The System: One

--1--

There is nothing you can’t do, I reminded myself idly, staring straight at the objective. There is nothing you can’t do.

As if I could forget it.

I could feel my eyes glazing over, every ounce of The System shooting through my veins; electricity fusing with my blood, my heart pumping codes of zeros and ones.

There is nothing you can’t do.

From my crouch on the ledge, I stared at the ground. Hundreds of stories below me, the city loomed with activity. People, as small as the tip of a pin, moved crazily throughout the crowded streets. All twenty-four thousand of them knew nothing of what was happening above – in the night sky.

They were completely unaware of what our next actions would be. They were completely unaware of us in general.

That's the way we liked it.

There is nothing you can’t do.

The streets were swarming with people, no cars to speak of, and across the packed road was another building, the same size as the one I was standing on. The roofs met at perfect heights, neither standing taller than the other.

I knew this. The System told me so. The System also told me that on the roof of that building was a hatch, and to get inside, we'd have to enter from there.

I dug deeper into the building, exploring it's hallways, elevators, cameras, and stairs. The only thing I couldn't detect were the enemies. They must have found away to escape The System.

There is nothing you can’t do.

The objective: get to the other side. Get into the building.

Destroy

Everything

I searched the codes and found that the distance between the two buildings was exactly thirty-six feet wide. This would be a breeze.

There is nothing you can’t do.

I heard a snicker from beside me. “Admiring the scenery, Jax?” Reil asked, smirking and pulling up his black hood.

“Nah, man,” I answered back with a laugh, “you’re all the scenery I need.”

He laughed, slung his gun across his back, and hooked on his Vision System Connecting Goggles. I pulled my own out of my back pocket, and folded them into the front of my black jacket.

I didn’t have guns; I was more of a dagger kind of guy. I also tended not to wear my VSCG’s, because I was a rebel like that.

I looked at the expanse, picturing a lake of molten lava in the space I needed to jump.

There is nothing you can’t do, The System told me, and I knew it to be true.

I checked my clothes – a black jacket over a black shirt, slick black pants paired with a belt that held my knives, and strung together with a pair of black boots.

The black getup was altogether pretty bad ass.

“How did the chicken cross the road?” Reil asked, suddenly, jaw clenched with yet another smirk he was trying to refrain.

I stepped off the edge of the building, breaking eye contact with the people below. Turning, I lazily stepped a few yards back. I turned to Reil, knowing full and well what the answer was.

We both began our slow jog to the edge, gaining speed as we went. Faster, faster, faster, until—

We’d reached the end. I hooked my foot to the last inch of valuable space left, and leapt with all my might.

“He jumped,” I answered.

--2--

My real name is Derek Jackson.

My real name is important. I try to never forget it, but it often blends into the zeros and ones in my brain. It's being carried away like a leaf down a fast-flowing river; it's almost always out of reach. The zeros and ones hold so much information, but they are not always helpful.

It's the first thing they take from you. Your real name. They say it holds a place in our lives - our old lives. They initially want us to erase our old lives away. Completely.

It's a choice we get to make at the beginning. But of course they don't tell us until it's too late.

That's one thing they don't tell you when you're recruited - the fact that your name is no longer yours.

You get a new one. A series of numbers, really, until you pick a name with letters.

It's harder than you'd think. One word, a couple of letters - yet it is your identity for the rest of your life.

105613987.

Jax.

Me.