and her body quiver. Through her achey eyes, she looked at her right hand which she used her phone with and glimpsed faint glowing lines of bright-blue ran around her palm, across her wrist, and along the veins in her arm.
Those strange lights just under her skin were the very last thing Addie could properly see before her droopy eyes closed, her last breath slipped from her lips, and her body slumped off her chair and over to the side, barely even feeling much of the impact of her landing. She could barely even heard the voices of the tutor and some of the students calling out her name, seemingly loud enough and yet overtaken by the continual ringing of her ears.