9:30am, Thursday the 9th October, 2132.

Detective Sergeant Kato Akihiko stared blankly out of the front window of his car: looking at, but not seeing, the morning traffic and run-down buildings of the old Tokyo bay. Most of the buildings there were still skyscrapers, towers, offices and apartment blocks from when Tokyo had been a city itself, far smaller than the colossal scale of modern structures. Unfortunately, it was no less densely populated, and the lack of funding for improved infrastructure, high-density apartment spires, commercial zones and industry had left what had once been the largest and wealthiest metropolitan area in the world a crime-infested slum.

“Coffee?” Asked Laura Greaves, as she poured two flasks full and handed one over to him.

“Thanks,” he replied, taking a sip and groaning as he shifted back in his seat, trying to stop himself from falling asleep. “Maybe I should drive manually for a while. Might wake me up.”

“Interesting idea. Here’s another one: definitely don’t do that, or you’ll fall asleep and we’ll crash,” said Laura. “Just let the computer handle it.”

“You know, I actually kind of miss driving manually. Now everything’s so automated it makes me wonder why we even have the damn steering wheels in here at all,” Kato mumbled, looking at the wheel in front of him, and the gearbox down at his side.

“Well this car’s so old I’m surprised it even has a computer,” Laura said between sips.

“Careful, Greaves. This is a ’97 Raijin, a certified Hiraishin Motors classic. You know how many paychecks I spent on this beauty?”

“At least one more than you should have spent. Which is zero. You know, you could have got a nice, modern car for considerably less. And you could have spent the rest on a woman, and then you’d have a nice little wife to go with your nice little car and be at least fifty percent less depressed.”

“Hm, that’s strange. I don’t recall your life being made considerably better when you got married, Greave- ow,” Kato said, stopping when his partner punched him in the arm. “Fine. That was a bit of a low blow.”

Greaves rolled her eyes. “Considering how charming your personality is, I’m not surprised you never get to a second date.”

“What can I say? Modern women simply aren’t as intrigued as I am by the gory and disgusting intricacies of homicide investigation,” Kato replied.

Greaves raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh honey, you’d be extremely surprised. There are some crazy bitches out there, absolutely perfect for you. You just need a wingman… Or woman.”

Kato sighed, but thankfully he was saved from continuing the conversation by the sound of the car’s computer making a monotone beep and saying, “you are now arriving at your destination.”

The ’97 Raijin turned down a side-road and followed it for several seconds until it reached a large steel-wire gate that blocked off a carpark within. The carpark was mostly empty except for a few illicit looking trucks, but dozens of rough-looking men were hanging around it and they were clearly ready for a fight.

As Kato’s car slowed down for the gate, Greaves looked at him. “I don’t like this,” she said, looking out at how every eye inside was now on them. “We have no backup here, and these guys look tough.”

“Don’t worry. We’re only here to ask questions, and no-one who’s smart enough to run a place like this could be stupid enough to harm us. HQ knows where we are, and they’d have a battalion surrounding this place within an hour if they did,” Kato reassured her.

Eventually, after what Kato was sure was just the amount of time needed to scan his vehicle and their faces for their identities, the steel-wire gate opened automatically and their car drove inside. The entire place was set up like a fortified compound – one entrance, with a central space surrounded by a five-storey high apartment building. It was a gangster’s wet dream, and not even the cops could get in there without alerting the occupants.

The car pulled itself into one of the empty spaces, then Kato turned the engine off with a swipe of his finger on the dashboard screen. The doors opened then, and Kato and Greaves climbed out into the morning sunlight.

“Omae wa koko de nani shi teru nda?” One of the men, wearing an open leather jacket and nothing but tattoo-covered skin beneath it, called at them.

“And of course he’s speaking Japanese,” Greaves grumbled quietly to Kato. “What’s he saying?”

“He wants to know what we’re doing here,” Kato told Greaves, then raised his arm at the man. “We’re here to ask your boss some questions,” he called back.

“What?” The gangster asked him, his accent thick. “You don’t speak Japanese? You one of them gaijin lovers?”

“Kanojo ga shinai,” Kato replied, switching back to English mid-sentence. “So out of courtesy, we’ll speak the language we all understand, yeah?”

The gangster didn’t reply at first, he merely spit on the ground then looked up at another man who stood watch on a third-floor balcony. “Alright, what is it you want to know?” He eventually asked.

“No way,” Kato said. “We didn’t drive an hour down here to speak to some low-level guy who doesn’t know anything. I said before: we want to ask your boss some questions.”

