Glitch

Boot-Up 1.3

White walls, what was probably a two-way mirror, a stainless steel table with a pair of uncomfortable chairs. That and my imagination was all that I had to entertain myself for the past hour. It didn't help that I was still sore all over from my little tussle that morning. My lower back twinged every time I moved and I was still sniffling past the pain in my nose.

I tilted back on my chair and placed my legs across the other seat which I'd dragged to my end of the table to act as a footstool. Twisting around to face to window I squinted at it. "Hey, I could use some water in here," I shouted. "Assholes."

One of the few things I could have done, I supposed, was play with my new powers. Unfortunately I was about a hundred percent sure that I was being filmed, so I opted to stick a pinkie finger in my nose while staring back at my own reflection.

That didn't mean that I wasn't doing something constructive. Classes came with stats, and while I wasn't sure exactly how stats affected me, I didn't think that looking at them would do much.

Just as soon as I figured out how.

Turning to stare at the tiled ceiling I tried to recall what I knew about stats and being able to see them. As far as I knew no one could see someone else's level or stats, only their Class. But you heard people talking about Awakened and their stats, so there had to be some way to tell what your stats were.

"Stats," I whispered without moving my lips.

Nothing.

I frowned. Okay, so there went that particular hypothesis. I tried to think of the concept of statistics, of the idea that I now had some arbitrary numbers tied to my very soul.

Nada.

Huffing, I crossed my arms and chewed on my lip. Well, that was another bust. "For fuck's sake, I just want to know my goddam level," I muttered.

Information, raw and yet simple, trickled into my mind. I had expected a transparent Star Trek rip-off screen, or something to appear before me, but there was nothing visual about it. I just knew my stats the same way I knew that a dog has four legs and a chicken has two.

The stats that I'd so often seen as something on a sheet didn't quite translate that way. I knew that my Charisma was nil (and isn't that just great news) and that my Dexterity was at one, but I also knew, a little bit, of what that actually meant.

Sitting a little straighter, I started to run through the list one stat at a time.

Charisma - None
Dexterity - Uno
Endurance - Two
Intelligence - One, fuck I'm clever
Luck - Shit outta luck
Sanity - One
Strength - Two
Wisdom - Zilch

I stared at the ceiling for a bit. That was all well and good, but it didn't mean much. What was a Strength two, exactly? Could I bench press a car yet? Discreetly I ran a hand over a bicep and felt at the muscle there. Not exactly impressive.

"Good afternoon."

I jumped, almost tumbling out of my seat as a voice spoke from just inside the room. Twisting around to glare at the interloper, I found myself facing a pretty 30-something woman in what was obviously a tailored suit.

She was on the short side, though you could hardly tell from the way she stood, as though she should have towered above me even if she was only five foot and change tall. She was slim, too, the suit hugging slight curves without accentuating them. Reaching up, she adjusted a pair of wireframe glasses then pushed an unruly lock of dark hair out of her way.

"You are Richard Reid," she stated.

"That's what that says," I snarked back, pointing to the words floating above me.

"Indeed. Let me begin by telling you, Mr Reid, that we are not being recorded. Our privacy in this room is assured. Though whether or not that is a good thing will be for you to decide."

A strange statement to make, and not exactly one I'd believe, but I nodded in acceptance. "Oh, please, take a seat." I said while gesturing magnanimously across the table. I shifted my feet on my purloined footstool, making myself comfortable.

The woman look at the spot where her chair should have been and I noticed the barest quirk of her lips. "I'm a representative of the North Eastern Academy of Awakened Studies, Mr Reid."

"Christ, that's an ugly name," I muttered loud enough that she could hear. One of her eyebrows rose at that. "It's not exactly Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, is it?"

"I've been trying to get the name changed for years," she said. Then, much to my surprise, she waved her hand in an arcane gesture towards the ground. The room suddenly felt smaller, tighter before the air across from me began to shiver and distort. A wave of distortions washed out of the ground and when I blinked there was now a tall, straight-backed chair next to the woman.

She pulled the seat back and sat down, dropping a file-folder I would have sworn she wasn't carrying on the table between us. "I'd usually avoid the theatrics, but I wouldn't want to deprive a... potential student of his comforts," she said, as if magicking a chair from nothing were nothing special.

Swallowing past a dry throat I gave her my best cocksure grin. "No problem. I told you to make yourself comfortable. Though I was going to offer my lap, if you really needed somewhere to sit."

Looking less than impressed, the woman placed her elbows on the table, then fiddled with a ring over her left hand's middle finger. She dislodged the rather gaudy jewelry and placed it in one of her jacket's pockets. Shimmering out of nothingness, three words appeared over her head.