Noon in Arashiyama District

The sun hung high over the Arashiyama district of in-game Kyoto, its rays bouncing off sleek skyscrapers and neon billboards.

This wasn't your grandma's Kyoto - hell, it wasn't even your daddy's Kyoto. The real-life bamboo groves had been replaced by towering structures of glass and steel, their surfaces alive with scrolling ads and pulsing lights. Hoverbikes zipped between buildings, leaving trails of electric blue in their wake.

The air hummed with the constant chatter of augmented reality interfaces and the low throb of quantum generators powering the city's endless hunger for energy.

Perched atop a massive digital billboard, her legs dangling over the edge of oblivion, sat a girl who looked about as exciting as plain tofu.

Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail so tight it probably gave her a headache. She wore a crisp white shirt and pleated skirt combo that passed her off as a school girl.

If you passed her on the street, your eyes would slide right off her like she was coated in boring-repellent.

But looks, as they say, can be deceiving as fuck.

The girl's fingers danced across a personal digital assistant (PDA) device that looked like it had fallen out of a 90s sci-fi flick.

It was mostly screen, with chunky buttons along the sides and a camera plugged into the top like a weird metal hat.

"Vroom-vroom, bzzzt-bzzzt, whirr-whirr!!"

She hummed a tune under her breath, some pop song from her headphones that had been rotting her brains for the past three weeks.

Click. Click. Click.

With each press of a button, the view on her screen changed. Zooming in, panning across the bustling street below. She was hunting.

"High score kill, found ya!"

She whispered, a predatory grin splitting her face as she snapped a picture of two people who looked so mind-numbingly average they could've been computer-generated background characters.

The couple strolled hand-in-hand, window shopping and laughing at some shared joke.

The girl's smile widened. 'They have no idea what's coming.'

She pulled out a thin metal rod from the top of her device, transforming it into something similar to a satellite phone and started a transmission.

"By the power vested in me as a member of the Binary Butterflies," she intoned, trying to keep a straight face and failing miserably,

"I launch quest 321."

A tinny voice chirped from the speakers: "Voiceprint verified! Quest 321 verified by tier 'W' group Binary Butterflies!! Activated!! Make SWARM proud!"

The girl rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. SWARM this, SWARM that. As if I give two shits about their stupid pyramid scheme. Why can't we all get the good stuff for free instead of working so hard for them?"

But she did give a shit, didn't she? That's why she was out here, wasn't it? Playing their game, climbing their ladder. The Digital Swarm was one of the 'Awakened' organizations that ran the Arashiyama district, and if you wanted to be anybody in deadlock's version of Arashiyama, you had to play by their rules.

The system was simple, at least on paper. You started at the bottom, in one of the 'M' tier gangs. Do enough jobs, prove your worth, and you might make it to 'R'. Then 'A', then 'W'. And if you were really good (or really ruthless), you'd get invited to join an 'S' tier gang. From there, if the stars aligned and you sacrificed the right number of virgins or whatever, you might – might – get tapped to join The Digital Swarm itself.

It was bullshit, of course. A way to keep the hungry masses in line, dangling that carrot of power and prestige. But what choice did she have? It was climb or be trampled.

Her musings were interrupted by a commotion below. A guy dressed like a clown came careening down the street on a tricycle that looked like it had been welded together from scrap metal.

Balloons and stuffed animals fluttered behind him.

"Oh someone's already on the job. That was fast. It must be a 'R' or 'M' tier. Those guys are rejects, they can't do anything right, yet they are all over the place picking up quests from the higher ups."

The girl chirped, watching to see what happened next.

As the clown passed the couple she'd just photographed, the clown tossed a unicorn plushie to the woman. "Matches your eyes, sweetheart!" he called out, his voice muffled by the oversized red nose strapped to his face.

The woman giggled, catching the toy. She hugged it to her thick boobs with a squeal of delight. Her boyfriend, however, was less than thrilled.

"Hey, asshole!" he shouted after the retreating clown. "Stop giving people's girlfriends cute shit or I'll rearrange your face!"

The girl on the billboard snorted. 'Compensating much?'

She watched as the clown pedaled away, pulling out a device similar to her own. A moment later, his whooping laughter echoed off the buildings.

"Hundred SWARM points, baby! Tier 'A', here I come!"

'Amateur', she thought. 'But not bad. Now for the main event.'

The girl's attention snapped back to the couple as the stuffed unicorn began to swell in the woman's arms.

"Honey, look!"

She called to her boyfriend, who was still grumbling about clowns and property rights.

He turned, curiosity overcoming his jealousy. "What the—"

BOOM!!

The explosion wasn't big, not by action movie standards.

But it was enough.

A flash of sickly yellow light, a puff of acrid smoke, and two bodies hit the pavement with wet thuds. Their brains splattering onto the streets.

For a moment, all she could hear was the pounding of her own heart. Then the screaming started. The pedestrians around the scene made themselves scarce. Either caught up in the blast or running for cover.

"Quest completed!" The voice from her PDA said. For now, she had a report to file and points to collect.

"In this world, you either played to win or you didn't play at all." She muttered, pocketing her device and headed for the maintenance ladder.

___

Across the street, nestled among the neon-drenched storefronts, sat a nondescript café.

Near the floor-to-ceiling windows, a young man lounged in a chair. His jawline could've cut glass, and his eyes held the kind of intensity usually reserved for anime protagonists about to unleash their final form.

His hair was tousled in unruly ways, probably to conceal his identity from those who might know him.

As the explosion rocked the street, he didn't flinch. His gaze flicked from the chaos below to the girl perched on the billboard, his mind connecting invisible dots as he gulped down his third espresso of the hour.

He pushed his transparent glasses up the bridge of his nose. The lenses caught the light, momentarily obscuring his eyes and giving him an air of mystery that was probably entirely intentional.

"Underhand tactics as usual!"

Ned muttered, his voice a low growl that made the espresso in the cup vibrate ever so slightly.

***