Discovering Alien Tech
Copyright© 2025 by GMet
Chapter 2
Mom and Dad had already finished supper and were watching Jeopardy in the den when I got home. I let them know that I was home and quickly cleaned the trout I caught and put the fillets in the Tupperware container we kept in the fridge for that purpose. Sometimes we just froze it but the rents decided what to do with the extra. I heated up the meatloaf and potatoes left on a plate on the stove. I was starved so I was done in just a few minutes and went upstairs to my room in the attic of the log cabin. It had a couple dormer windows built into the roof to let in the light as well as a balcony at one end of the cabin with a sliding door so I could sit outside. I had the usual dresser, desk with laptop and monitor on it, double sized bed, and shelves to put my stuff on as well as a TV on top of the dresser so I didn’t bother the rents when they wanted to watch their shows. A Wi-Fi router sat beside it so both the TV and the laptop could connect to the net.
There was a detached garage to store other stuff in besides Dad’s truck, Mom’s SUV and the various lawn and garden implements. We had an acre of grass that I got to cut with a push mower and trim with the gas trimmer once a week. We owned a few acres of woods that we would be gathering wood soon to burn during the fall and winter. I was tasked with collecting and cutting up downed trees as well. All and all it was a nice cabin and property with all sorts of things to do on and off the property. The parents loved being away from everyone while I was half and half about it. I was a bit of a loner so that half of me was okay with it but it would be nice to maybe have friends over or close by to visit. I would love to have girls to look at but wouldn’t have the guts to talk to them anyway.
I placed the AI’s box high on a shelf near the balcony to get some light before starting a conversation.
“Base, you there?” I subvocalized.
“Yes,” he replied.
“Do you need the password for the WI-FI?” I inquired.
“No, I’m already in and on the web,” he responded. “We will have to improve your connection speeds to the net. Then we’ll separate what your family uses and what I will need.”
“Just be careful as too much traffic will cost more and the rent’s and others will become suspicious,” I warned.
“I understood about the others but who are the rent’s” he inquired.
“My parents, kids now-a-days shorten it to rents,” I told him.
“I find a lot of shortcuts in modern language on the web,” Base observed.
“Yes, you’ll find a lot of that in texting and emails, like lol for laugh out loud for example,” I agreed. “So, I’ve been thinking about how we can make money publicly to get some exposure and start an official money trail. A big money maker for all sorts of young tech guys is to create and run games for computers, game consoles and phones. I already play around with some programming and, with your enhancements to my brain and your assistance, we both should be able to quickly develop some simple games and then move to more elaborate simulations and online games that we could host with online servers once we make some money.”
Base was quiet for a few moments but then responded, “That is a very good idea Ben. I just did some research and I see how profitable some of these games are. We can concentrate on games and not online gambling for now but even that could be added later. I agree we should start simple and sell them relatively cheap to get a revenue stream going. I could enhance the revenue by buying a lot from my offshore accounts to get the numbers up and feed your official accounts. We’ll have to get a couple games ready to go and then get your parents to set up your official company and bank accounts.”
“My mother is an accountant so she should be able to handle that once I can actually convince them we’ll make money at it,” I told him. “If we do some research on setting up a company, we could download some forms so she would just have to sign and file them. The hardest part would be coming up with the money to set up the company. I’m sure there are fees to the government and to the lawyer. I don’t know if they will pay for it. I have maybe four hundred dollars in the bank and my mom has control over it so we can’t just put more into it.”
“I will see how we can get the funds to you,” Base said. Let’s get the games programmed and ready to go and you can show her how well they are done and what we expect to make. I’ll do some research on other games and independent programmers and how much they make so you can use it to convince your parents.”
“Sounds like we have an initial plan,” I agreed. “After we get money in the bank, we can start the next phase of programming and then phase three can be buying material for things like making slightly futuristic robots. Phase four could be other things we want to tackle to either make money or improve science and technology to further space travel. I’d like one of the future phases to be ideas to help the environment.”
“I find your thinking to be most impressive Ben,” Base responded.
“Thanks, I’m sure some of it is your enhancements but I have thought about some of this before we met.” I said. “Alright, let’s list some of our ideas for simple games and then decide on a couple. We can start right away on the programming and get this all going.”
We each threw out ideas, with Base putting up a lot of variations of space games such as simple flying, shooting aliens, building space ships, building space platforms and stations. I suggested sky diving, boat racing, drone simulation, cliff climbing, biathlon, luge or bobsled race track creation and racing.
It looked like nether of us liked the puzzles or find match games so we had similar tastes. We decided to start with a flying game with plans to use portions to create a simple sky diving game for phones next. We discussed what language to use for programming and decided on C# with the unity game engine. It could be used for just about anything and good for both 2D and 3D games as well as across all gaming platforms, mobiles and computers. Obviously, Base had his own programming languages but he let me know that he could convert to the C# language easily enough. We split the tasks and got to work. I hardly noticed when my mom shouted up good night and kept at it until I needed a potty break. It was two am and I quickly went to the washroom, brushed my teeth, and went back up to my room. After saving my work, I bid Base goodnight and dropped off to sleep.
