"Okay... Just a bit more..." Mark said as he tweaked his latest invention. He roared a cheer then turned to me, beaming brightly. "The ingenious Mark Foster presents... the Integrated Sensory Console 1.7! Or ISC for short, the latest revolution of the video gaming industry!"

I eyed the machine sceptically. The ISC, or his 'baby' was Mark's latest project. He'd always wanted to be the next hotshot inventor of his time and apparently thought that building a machine that alllowed people to truly 'feel' video games with all five senses was a good idea.

Would the idea even work? This was real life, not some mind-boggling Christopher Nolan movie that involved magic sleep serum that could invoke three layers of consciousness.

Plus hotwiring the human brain and making it believe pixels to be fully fleshed real humans would most definitely take more than fiddling and tinkering around with a game console, coding and a couple of wires. Not that I doubted the MIT graduate's engineering capabilities, but it was probably best to keep in mind that Thomas Edison had failed a thousand times before finally inventing the light bulb.

"Try it!" Mark said, patting the armchair beside his beloved contraption.

"Woah there, cowboy. You want me to just plug myself into a machine that has never been tested before?"

"Don't worry, it's version 1.7! It's improved."

"I hate to be a cold blanket, Mark, but do you seriously think that this is going to work? I mean, of course it's going to work, and once you get it patented you'd live the rest of your life watching the numbers roll into your bank account endlessly and I'll be damned well happy for you. But- hey are you even listening to me?"

"Yeah, yeah, go on," he said half-heartedly, while scrutinising his entire game collection. The whole thing was a massive shelf that occupied an entire wall that was right smack against the door to his apartment. Despite his jaw dropping ownership of 500 games to date, it was impeccably neat, just like the rest of his place, with everything placed neatly in alphabetical order.

"We already have enough koo-koo's going on in this town, Mark. Just last week, a colleague from Traffic told me they arrested a 17 year-old because he was carjacking along the street in front of his house with a baseball bat. He wanted to copy whatever shenanigans he did in Grand Theft Auto 5 or whatever that stupid Xbox game's called. Can you imagine what's going to happen to all those kids when your wonderful reality-muddling machine gets out on the market?"

Mark was paying me no attention, or so it seemed. He tapped on his chin for a few seconds, eyes squinted, then picked out a game that had Battlefield 4 plastered at the front. "No, no, no, too boring. He touches a gun every day, it's nothing new," I heard him whisper to himself, putting the game back.

"Hello, Earth to Mark Foster?"

He ignored me. Instead, he walked to the 'M' section of the collection and picked out another one. His thin lips curled into a smile.

I waved my hand in front of his face, to which he instantly smacked away. "I'm not deaf, okay? I heard you." He walked over to his machine, started it up, then placed his chosen game inside. He turned towards me and shoved the case into my hands.

The title read: Mass Effect Trilogy: Badass Blasto Edition.

"What the heck is this?" I asked incredulously.

He gave me a smug smile. "It's the Mass Effect Trilogy all in one disc, including every single DLC ever released. BioWare released it as an anniversary special last year. Only 50 copies world wide!" He gave me a nudge. "Check it out. I know you love sci-fi stuff and I would've let you play the Star Trek game if it wasn't so crappy. but Mass Effect's a really great game with ugly aliens and blinky flashlights. You'll love it. Trust me."

I arched an eyebrow. The cover of the case had a picture of a man clad in futuristic armour, with an 'N7' sign emblazoned over his chest plate and a weird looking buzz cut with a mark like the scar on Harry Potter's forehead.

"That my friend," Mark continued, "is Commander Shepard. The first human Spectre, saviour of the Citadel, salvation of the galaxy! Too bad the ending sucked though. He dies either way."

I frowned. "Hey, aren't you supposed to not give away spoilers?"

"Tsk tsk tsk, no, no, Grayson. For this game, it's all about the journey. The wonderful myriad of feels and emotions and camaraderie among your loyal crew and-"

"Okay, I got your point. Sheesh man, it's just a game. You're talking about it like it's the journey of the ages."

"It is." Mark rolled his eyes. "Anyway, to answer all your previous 'concerns', that carjacking kid's underage to play GTA, and if anything it all boils down to bad parenting. Not my problem if parents are too stupid to buy games that are suitable for their children's age. Besides, that's what games are for - to let us do stuff we can't do in real life. When I'm pissed, I go around running down women in pink with my yellow Ferrari for 5 hours then get into a fire fight with the police and shoot everything with a rocket launcher. And when I'm done I turn off my PS3. Nobody's dead and I go to sleep a happy man. No harm done. I'm helping the world to de-stress and reduce the likelihood of such incidents happening in real life. You should thank me."

