Million Credit Hustle A & B

A:

VRMS Arcade 7, Old Town, Neon City

June 3280

It was midnight, but the purple and green fluorescent lights outside of Arcade 7 flashed as hard techno thumped the soundscape. I caught a glimpse of familiar graffiti on the side of the building. It was a sloppily sprayed tag of "ak91", the gang that ran their protection racket on this part of Old Town. The arcade was no exception, and it was known that they were taking a cut of every credit spent.

I walked up to the busy street. Bitbolt Avenue was 16-lanes and the main road in this part of Old Town's Entertainment District. Cars, bikes and other modes of transportation flew at blinding speeds as I waited for a chance to pass.

Technically, it was illegal to cross there. There was some sort of financial penalty on the books. Of course, the bigger risk was getting squashed like a bug on the windshield of some eager taxi driver. I looked over to my side and saw some brave man about to run for it.

Frankly, he didn't look up to the challenge. He was wobbling a bit and looked inebriated. My suspicion was confirmed when I saw the flask in his right hand. Worse than that, his drooped shoulders made me doubt he had the courage to actually run across.

I called out to discourage him from crossing.

"You don't want to run across here. There's a crosswalk a couple miles down."

I wasn't about to make the trek, but mostly because I didn't want to get ID'd by the CCTV at the crosswalk. But the disheveled man acted like I'd offended him. He took a swig from his flask, sobbed deeply and made to run across the road.

"Hold on man, I'll go with—"

The man didn't heed my warning. He ran into the road and was immediately squashed by a large multi-passenger hovertruck changing lanes. The zooming hovertruck blew the man to pieces like he'd been hit by a cannonball at point blank. There was an explosion, like a piñata bursting open with a red mist and scattering bits of his internal organs like some gruesome candy.

The parts of him that didn't end up all over the road covered the windshield, causing the driver to engage the heavy duty wipers installed on all hyperspeed vehicles for this purpose.

All I could do was shake my head and shrug. He was far from the first person I'd seen get splattered trying to cross a busy street in Old Town. The way I saw it, this guy had probably been looking for a way out for a while. But it still felt like a tragedy.

Before I crossed, I grasped the hilt of the Ice Breaker .22 handgun I kept strapped to my thigh. It was a little ritual I practiced when I wanted to use my special power. As usual, I didn't have a problem getting across the street.

Goosebumps and the feeling of anticipation rose on my skin; it was a homecoming. But a thought dampened my mood. For the first time, I was going to try to enter the Arcade with a fake DigitalID account.

That's not to say the identity shifting program wouldn't work. It was good enough, at least for something that worked with my ancient Operating System. It wouldn't work on an NCMA CCTV, but it was still at least good enough to fool any vendor in Old Town.

My stomach growled as I approached the bouncer.

The bouncer was a tall and ugly cyborg; at least a third of his face was metal. The cybernetic pupil in his metallic right eye sized me up. It felt like he knew what I was there for. I swallowed hard and looked over at a public service drone that was floating next to the line to enter the arcade. It was projecting a report from the Neon City Metropolitan Authority (NCMA).

A hologram appeared in mid-air and a rail-thin blonde woman in a black dress relayed a message with grim earnestness.

"Please enjoy your time in the arcades of the historic district of Old Town. But remember, VRMS Hustling is a crime. If you see or know anyone pressuring patrons to place bets for real credits, please, report them using your NCMA App immediately."

The bouncer nodded, put his hand on my shoulder and spoke low into my ear.

"Graze Bleu? What are you doing back here? You better stay out of trouble."

I shuddered as I walked into the arcade. When I checked on my HUD, I saw that my false identity was indeed set to 'Mark Flash'. That old bouncer must've remembered me from when I was a frequent customer. Thankfully, they didn't pay the bouncers enough to actually care.

The truth was that there was enough risk from the Anti-Hustling Law that I wanted to stop doing it. I was looking at more than a short house arrest if I got in anymore trouble with the law. Not to mention, my debt was still being taken out of my account every month. So without any steady work from ak91, I was starting to get desperate. Hence my return to the old stomping grounds.

A hard wave of nostalgia hit me as I stepped onto the gritty black floor of Arcade 7. Inside, piercing strobes of bright neon lights bounced around the room. Once my eyes adjusted I scanned the room.

Despite the time, it was completely packed with people. Elbow-to-elbow, I pushed through a sea of sweaty gamers towards my favorite machine.

Arcade 7 ran all-day everyday and it was always packed. When I was hustling there back in my heyday, I would spend a whole week on the machines and not even notice. Naturally, the ownership loved this behavior. I remember one particular win-streak was turned into a 2-week long bender; thanks to management being especially generous and giving me unlimited caffeine injections. The streak only ended when my body shutdown completely from exhaustion. It was a pleasant memory, at least until I recalled the resulting hospital bill that was still a partial contributor to my debt.

