"Welcome, Zavier Torres!" a disembodied, artificially cheerful voice chimed through a black space. Light faded in from everywhere at once and mellowed into the warm yellow of shaded lamps on end tables. He was sitting in a comfortable high-backed leather chair, a shaded lamp on the small table next to him.
"You undoubtedly have questions, and I will be happy to answer them! But first, let me give you a brief explanation of why you are here. Let me congratulate you on being one of the forerunners of advancement in your civilization! You stand among the greats of your population as only approximately 1% of your population has earned special titles. You truly are an unparalleled paragon of excellence and talent!"
Zavier chuckled lightly to himself. Tess was going to be SO irritated at this part.
"Due to your amazing efforts at," the computer paused for the briefest of instants, "being the second person on your planet to have killed an enhanced creature, you have been granted two boons! Your rewards can be any skill or ability and will be immediately added to your character sheet, along with the requisite knowledge to properly use it. Due to the large number of choices, we will perform a few exercises to narrow down the options."
Everything outside of the pool of light coming from the lamp next to the chair faded to blackness, and the large white rectangle blinked open in front of him. Zavier assumed that the black center was a list of skills so finely packed that they looked like a solid square.
"The list of skills and abilities that The System can create is nigh-infinite, so this process will help you narrow your options down to a few that are suitable for you. Let's begin by eliminating everything that you have not currently qualified for."
He smiled to himself in self-satisfaction as he saw holes start to appear on the screen, making it look like a moth-eaten blanket.
"Wait," Zavier said, and silence hung in the air. "Before we go further, I already know what I want."
"That," the voice paused and sounded hesitant, "isn't possible. There are simply too many options, and you have not been exposed to them before. It is impossible for you to know which skills you want to select."
"You said that the skills are nigh-infinite, correct?"
"That is true." Zavier thought that he'd never heard an AI sound hesitant and skeptical before.
"Well then, whatever I want is highly likely to exist in some form or another; all we have to do is narrow down the options to the ones that most fit my requirements, right?"
There was a longer moment of silence before the voice spoke back up again. "Although what you posit is technically true, functionally there are processes that must be followed to ensure the best compatible fit."
"I don't need that," Zavier said. "If we can narrow it down to a few, I'll know which ones I want to pick."
An even longer pause this time, then words flew at Zavier in a rush as if it was scared of being interrupted. "First, imagine the things most important to you," the words came out in a staccato rush that was almost too fast for him to catch.
"System, I think I need to talk to your supervisor."
The voice took on a panicked edge. "Imagine what you fear the most! I will now start a simulation to determine" before it even finished, Zavier found himself in a simulation. He watched in curiosity as the previous battles played out in front of him, then shook his head ruefully as they switched to violent imagery of his family getting killed in various and increasingly gruesome ways.
"Representative." Zavier said to the air.
"Subject is not responding to simulation. Further introduction of fear is required."
Zavier felt fear burst forth inside him in an explosion. For a split second, every fear he'd ever had became real and actualized. He experienced the myriad of fears that kept him awake at night, imagining all the terrible things that could happen to his family. Those things that made his mind race with plans and contingencies until he could hear birds chirping outside his window played discordant resonances across his psyche.
But fear was an old friend to Zavier and he didn't give it any power. None of this was real, and therefore his fears weren't founded. He understood that The System must be playing with his hormones, and he wasn't going to be controlled by imbalanced chemicals. He took a moment to steady himself, then sighed.
"Representative," he said again, the boredom in his tone leaking through.
Scenes flashed faster and faster, and Zavier only closed his eyes to keep from getting vertigo. With more force and irritation, he started chanting the mantra that got him past many automated phone systems.
"Representative. Representative. Representative. Representative."
He could tell the voice of The System was getting frustrated, but he refused to acknowledge it. He assumed that he was safe in here, and if everything was illusory, then he really had no reason to fear anything that happened. He was here to receive a boon so it wasn't like they were suddenly going to punish him for a little light insubordination. The worst possibility was that he'd be ejected without getting his rewards, but that didn't seem likely. He felt the odds were in his favor of getting what he wanted out of this.
His line of thought came to a stop, and he realized that the sounds were gone. He opened one eye, then the other, and saw that the visions had fled too. Even the screen was gone, replaced by a kindly-looking old man in an identical leather chair. He was dressed richly and looked familiar to Zavier somehow.
"Wait!" Zavier said excitedly. "You're the old man from The Matrix! The Architect!"
The man smiled a kindly smile and held up a pen and clicked it. Zavier laughed with glee at the detail. The man's soothing, resonant voice sounded amused as well. "I thought that this image would appeal to you."
"You thought right, buddy!" Zavier smiled.
"What can I do for you?" the voice sounded infinitely patient.
"I get two rewards, and I already know what I want. I don't know if skills already exist for them or if we need to create them, so I'd like to talk them over with you. It seems like The System can create whatever it wants, right?"
The man nodded. "That is correct."
"What are the limitations?" Zavier asked.
"Your power level, your ability to absorb the knowledge and actualize the results, your core stats, and your level. You're not going to be able to create a skill that mimics the impact of a nuclear bomb, but you could choose one that may grow to that power as your levels and power increase."
Zavier nodded. That was what he'd expected. "Does it have to be a power or skill? Can it be something more ephemeral or conceptual?"
"It can, although the phrasing of the request would need to be well-crafted and the desire fully understood."
"And you're not going to monkey paw me, are you?" Zavier asked. "This isn't a Djinn or evil genie situation, is it?"
The man gave a soothing chuckle that filled Zavier with feelings of a kind uncle. He dismissed those as quickly as he did the fear. He wasn't going to be manipulated on something this important. "No, Zavier, I am not here to trick you. Any shortcomings or unforeseen consequences of your requests will be through your lack of planning and verbiage."
"Okay," Zavier nodded. "In that case, let's start with the high-level request and we can whittle it down to something feasible. Sound good?"
The old man simply nodded and clicked his pen.
Zavier's voice was calm. "I want to understand everything about how The System works."
To his credit, the only reaction from the old man was a single raised eyebrow. "I believe this will require further definition," he said.
"I want to understand how it works. Not just levels, skills, and stats. I do want to know how those work together, how they can be optimized, things like that. But I also want to know how those things are even possible. Energy can't be created or destroyed, so the energy to perform abilities has to come from somewhere. I'm well acquainted with the concept of 'any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,' so I want to understand the science behind this."
"Much of this will be revealed as you gain levels. Why do you want to know this now? There is no rush."
"But there IS a rush," Zavier said. "And although I have no doubt humanity will learn a great deal about how all this works in the coming years, I'm sure it'll be at the user level. I want to understand it at the developer level."
The Architect, as Zavier was going to think of him from now on, paused again. He looked at Zavier with appraising eyes. "I have been around for an inconceivably long time, as you reckon it, and I have never been asked for something like this. This is very interesting." Zavier could swear he heard a note of excitement in his voice.
"Wait until you hear my next request," he said with a mischievous grin.