"Anyone told you that you should've studied law instead? You'll make a great defense lawyer."

"Yeah right, shut up and put these on," he retorted, handing me mini-pads that resembled defib patches. "Slap them on your temples and close your eyes."

I stared at the devilish-looking things hesitantly, then reverted my gaze to him.

Mark sighed. "They don't sting, you big baby. God, how did you become a cop?"

Without any other choice, I did as commanded.

"Okay, here we go!" I heard Mark say.

I waited for a bit. Nothing felt different.

Was it okay to open my eyes?

Ah, fuck it.

I opened my eyes but I didn't - or more like couldn't - see anything.

Maybe I wasn't doing this thing right.

I blinked. I blinked again, this time harder.

I heard Mark's voice again, but he sounded far away. "Don't worry if you're not seeing anything yet, that's just the game loading up!"

Images started to fizzle, like a really old and mouldy film but then it slowly cleared up. Very soon, I was marvelling at the graphics with my mouth agape. It was as close to real life as you could get, but of course the subtitles reminded me otherwise.

I smiled.

He made it. Mark really made it.

A voice boomed into my ears, and I saw a man in blue military uniform look out into space, with dramatic, end-of-the-world-ish music playing in the background.

Oh right, it's a cutscene.

Then it struck me just how long it had been since I've touched a video game at all. I was more of a checkers-and-chess kind of guy.

The cinematic played just fine, until it slowly faded out. I was covered in darkness again.

"Hey Mark! Is everything alright?" No response. "Mark!" Nothing.

Just chill out, Grayson, I told myself. Dude's probably just too busy fixing.

The world around me fizzled again.

Son of a bitch, I cursed mentally.

The sudden introduction of bright neon lights stung my eyes. My eardrums throbbed with the God-awful techno music. The air was dry, cold and slightly dusty, like it was air-conditioned 24/7 all year long. I was still rubbing my sore and hurting eyes when I felt someone bump into me, nearly knocking me over to the ground. I looked back, ready to glare at whoever it was.

And then my jaw dropped.

I was in a place I did not recognise. It was a futuristic looking mall of some sort, with neon lights that would put Chinese cities to shame and a crowd that'd make New York City look like an empty Scottish farmland. The people around me were pretty odd as well, some donning weird facial piercings and others eccentric hairstyles, but all of them were wearing clothes I didn't recognise.

For a few minutes I stood in the same spot, just watching everyone and anyone that passed by. A lady in a gown passed by, her face freckled and her skin blue. She didn't have hair but instead had some tentacle-looking headgear on.

Gee. Someone needs fashion advice.

And then it hit me.

I was in the game. A sci-fi game.

And I was supposed to be Commander Sheepskin or whatever his name was.

Then I realised that there weren't any intructions on how to play either. I tried saying 'menu' in my mind for a couple of times, but nothing happened. Perhaps commands were supposed to be said out loud.

"Menu," I said. Nothing happened. "Menu." I was starting to lose my patience. "MENU! SETTINGS! OPTIONS! WHATEVER! ALTERNATE F4! SHUT DOWN!" But instead of a screen, I got incredulous looks from everyone around me, including this fat toad-looking, armour-clad person.

Wait, is he an alien?

Mark certainly didn't exaggerate his description of the game.

"Citadel Breaking News: Famous Alliance soldier and the first Human Spectre Commander Shepard has been announced to be killed in action. More updates coming soon."

Wherever I was, the chatter suddenly died down. In its place were were sharp whispers everywhere, gasps of shock.

As if on instinct, I looked down on my body. I was still dressed in my shirt and jeans, not those weird gowns everyone else in the game was wearing.

Wasn't I supposed to be Commander Shepard? And if he was dead, then who was I?

The only thing that my mind could process was 'what the fuck?'.

My brain hurt.

I tried to wrap my mind around the whole thing.

What is going on?

Amidst the chaos of my environment, I realised a voice I never heard before was getting louder by the second. "Excuse me sir, is something wrong?"

The heck?

"Sir, please, look up."

It wasn't my mind playing tricks on me.

Someone was talking to me.

I looked up and jumped back two steps. I might also have screamed a little.

I bet anyone else would too if they had two 7-feet tall birdmen staring at them in the eye.

Ugly aliens, I heard Mark's voice say in my mind.

There was a certain flanging aspect to the bird-man's voice. And wait, did aliens speak English?

"Sir?" one of the birdmen said again, "do you require assistance?"

I struggled to get something out. "I um... no. Just... looking around."

They didn't seem particularly convinced. "Where are you headed?" the other one asked.

"Home," I replied, perhaps a little too quickly.

