Disclaimer – I own nothing recognisable. Mithdarion is mine. Nothing from Lord of the Rings or any other fandom I may mention is mine and I make no profit from the writing of my stories.

PALE MOON RISING

Chapter Two – Are you sitting comfortably?

Four days after Sam Tarion had sat in Kylie's office, discussing the business end of her upcoming Gaming Adventure, she received a phone call telling her to come in to be hooked up.

Upon arriving at the clinic she was ushered down a corridor and into a room full of computer screens, surrounding a huge reclining chair made of grey plastic. The moment that she stepped into the room, Sam found herself swarmed by a crowd of people all talking at once.

"Ah, it's our Blue Istari!" One short man cried, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet.

"Hey, hey! Let me through!" Yelled another as he kept getting pushing to the back of the crowd.

"Ms. Tarion, welcome to the Central Program," said a third, holding his hand out politely. Before Sam could reach back to shake it though, he was pushed away by a chubby woman with spiky hair and orange contact lenses who exclaimed,

"You just wait until Loth Lorien! I made a special room up just for you and Haldir!" Sam watched in growing horror as the woman's eyebrows wriggled up and down suggestively.

"Right! That is quite enough!" Yelled a powerful woman's voice and Sam turned, almost melting in relief as Kylie stepped through the door. The guide winked as she deftly pushed the small crowd of programmers back from the over-whelmed Sam. "Give Ms. Tarion some room, please!" Kylie placed her hand in the small of Sam's back and gently pushed her over to the giant plastic chair. Sam sat, amazed at how comfortable the chair was. It felt like it had been moulded to her body. There was even a foot rest at exactly the rest level for her to lightly place her brown boots on.

"Oh, this is nice," she said.

"Well, thankyou!" Said one of the men who had crowed her before. Sam raised her eyebrows at him in question and Kylie stepped forwards to make introductions.

"This is Doctor Paul, he's your health monitor." The Guide said, tapping the shoulder of the man who had just thanked her. "He designed your chair too, with all the medical monitors and such." Sam nodded as the doctor waved at her, his black-rimmed glasses slipping down his nose only to be absently pushed back into place. Kylie went on,

"The lady over at the keyboard there is Sparky, she's your supporting character designer." The woman who had wriggled her eyebrows at Samm before winked and mouthed the name 'Haldir', then made a swooning gesture. Sam blushed lightly and winked back.

"The guy in the green shirt is Mike, and he's not supposed to be here at all since he's the program manager and doesn't actually work directly with clients," Kylie continued, frowning at the short man sitting smugly in a swivel-chair with his shoes up on a desk. He waved teasingly at Sam.

"So sue me," he said. "I'm on my lunch break."

"Its ten thirty in the morning," Kylie said in annoyance. Mike laughed and shrugged, replying,

"Whoops?" Sam just sat and smiled in amusement at their banter. Kylie jerked her thumb at the last man, who was typing into a keyboard set into the side of Sam's chair.

"This is Tom. He's the only one you'll really need to worry about because he's the programmer linked to the pendant. If you need anything, a Time Jump, another information program, the emergency exit, even just a bit of a break, speak into the pendant and he will hear you. Isn't that right, Tom?"

"Yup, that's me," Tom said, grinning at Sam in a reassuring manner. "You wanna leave, at any time for any reason, you just let me know and I'll have you out of there in a jiffy. Hey, you just wanna complain about the Game a bit, give me a yell. I love a good laugh."

"I'll make sure and remember that," Sam replied, rolling her eyes. Then she noticed Doctor Paul lifting up a rather sharp looking piece of wire connected to the main computer set into the chair. She gave the wire a distinctly nervous glance. Even though she knew all the basic information about how this worked, the idea of having a piece of wire jabbed into the back of her skull and hooked up to a computer was a bit disconcerting.

"So…" she said, just trying to take her mind off the wire. "How does this program work again?" The programmer Tom answered her.

"The basic idea for the Game program is ubiquitous computing with a fully automatic user interface chip inserted into the back of the cellebellum," Tom said as he adjusted the wire behind Sam's 1st vertibra. "Really though, these two kinds of interfaces have totally different purposes, but they act complementarily to each other to create the full immersion feeling that the Game has. The ubiquitous computing brings the computer programming into the user's world, then the chip is used to actually merge the two user interfaces and create a fully immersive and integrated experience for the player."

Sam just stared at Tom blankly. He noticed her expression and laughed softly. "Don't worry, Sam. I know how it all works. I'll take good care of ya."

"Sure, sure. I trust you," she said. Whether the words were for Tom's benefit or her own however was unclear.

"That's a girl," the programmer said. Sam felt a sharp prick at the base of her skull as Paul set the wire against her skin.

"Are you ready then?" The doctor asked. Taking one last deep breath and feeling vaguly reasured by Tom's bright smile looking down at her, Sam said

"Yes, I'm ready." There was an intense burst of pain behind her skull that spiraled through her head and seemed to bury itself behind her eyes.

Everything plunged into darkness.

A/N: Chapter two done! Yeah! I know it's short, but now we can actually begin the story in Middle Earth. In which there are hobbits, wizards and much confusion with his/her pronouns!