Emi reaches blindly for the release button at the back of the tightened headset, staying eerily calm despite being unprepared for the approaching inmate. I thought the game was paused.
“Only for you.”
I can be killed when it’s paused?
“Only if you let them.”
Then what’s the point of it pausing?
“When the game is paused, you will not be identified on motion detectors of nearby inmates.”
Emi gives up on loosening the strap, scratches her ear when she rips the sweat-stained headset past it.
“Resuming game.”
The blowing trees growing on the mountain clearing disappear, replaced at once by the inside of the terminal. She covers her nose, the damp stench of her body odor mixing with bleach a stark contrast to the refreshing sea breeze.
Queen Bee pretends to have the ability to gag. "Are you hiding aged cheese somewhere on you?"
Her artificial vision, however, takes no time to adjust; it highlights the moon-shaped light illuminating the terminal exit at her back. She moves through it in a backwards crawl, loudly banging the base of her skull against the top of the circular doorframe.
“Health: 5%.”
As she struggles to her foot, back and neck twitching in short spasms of pain, a door opens. The scrawny middle-aged man wears his silk sheet like a cape. He stops, tries to pull the fabric together in front of him like it’s a kimono without a sash.
She tries to yell before it’s too late. Wait!
He hears nothing and thus takes an unsteady step out of his room. They lock eyes, Emi crouched in a ready stance in wait for the lights to go out, the man backing into the wall and looking lost. Not even the lights are willing to make the first move.
What’s happening?
“I think the game is frozen.”
Hilarious.
“A hallway is not a room; you meet on neutral ground.”
Does he know that?
“I am unable to assist with this question. Please rephrase.”
Can you please tap into the speakers and tell him?
"I am currently not speaking to the French."
Emi grits her remaining 30.5 teeth and mouths her words, though she knows the only sound will be the faint whistle of wind moving through the canine-sized gaps. Why not?
“They advocated for the devil during the cleansing of the Americas. I don’t trust anyone with two faces.”
Emi focuses on his bio to stop herself from tearing through her own skull: Inmate Number 392690 (Antoine). N/A. Cyborg (Internal). Specialization: Endurance. Balance ￥0. Personality: Gambler.
What does crime ‘N/A’ mean?
“He volunteered.”
Why would anyone volunteer for Hachijo Prison? Shouldn’t you update his personality to 'insane'?
“Analysis concludes it is most likely he volunteered to free himself from ‘a few bad bets’."
Is there anything that a few thousand yen doesn’t have the power to make a person do?
“You were asleep a long time. A few yen will do the trick.”
For the second time in as many inmate introductions, she lifts her hands to signal surrender. This time, he does the same. At least, he starts to, then stops the moment his cape spreads open and reveals too much.
Emi stifles a giggle that sends his hands shooting below his waist. It’s like an overgrown forest.
“Personality Updated: Immature.”
They turn sideways and press their backs against opposite walls—her pale hands waving like white flags above her head while his remain preoccupied with cupping his crotch—as they shuffle past each other like two first-voyage merchant ship captains meeting one another on the open sea.
He stares at her blue lights, as if trying to read them or thinking about taking them, deciding instead to steal a glance at the taupe shirt clinging to her chest. His eyes are quickly pulled upward by the ominous tattoo on her neck. His face falls to his own feet in a bow of respect born from fear. He subconsciously touches his own neck with one hand and gulps.
Why did he just do that? Emi feels at her own throat, soon finding the branding raised on her skin. Where did I get The Mark?
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Queen Bee deflects the question. “Health at 6%. Recharge highly recommended.”
Am I bleeding or something?
"No leaks detected."
Then why is my health draining so fast?
"Your human body parts are treating your enhancements like an infection.”
Is that a problem?
“50/50 chance of your human parts surviving at this stage.”
Give me the waypoint to Nygil’s place. We need to have a few conversations.
"Waypoint added.”
Emi starts to turn her one-legged shuffle into a hop.
“Bonus opportunity available."
Emi pauses. Bonus? How do I get it?
“The voters have chosen for you to use the move Kiss of Red in your interaction with the inmate behind us.”
In her eyes, she pulls up her balance: -￥100,793,265. How big is the bonus?
“One-thousand-yen times the number of viewers who voted on the winning item, which in this case was for the learned move Kiss of Red to be used on the inmate we just passed.”
Did they know peace was a possibility?
“Yes.”
And they still chose violence?
“You are a slow processor. Have you learned nothing in this tutorial?”
Correct. Except, entertainment is the name of the game.
“You will be wise to output this fact faster in the future.”
How many voters were there?
“Information unavailable.”
Of course it isn’t.
“Watching you choose to gamble or not is shown to increase viewer retention by seven percent.”
Emi remains stuck between the bonus Queen Bee just hung in front of her face and the waypoint back to Nygil. What is my health level?
“Health: 5%. Balance: -￥100,793,265. Interest Rate (per hour): 0.002%.”
How else can I make money?
“Current available options for increasing balance are: 1) Inheritance from defeated inmate; 2) Trade; 3) Viewer bonuses.”