What if they were anti-human alien robbers? Shit like that always happened in the movies. And I didn't have anything on me that could be used as a defensive tool. Hell, I was pretty sure the game didn't use voice commands, so I definitely couldn't conjure up a holographic inventory or whatever and summon a laser pistol or something.

"Don't worry about it, boys, he's with me."

Huh, what?

The voice was human, had some sort of English accent too. I turned around to find a man smiling. Tall - about a good half foot taller than me, broad-shouldered, impossibly humongous biceps, bright red hair, clad in a tight uniform, he looked like one of those MMA competition poster boys.

"Sorry, Napier, didn't know he was with you," one of the birdmen apologised.

The man flashed a wry grin. "No worries, mate. I'd better get him home for dinner." He then mock-whispered loudly to the birdmen. "He just got out from a traffic accident. He's got amnesia."

The bird-men discussed among themselves for a moment. I glanced at the other human. He didn't look familiar in the least bit. But I'd probably be crazy if he did. This was a video game after all. "I see. Your friend here doesn't look very good, Napier. Look after him." And then they left.

The man spoke up once they were out of earshot. "Well, that was simple enough, isn't it?"

"Yeah, thanks for that. Didn't know I had amnesia." I probably should've been kowtowing to him but whatever. It was a game, nobody would care if I was rude or not to a random, if slightly nosy NPC.

"Would you be interested in coming up to my place for a drink?" the man offered. "Could help you change into some more... appropriate clothes."

If this was anywhere else, I'd walk away but I had nowhere to go. Plus it was a game, if I died I could just start over.

I agreed to his offer.

We took what could only be the Mass Effect version of a car -which flew in air and had clamshell doors- to wherever he was taking me. It might've only been a game but Mark has done some serious touch up on the graphics. The scenery was breathtakingly gorgeous, that was for sure. A very blue sky, colourful plants, a massive lake... We landed about 10 minutes later, at what I could only assume to be the front of an apartment building.

"Come on, let's walk a little faster, shall we?" The man brought me to an apartment on the third floor. It was sparsely furnished, with only a couch and a small coffee table in the living room. "Do forgive me, the Council can only afford to pay so little after indulging in their own luxuries. Take a seat. Would you like some tea?"

I decided to not ask about what the 'council' was. Not that it mattered to me anyway.

"Yeah, tea sounds great, thanks."

"Good, it'll be ready in a sec."

The following half hour was spent on self-introduction and talking about things that didn't matter. You know, the niceties. The man was called Jack Napier, and apparently he was C-Sec. It might have been interesting except I had no idea what the hell C-Sec was.

"So, Grayson - wait can I call you Grayson?" He didn't wait for me to reply. "What brings you here to the Citadel?"

"I uhh, wanted to take a vacation, a friend recommended me to come here," I answered, which was not entirely false.

Man, I thought to myself. Is this just a sci-fi version of the Sims?

I never understood the appeal of that game. I've seen people spend their entire waking hours dedicated to having the perfect virtual family and don't mind spending their real lives as lonely souls.

"So how's Mass Effect working out for you? Dear old Mark isn't here and Shepard's dead. Heck of a bug, huh?"

I choked on my tea.

The hell?

"Woah, what is going on?" I demanded in interrupted sputters.

Napier poured more tea into his mug. "Can't fool me, Grayson. I know everything about you. I'm your guardian angel."

"Excuse me?"

"You're stuck in this game, and you'd better believe it. I'm a software created by your buddy Mark just in case things go south, like right now."

I simply stared at the redhead, speechless and dumbfounded.

Was this a sick joke?

There were still 3 weeks to April's Fool.

"I know, I know, it's hard to acknowledge this bitter fact," Napier said, raising his hands and nodding his head as if in understanding. "I'll give you time to digest."

The man, or whatever he was, stood up. "There's beer and some food in the kitchen. Knock yourself out." Then he left.

Just like that.

To say my mind was filled with more question marks than a toddler sitting in a rocket science lecture was a gross understatement.

What. The. Hell.

A/N: So, that's all for today. Is this better than the first? Leave me a comment.

Also, I'd like to post some overdue shout-outs:

ITman496, for being an engineering genius. blowing my mind with your imagination, and contributing so much to the development and improvement of Uploaded.

iBayne, thanks for being a reliable source of advice and ranting partner since Second In Command almost 2 years ago.

Special thanks to Jyggalag, CigarChomper, Ninja Elf Girl, SgtTarkus, daarb123, N7warrior93, Hunterseve, Palladius for your OC submissions of uniquely personal characters. Rest assured that all your submissions will still be used as was planned.

A special mention to Archer83 and FtDLulz, both of them have stuck with us since day one of this Uploaded.

See y'all soon!

PS. OC submissions are still open. If you have any just send them in!