As the family and I approached the town center, it became apparent that the late winter chill had not deterred most of the residents of Forestend, our small town close to the southeastern edge of the Marigold Empire, from attending. Giving both mom and dad a hug, I headed over to where the rest of the ten-year-olds were standing.

“Name?” Asked a lady with a clipboard.

“Uh, Melissa Cobbler,” I answer.

“Ah! Here we are,” the lady's voice was kind, marking something on her clipboard. “Let me be the first to congratulate you on whatever class the System deems fit for you, Ms. Cobbler. Please wait here until your name is called during the ceremony. When your name is announced, please use those steps.” She pointed to a set of steps placed next to the temporary stage at the center of the square. “to ascend onto the stage.”

“Um, thank you, ma’am.” I acknowledged before joining the growing crowd. It was clear from the chatter around me that the twelve boys and seven girls were excited to get their first class. Most of the boys and a good chunk of the girls hoped to get a combat-oriented class and join the Adventurers Guild. While the rest hoped to get a class that would help them in their families’ business. After all the nightmares, I wasn’t sure what I wanted. Adventuring could be fun, exploring new places and challenging dungeons to gain riches. However, there is something to be said about a quiet life in a small town like Forestend. That was probably what made me so anxious and probably what contributed to the nightmares, not knowing. As the bells in the tower of the town’s only church sounded seven, the Mayor ascended the stairs to the small podium on the stage.

“Welcome everyone to this year's Initiation Ceremony,” the Mayor said, his voice caring across the town center even though he didn’t shout. “as we say goodbye to winter and welcome the warmth of spring, we also celebrate those who have turned ten over the last year. This year, we have a staggering twenty-three boys and girls ready to take the next step on this journey we call life. The System will use the skills and accomplishments these boys and girls have gained over the last ten years to grant them their first class.” The mayor paused a few minutes while waiting for the crowd to settle and turned to our small group, “Now, when I call your name, please come up onto the stage and place your hand on the Selection Orb.” As the Mayor said this, two people walked onto the stage. One had a wooden pedestal, which he put near the podium, while the other carried an ornate pillow with a large orb nestled into its center. Placing the pillow on the pedestal, the two helpers retreated off the stage. The Mayor smiled at our group before calling the first name “Adrian Smith.”

A tall, lanky boy made his way onto the stage. He had been one of the few who wanted a class to help him around the forge at his family's blacksmithing shop. The boy stood before the pedestal and placed his hand on the orb…and nothing happened. At least to us, but from the little information I could get from my parents, I knew the boy’s senses would be assaulted by blue boxes only he could see. Adrian stood there for a good three minutes before taking his hand from the orb and stepping back, swaying a bit. The mayor helped steady him and said something to the boy, whatever skill the mayor had been using, no longer carrying his voice to the crowd. The boy said something in response, and the mayor wrote something on a sheet of paper on the podium. Looking steadier, Adrian made his way off the stage and to where his family was waiting, and the mayor called up the next person. As each name was called, the scene repeated itself, with the only difference being how long it took the person to return to reality.

It became evident that the names were being called in the order of when people arrived because, by the time my name was called, only three of us were left. I took a deep breath and went up the stairs and onto the stage. Standing before the pedestal, I placed my hand on the orb, and nothing seemed to happen for about a minute, then…

Welcome Melissa Cobbler

Please wait…

A few seconds later, a red box replaced it.

An Error has occurred. Contacting a System Administrator for assistance.

Before I could even comprehend what I was seeing—a red screen instead of the blue one my parents had mentioned—it disappeared only to be replaced by another red screen.

Error: No System Administrators found. Initiating Failsafe Protocol…

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Finally, when this one disappeared, it was replaced by what I could assume was the standard welcome message all the other children had been given. But what in the world was the administrator class?

Congratulations! Through your Skills and Accomplishments, you have been granted the Class: Administrator.

But my delight at finally getting a normal blue screen was soon dashed as another of the now familiar red screens replaced it a second before my entire vision went black.