Emi starts to hop away, licking the gums where her canine teeth are still missing, then stops and looks at the man’s foot disappearing into the terminal. Any way to know if his throat is one of his internal enhancements?
“Information—”
I was thinking to myself. I am aware you can only tell me after I’ve already found out for myself.
Queen Bee’s soft inflection hardens. “Please don’t interrupt my processes before they’re finished. Information unavailable.”
Emi moves her way back to the open circle of the terminal as quiet as one foot allows but hesitates again when she sees him sitting in his cape, looking like a child unaware of her arrival due to the blacked-out goggles on his head. Antoine hears nothing of her approach, his senses consumed by the paused game he sees. He licks his lips, having just entered the Pachinko parlor where he learned his first specialty move.
Queen Bee drags herself down to the juvenile part of Emi’s stunted personality. Her voice sounds over the hallway intercom as she makes the lights flash. “Warning: Rocket Detected. Seek immediate cover.”
Emi holds a hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter as she glances at his lap. Soon, she gathers her composure enough to grab his ankle and pulls him hard from the machine. His knees hook themselves onto the raised lip at the base of the door and send her falling to the ground. Somehow, still lost in memory, Antoine doesn’t realize what is happening to him.
Queen Bee cackles from the speakers. “He must be replaying the memory where his gambling debts led to his legs being broken for the first time.”
She is correct.
Emi scurries her elbows over the hard ground until the cape is in reach. She latches onto the silk fabric and uses it like she’s performing a legless rope climb to pull her body up until her grunting mouth is up to his neck. She turns his head until the front side of his neck is exposed. Leaning in, her hot breath causing the tree in his lap to flutter as if blown by a gentle breeze, she snaps her mouth shut over his throat.
His senses are all-consumed by the headset; the inmate doesn’t react. Like a dog playing tug-of-war with a master who was strangled to death, Emi continues to clench down as she tightens every muscle in her body and works to pull backwards in her attempt to disconnect Antoine’s head from his chest by tearing the softest of the cords that connect them. This would have been much easier if I had gotten my fangs back first.
“Obviously. Health: 4%.”
Finally, the man’s body responds on its own by slamming to the floor, panic making it thrash around in ways he doesn’t control. Emi holds on, riding him to the ground until at last, blood shoots from a severed artery. The red fountain paints Emi’s backside from top to bottom. Antoine by the goggles, Emi by the blood, both inmates are blinded.
Queen Bee turns the lights down low and commentates as his body continues to shake under her in fast spasms. “The two drunken strangers, one in a cape and the other with her prison uniform still mostly on, remain locked in the throes of passionate lovemaking. From the look on her face, she is hoping this will be more than a one-night stand. Frenchman shows no pleasure, however, despite the bodily fluids he sends forth without restraint.”
Is this really what lovemaking feels like?
“Heart Rate: 195. New Personality Trait: Algolagnia.”
She refuses to let go as his hands reflexively try to tear her from his skin like she is a pesky mosquito that they can’t seem to smash due to the thickening layer of blood soaking her clothing and skin. At last, his hand closes into a fist over a ball of fabric made possible by the shirt of the inmate uniform having ridden up her torso during her grinding away at his throat.
He pulls at the cloth with all his remaining strength, sending her body sliding over his shoulder and across the hard floor that has turned slick as ice. He failed to account for her mouth staying attached. The miscalculation costs him his life as the momentum of the spinning slide causes his throat to tear free.
On her back, she turns her chin and spits the bone fragment and thyroid cartilage to the ground beside her. She reaches up her fingers and wipes the glass-like surface of her eyes, smearing blood enough to see him lying with his head folded under him in a way that can only mean death. Though the black goggles and white cape are now red, along with everything else in her view, she thinks: He looks peaceful. She removes his red cape and chooses to place it over his groin rather than the exposed bits of his neck.
“Bonus Received: ￥1,000.”
Baka! There was only one vote for Kiss of Red, and it won? That means there were no other voters!
“Your calculations are correct. Congratulations on being as smart as the average six-year-old.”
She starts to stand, her leg slipping on the puddle of blood covering the floor and sending her hard onto her shoulder. She relents, stays there with her eyes open until the sprinklers shut off a full sixty minutes later.
Spitting the burning taste of bleach from her mouth, she rubs a hand over her itching scalp, then hops as fast as her soon-to-be-dead body will allow past the seemingly random-numbered doors until she spots room 392689. She slams the door shut behind her.
“Now exiting level 1, saving game.”
She squints—the effort only succeeding at getting in the way of her new and improved eyesight that has no use for eyelids—at the back of the chrome man’s head while he sits clicking away at his keyboard in the corner.
Queen Bee speaks where only Emi can hear. “Health: 1%. Perhaps we should recharge first.”
Having read the command on his screen, Nygil is quick to respond. “Certainly. I’ll add it to your tab.”
Emi moves to the cold slab of metal that pretends to be a bed in the center of the room and takes a seat. Nygil rushes to insert the necessary wiring. He sure is a cheery fellow—for a teeth stealing rat in a trap.
Queen Bee’s voice comes out nasally. “I knew I smelled aged cheese?”
When confronting Nygil about her deadly missing teeth, which approach should she take to obtain the information?
