Shinji stretched his arms up and yawned, leaning back in a comfortable white reclining chair that sat in front of his computer desk. He had dark bags under his eyes from lack of sleep and messy short black hair that hadn’t seen a shower in days. In front of him were several floating screens displaying random video feeds from players within the Shattered World.

He glanced to his left and right to see several other people just like him, sitting in chairs of different styles and comfort. All of them staring at two or three screens at once, waving their fingers at keyboards and controls floating in front of them.

“This sucks.” Shinji groaned to the others.

“It’s not that bad.” Another person replied without looking from their screens.

“Come on, no one likes highlight hunting. It’s why it’s a punishment, no one does it voluntarily.” Shinji replied.

“Maybe you should stop arguing with the boss, then you’ll stop getting stuck in here.” He replied. Shinji just made a huffing sound, looking back to his monitors - unlike the other employees within the room, he was watching 6 at once.

“How much longer?” Shinji groaned.

“Just focus, find some good clips to use in the next broadcast.”

“From all these wannabes? C’mon. Look, check out this guy.” Shinji motioned to one of his screens. With a few wags of his fingers he enlarged the screen so that it was displayed on the back wall for all 5 of the employees in the room. The stream was of a guy sitting beside a river somewhere within the Shattered World, fishing. “I’m supposed to get a highlight clip from this?”

“What if he catches something big?”

“It looks so relaxing.”

“That just makes me want to log in and go fish.”

“Bleh.” Shinji complained at their responses, shrinking the screen back down so the others could get back to work. One of his screens suddenly flashed with bright red flames, drawing his attention, and he saw in front of him the feed of Keldan’s livestream clip. The livestreamer had shot a fireball, and once it had cleared he saw a person standing there in the midst of the smoke. A level 6 player had stopped the blast and protected a bunch of low levels from dying, but as Winter’s avatar appeared, the screen flashed red, and in big black letters ‘C.O - B24’ appeared on the screen before the footage disappeared and got replaced by another streamer's footage.

“Nuh uh, that looked interesting.” Shinji sat up and began wagging his fingers around, bringing the footage back and closing his other 5 screens to enlarge it. He watched through the entire clip, right until the end, and his eyes lit up with excitement.

“Guys, what’s C.O B24 mean?” Shinji asked his co-workers.

“No idea.” They replied with a few confused and uninterested shrugs.

“Be right back.” Shinji replied. He pressed a few more buttons to save the clip to a chip, then opened his Simbox interface to exit Virtual Gaming Network Suite simulation.

When the simulation ended, Shinji in his real body stepped out of a state of the art Simbox in a room with several others, still in use, all of them labeled with the logo for Virtual Gaming Network, VGN with a light green keyboard underneath. He pressed a button on the side of his Simbox and a small chip was ejected, which he quickly grabbed. With it in hand he walked out of the large room into the adjacent hallway and walked past several doors until reaching a glass door with a tall blonde lady wearing a dress suit inside, sitting behind a desk with her ear implant glowing. Shinji knocked on the glass lightly to which she nodded him in and motioned him to have a seat while she finished up her conversation.

Shinji sat down and waited for her ear implant to stop glowing, then carefully placed the chip on her desk.

“What’s this?” She eyed it.

“That’s what I wanted to ask you. What’s C O B 24?”

“You’ve been a Sim-Editor for 10 years and you don’t know?” She looked at him disapprovingly.

“Should I?”

“I guess it’s rarely used nowadays. Censorship Order from the Online Protection Act, B24…” She fidgeted around with her keyboard a minute and then spun her computer monitor to face him. Shinji began reading while she continued. “It’s for when famous people don’t want their fame to hinder the lives of their loved ones. Under that order, we’re restricted from knowingly sharing and promoting any footage that intentionally contains the relatives of that person. I’m going to go ahead and guess that on that chip is footage of Makarath’s son?”

“Y-yeah, how’d you know?” Shinji pulled back as he finished reading the page.

“His lawyers came in hard with that the other day, not just to us, the other networks as well. So no more clips of highlights including his son, or interviews, or anything, unless expressly permitted by the famous individual, or the relative in question if they are 16 years or older.”