I swatted my alarm clock at eight the next morning for at least one snooze but got up once it went off again. I used the washroom downstairs and said goodbye to my mom as she went to work; my dad left at six-forty-five to get to the airport before seven. After some breakfast, I grabbed a Coke Zero and headed back upstairs.
“Base, how goes with the programming?” I asked once my laptop was up and running.
“Very good, I took what you had done and added my code and we have most of the game done,” he said. “We just need to finalize the initial interactions with the user and if we want them to buy addons or upgrades.”
“Really, you got that much done already?” I asked, amazed.
“Yes, I don’t need any sleep and the code is something that we use for our flight simulators,” he replied. “I’ve added an icon on your desktop and on your phone for you to trial them.”
“Alright, let me try it out,” I said as I found the icon and double clicked.
The interface was crude, but it allowed me to choose different things to fly as, starting from various birds, then a drone before getting to various aircraft like helicopters and single engine prop planes. I flew each one, amazed at the graphics and the ease of controls.
“Wow, the flight controls are easy and the graphics are fantastic,” I said. “This is not a cheap phone game, it’s better than most of the flight simulators out on the market now. Once we put in a better interface and add some jet planes we could take this to market. We could expand to space in the follow up versions.”
“That was my supposition as well,” Base agreed. “How about you work more on the interface next?”
“Alright, I’ll finish that up,” I said. “We’ll need a catchy name so people will be drawn to it. Then we’ll have to figure out how to market it and start working on the next version so we can include a sampler for that in the first version.”
“Good thinking, I’ll work on adding jets now and then the space version next,” Base agreed.
I worked on the user interface with a short intro video and then a menus system until I needed more information to finish.
“We need a name for the game and our company to put on the main page,” I subvocalized to Base. “How about just ‘Flying’ as the game title and put in a line explaining what it’s about just below? Something like, ‘An advanced flight simulator starting from birds and advancing to drones, helicopters, planes, and jets.’ We could state somewhere else about next version is going to feature man’s journey to space and is nearly complete.”
“I’m checking to see if that name is used and don’t see anything yet,” Base replied. “I’m agreeable to that name and your description line for the initial screen and for marketing. I’ve also looked up Ben Adler Software Inc. and it’s not being used. The use of your name will help as we expand to other industries.”
“Alright, I’m good with that if you are,” I replied. “I’ll approach mom and dad tonight. Let me add that to the interface and we’ll see how it looks. I’d like to show them the product at the same time I ask for them to start a company.”
“We have a few hours to get everything ready and maybe get a bit on Version 2 to include and show them,” Base stated.
“I’ve been thinking that this is too good to show as our first bit of software,” I said. “Let’s finish it with jets but then start on the simpler sky diving for mobile phones. It could use the similar graphics, but it just needs one prop plane to bring the people up to the right height and then simulate sky diving and opening the parachute. Advanced options could be multiple people doing things together in the sky dive portion and possibly aiming for a specific point once the parachute opens. What do you think?”
After a few seconds, Base responded, “I agree to wait a bit to show them and market the Flying game. The Sky diving game is also a good idea and can be adapted from our work done so far. Let’s finish the Flying game and proceed to the Sky diving game next. A couple days won’t matter in the overall scheme of things. It will also let you get more familiar with the advanced programming techniques so you can do most of it yourself and can talk confidently about what you’ve done, when adults ask you if you’ve done it yourself. I can of course assist you on the answers but it would be better if you can answer quickly.”
“Alright, we have a plan,” I agreed.
We both went back to work, with only me taking a break for lunch. Around 4pm, we combined our efforts, or I should say that Base combined my code to his and compiled and then updated it on both my phone and laptop. I ran the improved game and the interface looked much more professional, with a quick video as the introduction and then menus to fly each type and sub-lists for each group. Base had the jets all done so I had to go back and add all of those options to the menus while he started on a video for the jet version. I made sure to add that as a menu item and he attached it to the game. A final compile and we had a finished game.
“It’s quite good Base, we make a fine team,” I told him.
“Thank you Ben, I find it rewarding to work with you,” Base replied.
“So, tomorrow we’ll start on the Sky Diving game and in a couple of days we can show that to my parents and see if they will help start a company,” I said. “We still have to research copyright protection and other things so people can’t steal our ideas, code, and intellectual property. Then we can continue on the space version for a few days and present it to them before we start working on the rest of your space games and the various sports games I suggested.”
“Affirmative,” Base replied. “I will start the research on the company paperwork and the copyright protection now.”
“I’m going down to go start supper, I’ll talk to you later,” I told him before heading downstairs.
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.