Approximately (enter arbitrary number here, from this point forth, known as ZETA)+1 years ago, an executive of GrimCo Incorporated (name withheld for safety. Mine, not his. He threatened to sue, draw, and quarter me if I even mentioned his last name of... darn it! See what you almost made me do?!), after having a night full of debauchery with a room full of people and a few chinchillas, came up with a brilliant idea: Confetti Nuclear Missiles. These missiles would blow up an entire countryside, but leave behind shiny confetti to make the entire affair nice and festive for the conquering heroes. He decided this must be done and it must be done properly.

To accomplish this goal, the unnamed executive chose to create Department 36-b-1. The significance of that particular naming scheme for this particular department would be lost when he fell asleep that night, but he knew it was an important reason (it ended up being ALMOST the combination to his office safe. The “b” was actually a “6” written by an inebriated man). The paperwork was completed the very next day, and a portion of the building across the street was acquired for the purposes of the Department 36-b-1 doing research and development into creating such a missile to sell to all nations to make them blow things up with a smile. Five people were hired from the laundry department to do this job. They had no idea why they had been chosen for such a job, but the pay was amazing, and they liked watching things blow up. Confetti was nice, too.

So they set about their job. The first thing they needed to do was acquire a large piece of land to do the testing. About 50 miles away from across the street was a perfect piece of land. It was an old soccer field. Nobody played soccer anymore anyway. So they bought the land with their gigantic budget and began work on figuring out how to make a nuclear based missile leave behind confetti in a destroyed and irradiated soccer field. But first, the missile had to get there. Seeing as how a bunch of people from the laundry department were hired for this, they didn’t know that other departments had already accomplished the ability to shoot a missile to a specific location, and therefore felt they had to accomplish this goal on their own.

Fast forward to ZETA years ago, you know, ZETA+1 but -1 now? This isn’t rocket science. Fast forward to ZETA years ago, and the unnamed executive was presented with a piece of paper from his assistant. On it were the details of Department 36-b-1. The very sober executive felt this was a very dumb idea and asked the assistant to tell him who could possibly have come up with it. She pointed at his signature. He immediately said to bury the program. His assistant, Eugenia, decided that might be the best course of action and took the paper to her cousin in accounting.

Herbert Steinwein stared at the paper and wondered why his cousin had handed it to him. He saw her grocery list (not the sticky note with the actual instructions on it) stuck to the paper and felt that maybe the project had been named incorrectly. “Who would want a confetti nuclear missile,” he asked himself. So he renamed the project to “Confetti Ice Cream Toppings,” attached a budget to it, and threw it in the pile with the other things that he felt were done to the best of their ability, which included his submission to the “I Can Cure Cancer” contest his family was having back in Wyoming.

Fast forward again to ZETA-10 years ago. Carl Munchberg walked by that soccer club about 50 miles away from across the street and thought it’d be a good place for a house and a store. So he built one of each. For years, the city built up around his house and little store. The house was cute and the store sold some of the best ice cream in the tri-state area. People would come from miles around to eat the ice cream. And employees of GrimCo loved ice cream, as evidenced by Eugenia and her cousin Herbert. So they would move in to locations around the small store. Ciprania was born one sunny day when the incorporation papers were signed and Mayor Munchberg, whose son now ran the ice cream shop, sat in his new office chair and smiled at the view outside: a piece of green land that used to be part of a lonely soccer field. No one played soccer anymore anyway.

Fast forward finally to ZETA-ZETA years ago. In case you’re not catching on, that’s the present. Math is important, you know. Department 36-b-1 was never given a memo that the project had changed. They managed to test their missile and it finally flew farther than the launch pad. It managed to land right across the street, at one of GrimCo’s many buildings, just last week, which cemented the fact that they would never see the change in paperwork. To this day, they are still working on that missile. To this day, that little ice cream shop is still right in the middle of the little old soccer field that is right in the middle of the city of Ciprania, a city with a population in the thousands, instead of the population of ZETA-ZETA that it used to be when it was a nuclear missile test site. By the way, in case you were wondering, Eugenia’s cancer idea won the family contest. She was so proud. She even celebrated with a candy-confetti-topped ice cream from Ciprania.

(This was written as a stream-of-consciousness piece when I tried to imagine how the city of Ciprania (the name I gave to the community of people who support my creative endeavors) had come to be. And since most of them are also part of GrimCo/The League of Ordinary Gamers, I thought it fitting that this imaginary city sprang from that imaginary corporation. I hope you enjoyed this trip through my unfiltered brain.)

Following is a piece of fan fiction I wrote a couple of years back and just recently found again. It was written while I was playing a game called Matrix Online that was based on the Matrix movies. I’m considering using this character for something different since Matrix Online is now defunct and I liked creating the persona. It won’t have anything to do with the Matrix though. So enjoy reading this and let me know what you think of the main character.