The gangster ran a hand through his short, black, unwashed hair. “Do you even know what you’re asking?” He asked.

“Upper left arm. Ultraviolet light,” Kato said. “A leopard’s head, with an R in the mouth.”

The gangster shrugged. “What?”

“You mean to tell us you don’t have one?” Asked Greaves, joining in on the conversation.

The gangster turned to look at her with spite in his eyes. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Kato sighed, then opened his trench coat and pulled out his badge. “See this?” He asked. “Kanto Megapolis Police Department – Serious Crimes Division. I know damn well the cops you have down here in the bay might be willing to look the other way for the sake of peace – or hell, might even be on a few payrolls, but we’re not here to mess around. Both you and I know that affiliation to a known criminal group is against the law, and while the Runners might not be one of the big players I’m sure I can persuade some of my associates in Organized Crime to make you and your friend’s lives a goddamn living hell if I don’t get what I came for.”

“… What do you want, gaijin lover?”

“I want to speak to your boss.”

The gangster watched him for a moment, then looked up to the figure on the third-floor balcony. The figure nodded, then the gangster looked back to Kato and Greaves. “Alright, you can go in,” he said, gesturing over to where a man with a mechanical arm opened an armoured door that led inside the apartment complex.

Kato nodded and began to walk towards it, while Greaves grinned at the gangster. “See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” She asked, before jogging to catch up to her partner.

“Try not to rile them up, Greaves,” Kato said quietly as she reached his side. “I want our eyes peeled, just in case.”

“Don’t worry about me. My trigger finger’s always ready to go,” she replied, her tone just as hushed. “Have you noticed how many of these guys have augs?”

“Yeah. They aren’t the cheap ones, either. Some serious money is coming through this place.”

The two reached the apartment door, then stepped inside. Despite the shoddy, downtrodden look from the outside, behind the door the inside was immaculate. It had bright, white lights and walls, with colourful plants on cream tables at the side of the hallway they found themselves in. There were even landscape paintings of Japan’s countryside from when that countryside was still there, and their frames had been cleaned and dusted with great care.

“This way,” said another man at the end of the hall. He was gesturing up a flight of stairs, and wires ran visibly through his forehead to a steel eye with a three, bright blue pupils.

The detectives followed his gesture and climbed the stairs, then climbed again to the third floor when the second was blocked by another rough-looking soldier. When they reached the third floor, they saw several men in smart grey suits and combed hair sitting on chairs at the side of the room; some reading touchpads, others talking idly; but Kato noticed instantly that they were all armed. Short swords and handguns, a combination to inspire a sense of morbid professionalism.

Only one door on the third floor was open, at the far end of the hallway past the suits, and they walked towards it carefully. Kato looked straight ahead, but Greaves gave nods of acknowledgement to the men they passed.

“You those cops I heard about?” Asked a child with long, white hair, and wearing a traditional Japanese garb. It could have been no more than ten, but neither Kato or Greaves could discern a gender, and they glanced at each other in confusion.

“Yes,” Greaves answered. “We’re here to see the boss. What’s your name?”

The child looked at Greaves in shock. “Bitch, I ain’t givin’ you my damn name. Are you crazy?”

“No…” Greaves replied, carefully, and with warning. “Just trying to be friendly.”

“Save being friendly for your friends, and begin acting business-like instead,” the child replied. “Come with me.”

The child turned and walked through the open door into what looked to be a small viewing area with a glass wall, on the other side of which was a hospice room. An extremely old Japanese man lay there on a bed with cream sheets over him, his eyes closed and intravenous medical equipment at his side. The only other thing in the room was an ancient television set – over one hundred and fifty years old – that stood on an oak stand.

“Is that the boss?” Kato asked, standing in front of the glass wall and peering in at the old man.

“Yep,” the child answered. “He’s dreamin’ right now.”

“Can you wake him up?” Asked Greaves. “We were told we could speak with him.”

“Nah. He doesn’t like being woken,” said the child. “But you can go in to see him.”

“Go in?” Kato asked. “What do you mean?”

“He’s in a virtual reality,” the child replied. “A private, locally hosted Cyberreal server.”

“Shit. I hate those things,” Kato grumbled.

Greaves, on the other hand, looked in her element. “Guess I’ll take this one, Kato. I’ve got more training in using VR anyway.”

“Nope, not you,” the child suddenly said to Greaves. “Only him.”

“What?” Kato asked, confused.

Greaves chuckled then in that slightly pretentious manner she was known for. “Don’t worry, kid, we know what we’re doing. I’ll go in and speak to him.”

