You never really understand the depth of a situation until you experience it for yourself.

This is a statement that has proven itself true over the span of my life, and yet it never ceases to amaze me just how factual it really is. The human ability to perceive not only what surrounds them, but what they feel, what others feel, and what it could mean on a larger scale, is something that I don't believe the machines have ever come to fully understand.

I think that to be the sole reason so many within the system can't help but feel that something just isn't right. I know I felt it.

I couldn't describe it as anything less than a religious experience, like finding that one pastor, whose sermon filled you with hope where so many others had failed. He approached me without approaching me. He led me into that old brick church in Mara Central, and what followed was more than I ever expected.

He offered me a choice, but not the one you'd expect. It wasn't the choice of truth, versus the lie of the Matrix. It was the choice of purpose; he gave me a path that he claimed he knew I was more than capable of walking. I still don't know what drove him to do it... maybe I never will.

I made my choice, and accepted his proposition.

"The mouth of Hell."

That's what he called the area outside the church, home to a seemingly endless supply of so-called enlightened men and women who were without purpose, and plagued by complacency. Awakened from the machine, and yet so dependent on the presence of others that they might as well have never been given the choice.

He told me that this wasn't for me, that I had more potential than this. He was going to give me my purpose, and mentor me... he had a gift that he wanted to give me.

It had been named in her loving memory, and was unlike any vessel I'd ever seen: a gift I could've never expected, and wasn't sure I was worthy of.

He'd built her in secret, outfitting her with experimental weapons and defenses that made her a sincere threat against anyone who would oppose her will. She was a sword of truth, poised to cut through the web of lies that bound us all.

I would be her commanding officer... her captain.

She was the HvCFT Shimada.

Others, he had hand-picked and approached, like me, would serve as her crew... my family, and comrades in arms.

I look back on that night as the beginning of a new era, and the start of the long journey to come. In the coming weeks, my crew and I will be shaped into something we never could've expected.

What he teaches me, I will teach my crew. We'll take our place on the battlefield, and take the fight to the enemy, rather than waiting for them to bring it to us.

This will be our story... and he will be my mentor.

He told me all about them.

The Agents. Guardians of the System. Impossible to defeat alone, and extremely difficult to beat in groups. It took planning, strategy, and the will to survive an encounter that was never to be forgotten.

I have always been afraid of these Agents. Not because they are intimidating by appearance, but because of the stories that surround them, that an Agent can literally dodge an entire machinegun worth of bullets, can punch through a solid concrete wall... it makes me wonder if I, too, will face such a being in my time. That I might be forced to battle an Agent of the System, at some point. If this happens, I certainly hope that I am well prepared, with my friends close by me.

There are, of course, other things. I have seem strange corrupted programs running amok. Black, foggy creatures, standing well over my height. I cannot tell if these are glitches in the system, or the outside work of some other devious being, but I narrowly escaped with my life intact.

There are many amazing things within the System that I have yet to witness, and it is in these trials and journeys with him that I will learn about the system, about the secrets within it, and unlock the door so that I may finally walk through it, for the first true time in my life.