The System: 3

--4--

I felt the itch in the back of my skull as I connected. Like pieces of a puzzle piece, my brain and The System United as one.

"Okay, baby," I murmured softly. "Give me directions to the Eiffel Tower."

A worm snaked through my brain and onto a map, sliding up and down streets in a line of red. It ended as a blue pinpoint, exactly 6398 meters from my location.

There was a soft laugh next to me.

"I love how you talk to The System," Reil mocked in a crouched position beside me. I slowly maneuvered my head to look in his direction, having vast difficulties on account of the mask covering my face and neck.

"I prefer to treat The System as the lovely device that she is," I stated, which earned another laugh from Reil.

"I feel like calling it a 'she' is sexist," he retorted. "The System could very well be a he." I rolled my eyes. "Wait. What am I talking about? The System isn't living, you moron."

I couldn't tell if he was calling me a moron, or himself.

"I'll tell you one thing," I stated bluntly, "we both look like morons in these masks."

Reil laughed, and the mask on his face jiggled, causing it to look like an insane clown with it's eyes crossed. I didn't know what my mask looked like - I'd simply grabbed one at random after They had explained the task - but Reil's was a strong, wide diamond shape, one side red and the other white. The eyes were pure darkness, causing it to look possessed, while the mouth was turned down in a frown.

The darkness that was falling over France like a cold blanket caused the mask to look even spookier. It was good that I did not fear clowns.

And even if I did, I thought, The System would have erased it.

The System was made to tolerate no weaknesses. No fears, no disabilities, no abnormalities. For the most part, it worked - I was no longer scared of heights (even as I took a long look down the edge of the building that we stood atop) - but there were the occasional slips.

Such as Reil's OCD, or Jam's slight fear of people.

"Ready to go man?" Reil asked, breaking me from my thoughts.

"Let's do it."

Our task, as Reil put it, was to scare the panties off the bad guys. And the masks were because it was the time of year when France held the Happy Parade. I knew nothing of it besides what The System told me: people often wore cardboard masks.

In a more literal sense, though, we were to climb the Eiffel Tower through the secret enter on the north side, and find a man called Hawk. What was going to happen to this man named Hawk, I didn't know.

They only told us the bare minimum. That, and, "do what you are told." But everyone, no matter if you were new to The System or old, also heard the unspoken "or else."

---

Our tasks could have been considered our jobs. We got paid for them, they took up regular hours of our day, and of course: we had to work. All of us; all the recruits. Unless, of course, you were incapable of connecting to to The System.

And, much like regular jobs, we had someone to submit to; a boss.

Mr. Bootsauvage.

What a horrible last name it was, for and equally horrible man. What was worse: he insisted on us calling him Mr. Bootsauvage, and would not let us shorten it in any way.

Most people called him Butt Sausage, however, because that was what The System most often autocorrected it to.

That is, until Mr. Bootsauvage threatened to sue, and They had it permanently engrained in The System as Bootsauvage.

---

"Recruits!" Mr. Bootsauvage belted one night during dinner time. Everyone in the spacious, white cafeteria room stopped talking, salivating, and eating to look at where he was by the door. "As many of you know, tomorrow is The Choosing Day."

"What?" Reil whispered from beside be, breathing into my ear so I had to shove him away. "Sorry." He swallowed. "Dude, I didn't know it was Choosing Day tomorrow."

Teck, a short girl with dark skin, shushed him from across the table. We ignored her.

"Yeah, well, it is," I replied.

Mr. Bootsauvage continued speaking. "We have been watching many this year - more people than any other time before. There have seen multiple good candidates, with skills that would be appropriate for allowing them to join The System."

"So Butt Sausage takes this pretty serious then?" Reil asked, again blowing into my ear.

"Shit, dude, can you stop that?" I hissed. He cringed. Teck shushed us. "Don't you remember this from last year?"

The Choosing happened once a year, most often in the month of June. They - The Choosers, that was - prefered to watch them throughout their school year to gain maximum feedback as far as their smarts, brain capacity, and general commitment.

They often chose up to five members each year - never exceeding that number and often picking less. It was to maintain the population of recruits, so our numbers didn't go over what we were capable of hiding.

Our "community" - of sorts - was one that went fairly unnoticed by the public, which is the way They wanted it. Too many people know what we're capable of, and they'd start defending themselves, fighting back.

"No, I don't," Reil said, taking me from my thoughts, "because I wasn't here, remember?" I didn't. We hadn't been friends for that long. "I was having that second surgery because the first one went so badly."

"Oh yes, and you were having problems connecting to The System and shit because of your reaction to the serum?"

"Jax, can you keep the swearing to a minimum, please."

I couldn't help but laugh. The System failed to monitor our cursing. Not because it was incapable of doing so, but because They decided it would help us on our tasks. But also, I figured, because They still wanted the ability to swear and thought that prohibiting us from yelling out bad words would also keep them from doing so.

"Butt hole" didn't exactly sound threatening when you were trying to back-talk the enemy.

"Oh yeah, sorry," I said, looking back towards Butt Sausage.

"Oh and the minimum amount," Reil continued, "is none."

I laughed.

Teck was having a full on spaz attack, but there was no way I was going to sit through another boring talk about The Choosing. The way I saw it: it didn't matter. My Choosing had come and past, and it was the only one that mattered to me.

Initially, I was the only one that mattered to me.

And I was okay with that.

"The Choosing is something we all are a part of," Mr. Bootsauvage said. "It doesn't matter who you are, or what your job is, the next few days will be influential to us all."

Great.

"The Choosing," he finished, "has officially commenced!"