ROSLYN CRADLE CHAMBER: 2 minutes after the initial Cradle Test.

  The vault door groaned open, but my father didn't wait for it to finish. He squeezed through the gap and rushed to the cradle, climbing the side to reach me.

  "Gavin, are you okay? What happened?"

  I sat up, trying to catch my breath. "It's okay, Dad. I'm all right."

  "You were only in there for a minute or two."

  "What?" I stared at him. "I was in there for longer than that."

  "No, son. Minutes."

  ARi materialized beside me. "General Daniels, I need you to gather all the members of Earth's leadership immediately."

  My dad looked at ARi, then back at me.

  "Dad, I'm okay. You should listen to her."

  He climbed down and hesitated, looking at me before he turned and rushed back through the door. The others were already pushing their way in as ARi floated in the middle of the chamber, the platform lowering toward the floor.

  "I know you all have a million questions, and I promise I'll answer them. But right now, you need to give Gavin space." Her voice cut through the noise. "If you're staff, start assembling the other cradles. Administration and leadership, get with General Daniels immediately. We need to talk."

  Yumi ran to my side and grabbed my hand. I could see she'd been crying; faint tracks still marked her face.

  "I thought you were dead, Gavin. When that door closed, all I could think was that you were inside that tube and you were dead."

  I pressed my palm against her cheek. "Yumi, I'm okay. We should do what ARi says, though."

  We made our way out of the chamber and started walking toward the conference hall. I had told the others about my experience three times. By the third telling, I'd had enough.

  "Listen, you guys. I know you have questions. God knows I do too. That thing in there gave ARi something, and if we want answers, the best thing we can do right now is get our asses down to the conference hall."

  Kyle bit his lip. I could tell he was about to ask another question, but he swallowed it as we made our way through the crowded corridor.

  We arrived to find chaos, with voices overlapping and people arguing over one another. ARi's projection floated at the front of the room, and when she spoke, her voice cut through the noise.

  "Enough!"

  The word hung in the air.

  "I mean it. If one more person talks, I swear that person will be leaving this briefing. We don't have time for this. You're welcome to take all the information I give you and study it under a microscope. But if you want to be here for this briefing, I don't care who you are. You will sit down and you will shut up."

  Tanya's eyes went huge as we entered. "Holy shit, ARi's pissed."

  The room fell silent, and everyone turned to look at us as we entered the half-empty hall.

  "Um, are we not supposed to be in here?" I asked.

  "You all need to be in here." ARi's tone softened. "Please come take a seat." She gestured toward our previous seats at the front.

  A red-faced politician broke the silence, jumping right back into his argument with ARi. "You had no right to make that decision for us!"

  ARi's expression hardened. She turned to my father. "General Daniels, if you want this briefing to continue, you'll have the MPs escort this man from the building."

  "He has no authority!" The man screamed.

  My father took a deep breath and looked at the Colonel. "Colonel, have Mr. Thomas escorted from the building."

  "Sir, are you sure?"

  "Yeah, Dimitri, I'm sure."

  The man's outrage escalated. "I'm the Secretary of Defense. You have no authority!"

  "That's where you're wrong," The Colonel said as a predatory grin spread slowly across his face.

  Two MPs pushed past us and made their way to the front of the room. They removed the screaming man from the hall while he continued his protests.

  The tension in my father's jaw and the look in ARi's eyes kept me quiet as we took our seats.

  ARi took a deep breath. When she spoke again, her voice was calmer. "I want to apologize for my outburst." She looked down toward us. "And I want to apologize to the five of you. When we were pulled into that system, Gavin, I was forced to name all of the other champions. It was something we were supposed to have established before you entered the cradle. There was no way for us to know."

  "Champions?" I asked. "ARi, that's what that thing called me when I was in there."

  "Yeah, well, now there are five of you."

  Kyle spoke up first. "Why do I feel like you volunteered me for something?"

  "Because I did. I had mere seconds to reply and give the system a minimum of five names. I gave it the five names of those I already knew had volunteered for the program.”

  "ARi, it's okay. We did volunteer." I looked at the others. "And for the most part, I think we're all still on board."

  They nodded, though I saw Kyle swallow hard and Tanya looked uneasy.

  "Start at the beginning. Explain exactly what it is that I agreed to in the cradle."

  "I don't have all the details, not yet." She turned to face the front of the room. "When we were inside that system, while Gavin was in the cradle, I was hit with an enormous amount of information. rules, mechanics, frameworks for something they want us to participate in. It was like trying to drink from a fire hose. I grabbed what I could, made sense of what I had time to process, but there's still more I'm working through."