“Can we get permission somehow? The clip is pretty crazy, watch.” Shinji took the chip and injected it into the side of her monitor, so that the clip began to play. His boss leaned back in her chair and watched it, it had been edited to be watched within 15 minutes by Shinji. He watched it with her as she laughed at Winter’s antics, then leaned in with anticipation in the final minutes.

“Damn… this is good.” She commented once it ended.

“So, can we get in contact with Makaroth to have it permitted?” Shinji asked excitedly.

“Unfortunately, no. He and his lawyers made it painfully clear that they don’t want us anywhere near him.”

“But this kid is gold, he’d get tons of viewers! It’s not often we get a player trying that hard to win, and he’s not putting on a show or being fake about it. This is the kind of guy people want to watch!”

“There’s nothing I can do.” She shrugged.

“What about the kid himself, if he agrees, we can use his footage right? Maybe even sign him on to our streaming network. A guy like that needs an editor so his stream can be watched outside of a Simbox s-” Shinji’s enthusiastic proposal was cut off.

“No chance. Makaroth made it clear that if we tried to approach his son, he’d cut ties with our network and only stream exclusively on the other two major ones. The guys on the top floor value him too much to risk something like that. He’s not just a top player, he’s family friendly and cracks a lot of jokes - advertisers love him. If it’s discovered we approached his son, someone from this company, he’d cut ties immediately and Corporate would throw a shit storm.” She crossed her arms firmly as she explained this to Shinji.

“But if someone outside the company did it, it’d be fine, right?” Shinji asked as he leaned forward excitedly. “The kid probably doesn’t even realize how much he’s worth, Makaroth’s name or not.”

“If you go ahead and try something like that, I won’t be sending you on highlight duty, you’ll be out the door faster than you can say Simbox.” His boss threatened back with a glare. Shinji leaned back in his chair and thought for a moment, tapping his fingers anxiously on the armrest.

“Guys like that, they’re the reason I got into this job in the first place. Sorry Boss, but I’m tired of editing for a bunch of wannabes.” He pulled his employee badge off of his shirt and dropped it on her desk, she sighed while shaking her head in disbelief.

“Shinji, what if he says no, huh? You’ll have thrown away your career for nothing.” she replied.

“Eh, I hear that Ama.live is hiring.” He grinned slyly at her as he stood up from the chair and walked towards the exit.

“Wait, Shinji. As much as I love to give you a hard time…” She started typing on her keyboard. “You’re still the best editor I know, and a decent guy. So, you didn’t quit, you’re fired. Here.” She finished typing and a chip ejected out of her desk from a chip reading device. “Your severance package.”

Shinji smiled at her and took it out of the chip reader. “I knew you had a crush on me.”

“Just a warning… even if he signs, Makaroth’s lawyers will come at you hard for likeness. You better have a lot of faith in just the kid, and not the name.” She replied sternly.

“What? It's not like they can copyright the name Winter.” Shinji remarked sarcastically, to which his boss gave him a matter-of-fact raised brow. Shinji hesitated for a moment when he saw this. “I’m interested in the kid, not the dad.”

“Good luck.” She said as Shinji walked out of the door, closing it behind him. All his nerves hit him hard at once, realizing a weight had lifted off his shoulders now that he had no job, but at the same time a long road had just been placed in front of him.

As Shinji headed out of the building he hit his ear implant to dial an unlabeled number on his contacts list.

“Yeah?”

“Hey, listen to this, I got us a golden ticket.” Shinji replied enthusiastically.

“Who is this?”

“It’s me, Shinji, remember?”

“Eat a dick.” The call ended.

“Tychaaa, playing hard to get.” He exclaimed loudly, causing other nearby employees to stare at him strangely. He made his way to the elevator and rode it down to the lower levels, passing through a foyer and out the glass front doors of the building.

