The Suit-Maker 3 The Dive

I woke up screaming. There was pain but it was more like a feeling of pain than anything else. The unknown program I inherited had given me a big shock and I quickly looked through the program I downloaded. It was huge. I immediately realized what had happened. The program was so big it threatened to overwhelm my limited cybernetics and some sort of failsafe was automatically activated to protect my systems. I tried to open the program but all I was rewarded with was an error.

[ERROR. Equipment missing. No Dive console deducted.]

So the program needed a Dive console to access. Luckily for me, my new dig came equipped with one. Another coincidence? I chuckled at that as I got up from the ground. I practically ran to the office. Ignoring the rest of the room, I headed straight to the Dive console. On closer look, the console was a mid-range model and was in excellent condition. It had three screens, a keyboard, and soft leather cus.h.i.+ons on a seat that allowed the user to lay down at a 45 degree angle. Not state of the art but more than enough for what I need. It was also expensive. The cheapest console on the SEAL market would cost at least 6,000 credits. This console had to cost at least four times as much. I sat down and fired it up. The three screens lit up but the program didn't access the console. Instead it stayed within my cybernetics. A holographic image visible only to me appeared.

"Welcome User Tobias. Record shows this is your first time accessing the Technology System. Please select your first mission."

The message ended there, leaving nothing for me to do but to look at a big red flas.h.i.+ng 'Mission' tab. The tab was under the word 'SYSTEM' and I realized the new program I inherited must have created a new folder in my cybernetics. A little fear creeped inside me. The ease which the System manage to bypa.s.s my security safeguards was a little worrying but I quickly dismissed them. If men like my father wanted a small fry like me dead, there's really not much I could do about it. Better to see what he wanted. Using my mind, I selected the 'Mission' tab and a holographic image appeared.

***

Mission: Create a Dive Creator account and select a Subject

DIVE- Digital Interface for Visionary Enhancement

The most exclusive simulator in the world, Dive was first created by Bill Muller, better known as the inventor 'Brainflash', as a digital platform for scientists and inventors to create and test out their inventions. As real-life testing cost money, resources and sometimes lives, the Dive was created to be a safe environment for any and all scientific testing. Currently run by the Flash Corporation, Dive is now the testing platform of choice for everything technological due to it's programming that try to make the digital environment of Dive as realistic as possible. Currently everyone from wannabe inventors to giant corporations test their products first on Dive before going on to real-life testing. A healthy and growing gaming population also inhabit Dive and the money made through eports is now one of main revenue source of Flash Corporation.

***

The System was understating it. The Dive wasn't just the testing platform of choice for the people of the world; it was the testing platform of choice for everyone in the Solar System! The Flash Corporation proudly marketed their testing platform as being ninety percentage accurate, meaning that if the product works in Dive, there's a ninety percentage chance of it working just as well in real-life. Rumors had it that only the lawyers prevented Flash Corporation from marketing Dive as being a hundred percentage accurate. As such, almost everyone test out their technology in Dive before going on to real-life testing. Not only does everyone use Dive to test, every company and mega corporations also used it as a place to showcase their products. Although it was never intended to be a marketplace, it made sense when you think about it. Dive was the place for cutting edge scientific research and development, so if a company want to introduce a new product, Dive was the logical place to do it. It also made sense from the buyers' point of view. Using Dive, buyers could easily compare products and even run tests using the Dive testing arena to see which product most suit their needs.

The screens of the console came to life as I use the keyboard to access the Dive. Like almost every person in the Solar System, I have been to the Dive website before and had an account. After the login, my relatively empty account popped up. I only had a general account which I used mainly to view video holograms and accessing the Solar News Feed. Today would be different. Today I would be a real user of Dive and not just some tourist.

I reached for the 'Creator Account' and activated it. The screen changed and I faced his first question. What subject should I choose? Science and technology was a wide and all-encompa.s.sing field. Everything from medical research, to electronics, to s.p.a.ce exploration was under it and even a platform as robust as Dive can't allow you to do everything at once. So the platform divided technology into 'Subjects'.

The term came from Bill Muller who decided to divide Dive into different Subjects when he first created the platform. No one really knew why as it should be 'Fields of Science' and not 'Subjects of Science' but that was the way Muller did it and no one at Flash Corporation had ever bothered to change the programming. No one know how many Subjects were in the first version of Dive but the list now was almost limitless. I used the filter to select the ones I was interested in and the whole list of Subjects under 'Weapons Design' popped out. Now I got a decision to make.