Chapter 3: Traveling and Information Gathering method in Arcmania
While Nevans were roaming the city getting familiar, the calm and collected boy was walking towards a certain place with a clear goal.
The earlier farce had wasted a lot of his time. So to make up for the wasted time, he walked faster than usual. But from his calm expression no trace of impatience could be seen. It is safe to say that the incident did not have any effect whatsoever to the boy.
He walked up to a transit unit. The transit unit was 4 meters wide and 4 meters in height. It was painted in white and gold. Lots of characters and symbols he had no idea what they meant, were engraved in the white and gold surface. Looking at the symbols for a while, he headed inside it.
There wasn't any door so it seemed as if it was totally closed. He was wondering from where he could enter and suddenly saw a girl wearing a uniform coming out from it's wall. She came straight out of the wall as if there was no wall. She saw a boy looking at her but did not give him another glance as she was rather rushed to buy some stuffs.
He touched that wall with his hand but it went inside as if there was nothing but air. There was no layer of resistance. It was entirely empty.
"Maybe it is some kind of holograph. But such solid looking holograph. Strange." He thought.
Without any hesitation, he entered inside. He didn't feel any sort of abnormal feeling when he passed through that solid looking golden wall. Though he tested with his hand, he still expected some sort of resistance or some sort unknown effect to take place. But it did not happen. It was like walking in a normal place.
As soon as he went inside, a mechanical voice was heard, "Welcome aboard to transit section 13-EDFNUEBS. What is your name, sir?"
"Lucifer Cors"
"Please bring out your Arcmania residency card."
While bringing out a red card, he looked around. The insides were marvelous. He was wrapped in a rainbow colored cube. The colors were constantly revolving around in a chaotic manner. Up and down, front back, everywhere he could see nothing but multi-colored rays.
He held out the card in front of him, his card looked similar to Nevan's red card. It was a card that would grant him above-average treatments in this city. A multi-colored ray of light appeared and scanned the card.
"You are a red card holder resident. You don't need to pay for the transition for the first thousand transitions. Where do you want to go? You can choose any transit unit of the 13th section."
"I can't choose any other sections?"
"Transition between transit units only works within sections. 13th section units can only transit between all the units belonging to 13th section. If you want to go to a region where 13 section is not located then you will be transported to a transit unit that is close to that section."
"I see. Then can you go to the city information hub?"
"Yes. Each section has an information hub."
"Then head there."
"Thank you for choosing our transportation." and after that the voice disappeared. The rainbow colors around him started to move at a greater speed. The colors chaotically moved around at an astonishing speed.
However, Lucifer's face never changed. From beginning to end he wore that similar facial expression. His voice was steady and his expression entirely serene. He really was an oddity. It seemed the wonder of this city could not move him even a little. After 8 seconds the erratic movement of the colors stopped.
"You have arrived, sir. Walk straight to the intersection on the front and take a right. You will be able to notice the information hub."
Lucifer was little surprised at how fast he had arrived as well as at the fact that these transition units seemed not monotonous and were equipped with intelligence to provide directions.
"Sir, your gene has been scanned. Do you wish to save your gene print in our database? Then you will no longer need to use the red card every time."
"Have you detected any unusual things from my genes?"
"The transit units are not equipped with high quality scanners to inspect irregularities in your body. It can only scan the fundamental unique structure of your gene."
"Understood. Then you can save my information."
"Gene information saved and has been uploaded to Arcmania database. You need no longer use your red card. You can use any transit unit of Arcmania now much easily."
"This is convenient." He was still inside of the rainbow cube. He extended his hand and saw that his hand passed right through. So without any hesitation he walked beyond the box that enclosed him and he passed through appearing right outside of a white transition unit.
Beside him, he saw some people also appearing from inside the unit and then going to their own destination. Everyone seemed busy and did not even give him a glance. And Lucifer couldn't care much either.
He started going in that direction that the AI of the transition unit had mentioned. He walked in front of the intersection and took a right turn. And as expected he could see a huge but plain building which had the name 'The Info Hub" written in big words.
There was nothing interesting about the building. It looked just like any other multi floor building of Arcmania. If not for the stream of people continuously going in and out of the building, people would assume it's just any other residential building.
As he entered the building, the inside was much to his expectation, dull. There were lots of booths and people could be seen inside the booth collecting information. There were no human personnel inside the building to help those who wanted information.
After observing the surroundings for a while he understood how this worked. One would have to enter the booth, pay money and then the artificial intelligence inside would help one gather information.
Lucifer did not find any booth empty, so he started heading to the upper floors. The 2nd floor was also filled. Same till 27th floor. Each floor held more than thousand booths and each booth were equipped with sound proofing since no sound was heard from the insides.
On the 28th floor there were some booths free of people. He had noticed a trend though. The more up to the floor, the people would tend to take more time inside the booth.
On the first floor, people would only spend 5 to 10 minutes. But on the 28th floor, people would not come out even after hours.
He walked into one of the booth and the booth automatically shut itself.
"Hello sir, please insert your residency card." Lucifer inserted the red card of his, inside a slot that was flashing blue. The card went inside smoothly and then came out.
Then a holographic screen showed up, inside of the screen there were lots of files, names and images. It was packed with information of all kinds.
"Your card allows you to get free information and classified information 1 to 3 tier. You need not pay for the first 100 free information while you can get ten free tier 1 information, five tier 2 and one tier 3 information. Afterwards you need to pay 1 sub Lore for each free information, 100 sub Lore for tier 1, 1000 sub Lore or 1 Lore for tier 2 and 10 Lore for tier 3 information."
Lores are the universal currency of humanity. It is widely used around all the human establishments in the universe. 1 Lore was divided into 1000 sub Lore. Sub Lore was the smallest unit.
"I can get classified information. Seems like this card is quite useful." Lucifer thought.
"What is the classification of these classified information and how are they divided into tiers?" Lucifer asked as he was curious.
"The answer will take away one of your 100 free information."
"Oh, I can't even ask such simple questions" he thought inwardly.
As if is had seen through his thinking the AI replied, "Every answer to your every question is considered information. Each time you ask a question you will be asked if you want to use up your available slots. Humans tend to like talking to themselves and be indecisive. So it is instructed that confirmation must be done to avoid errors."
"Oh, such detailed programming. Why did you explain this to me then? I believe this could be considered an information."
"Explanations are not considered as information. So the things I said before was an explanation for why I would have to deduct one of your available slot of information."
"So you can explain things to me without charge. That's good."
After understanding the mechanism of how information gathering worked, it was time for him to gather information. As for what the classified informations signified, he wasn't ready for it yet.