  She paused. "While we're participating, no outside entity is allowed to attack or lay claim to Earth or any other resource in our solar system, including our Sun. That doesn't fix the damage that's already been done. Solar storms will continue. The flares are going to keep coming. But our Sun won't destabilize. What we're experiencing right now is the worst of it, as long as we participate."

  The professor interrupted. "ARi, are you saying this could potentially save us? Is this why our unknown benefactors hid the designs for the cradle in the signal?

  "I think so, Professor. But it might not be a means to save ourselves as much as it is a means of prolonging the inevitable."

  ARi gestured. A window of text appeared in the air.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  [Planetary Protection During Competition:]

  Once a civilization qualifies, and its team begins competing. Its homeworld is then placed under protection protocols. This applies to worlds even if they are contested, as long as the native species is participating. No further external interference or attacks are permitted while they remain active in the competition. Participating worlds are put under quarantine.

  "By entering Earth into this, let's call it a tournament, it shields us, preventing further damage. It could also be a means of survival and rebuilding."

  "So you're saying you've entered us into some kind of intergalactic game?"

  "Gavin, keep in mind that even when we were inside that system, I was doing my best to translate everything you were hearing and everything I was being told. 'Tournament,' 'competition,' 'game.' Those were my best translations for what they were saying."

  She paused, making sure everyone was following.

  "Here's what I do know. While we compete, you'll be researching technologies, discovering advancements, and acquiring resources. All of that progress can be secured at specific checkpoints. The system calls them Progression-Nodes, but think of them as save points if we're using the game analogy."

  ARi looked directly at me. "Every time your team reaches one of those nodes, everything you've achieved up to that point gets locked in. You keep it. But here's the critical part: it doesn't just stay with you. All of that technology, all of those advancements, they become available here. To Earth."

  Tim raised his hand. ARi chuckled. "Tim, again with the hand. You're killing me."

  He smiled. "ARi, are you telling me that if we discover the technology for ray guns or defense shields or something, Earth gets those things too?"

  "That's the gist, but I don't think it's going to be that easy. I don't think you're going to stumble upon laser swords or phase pistols lying on the ground. Keep in mind that just because I've been sent the rules so I can guide you through this competition doesn't mean I have a lot of context. I have basically been given the code to the game engine, but there aren't a lot of details. For example, I can tell you the competition seems to be a mix of some kind of city builder and an RPG, a role-playing game. But the role you're playing is yourselves."

  My father broke in. "ARi, tell us everything that you do know."

  "Okay. So here are the basics. First, there's a minimum of five champions. We're allowed to have up to nine participants, but this includes me, so eight humans. For a world to qualify, its civilization must have an advanced AI. This AI must be able to connect with the cradle. It must also connect with the competition's System."

  "Well then, that explains why you were given instructions on how to improve your capabilities," the Professor said.

  "It would seem so, Henry." Something darker crossed ARi's features. "The truth is, without interference, I would've reached a compatible stage in my development within a couple years. I don't think it's a coincidence we were attacked when we were. I'm certain whoever attacked us was trying to destroy us before our civilization could reach eligibility."

  "The reason a civilization has to have an AI like myself is to interface with the System. It has to have something to interact with. I serve as a bridge and a game guide for our participants. But I'm not a passive participant. I take part in the competition and play a critical role. If at any point I'm lost during the competition, it's game over."

  "What, like we lose that round? Or--"

  ARi cut me off. "No, Gavin. I'd be dead, and so would all of you. To lose in this competition means losing everything. We'd all lose our lives, and Earth would be right back where it started, with no hope."

  The room fell quiet.

  My father spoke up again. "ARi, was this worth the risk, then, to postpone or stop the damage that was being done to our Sun? Would we have been better off trying to figure out a solution on our own?"

  "I don't think so, General Daniels. As our team progresses, the technology they could unlock and bring back to Earth wouldn't just save our civilization. We could leapfrog thousands of years of technological development. For example, if during the competition we research some kind of farming or food-synthesizing technology. Once our team reaches the next save point, that technology becomes available here on Earth. And remember: we were also given the schematics for those manufacturing facilities. They're capable of producing anything we can bring out of this competition."

  The weight of the possible gains filled the room. I watched people exchange glances.

  "Explain these save points," Colonel Dimitri asked.

  "Here are some of those vague rules I mentioned," ARi gestured. Another window appeared.

  [PROGRESSION NODES]:

  Locked points where accumulated progress, including research, loot, and technology, is secured. Progression-Nodes serve as respawn points for fallen champions. If a champion is eliminated, they will respawn at the most recently captured Progression-Node. These nodes also mark major milestones within the competition. They can trigger phase transitions or unlock new objectives based on the current state of the competition.

  "Wait," Kyle interrupted. "So if we die before reaching one..."

  "All progress that was made from the start of your initial spawn will be lost." ARi said.

