Your SIRI3 wakes you up. And, like every day, you remember your name.
(text-style: "blink")["Hello, Kenneth Barley. It is October 5th, 5542. Are you ready for a fun day at school?"]
Cracked and broken. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. You lift yourself out of your bed and look around the room.
You are poor. You have always been poor. Martha is your mother, but it doesn't feel like it. When you were a kid Martha took you out into the field to look at the grey sky.
The sky isn't grey any more.
Clouded with ships and balloons and planes and hovercrafts, you and your friends always wish you could be up there. You wish you could fly.
You used to feel like you could fly when Martha lifted you in the air and you breathed in the air that barely tasted like smog.
Now the air never tastes like anything. Or maybe your'e just too used to the air now.
It's not like you ever breathe that air in. You prefer the indoors, and ever since teleporters were invented, you don't have to get out much.
(text-style: "blink")["Kenneth, please get up. School begins at 8:00 AM. It is currently 7:53 AM."]
[[Get up.]]
[[Stay in bed.]]
[[Skip the story. Where'd you get the info on pirating?]]You get up and slip on your clothes. You look at your desk. You are an inventor. You need to invent. You will get rich one day, you think. You have imagined everything you will have:
-A hovercar
-A set of hovershoes
-A hoverhouse
-You really, really want a hovercat (but those don't exist, since cats went extinct a few months ago. They're still working on bringing them back)
You skip breakfast. 7:58.
You step in the teleporter.
(text-style: "blink")["Goodbye, Kenneth."]
"Goodbye."
[[To school]]You can't deal with school right now. Maybe you'll call in sick. Yeah, yeah... you'll call in sick.
You reach for your phone. You've dubbed this phone "Daydream" because you only use her when you're dissociating.
Before you can call in sick, you get a call.
(text-style: "fade-in-out")[Ring! Ring! Ring!]
Looks like it's Jonathon, your friend since you were just kids. He's rich. He has a bunch of friends who you know, too. You wouldn't call them friends. Maybe acquaintances.
[[Pick up the phone.]]You are proud of yourself, you are such a good student.
You sigh and grab your phone. It is not there. She is "Daydream", the phone you only use when you dissociate.
Long-time friend Jonathon runs up to you. Rich kid.
(text-style: "condense")["Yo, Ken! Check this out! You love this stuff!"]
And out of his pocket is a scooter. Yeah, the compact ones that shrink down to 2x2 square inches. They're interesting, but...
HOLY CRAP.
Jonathon presses the little button and out pops a - pardon your language - FRICKING HOVER CYCLE.
NOT A BY-CYCLE.
A MOTOR-CYCLE.
"Put that away, you'll get in trouble."
(text-style: "condense")["Only 24,000 smackaroos."]
"You know I only have one hundred."
(text-style: "condense")["You can borrow Josh's sometimes. He's a freak."]
"You're a freak."
You bump his elbow fondly. Maybe you can ignore that... amazing hover-cycle. Yeah, ignore it.
[[What's that class? Social Studies?]]
[[What's that class? Language Arts?]](text-style: "condense")["DUDE!"]
Oh, it's your friend Jonathon. A pretty rich kid. He knows all the other ones. Your only really close friend.
"Hey, Johnny,"
(text-style: "condense")["I got something awesome."]
"What?" (The things were never really awesome).
(text-style: "condense")["Hover-cycle. 24,000 smackaroos. COLLAPSIBLE."]
"Ah. I can't afford that."
(text-style: "condense")["Aw man, it's okay! You can use ours sometime."]
You hang up.
Bad feeling worse... you really want a hover-cycle. You love hover-things. There's no way you can actually get one, though.
No way.
...Money?
[[On the desk]]
[[Sulk]]Yeah, it's Social Studies. You're thinking about that hover-cycle the whole day.
God, you want it.
It has those beautiful red rims... it collapses... you could take it apart. Or paint it... or do any number of things.
And most importantly, you'd be just like the other kids.
Bell rings.
Go home.
You look around for some money, to buy the cycle.
...Ugh.
[[You might as well just give up and head home]] The hallways stretch on forever.
You look around. Yeah, M93, Language Arts.
Taught by Teachbot #93-82-4.
Class names (like M93 for Main 93) are taught by teachers assigned to their numbers. Robots. You always loved robots.
The teachers are annoyed by you.
Knock knock. Open up the door.
The class is full. You're not supposed to be here. You hate that. The "poor kid" who "never knows what's going on.
Maybe they're right.
[[You might as well just give up and head home]]Back at your base.
But you really, really want that hover-cycle.
All of your friends have it. You dig around your room.
(text-style:"outline")[124 cashcards.]
Boring currency, really. And because of all the inflation...
Needless to say, you couldn't afford it.
Maybe there's more money around here?