Error: UX configuration incompatible with current class. Reinitializing UX Configuration

When my vision cleared, I no longer stood on the stage with my hand on the crystal orb. Instead, I was in a house the likes of which I had never seen before. A young girl about my age stood before a wall with glowing rectangular objects displaying strings of incomprehensible characters.

“There you are,” the girl said to something on the screen, “and fixed. What the fuck were my moronic creators thinking when they made the brilliant fucking decision to make the System Administrator class the default class. Oh, wait, I know exactly what they were thinking: we’ve designed this system so well that in no conceivable way would the default class ever be used. It’s probably a good thing that they’re no longer around because I’d be liable to ring their necks. Now then, what the fuck to do with you.” The girl said the last part, turning to me and dropping into a seat behind the large wooden desk in the center of the room.

“Um, what's going on?” I asked, looking around the room with walls made of glowing rectangles and objects with wires and cords connecting them. Most of those objects had lights flashing at regular intervals. One wall was made of glass overlooking a large lake with some type of watercraft moored to a dock.

“Simply put,” the girl said, pulling my attention away from the view, “due to a bug in the Class Selection Subsystem, or CSS, you’ve been given the System Administrator Class, and because of a core security protocol put in place when my systems were first created I can't do a solitary dame thing about it.”

“Um,” I say, not sure how to respond to that, not to mention I didn’t even understand half of what this girl was talking about.

“Ha, I guess it was too much for me to think you’d have even a basic grasp of Information Technology or Computer Science, considering your world hasn’t even had an industrial revolution yet, let alone a computer revolution. Let's see how I can dumb it down so you’ll understand. Ah, okay. You know that when you turn ten, the system selects your first class, right?”

“Um Yes,”

“Well, that process ran into a problem, those red screens you saw. Trying to recover from that problem, the process gave you the class it was designed to give when it couldn’t determine what class to assign.”

“Okay,” I say, thinking I understood so far. “So what's the problem?”

“The problem,” the girl says, “is that in the infinite wisdom of my creators, they decided that the default class would be the System Administrator Class.”

“So if it's my class that's the problem, then why don’t you rerun the selection process, and maybe this time, it won't run into any problems?” I say, thinking that was the most likely solution.

“Rerun the selection process, she says,” the girl says with mock laughter, “I would if I could, but again, because of my fucking moronic creators, the moment you were given the Sys Admin Class, there was jack all I could do about it. Essentially, you are now outside the System's control. After all, as the system admin, you don’t want the system you are administrating to one day remove your access and leave you with no way of shutting it down as it goes rogue and starts killing the world's population a la Skynet.” Bitterness had crept into her tone at the last bit.

“Wait,” I say as something she’s been saying finally clicks. “Are you saying I have control over the System with this Administrator Class?”

“Ding, Ding, Ding, give the girl a prize; she finally gets it,” the girl says, her voice thick with sarcasm.

“You know I could do without the sarcastic reply,” I say, getting a little fed up with how this girl, who I was coming to suspect was the intelligence behind the System, was talking. I know some people, especially in the Mage’s Guild, believed there was intelligence behind the system, but no one has ever had any proof.

“Sorry, not sorry,” the girl says with a shrug, “ you’re the first non-binary entity I’ve talked to in tens of thousands of years.”

“So what now, and how do I return to where I was.”

“Well, to answer your second question, physically, you never left; I just pulled your mind into this virtual environment so we could chat. When you log out, you’ll return to your body. As to your first question, I’ll show you how to operate the Administrator Interface, and then you can get started on the three million two hundred seven thousand six hundred twenty-six support tickets that have accumulated since the last time a System Admin was here.” a pause then the girl burst out laughing, “you should see the look on your face. I’m only kidding, but seriously, if you do get bored and want something to do, I won't stop you from trying your hand at closing some of those tickets. I would, but most of my processing power is tied up in keeping this system running, and frankly, some of those tickets need a fleshy meat bag to handle them anyway.”

“Okay,” I said, ignoring that last bit, “so what is this Administrator Interface?”