The first thing I notice as I regain consciousness is the *pitter-patter* of soft rain on the window. Second is the all too well known feeling of a keyboard applying a normal force to my temporal lobe.

"Must've zonked out coding again," I say narrating to myself.

I Look around my bleak and dreary room, made especially bleak and dreary by this dreadful weather, but there's not really a reason to have it as anything other than functional.

The majority of the attention goes to this corner of the room anyway. This corner is my office, dining room, living room and any other form of comfort *Sadly more often than not it is also my bed.*

I don't really look for anything in a living space other than shelter and internet connection. *Of course. I mean, how else could I do research by binge watching too many episodes of mainstream entertainment?*

I log on to my computer and check my blog to see how the BETA testers are doing. Just about a month ago, I offered the download to 50,000 people to beta test it. *most of these people are snobby rich kids who have nothing better to do with their lives, but hey, lab rats are lab rats right even if they're a little pampered* Most of the reviews show that it's going well. It seems as if people don't want to leave. The major complaint is that you can only exist in one fandom at a time, but that can't be fixed so soon. The Research Conversion (RC) system only has enough processing power to create one interactive fandom per personal digitizing computer.

I Log off the Blog and boot up my digitizer. *How Hypocritical, right? Calling the owners of digitizing computers rich snob while i own one myself. But I'm Not. Because I install these systems for a living (and not a very good one), I know how to assemble, build, and repair them. So basically, I built my own.*

While the lightning fast boot up sequence is finishing, I don the safety helmet. *My boot up sequence is so fast because I built it a wee bit better than that of the modern versions.*

"Safety first," I mumbled to myself.

The helmet is a revolutionary idea by some genius Japanese scientist Kazuto Kirigaya. It ensures that all of your mind goes in, and comes out together. This way no casualties occur when using the machine.

"Start Up sequence finished," States the computer in the pre programmed digital voice.

"Link Start!" I exclaim with the same giddy anticipation I had the first time.

My body hums with electricity as I begin to sense a feeling of weightlessness. The system goes into Sensory checks. Sight *check*, Sound *check*, Touch *check*, Taste *check*, and Smell *check*. The screen fades to black, then to white, and I find myself in the main lobby. No longer am I myself, I have become Ciel, the GM (Game Master). Hardly any players know my character, because I keep a low profile, and choose plain features and clothing that can be found in the starting areas of any MMORPG.

As players roam around, I make my way to the nearest GM console, to monitor player activity, and check to see if anything is wrong with the RC system. The system is unlike any other system operating right now on the digitizing computers. This, my brainchild, uses the computers to their fullest capacity to create unique digital universes. It takes a given data entry, and researches all known sources in order to piece together a fictional, or nonfictional world for you to interact with. What makes it so revolutionary is the fact that it writes and rewrites its own code so the possibilities are limitless, one could explore events that haven't happened at all.

As I finish my GM duties, a girl walks by. At first glance, she is rather homely. But, what does "catch the eye" is the severe amount of concealed weapons she carries. Not just that but a lot of those weapons seem to be from around the 13th century. I follow her with my eyes as she continues to an older area of the large main room.

"Where could she be going?" I mutter to myself.

Slowly at first, I begin to follow her seeing where she would go. As I follow her she keeps her head down, deftly maneuvering through crowded halls, until she (we) is (are) in a large empty room. A few servers dot the walls, but not like the vast amounts in the latest server rooms today.

As I enter the room the girl dematerializes into the latest server. This girl, why am I following her? I shrug, and walk over to the Fandomverse (copyright pending on that term)

"Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood," I read, "What game is this?" It seems that all of the games along the walls are all the same series, this Assassin's Creed.

I google it quickly and find that this series was made earlier this century. The basic premise of the games are that of two groups, the Assassins and Templars, fighting throughout multiple different time periods, for various reasons. Apparently in each game a person goes back in time using their DNA to relive the memories of their ancestors on a machine called the ANIMUS.

This all makes sense now, I think to myself, She must be an assassin or whatnot.

Again, I find myself questioning why I'm following this girl. Shrugging again, I click the enter button on the screen.