On the side of the stone paved path that led to the crowded city streets sat a large metal kiosk with a screen and several buttons on it, a short line forming in front of it of various men and women wearing suits. Shinji joined the line, watching as each person took turns pressing buttons in the kiosk, and after a short delay, a plain white one-seated miniature vehicle with 4 small wheels rolled up. The door opened by itself, the person stepped inside, and without a steering wheel the vehicle drove off.

Once it was Shinji’s turn he stepped up to the metal kiosk, addressing the keyboard by typing in an address. The screen displayed a fee, estimated time of arrival, his current insurance standings and other information that he skimmed over. He hit accept, and in a few seconds a single seated vehicle pulled up, the door opening for him as he walked in and sat down.

Once the door had closed the vehicle took off and left the Virtual Gaming Network property - the building was huge but it didn’t stand out amongst the hundreds of other skyscrapers lining the city streets.

The autopod that was transporting him was far from the only one on the road, but traffic was moving efficiently with little to no stops as the autopods and autocars on the streets drove in perfect harmony with one another. In the time the pod was moving, Shinji used his wrist implant in conjunction with his eye implant to research more information on the restriction Makaroth had placed on Winter.

Slowly but surely the amount of other vehicles on the roads around him dwindled, and the fancy and prestigious buildings around him transitioned into rundown, old and, by the standards of year 2020, modern buildings.

Eventually Shinji’s pod stopped in front of a small three story brick building. Compared to its neighbors, it looked high-end, but still nothing compared to the Virtual Gaming Network’s tower. The door of the autopod opened and Shinji stepped out, and it drove off within seconds. He closed the screens open on his eye implant to look at the sign above the glass double doors leading into the building. It read ‘Fanta-see Network’. Shinji took a deep breath and stepped through the doors into the foyer. There was a front desk but no one was sitting behind it. Shinji walked up to it and leaned over the desk, pressing a button to unlock the doors leading further inside - he knew exactly where the button was.

He continued further into the building down a long corridor, eventually coming to a doorway labeled ‘Broadcasting Studio’ and opened it, stepping inside like he owned the place.

The room was filled with multiple desks with display monitors, and 4 Simboxs sitting along the far wall, only one was currently in use. In total there were 20 monitors, all but one was displaying Shattered World gameplay footage of various players live streaming. The one single screen not displaying the game was showing a beautiful asian woman in a bright red dress speaking into a microphone, as if narrating over footage in a news broadcast.

There was a single other person in the room sitting in a computer chair monitoring the screens, frantically pressing buttons on a strange looking keyboard while cycling through the footage.

“Hey, Tommy! How’s it going?” Shinji said excitedly to him.

“I said eat a dick, was I not clear enough?” The man in the chair, Tommy, replied without turning to look. “I’m working right now, get lost.”

“Hae-won still working here? Woulda thought she’d get picked up by one of the big networks by now.” Shinji commented as he leaned in to watch the female reporter speaking.

“What the hell do you want Shinji?” Tommy signed to turn and face him reluctantly. He had dark skin with short black hair with a scruffy goatee, unhealthily thin with sagged eyes not unlike Shinji.

“I’ve got an opportunity of a lifetime, right here.” Shinji lifted the recording chip and waved it at him.

“That’s what you said when you abandoned us to go work at a major network.” Tommy snapped back. “Get lost, I’m not interested.” He turned his chair away and went back to typing.

“I quit.” Shinji replied, causing Tommy to pause and turn back to him.

“You quit, or you were fired?”

“I quit… well, technically fired for severance, but, it was my choice.”

“Why would you quit that job? Wasn’t it your dream to be an editor for the big dogs?”

“That… that wasn’t it. My dream is to be the editor of someone telling a fantastical, amazing story, Like a movie, but through a virtual world. You know, like Lord of the Rings, a story of our era, of mystery, challenge and adventure. I thought I’d get that chance working at the big network… Yeah, the pay was good, but I’m editing for… guys like that.” He pointed at one of the monitors.

“That’s our highest viewed player, he’s keeping us in business.” Tommy remarked.

“Not anymore. This guy, this is what I quit for. This is the guy that’s gonna tell the story I want to be a part of, the story I want to edit into a masterpiece.” Shinji waved the chip around, seeing he’d finally gotten Tommy’s attention.

