YOLCG

Sweat drops ran from his forehead down to his cheek and chin. His heart increased its rate, Carl's body was readying itself for a certain action. He was behind his computer equipped with a notepad and pen. Tons of formulas were written on the notepad, but only a few were underlined.

Carl ripped a piece off and laid it besides the notepad and started copying steps from it but in a different order.



"Let's give this one a run...” he said to himself while browsing on the computer. Carl started up a game on a website and rubbed his hands against each other. After that he hit the start button and began 'playing'.



He was playing something called 'Your Own Cow Girl'. It's about managing your cow-girl, which is an extremely rare breed. A failure- or mishap for the research center that experimented with breeding different mammals. But for some of mankind, quite the opposite...



But who cares about stories for an inflation game right? Well, that was one of Carl's thoughts. He just wanted to finish the game which was near impossible due to the limited amount of days. He had figured the first few steps, but from on there it was pure experimenting. Carl tried it several nights before but with no luck. He wanted to pull an all-nighter, keep trying tonight until he finally got it. Such are the advantages of weekends.





Hours passed as Carl kept struggling to find the right formula until he finally got it. His dedication paid off.



"Congratulations! You're the best cowgirl manager! We'll be in touch soon..." The display shined these words upon Carl, congratulating him for his victory. Only he was rather unimpressed.



"That's it? A screen like this with only a back button, wow." His words sounded disappointed. He spent hours and hours on this, endless excitement to only receive such a dull ending. Carl decided to call it a night.





Two days later, Carl came back from school and got home.



"Honey, could you come over here for a second?" His mother called from the kitchen. Carl wondered why she asked that. Typically when she calls him ‘honey’, he had been misbehaving and he was about to receive a lecture.



"What is this letter? The name’s addressed to you." She hands him the mysterious letter. ‘B.E. Productions’ was the recipient’s name. The name struck familiar to Carl, it was the identical company which made the game YOCG. He was shocked, but remained a calm face.



"Oh cool! Remember the company we have to run for a school project? This was a test whether the mail works. "



"Oh, that’s good news then." She said relieved.



"Mind if I?" Carl stopped, raising the letter.



"Y-yeah, sure thing hun." He took the letter upstairs to his room.



"W-why did they send a letter to me?" Carl opened the letter and it contained;



‘Dear Carl,



You are the best player of our game, achieving the best score possible. We’d like you to come over to one of our outposts and try this on a whole different level. We’ll be waiting for you!’



Further the letter; there was the location of one of the outposts. "So that´s what they meant with ´we´ll be in touch´. I better check it out tomorrow." Carl thought to himself.





The following day, Carl traveled to the given address of the outpost.



"Hmm, this should be it.", he whispered to himself. Carl was standing in front of an apartment complex. The given number was actually higher than the top floor, raising questions to Carl. "T-this can’t be right. Someone must be messing with me."



Like most apartments, visitors first have to press the address (number) on the panel in order to contact the residents inside. But the number Carl was looking for, wasn’t there. He scanned the numbers over and over.

"This number isn’t even on the panel; I’m wasting my time here." Carl turned around for the exit, but before he touched the door’s handle, a loud beep emerged. The door leading into the apartment just unlocked. Carl froze for several seconds, hesitant on his next move.



"Come on in now.” a female metallic voice spoke. The words lacked emotions. Carl reckoned it was a prankster using text-to-speech; nevertheless he opened the door into the apartment. A sequence of concealed lights led him underneath the staircase where a small LED light was shining. Carl brought his face closer to it, his curiosity taking the best of him.



Then out of sudden, the floor he was standing on was a lowering platform. "W-what is this?!" Carl screamed. He barely balanced himself as the platform made its way underground.



After several moments, he arrived in a blank room; every wall was covered by white tiles. The room illuminated itself through the ceiling tiles.



"Welcome Carl!" The same voice he heard earlier, but now 'it' sounded actually happy.



"W-who are you?” he asked disordered.



"Ah yes! I'm your Personal Assisting Artificial Intelligence, PAAI for short. I'll personally assist you through the unique adventure that lies beyond this wall, but first..." It halted momentarily before switching a device with one of the ceiling tiles. It activated and emitted a hologram which took a few seconds to focus.



"Hi!" said a bodiless hologram. Little 1’s and 0’s made up the green hologram. Her long hair reached till the ending point of her neck. She had a broad smile on her face. "You can call me Pai, if you want to! Humans seem to prefer that. Sorry I was a little monotone a little while back; have to act like an old AI to avoid suspicion."



"Uhh… W-what do you mean adventure?" Carl asked hesitantly. The green hologram looked confused. "You don’t know? You played that game with the cow-girl right?" Carl nodded.



"Well, there’s actually a cow-girl like that behind this wall. You’re given the opportunity to take care of her, just like in the game. How cool is that!?"



"W-wait, really?" Carl was in disbelieve.



"Yup! Let me introduce you to her." Shortly after, the panels in front of Carl rotated as doors revealing another room with a girl standing. She wore an over-sized lab coat, covering up her body. The girl was standing next to a series of machines, including some furniture one would see in a living room.



"Here she is!" Pai said proudly. "Carl, meet Ayla!"



"A-are you my master?" Ayla walked closer to inspect him. He noticed her tiny horns sticking out of her hair. Her tail wiggled from side to side as she approached him, now several meters in between them.



"I… uhh, y-yeah. I guess so…" Carl took his hand out. "It’s n-nice to meet you, Ayla."



She hesitantly took out hers and shook hands. "Likewise."



"Now that’s out of the way, let’s begin!"