“No you won’t,” the child said again, snappily this time. “The boss doesn’t like gaijin. Or women, come to think of it. No, it has to be this guy.”

“Wow, okay. That’s a bit discriminatory,” complained Greaves.

Kato shook his head. “Leave it, Laura. I’ll do it. The sooner we do this, the sooner we can get out of here.”

Greaves sighed then, and Kato looked at the child. “Alright, how do I go in?” He asked.

“Just sit down there,” the child said, gesturing to a leather armchair near the glass wall. “Do you have a CNS Implant?”

“Yes,” Kato answered as he sat down. A Central Nervous System Implant was basically a job requirement those days, and as a KMPD detective Kato had quite a good one. It allowed for the monitoring of central nervous system activity, but the right technology could piggyback off it and immerse the user in a fully simulated reality - a virtual universe that hijacked the mind; legal and largely unregulated.

“Good. I’ll connect you,” the child said, taking a wire that resembled a large electrocardiogram sensor and sticking it carefully onto the back of Kato’s neck, where a series of pins entered his skin and plugged into his CNS Implant chip.

“Ow,” Kato complained.

“Don’t be a baby,” the child told him, now walking over to a computer terminal in the wall. “I hope you’re ready, because you’re not getting a warning.”

“Gee, thanks. Greaves, keep an eye out for me. I won’t be lo-“

Suddenly everything was black, and Kato found himself floating momentarily in an infinite nothingness until a cascade of binary code came towards him at a startling speed. Kato covered his face with his arms, hoping to protect himself, but found that nothing happened, and opened his eyes again to see the building blocks of a battlefield fall into place beneath him.

Piece by piece, a field of smoke and blood was pulled into place. A large, feudal castle of Japanese stone sat at the top end of the virtual world, while the rest was taken up by rivers, and a large plain. The castle was under siege, while on the plain two large armies were in the opening stages of a battle.

On one side of the plain, wooden stockades were set up behind a stream with steep banks, and behind them rows of ashigaru peasants wielding matchlock guns were being commanded by samurai. On the other, thousands of mounted warriors and samurai were preparing to charge.

Kato suddenly found himself with those mounted samurai, sitting on horseback at their rear in dark red armour, with a long three-pronged spear in his hand. “What the hell?” He asked, looking around for someone to answer him. None of them did, of course. They weren’t real, and probably couldn’t hear him.

“Amazing, isn’t it? Modern technology?” A voice suddenly asked him, and Kato turned around to see a large man in similar armour, riding a similar horse, and wielding a similar spear. “We can recreate this entire point in history with a realism unmatched by anything else that’s ever been tried, but the moment a second player enters the game it gets confused and makes two of us.”

“Who are you?” Kato asked, turning his horse around to face the man properly.

“Right now?” His virtual doppelganger asked. “I am Takeda Katsuyori, and this is the year 1575. Do you know where we are?”

“Nagashino,” Kato replied. “That’s schoolboy knowledge. But Katsuyori lost this battle.”

“In one reality, yes. In this one, he may be about to win.”

“What’s the boss of the Runners doing playing war in virtual reality?” Kato asked, noticing suddenly how everything around the two of them seemed to have slowed to a crawl. Soldiers were still moving, but they were taking so long to do so that time was at a near standstill.

“Have you not seen me up there?” The man asked. “I’m an old man. Bed-bound. I can’t even shit without a machine to do it for me, but here I can be anything I want. A general about to win a lost battle, an unstoppable warrior, an irresistible sex icon, a god.”

“But no matter what you are, it isn’t real,” Kato replied. The man scoffed, then laughed.

“Reality is relative now, or did you not know that? Even our real world is probably a simulation, but you still spend so much time worrying about what exists and what’s an illusion.”

“If you care so much about this reality, why are we speaking English? I thought you hated foreigners?”

“We’re not. We’re speaking Japanese,” the man explained. “At least to my ears. And I must say, Detective Kato, that I’m rather ashamed it’s not also to yours.”

“I don’t remember introducing myself,” Kato said.

“You didn’t. Even down here I get my information. How else do you think I’ve managed to stay the boss of a group of violent thugs? I’m not completely isolated, you know. I can still give orders.”

“Then you know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

“Tamura Sanjiro,” the man introduced himself. “At your service. So tell me, detective, why did you come here?”

“I’m investigating the murder of two of the members of your… Organization,” Kato explained. “A Sebastian Cooper, and another we have yet to identify.”

“I don’t know anyone by that name,” Sanjiro said. “And I wouldn’t be so keen as to let a gaijin join my organization.”

