May 2057

Towering over the damp, rundown streets of the Tokjin district, the poorly kept buildings formed a familiar blur of drab colours in her peripheral vision, accompanied by the low whir of the hoverboard under her feet.

The girl wobbled on her hoverboard under the tense area. She felt as exposed as if someone had stripped her. And that someone had a laser sight trained on her. She might as well be a walking target.

There was a faint police siren in the air, and she grimaced, shielding her ears from the physically painful sounds. Why were so many things against her? She hated this part. She wanted to stay cooped up forever, but that wasn’t a choice.

The girl rode on her hoverboard, taking a dip around another corner. An ache sparked in her eyes as she took in the violent mix of colours that bled over various buildings. For a moment, she squeezed her eyes shut, ignoring it. She rode in blindness before opening one eye. The rush of ten thousand voices and sounds filled up the lively district market. Her heart pounded itself into pieces in her chest. The invisible eyes loomed closer with every second.

She then hopped off her hoverboard and clutched it tightly, just in case someone took a dangerous interest. The smell of fried street food wafted around her and she sighed. Walking past so many bodies was suffocating. She felt the noise push at her ears and she tried to hold it back with hands pressed steadily over them. Her face was a perpetual grimace now. Seoul was a constant neon blur of sensory overload.

The girl squinted at the flash advertisements for clearly illegal things: from addictive narcotics to cyborg modifications and body parts, like colour-changing eyes and grown organs. There was a booth selling diet pills that were definitely not approved by health departments. There were even those selling spots to attend the pirated streaming of the upcoming SCOPE tournaments in Seoul, as well as outright hacking services. As she further walked through, holding her breath and her muscles tight, she quickly snapped away from a booth selling virtual sex. There was an abundance of noise from conversations and pinging transactions.

“Can I interest you in a pair of state-of-the-art cyborg hands?” one man said, holding up a pair of racks with lifelike hands dangling from them. His colour-changing eyes smiled at her beyond his metallic black mask. “I can make you trade for your real ones.”

The girl grimaced. “Sorry.”

She walked further before she suddenly bumped into some people. Both a woman and a man. The girl jumped back at the sight of the gory mouths attached to their masks. The man had a collar attached tightly to his neck, and the girl held it in a tight grip like he was a pet. Maybe that’s what they were going for. The girl tore her gaze away.

“Sorry,” the girl said again and walked away. She kept her gaze trained in front of her.

She came up to a food vendor who had glowing signs advertising their sweet deal on fish. “Two for one,” it said.

“Two fish,” the girl asked in the best Korean she could. Someone could track translator goggles. And that was the one thing she couldn’t be.

Tracked.

The man smiled, revealing a toothless grin.

She took two large fish off a rack from above, and she nodded. The man put them in and handed them to her in a plastic bag. Because of environmental reform and subsequent laws, using plastic like this had been outlawed many years ago. Considering the other illegal activity in the alleyway, this was the least of all the crimes committed here.

The man’s eyes widened as she dug out actual cash to pay him to withdraw. She averted her gaze. No one used paper money unless they were ancient. He took it and nodded her away, and she took her fish.

The girl repeated the process at some other vendors before deciding she had plenty. It would last more than a week. And it meant she didn’t have to go out that often.

Suddenly the world fizzed in her vision, exploding into a technicolour glitch of distorting reality in front of her. A groan escaped her throat, feeling her throat as she flinched through the attack on her senses.

The world was under digital attack.

It lasted for a second before the world, before what was within sight unpixellated itself and went back to normal.

The girl walked, keeping her face out of view and holding her head down as fear rose in her. She wanted to be shocked, but this had already happened many times. A month ago, the world had begun “glitching”. No one could determine what was happening. Entire governments shut down in their efforts to find an explanation and resolve the unaccounted-for issue. Despite this, twice a week the glitches continued, shaking everything and everyone to their core.

And the girl had a feeling she could stop them.

Of course, she wasn’t idealistic and infatuated with a hero complex, but she truly thought she could fix them.

She left the market, and soon hopped back onto her hoverboard, zipping through the back streets of Seoul.

A group wearing a symbol of a fiery lion loomed about the next corner. She had never bothered learning about all the gangs in the area, but a cluster of people like that immediately aroused suspicion. Their gazes were like vultures looking to feast on anyone.

The girl already stood out enough with darker skin in a pale place like this and her Korean was decent. She swallowed back a nervous gulp, feeling the fear rending its way down her throat and body.

Avoid eye contact. Avoid eye contact.

“Hey!” one said. Before they could say anything further, slowly, an invisible ripple of air ran over her body like a phantom in thin air. I was never here, she willed in her mind. She dared to look back at the gang on the street corner, who simply went back to their ominous dwelling.