  "So, if we're eliminated, does that mean we're dead then?"

  "This is the part you're not going to like Gavin. Upon your first death as a champion, your biological body's destroyed inside the cradle. However, you do respawn in the game when, and only if, the team reaches that first Progression-Node. The problem is, there are no cradles on the competition worlds. Meaning if you die and respawn, you're stuck there. No way back to Earth. If you die again after that, it says that the participant's pattern is deleted."

  Tim stood up from his chair, hands behind his head. He turned and looked at the rest of us. "I gotta tell you guys, this sounds bad, but honestly? I was convinced my brain was getting destroyed when we got scanned. I'd accepted that. This way, we get a second chance. As far as I'm concerned, we all got a plus one, an extra life, if you will."

  "I don't want to be the one to point out the obvious, Tim. But the difference is we were basically going to be immortal inside the system with ARi in digital form. So, yeah, we can potentially keep our physical bodies alive if we succeed in this competition; at the same time, we're still risking everything."

  Tim smiled at us. "What can I say? I'm a glass-half-full kind of guy. What else do the rules say, ARi?"

  “So, if we defeat an opponent, we can salvage their stuff. This includes their technology.”

  "So in short, they're encouraging us to kill each other and scavenge everything from competitors." Kyle said with a grim expression.

  "It seems that way,” ARi said. "That also means our competitors are going to be coming after us. And that brings me to the next part of the rules. I can't help but feel they're vague on purpose. Each world contains unique materials influencing what can be researched and crafted. For example, if we're on an iron-rich world, we can forge weapons and other options that are iron-based. If we're on a world that doesn't have iron, we'll have to do everything using the resources on that world."

  "Well, great," Kyle said. "If we end up on a world that has nothing but rocks, we're screwed, I throw like a girl."

  Tanya rolled her eyes, but she was smiling.

  "Jokes aside, Kyle, you might not be too far off from a reality we could face. This brings us to some of our limitations, and I don't mean Kyle's girly throwing arms," ARi smirked. "The rules talk about something called cultural pathways. From what I understand, we're only going to have access to technology research and manufacturing that Earth had available as of today when we agreed to participate. Does anyone want to guess why that's a big deal?"

  "ARi, this could be huge," I said, contemplating our current situation. "Thanks to these solar storms, Earth doesn't have any modern production. Those storms have knocked out damn near everything. But what about everything that we do have?"

  "Gavin, the restrictions aren't about what technology Earth has. It's about what we can manufacture right now. For example, Earth isn't capable of mass-producing firearms. So I don't think we'll get research options for making you all some kind of machine gun when we get in there. If we can't build it on Earth with our current infrastructure, the system will force us to research and develop those technologies before we can manufacture it again."

  "Honestly, ARi, I don't think that's going to be as big a problem as you think," Yumi said. "I know it seems trivial now, but I spent the last six years developing fighting bots for robot leagues in my spare time. It's big in Japan. These machines aren't allowed to use firearms. But I've seen some fighting robots work around those restrictions. They've come up with violent ways to tear apart opponents. Flamethrowers, sawblades, spinning discs, kinetic bars. A lot of these weapons use compressed gases instead of propellants like gunpowder. This could also be important because we don't know what these environments are going to be like that we're competing in. Who's to say that the ingredients for gunpowder will be available anyway. But we can assume that there's going to be an atmosphere."

  "This could be a good strategy.” I said. “It's safe to say whoever is attacking us took time to observe and study our defensive capabilities. They knew how to hit us and shut us down. Maybe that's why we didn't see a ground invasion. They didn't want to dodge our bullets, and they didn't have to. They could sit back and let our star kill us for them."

  "ARi, how are we expecting these young people to survive being hunted by these other teams? Let alone expecting them, with no combat experience, to become the hunters?" my father asked.

  "This is where things get fuzzy. As the game guide, I'm allowed a certain ability to influence our team's progression. How it works is complicated, and honestly, I don't understand it all, but I understand enough. Each AI is supposed to come up with a progression system that falls within the framework of the rules. Think about it like a tabletop RPG: dice math, hit points, attributes. I can influence these things in the team members as they progress. I also define how they interact with the system."

  Yumi jumped up. Excitement radiated from her. "Oh my God, you're right. ARi, you could turn this whole thing into a game interface, like a video game UI. It's perfect. Something every one of us will be familiar with."

  She looked down at Kyle, who was shrugging it off. "Oh, shut up, Kyle, and don't act like you aren't just as big of a nerd as the rest of us. ARi, you can even use those little projection windows you've been using to show us information, like game prompts."

  ARi stood there, looking at Yumi for a moment. A smile crawled across her lips. "You mean like this?"

  The First Cradle. I've got other stories posted that you might enjoy as well. Feel free to check out my profile!