Reborn Gamer

Chapter III: Five Years Old

Since my rebirth, my life had taken on a strange equilibrium with roughly a few months of the year spent in Paris, while the rest of the time we traveled. I spent enough time in Paris to consider it my city. As a guy who had gone from living in his small, ratty, apartment, to living in the heart of Paris was a great change of pace.

I was too young to explore the city by myself, but my mother or one of the studio crew members were always happy to go on walks with me. Needing a chaperone where ever I went got old very fast, and I couldn wait until I was older so I could explore by myself.

My mother wasn a fan of video games, so for the time being, I stayed away from them. A part of me hated it, I have never gone so long without playing a video game in either of my lives. Even as a child in my first life, I had spent years in the arcade. If there were any arcades in Paris, I didn know where they were.

She wouldn even consider buying me a game, so I was left to watch videos on YouTube and Twitch. I had been reincarnated seven years after I died and the video game scene had changed so much. I completely missed Mass Effect, and it didn seem like I was going to get to play it anytime soon.

The rest of the year was spent traveling. Either for tours, or events or because the record label needed Madeleine here or there for whatever reason. I didn know the details, and at first, it was because of all the missing knowledge I had to contend with in French. By the time I was two years old, I had a better working grasp of the language, but by that point, I didn care what reason her label had for sending Aphrodite everywhere.

I didn know if it was this kids brain or if I was just a genius, but by the time I was two, I had an excellent working grasp of French. I was picking French up a lot quicker than I should have been able to. Frankly a lot faster than I would have if I was still Jacob. Since I wasn this smart in my last life, I concluded that it was the kid brain.

Weren kids just information sponges? It must be true because I felt like I was sucking up everything I learned.

I wasn in France for a lot of the year, so when I turned three, I didn have to start my education like other children. Those education laws only applied to children that were in the country, so that left me free and clear. As an American, I started school when I was five, so I was keen to enjoy my childhood while it lasted.

My mother, on the other hand, was not. She had gone through the French education system and considered it the best in the world, whatever that meant. She might be a little irresponsible and free-spirited, but education is something that she took very seriously.

So to make sure I reaped the benefits of French education, she hired me a private tutor. Daliah was a severe woman, the kind of person you would picture being the headmistress of a nineteenth-century boarding school. She was a specialist that focused on the private education of French children, who for whatever reason, had to travel. She came with us whenever we were out of the country and she made sure to drill everything children my age would be learning into my head.

Which quickly became a pain. She cut into my exploring time, my time with mom, and my free time! It seemed like every day I had a new lesson, which was true. Every. Freaking. Day. New lesson. New lesson. Review your old lessons. New lesson. Test. We have to make sure you
e not behind your piers. This is important!

I could have lived both of my lives without ever meeting Daliah and I would have been happier for it. But my mother was an education nut and she refused to dismiss the woman that was making her only kid suffer.

It was while we were in the south of France when I first laid eyes on the Voxen 1000 Cafe Runner. It was a French motorcycle and from the moment I saw it, I wanted it, but I was far too young to drive. I did take a picture of it and connected a few links to my google account.

In August 2016, we were in Japan for another concert. Preparation was already complete, so the band and staff members had nothing to do. I had finished the hellish work that Daliah had assigned me, so I was likewise free. My mother wanted to go and see a movie, even if she couldn understand it. The film she chose was Kimi no Na wa, or Your Name. Given my circumstance in having been reborn, I imagine you might be able to see the appeal the movie had to me.

That first time watching it, I couldn understand a word that was said, but I got the gist through the scenes. I came out of that movie and asked if we could watch it again. My mom obliged me.

When we left Japan, I made my mother promise to get me a Japanese tutor. I was fluent in English and proficient in French, so why not try my hand at Japanese?

It made me miss my video games, but my mother wouldn hear about it. The Xbox One came out the year I was born and I hadn even gotten the chance to play it. In 2017, the Xbox One X came out and despite my protests, my mother just laughed, she rubbed my head and talked about her next tour.

As a side note, I don know if Ive told you this yet, but French food is amazing. Im still an American at heart, even if I was reborn in France, and I do miss some of the classic American foods, but French food was so good. I can see why they called it French cuisine. Enjoying real French food in France was one of the best parts about being reborn.

I was five years old in June of 2018. That was when my mother bought me a phone. ”Its time you have one, ” she said. ”If you get lost, you can call me. Or you can message all your friends. ”

The only friends I had were group mates and the staff the record label sent with us. I didn count Daliah.

My mother bought me the Aqua, the newest model Stardust Mobile had. If you made me compare it, I would say its like the Samsung Galaxy, the flagship of the Stardust line. To my mom, I was five, and she was giving me a flagship phone. From her perspective, I should have been given an entry-level phone, not that I was complaining.

In France, WhatsApp dominated everything else. All my moms friends used WhatsApp and thats how they stayed in contact. I downloaded WhatsApp and added my mom and her bandmates. And I was added to the band group chat.

Stardust Mobile must have taken a note out of Apples playbook because they went about developing their phones in the same way. Though thankfully they accepted the universal charger and didn attempt to make a special one. Other than the universal charger, they had started to create their own ecosystem.

My Aqua was sleek and black, emblazoned with the silver rose icon of the Aqua on the back. And honestly, it looked pretty nice. I wasn going to lie.

I liked Aphrodites music, but I wasn the biggest fan. I wondered what one of their ultra fans would do if they got a hold of my phone.

We settled on Stardust Mobile. According to their Wikipedia page. The company was founded in 2010, as a subsidiary of Stardust Technologies, which in turn was founded in 2001. In 2015, Stardust Technologies bought BlackBerry Limited, taking over the company. They directed their phone technology to Stardust Mobile, while the rest of the company was incorporated into Stardust Technologies.

Both Stardust Technologies and Stardust Mobile were founded by Alexander Petrov…

Petrov… I knew that name. I clicked on his Wikipedia page and sure enough, he had one son, a boy named Andrei. I didn pay attention to his daughters, but his sons name stood out too. I remembered what Athena had said about the inventor of virtual reality. His name was Andrei Petrov.

I googled Titanic, and sure enough, I couldn find a thing about it sinking. Most people didn seem to know what it was and most of the information that I found about it was from old newspaper articles. It never sank in this world, so it never became famous. Everyone traveling to America by Titanic made it.

I looked at Alexander Petrovs Wikipedia page and his grandfather had come to the United States via the titanic. So Stardust Technologies and Stardust Mobile were companies that didn exist in my last life. Because Alexander Petrov had never been born.

So the Titanic hadn sunk in this world. Everything Athena said was true. That meant that Athena was real and so was Set. And I was now stuck in the middle of some supernatural dick-measuring contest. I really wished that the Athena part of things had been a dream.

So how long before Andrei Petrov invented Virtual Reality? It was coming. There was nothing I could do about that.

***

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