[[Under the bed]]
[[On the desk]]Nothing.
[[On the desk]] Oh. You look at your desk. Strewn across it are inventions and scrap metal, the stuff you work with (the garbage you work with) on a daily basis.
(text-style:"fade-in-out")[You can't work with this.]
Oh - you can use this.
It's...
...It's a cloner.
Now, it's illegal to clone money and - well, it's impossible, because money has anti-cloning tech.
But you could clone...
...Yeah, what's on your mind. All day.
[[Call up Jonathon. Where do they sell those?]]
[[Research... where do they sell those?]]
[[Just don't do it.]]Internet says there're three places.
[[Mom n' Pop Shop]]
[[Dippin Dot Land]]
[[Hover Mart]]Are you absolutely sure?
[[Yes.]]
[[Call up Jonathon. Where do they sell those?]]
[[Research... where do they sell those?]] Huh. Daydream was in your room the whole time.
(text-style: "condense")["Yeah, there are two places you can buy them. I thought you couldn't afford it?"]
"I can't."
(text-style: "condense")["Uhm..."]
"Go on."
[[The Mom n' Pop Shop]]
[[Hover-Mart]]Fine then, you won't.
You can just go without the hover-cycle.
Yeah. Yeah! You can just go enjoy the world. Breathe in the air and try to make it the best.
[[Meadow]]Jonathon tells you about the Mom n' Pop shop - it's usually a shop for sweets and toys, but apparently they're selling cycles and stuff now.
[[Go there and clone it]]You go into Hover-mart.
Cloner in hand, you - oh shoot, the police.
They ask what that is.
[[Tell them]]
[[Lie]]It's usually a shop for sweets and toys, but apparently they're selling cycles and stuff now.
[[Go there and clone it]]You walk 3 hours. They don't have 'em.
You had to lug the cloner around, too.
[[Mom n' Pop Shop]]
[[Hover Mart]] You go into Hover-mart.
Cloner in hand, you - oh shoot, the police.
They ask what that is.
[[Tell them]]
[[Lie]]You sulk for the rest of the day.
...Hey, at least you didn't think of cloning it. And then clone it. At least you didn't get sucked into a life of crime. And get sued by like 18 companies.
You borrow one of your friends' cycles the next day.
(If you don't pirate, nothing will happen, man.)Martha, when you were really little, showed you a meadow.
One of the only ones left.
It's small, and nobody knows about it.
When you arrive there, it looks like a homeless camp. Everyone stares at you. A little kid, bursting out of the bushes into the meadow.
That's not homeless people, that's...
A gang.
[[A gang?]]
[[Interact]]Well, not everyone likes capatalism.
They go by a few names:
The Communists
The Anti-3Ds
The Revolution
The Boneeaters.
In that order, by the political ones, the honorable ones, the active ones, and the scary ones.
[[Interact]] "Hey,"
'A cyber-kid.'
Wow. Okay, so the gang just literally punted you out of the clearing.
...After a strict repremanding and telling ya not to get cyber stuff (they had you sit there for an hour to learn about the harms).
.....I guess... you won't?
Hippies.
(End note: Rushed again. If you don't pirate, nothing will happen. You'll probably still have people telling you not to pirate, though.)You go to the Mom n' Pop shop.
Cloner in hand, you clone the cycle.
And just like that, you have it.
Nobody noticed.
Nobody cared.
You tell your friends.
They clone it.
The Mom n' Pop shop is closing now.
Months later, the other stores have increased their security. Maximum.
Hover-hearts.
Hover-homes.
Hover-helmets.
Hovering human zombies, advertizing everything and buying buying buying.
You could only clone the cycle.
But everyone else is going broke.
...Are you upper class now?
I mean, you're richer, but... everyone you know is just a corporate zombie now.
Oh well. Hover-cycle! Woo!"A cloner,"
They investigate.
Oh shoot, you're rich. Now you can just afford a hover-cycle.
"What's what?"
They investigate.
Welcome to jail, bucko.
(End note: I was rushed here.
...Yeah, really rushed.
In reality, the consequences for pirating are much smaller.
The software owner could sue you for pirating, but otherwise, the only consequences are from the files themselves, like possible viruses. Usually, you won't get in trouble for pirating. You CAN, but it's not very common)Hey, I wrote this.
...I was extremely rushed at the end and it's apparent.
Some of the ways I was going to show information on pirating:
-Getting sued by the creators
-Group of anti-pirating people pressuring MC
-Literally nothing happening.
Here's some info I was using:
Consequences of Software Piracy, www.siia.net/Divisions/IP-Protection-Services/About/Consequences-of-Software-Piracy.
“Consequences of Piracy.” Consequences of Piracy | Symantec, www.symantec.com/en/hk/about/legal/anti-piracy/consequences.