She got to the alleyway she was headed for, damp with water with an electric line that sparked in little bursts of light above her, popping at her ears. She flipped her board back up again before walking down the smelly alleyway, pushing up her mask. The girl took a sharp turn left, revealing a narrow opening, before she shuffled through it sideways, before she emerged into a place surrounded by 4 brick walls, only with a narrow opening on top. It felt like solitary confinement, but at least it was safe.

In front of her was a smattering of colours and metal. A small, squatty, steel garage sketched in graffiti, which everyone dismissed as junk. The girl knew it wasn’t junk, and that’s why it was perfect.

She crouched then and grabbed the bottom of the garage door and gritted her teeth as she lifted it up high into the air like it was a heavyweight. The inside was now exposed to her, and once again, she frowned at the sheer anomaly. She slowly walked in like there was a lethal disease hanging over her, and knowing this place, it wouldn’t surprise her. Her feet echoed on the dusty metallic floors as she curled her lips, surveying her home. Despite her best efforts of making the place homey, it looked more like homey’s archenemy. There was a damp mattress nestled into the corner of dusty floors, and a crate of leftover food was in the other corner. The walls had small holes that she feared were made from a spray of bullets. That was it when looking with the naked eye. At least to everyone else. She tried not to make it as sensory-overload-inducing as possible.

The girl finally slipped off her cloak and threw it to the side of the garage, sighing in relief. The girl flapped her arms around for stimulation, before reaching a hand up and releasing the headband holding her thick dreadlocks. They fell around in a satisfying pile around her head. She kicked off her tight shoes and curled her toes out in relief.

Now she was ready.

The girl snapped her fingers, and instantly holo-screens, a table, and a chair appeared in the air in a wavy ripple of pixels. The girl’s eyes widened, then softened at her brief illusion. Despite seeing it so many times, it was still impressive. She was impressive. It wasn’t magic per se, but some scientific conjuring she created from the ground up.

The girl plopped down and immediately toggled with the holo-keyboard as the screen flipped on and began running with lines of code and programs she created. The screens danced to life in the computer language and excitement rose in her.

Sometimes humans were weird. Her entire life, other people spoke some social language she couldn’t understand, but computers were her saving grace. They never changed. They could be certain, and the girl loved that. She smiled.

The girl toggled with the keyboard before she opened the geo-locater program, and the holo-screen morphed into a holographic model of the planet. The girl then reached for her neck and pulled off the smooth black pendant, which morphed into a small computer at her touch. She fiddled with it before she connected it to the bigger computers with the globe. Immediately, red points appeared on the globe. The girl raised an inquiring eyebrow, looking at the signals of the glitches. The girl didn’t need to figure out to find out what caused them. She knew exactly where they came from.

The second computer. The second part.

That meant he still had it. The girl scowled before looking at each location. She’d found a notice that her message had gone out, as a response to the first computer being taken away from him. However, the message never went through. Something must’ve intercepted it, which is why she had to get it out again. But this time, she had to find out who exactly did it.

The girl once again furiously typed, peering forward with wide eyes at the computer before tracking the signals back with time. The message went out in August, and the girl took a signal sample. August was when the first glitch happened. The girl searched the screens before investigating the overlay of the glitch. She needed to find the source. She toggled again before a red pin appeared on her map.

Los Angeles.

The specific date was August 7, 2056.

The girl sat back, a million thoughts swimming in her head like fish.

What happened that day? Usually, it was hard programs and unsolvable algorithms she got her answers from, but sometimes simple internet research connected it all. The girl plugged the date into the internet. Immediately articles like, ‘Worldwide glitch causes global pandemonium’ and ‘Rogue Takes SCOPE California Win’.

Her stomach clenched.

Paradox loved SCOPE. That was his purpose. The girl immediately clicked the article, reading through an interview with Rogue, but her eyes skipped that and instead went to another section. Team ULTRA had come in third. That was Keone’s team.

The girl sighed into a smile. This was way too easy.

Someone must’ve done something during that game. Someone must’ve taken the computer from Keone.

Because they knew.

The only other teams were Rogue and Black Infinity. That meant atoms must’ve still been around them. She went back to the geo-locator before she selected the signal models and tracked them around the world. Wherever the teams were, the signals had to be. And they would have answers. Immediately, a pin showed up on the holographic globe.

It was in New York.

Rogue was all there now because they had won. And they would soon be in Seoul where she was. And they must’ve had something to do with Paradox. She needed them. The timing was perfect, even though her chances were small.

But directly messaging them meant Keone might find her, and she’d have to run again. She could not see him again. If she didn’t, she’d swore she put a bullet into his brain. Actually, kill him.

The girl, using the location of her old lab, typed out the message.

Eniola, Theo, Jay, Lucia, and Iris. If you’re ready, come and find me. We can take down Paradox once and for all.