I remember when I was a year old. I was holding one of those plastic shaped blocks that went into the ball with holes in it. Only the right shape would fit the right hole. My parents were always handing that toy to me. I think they hoped I’d get one right. But I never tried. I just stared at the thing until that day. I took the circle shape and stuck it in the circle hole. Then I put the square in it’s hole. My parents’ voices started getting louder. They were looking at me with wide eyes. From a toddlers point of view, that can be scary. You wonder if you did something wrong. I didn’t care though. After a minute, all the shapes were where they belonged. As soon as I was old enough, my parents had my IQ tested.

I’ve always been smart, just never had a passion. It’s one thing to be born with a gift. It’s another to have motivation to use it. I always got bored in school. But my parents liked those As. So I kept sending them to them on that 8 1/2 by 11 folded piece of cardboard. They’d show it around to their friends, sign it, and hand it back to me. Those were my early years.

Parents get spoiled too. My father was the worse of the two. He no longer smiled when I got an A. He just expected them. Motivation went out the window. I got bored more often. They have a saying about idle hands. It rings true even if it is someone else’s words.

“A genius is only a genius because he sees patterns no one else bothers to see.” Those are my words. They describe my world. I can sit on a park bench and watch the people go by and tell you when one will trip, when one will look in my direction, and even how many times the word “the” will be said in my vicinity within the next hour. Patterns are everywhere. Body movements are merely patterns presented physically by the brain for specific purposes. Eye glances. Eyebrow movement. How far feet step as they walk. Patterns. Our brains store those patterns and when our eyes see them, they recall the previous pattern and predict the next movement. The problem with most people is they don’t bother watching for the foundational patterns.

When I look at a person, I see binary code. No, they don’t look like little numbers. Their actions and words, however, serve as little on and off switches. Think of it as binary with billions of bits instead of only 32 or some other multiple of 8. If their eyes look up and to the right often while they talk to me, the bullshit switch is set to on. That’s an obvious one. I can’t explain the the not-so-obvious ones. I can only see them. The human body is covered in these “bits.” Some people call it an aura. I call it a pattern. A pattern of who the person is.

I can speak to a cashier and after only two minutes of conversation, I can tell you their life history. I’ve helped my friends get many women with my abilities. And of course, there was this period of my life between my teens and the “hill” when I used my pattern recognition to manipulate people as I stole from them. Not actually from them, but from their place of employment. You can have all the security in the world, but it’s only as secure as the people who control it. And people are easy. They have patterns. I see them.

But the Matrix. Man. The Matrix. That’s a pattern I didn’t foresee. It explained a lot when I ate that red pill though. Patterns have become more clear to me. My “saviors” said they could pull me out then. Said age didn’t matter anymore since there was a truce and more evidence of the existence of the Matrix was being leaked throughout Mega City. Our brains were more prepared for the change. I admit, I saw weird patterns now and then, but nothing that would have eluded me to the existence of the Matrix. The Matrix is the ultimate pattern.

I can’t see the Matrix die. Zionists can go to hell. The Matrix yanks at my very soul. It’s patterns are flawlessly executed. I found my purpose. My goal. I need to keep the Matrix around. Seems I’ve found a few others who agree. The Merovingian sent some goons my way. Asked me to work for him. When I found out his purpose, I had to agree. Zionists wanna destroy the Matrix and free the humans. Humans are, in general, a very stupid species. Most of them don’t want to be free. I say keep it that way. Why fight for them when they’re happy where they are. Machinists wanna destroy human freewill. It messes with their algorithms. Kinda funny that. The machines think they’re smarter than humans, but they have a harder time finding the patterns than a one year old does. They may be intelligent, but a machine mind will never match the human brain, when it’s used. So, “enemy of my enemy is my friend” and all that, I’m with the Merovingian. We have the same goal.

“Hey. You ready?”

“Almost. Just got one more thing to write in my journal.”

“Why do you keep writing in that thing. Think someone’s actually gonna read it?”

“I know they will. It’s a common pattern.”

“Screw patterns. Hand me a gun and I’m satisfied.”

“That’s why you’re only extra brawn, my friend.”

“Screw you,” said the club tough as he walked away to let Matthew finish.

“Enemy of my enemy.” Gotta keep that in my head. The exiles are stupid too, but at least they have the same cause. And it’s always nice to have a cause. Gives me a reason to use my gifts.

“Alright. I’m ready. What’s the mission details?”

“Find Julius Smote and kill him.”

“Then let’s get this overwith,” says Matthew as he opens the door to the apartment building.

Now that you’ve read it, I’d love your honest opinion in the comments. And feel free to link to any stories you’ve told that you’d like an opinion on also.