I looked around at the machines for a good mark. The trick was to find someone who was on a winning streak. They tended to get overconfident. The only problem would be getting this person to agree to a, now illegal, money bet.

The group around one of the machines was making more of a commotion than the others. A young man screeched out from that machine in agony as the post-match music played.

"What?! How did you beat me again? I had you… but this stupid thing just froze. It had to be a glitch. Oh no, I know. You paid off management to handicap my machine!"

Sensing a potential mark, I elbowed my way through.

There was a boy and girl sitting at a two-person machine. The boy looked like the typical Old Town street kid. He was probably a few years younger than me, but already had that "Old Town Edge" that would seem crass to someone from another district.

The guy was the standard game-addicted kid you'd expect, but the girl was something different. The way she hid her face with sunglasses, combined with her low-hanging beret, made her stand out immediately. There was a fantastic looking blue broach pinned to her gothic black dress. It looked like she was trying to be inconspicuous, but it was obvious she wasn't from around there.

The VRMS were large and built to imitate the actual cockpit of a Mechagear. Each one was fitted with an Intergalactic Authority Standard Interface with a flight stick, dashboard and a large screen acting as the front window. Once you plugged your HIC (Human Interface Cable) into the machine, it took over your visual and auditory senses and threw you into the game world.

But there was something special about the new generation of VRMS. Purportedly, they were tailored to perfectly simulate the experience of piloting a real Mechagear. At least, that's how they were marketed. I sighed as I remembered that an Old Town street kid like me would never get close enough to a real Mechagear to be able to tell the difference.

I patted the boy on the shoulder as he was protesting in the cockpit.

"You lost. It's over. Have some dignity and get off the machine."

He snarled at me and threw my hand off his shoulder. Now, I didn't care about the attitude. I didn't like losing matches either. But as I looked at the girl sitting in the machine next to him, I knew this wasn't an opportunity I should pass up.

So, gently, I pulled out my Ice Breaker .22 and subtly pushed it against his ribcage. For a moment I thought it was overkill, but then he got out of the way quickly.

I got into the VRMS and took a better look at the girl in the other cockpit.

A long strand of silver hair had fallen on her face. She'd had her hair done up and under her beret, but it looked like she'd knocked it loose making wild motions while piloting.

As I looked past the lock of hair, she took off her glasses to clean them.

My heart stopped.

She was stunningly beautiful. Her eyes were like pure crystal reflecting blue water. Then I noticed her eye color perfectly matched the blue broach on her dress. Her eyes shimmered, reflecting the light from the broach and the sudden glare hypnotized me.

"Excuse me, sir. Your DigitalID says your name is… Mark… Flash? Surely that is an assumed name, I suppose. Regardless, you mustn't stare at me like that."

She examined my face carefully and wrinkled her nose like she'd just smelled something nasty.

"I see. Your eyes are dilating. That means you must find me attractive, as a woman. Let me stop you before you embarrass yourself: I do not reciprocate those feelings. So get that out of your head. No… that wasn't strong enough. Saevi told me to be more forward. In fact, you're repulsive. And it's not because you're from Old Town. No, it's how you leer at me through your hollow eyes, like a cold dead fish. It's disgusting."

Honestly, I was stunned. Not to brag, but I never had a problem with girls. Usually, they just seemed to like me naturally.

Now, being blunt wasn't that unusual for Old Town. But the manner in which she spoke certainly was.

She had an accent and high-brow vocabulary that was not common in the poorer parts of Neon City. She was trying to hide it, but I could tell she was a Trojan. At least that explained why she didn't have a problem talking down to me. But then that made me curious about what one of them was doing in this Old Town dump.

The name listed on her DigitalID came up as 'Ice Cream'. Frankly, it sounded about as phony as 'Mark Flash'.

She pushed back one of the braids from the front of her face. Her eyebrow furrowed as she stared back at me. In addition to being gorgeous, she was also incredibly cute. So cute, that I almost felt bad I was about to hustle her. But then she opened her mouth again.

"You're still staring. I carry a gun, you know."

I shook my head and finally averted my gaze; taking a look over at the scoreboard above the machines before I responded.

Wins: 22

Losses: 0

So she was a good pilot. And she already had a bit of an attitude. I wondered if it would even be worth hustling this annoying girl who was apparently pretty good.

Then, my stomach grumbled. I started to think about the meal I'd treat myself to after hustling this rich girl. My stomach growled louder. It'd been at least a week since I'd gotten a full dinner. I glanced back at the sparkling blue broach pinned to her ornate black dress. At least it didn't look like she'd miss the money.

"Mark? Mark Flash? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Let's get started."

The game we chose was Nexus Rift, the newest installment in Takahashi Software's Nexus series. All the games were known for their realism, particularly their recreation of historic Mechagear battles. Takahashi Software was Neon City-based and every boy in the city had played one of their games. But, at least in Old Town, few were as skilled as I was.