The familiar feeling of weightlessness appears for a moment as a large sprawling Renaissance type city forms around me. A caption presents itself:

"ROME 15th CENTURY"

Hmmm. Fun time period, but where did SHE go?

I pull up the synopsis again as I meander in a random direction. Actually this game seems pretty interesting. A lot of killer features (pun intended), like assassination and melee fighting, crowd blending, also with historical ties. It makes sense that people liked this series.

Soon enough I find myself lost in some ancient ruins with only NPCs around. At that moment the cool edge of a blade presents itself upon my throat.

"Why are you following me?" Says a steady deadly calm female voice.

She found me huh? I should probably be as much to the point as her knife is.

"Well I happened to notice the large amount of odd weapons you were carrying," I explain casually, "and I was curious as to where you were headed."

"Concise, … interesting." She says as she removes the now hidden blade, and steps into my field of view.

Now that I can legitimately see her, I notice that I was dead (another assassination pun) wrong when I called her homely before. Her features radiate natural beauty, with long brown hair, a smooth but not perfect rounded face. Her eyes, that seemed to remind me of a forest with their green border leading into a dark brown center, said that she was always calculating, always thinking, or just off in some other world somewhere. The rest of her was just natural curves…

"Whenever you're done checking me out, I can help you find your way back to the newbie area." She states in a rather bored tone.

"What! No! I wasn't… ah nevermind. Actually could you show me around this game more?"

"No I'm pretty sure you're more than capable yourself" Still the same bored tone.

"What makes you say that?" I cough out a nervous laugh. This girl I think she's onto me (about being the GM)

"Because, there's a player intro and walkthrough for every game in the system.

Phew that was close, for a second there I thought I was found out. I'll have to be careful around her.

"Right, right. Of course." I add while simultaneously pulling up the game menu. "Hey, are you sure you can't give me some pointers, because this walkthrough isn't working." I ask after slyly disabling the walkthrough (ah GM privileges).

She sighs discontentedly and, in that same bored tone, says, "Well I suppose I have no other choice, because you won't leave me alone anyway.

I laugh, "You got that right."

...

We ran across the town as I pointed out places that held side-missions, shops, and even some secrets of the game. Everyone once in awhile, I'd glance over at the newbie. He had a simple outfit on, unlike me. I had on a more eye catching outfit. The colors on my outfit were brighter, but I had a dark cape that covered the green costume. His was plain, but then again, it was what they had in the starting areas. That's where I started, after all, so I guess I can't say much.

It was amusing watching the newbie's eyes lighten in amazement as the sun started to set, highlighting the buildings. The parkour skills that allowed us to climb the buildings, seemed to really excite the player following me. Who could blame him? That was my favorite way of travel. Feeling the wind rush through my hair made me feel free, but there were more important things that needed to be done. Once I'm done playing tour guide, I'll be back to fighting the Templar. I've been laying low for a few days, wandering around the city to get some upgrades, aka playing tons of side-missions. While, I was on this little charity stop, some fun could occur, right? A smirk crawled to my face as I saw a hay stack at the bottom of an upcoming building. Let's see how fast this player's reactions are. Willing myself to go faster, I threw myself off the building and dove into the pile, flipping to my back as I made contact with the target. From above I could see the newbie stopped at the edge of the building. Hmm...not imp-

I jumped out as the newbie dove into the hay pile. Sulking forward, I yanked him from the hiding spot. When he was out, he laughed with a goofy boyish smile on his face. I fought to keep the glare and shoved him away.

"Let's walk down here for a little." I told him as I walked through a crowd of civilians.

"Alright!"

As we passed the blacksmith's place I pointed it out. "There's the blacksmith, make sure you head there when your amour is damaged."

Auguste Oberlin, the town blacksmith, was outside and waved to us.

"Hey, Auguste." I waved back.

"You know him?"

"I've done the blacksmith quest." I answered.

"What else can you teach me?" He asked.

I stopped and looked around. What else could I teach him? I rested my hands on my hips and looked around the town. Sure there was a lot to explore, but the fun was in the exploring.

"I think I've taught you all you will need. Good luck, Rookie."