“And yet he had your leopard head mark. In invisible ink, too. Only visible in ultraviolet light.”

“That mark is not exclusive to my inner organization,” explained Sanjiro. “He may have been an associate, a business partner to one of my men. It is a sign of friendship, a diversification of the scent to throw off predators such as yourself.”

“Bait?” Kato asked, to which Sanjiro merely nodded slyly. “Then who was the other?”

“I couldn’t be sure without seeing the body but one of my men, Fukase Keizo, has yet to return. My organization is a tight run ship, you see. I like to know where they all are, at all times.”

“And were you aware that Sebastian Cooper and possibly Fukase Keizo were illegally scavenging in an abandoned district owned by Naka-Sura Multinational?” Kato asked, secretly regretting that he would not be able to gauge Sanjiro’s true reaction in a virtual world.

“Is that who murdered them? Naka-Sura Multinational?” Sanjiro asked, avoiding Kato’s question.

“We’re still investigating the exact circumstances, but right now we have no reason to believe they were involved.”

“Unfortunately, some of my men work freelance jobs, or build their own private, secondary enterprises. I wasn’t aware that Keizo, if it is indeed him, had been stealing and scavenging Naka-Sura technology. If you came here hoping that I could give you answers as to what they were doing there, or perhaps even who killed them, then I am afraid you must leave disappointed.”

“I see. Well, I have some more question to ask, if you don’t mind. For instance, you say you like to know where your men are at all times and what they’re doing. Do you force them to install any surveillance implants? Is there anything we can use t-“

“Surveillance implants are illegal, Detective Kato. You know this.”

“Somehow, I don’t believe you care too much about what the law says, Mr. Tamura.”

“That may be so, but evidence attained via illegal means is in itself illegal, is it not? I thought you, as an officer of that law, would respect that.”

“All I care about is catching whoever did this so they don’t do it again,” Kato confessed. “So please, answer my question.”

“I’m afraid the time for questions is over, Detective Kato. I’ve answered what I can and have no more knowledge that could aid your investigation.”

Kato sighed then and stabbed his spear into the ground by his horse. “I see,” he replied, realizing that he would get nothing more out of the old man. He could protest, or persist, but in a virtual reality controlled by someone else there was no point. He wouldn’t be there long enough to ask it. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Tamura. And good luck with your battle,” he said.

Sanjiro looked at him then and smiled in silence, and Kato felt a shiver creep up his spine. Suddenly the slow movements of the soldiers resumed into real-time actions, and the battle around him continued with all the noise, gore and grit of the real world. Kato suddenly felt himself being lifted off his horse and into the air, and he flew straight up until he pierced the sky and everything became black. A second later he opened his eyes, and the child removed the wire from his neck.

“I hate those things,” Kato grumbled, standing up with a slight unease.

“What’d you find out?” Greaves asked him, but Kato merely shook his head.

“I’ll tell you in the car,” he said, giving a nod to the child who was now far too busy typing on the terminal to give them anymore attention.

Kato shrugged and walked out of the room, and Greaves followed him without another word. They went back down to the ground floor, then left the building and walked to Kato’s car. A few seconds later, they were climbing inside and shutting the doors behind them.

“Well?” Greaves asked after the doors locked themselves.

“He claims he doesn’t know anything. Says the scavenging had nothing to do with him, and he has no idea who killed them.”

“You believe him?”

“No,” Kato told her. “He knew about the scavenging. You saw how many of his guys here had expensive augs, how much money was in that place. That’s not the kind of money a street-level gang their size can get just by slinging spice and shitty firearms. I think he’s sending fall guys out on jobs to scavenge rare tech left behind by Naka-Sura, but I don’t think he knew who killed them. There’s another thing too: his guys might have surveillance implants.”

“Shit,” said Greaves. “The answer could be right there, and we can’t use it. I’ll tell the guys over at forensic pathology to keep an eye out for it anyway and send it down to tech. Might at least be able to get something out of it.”

“I don’t know if it would even be worth it,” Kato admitted. “Even if we tried to hack it, those things are encrypted so heavily it could take weeks to see what’s inside.”

“Still, we might as well give tech at least one job other than scratching their balls and playing video games. So, what now?” Greaves asked. “Shall we go see if we can finally meet with those security guys?”

“I don’t think there’s anything else we can do.”

Kato ran his fingers across his dashboard and told the car’s computer to take them back to Naka-Sura Multinational. The engine turned on, then the car reversed out and turned back towards that steel-wire gate. The gate opened for them automatically and the car drove through, then back out onto the streets of Tokyo Bay and towards the magroad.