B:

It turned out that she was a talented pilot with unique strategy and tactics. One of the best I'd ever seen.

Nexus Rift featured a full roster of Mechagear models from the top producers. I selected my favorite and was immediately contacted by 'Ice' via the in-game comms.

"The S.H.I.N.J.I.-Asuka Hunter X? Interesting choice, but I'll be surprised if you can actually control it."

She was right. All of S.H.I.N.J.I.'s Mechagear models were hard to control. This one was Light-weight and its agility and movement were unparalleled, but every S.H.I.N.J.I. model used a custom-mapped interface to optimize control. Basically, you had to be a real hardcore gearhead to get much out of a S.H.I.N.J.I. But if you were, if you had the skill, a S.H.I.N.J.I could do things mechas could only dream of.

For her part, Ice chose something more conventional. The Solnya NEON Defender, a Heavy-weight Mechagear known as the #1 commercial model produced by Neon City industrial titan Solnya Corp.

Our battlefield was chosen randomly. It was a bombed out and depleted city. Blown out cars and tumbleweeds were the only things populating the streets around the abandoned buildings.

When the match started we were setup to face each other on a long strip of road. Our mechas stood tall above the skyline of the once bustling downtown.

The sun glared down and the wind blew through the quiet city as we faced off. I looked past her and over the city skyline to a large body of water off in the distance. Normally, I would lure her over there and take the fight underwater. But first, I had to lure her into the bet. I was going to let her take an early advantage and get confident. Then offer a money bet against her pride.

My game plan was to sit back and wait for her, so I could learn her strategy. But she managed to catch me off-guard. Given the high defense stat of Ice's Solnya NEON Defender, I naturally assumed she'd prefer to tank and try to make it a close quarters fight. Instead, she did two things that signified a deep knowledge of Solnya Mechagear models.

First, she used their radar jamming tech. Within two seconds of the match starting, she'd already knocked out my radar. But she was standing right in front of me, so I wasn't sure why she'd bothered. Until she made her next move.

Three bombs flew out of her cannon and headed straight at me. I had no problem dodging them, but when I'd recovered I understood her real plan.

The bombs exploded into an enormous, but otherwise harmless could of black smoke. But now I'd lost sight of her. I had no radar and now the smoke was clouding my vision.

I deployed my mecha's energy sword, swung it and used the wind resistance to clear the smoke. Now my radar was still down, but at least I could see. Of course, by that point Ice was long gone, having left no sign of where she went.

That move shocked me. Stealth with a Heavy-weight Defense mech was a high-level tactic. Military-grade, even.

A feeling of dread flashed through my chest. I knew I was being watched.

There was an explosion in the distance, like a cannon shot. A few moments later, all the emergency systems on my mecha had been triggered. The lights were all flashing red as I watched my system health meter crash to zero.

[WARNING: Mechagear has sustained critical damage to head area. System shutdown imminent.]

One second later, I was looking at the leaderboard and the word "Loser" was displayed prominently in my HUD. Then Ice contacted me over the comms.

"That was fun. For me at least. Would you like me to beat you again? You won't have a fit like that other kid, right?"

I'll admit I was surprised. Although I'd planned to lose the first match, and should've been glad she was already so cocky, something still didn't sit right with me. I felt like she was too smug. So I decided to go ahead and up the ante.

"Ok Ice. But let's do it for money this time."

When we started the next match, she started with the same strategy. But this time I was ready… or so I thought. By using a different spot for sniping, she caught me again in the next two rounds.

Quickly, I was already down 2,000 credits I definitely didn't have.

She contacted me again before the next match.

"Can you even cover all this? Perhaps you've bitten off more than you can chew, I suppose?"

That annoyed me even more. So I decided to pull out all the stops.

There was a secret I had. A sort of power no one else knew about.

Sometimes, I could shift into a higher mental gear. If I concentrated in a certain way, it was like I could move in hyper speed while everyone else remained in slow-motion.

Really, it was the edge that put me over the top at VRMS. But, because of the harsh side effect, I only used it when absolutely necessary. It seemed like beating this smug girl was a worthy cause.

When the next round started, I could tell she was going to do the same thing. But this time I stopped her. She was so slowed down that as soon as the match started, before she could even shoot the smoke bombs, I closed the distance between us. She was able to deactivate the radar, but before the bombs launched I'd shoved my energy sword right into her cannon.

The bombs then exploded while still inside her mech. This filled her cockpit with the gas and badly damaged the mech. The steam seeped out of the seams of the mech and I knew she'd need to forfeit.

I contacted her over the comms to gloat.

"Weren't expecting that, were you?"

All I heard from her was coughing and choking on the smoke. It was impressive that the simulation was even able to simulate irritation in the lungs. A few moments later, I was awarded the round.