“So why are you bringing this to me? Why’d you quit your job, why not do it with VGN?”

“They can’t touch this guy. None of the big networks can, he’s lawyered up by his dad. Something about a B24.”

“Who’s his dad?” Tommy asked intrigued.

“Makaroth.” Shinji replied.

“Ah. I heard about that. They’ve been blocking broadcasts from anyone who even shows the kid. But he’s terrible isn’t he? He just died to a boar - and even if he was halfway decent, you’d have to jump through a hundred hoops just to broadcast him without those pain in the ass lawyers from Silnok’s firm breathing down your neck.”

“Watch the clip.” Shinji took the chip and injected it into a monitor. Tommy reluctantly sighed, pressing a few buttons on his keyboards to alert his streamers that their feeds were not currently being edited for non-simbox viewing. Tommy showed much of the same emotions as Shinji’s boss had by the end of the broadcast.

“So, what do you think?” Shinji grinned.

“Heh… a couple of low levels beating on high levels who have no idea what they’re doing, it’s a nice David versus Goliath story… but to go through all that trouble to livestream him?” Tommy was unsure as he leaned back and thought about it.

“It’s not about the fighting, it’s how he did it. He’s not even trying to livestream, he’s just trying to play, and he claims he’s going for the top. If I’m right on this Tommy…” Shinji trailed off, the two both stared idly at the streams in front of them.

“Alright.” Tommy relented, moving over to a desk on the side of the room, he began shuffling the papers around and organizing a few documents. “Based on what we saw, I really doubt he’s going to agree, but I’m tired of broadcasting a bunch of entitled nobodies. You’ve got to get him to sign all three of these papers. This is a 6 month contract to work for us, it’s the longest allowed for his age range.” Tommy handed a set of papers, Shinji took it.

“This is the permission form to stream his likeness to bypass the B24, it overrides the restrictions his father put on him.” Tommy handed another set of papers. “And this, depending on the kid, will be the hardest. The only way we’re going to get away broadcasting him scott-free…” Tommy handed a final set as Shinji read over it.

“This is an application for re-customization for the Shattered World online, multiple, in fact…” Shinji commented.

“Yeah, not just the kid. I’m not sure what’s up Makaroth’s ass, or his lawyers' ass, but from what I’ve been hearing, they might even go after association.”

“Sheesh.”

“Hey, what’s this ugly guy doing here?” A female voice shouted from across the room. Tommy and Shinji turned to see Hae-won stepping out of her Simbox. Unlike her Simulation form, in real life she was wearing sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt with flip flops slapping the ground as she stomped towards Shinji aggressively.

“He’s here to save our network.” Tommy replied for Shinji, then turned back to him. “Go there in person, convince the kid to sign all those papers, and I’ll get to work on World Streamer.”

“World Streamer? Huh? What’s going on?” Hae-won interjected, confused, as she started attempting to read the papers in Shinji's hand over his shoulder.

“Yeah, World Streamer. Regardless of network partnerships, every live stream is typically broadcast on World Streamer, It’s the all access place people use when they are fans of streamers over multiple networks. Even if the big 3 block the kid, if we’re on World Streamer then we should be able to reach a large audience regardless.” Tommy explained as he began typing.

“I know what World Streamer is, I meant, what kid?” She replied annoyed.

“What about my travel expenses?” Shinji asked.

“Pay for them yourself. We’re broke.” Tommy replied.

“Tch, stingy. And you were playing hard to get.” Shinji groaned. “Have the spot ready, I’ll be back with these papers signed in no time.” He turned and began walking out of the building.

“W-who is he signing? What’s going on?” Hae-won replied confused.

“Makaroth’s son.” Tommy replied dismissively.

“You’re sending Shinji alone? Are you kidding me? He can’t even convince a fish to go in water!” Hae-won stormed out after him.

“Where are you going!?” Tommy shouted back.

“To get us the big fish!” Hae-won’s voice trailed out.

“Great, sure, no problem, who needs my one and only employed commentator when I have 20 active streamers?” Tommy grumbled to himself as the door shut behind them.