The Suit-Maker

[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 cushions 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 flashing '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 bypass 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 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-encompassing field. Everything from medical research, to electronics, to space 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'.