1.4

Even through the darkness, Keshi could see the filth—a dumping ground of snack wrappers, cup-noodle cartons, beer cans, plastic bottles, and expended food containers—lit only by the glow of a large monitor array that streamed the clinic’s security feed.

It stunk—exacerbated by the heat from the electronics.

“He’s back there—no behind you!”

At the center of the room in front of the monitors sat a long, spindly figure, silhouetted in flickering blue light.

“Come on, he was one-shot!”

Keshi could hear him suck his teeth in annoyance. 

“You’d freeze in real combat.”

“Sorry to interrupt.” 

The clinician suddenly flipped a switch, illuminating the room.

Keshi almost jumped at the sight of the person in the chair. Gaunt and unkempt, he looked like a creature that had evolved underground. 

His clothes seemed to hang off his skeletal frame—a moth-eaten camouflage t-shirt tucked into a stained gray pajama onesie—its sleeves tied loosely around his waist. His long, greasy black hair was cut into a straight line in the back, with the top receding into an almost skullet. In the place of any real stubble were uneven patches of long whiskers that reminded Keshi of feelers, perhaps used for navigating the dark space.

He appeared to be half-asleep or in a trance, his partially opened eyes twitching about beneath his eyelids—like a dog dreaming.

In his hands were two small controllers—his fingers caked in bright orange dust.

Keshi recognized them immediately. 

One night, soon after getting his Ichor, Keshi heard Eiji yelling at the top of his lungs across the hall. The next day, Eiji came home with an identical set. Apparently, he couldn’t figure out the new thought-based controls in Dreadzone, and his griefing teammates kept shooting him in the head.

While the Ichor had, in fact, created endless possibilities when it came to gameplay, many users—especially older ones—still enjoyed playing their favorite games on a virtual 2D screen with traditional inputs, which were considered more precise. 

The creature in the chair squeezed his eyes shut.

“Hey, lights!”

His voice was an unusual blend—gruff and haggard, with a nasally, high-pitched whine. 

“Your appointment is here.”

“Hold on. I’m about to get the dub. Did you refill my snack bucket?”

Keshi looked around the small room, which appeared to be the man’s main residence. 

Like the rest of the bunker, it was modularly constructed, with shallow niches indenting each segment of wall. These were plastered with posters of what seemed to be hand-drawn schematics or blueprints, but Keshi couldn’t decipher what they were for.

An unmade futon bed and small kotatsu table took up the left-hand corner beside the doorway—more trash filled the corners of the kotatsu, spilling out onto the floor.

It took Keshi longer than it should have to notice the surgical bed, angled beside the man's chair. Like every other surface, it was being used as a laundry hamper, waste bin, and dining table all in one—pairs of dirty socks and briefs were draped over a long, crane-like arm and several halo-shaped lamps extending out from the base.

Its glossy white finish stood in stark contrast to squalor around it.

“Piece of shit!”

The man threw his controllers to the ground, jingling the dog tag necklace around his neck. After sulking for a brief moment, he reached over to power on the surgical bed. A cheerful, synthetic female voice chimed in.

“Good morning, Dr. Fujiwara! I’m ready for my firmware update.”

Somewhere, a Dr. Fujiwara was missing a surgical bot, thought Keshi.

“Our technician will take care of you from here.”

“Lie down.”

The technician didn’t even look at him, though it was hard to tell for sure, as he was slightly walleyed. 

The clinician turned back to him one final time—still smiling.

“We won’t see each other again. Enjoy your newfound privacy and protection.”

“Turn off the lights!”

The lights switched off, leaving only the glow of the surgical lamps and monitors. Keshi stared intently at the bed through the darkness as the door shut behind him.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

Keshi pressed his face through a padded hole in the surgical bed, his back toward the ceiling. His only view was a pile of half-eaten food and the toes of one of the technician’s dirty, flip-flopped feet.

After a moment, he felt the head of the bed start to decline, angling his face toward the foot and a sticky-looking tray of 7/11 curry. 

He recoiled from the smell.

“It’s gonna remove some of your hair. Don’t move.”

Keshi braced himself.

After a moment, he heard a buzz behind his ears, then felt the cold steel against his neck. It only took a few passes—just enough for the incision.

“That was me.”

The bed then emitted a musical tone, and the cheerful female voice spoke again.

“Yes, Doctor. Initiating hair removal. Patient, please relax your neck and shoulders.”

Keshi heard the surgical arm rotate. What was left of the hair on his neck stood up as the arm positioned itself just centimeters from the back of his head. He sucked in his breath and held it until the arm emitted a high pitched tone and he felt a white-hot burning sensation on his skin.

It was always obvious when someone had just gotten an Ichor—the circular patch was a dead giveaway. Anyone with long hair could easily hide it, but it was common, amongst boys in particular, to buzz it all off the night before the procedure—almost like a rite of passage. For people who cared more about their looks, another common style was to keep the length on top, but add a high fade to the back.

Partly because it was February, and partly because he didn’t own a pair of clippers, Keshi didn’t bother with the haircut. He’d never known what to do with his hair, and figured he’d probably just let the shaved patch grow back out. He always wore his hood up, anyway.

Keshi listened to the sound of the laser and exhaled. Better try and relax, he thought.

Soon enough, it would be over.

“Huh? Where’d I…”

Keshi watched as a hand came into view beneath him. The technician groped around the trash pile, before finally landing on a jumbo bag of XTRA-CHEEZE Jagariko.

BAH—BAH—BAH

Suddenly—a loud alert sounded out from the monitor array. 

Keshi’s eyes, which were just starting to relax, shot open. As the technician’s hand disappeared with the bag of potato sticks, he heard a chair creak—then a sigh.

“Christ.”

Keshi anxiously tried to peer at the monitors through the hole in the bed, but all he could see was the floor. 

“Is everything oka—Ah!”

He felt a sharp pain.

“Administering neural suppressive. Please relax your neck and shoulders.”

“Police. Looks like a raid.”

“What?!”

All the bravery he’d mustered up evaporated in an instant. 

Police? 

Raid?

“Hey, look at that! They’ve got PK9s!”

The technician sounded more excited than scared.

“Now those are real guns! They’ll blow your head clean off.”

“Thega guhn?!”

Keshi helplessly smacked his lips in confusion. His mouth had gone completely numb.

He could hear the technician stuffing his face with Jagariko.

“Relaxsh. It’sh all theater.”

As the technician turned up the volume on the monitor array, Keshi could make out the voice of the clinician—except, something about the way he spoke sounded different.

“...Sooo, they’re running a modular cloaking system. That’s why you kept losing me. There’s more down below.”

As the agent spread through his body, Keshi began to feel lightheaded. His insides churned.

“Anyway, that’s where you’ll find the guns.”

It should have been obvious. But now he knew for sure.

These guys weren’t simple implant dealers.

You idiot.

He’d known the risks—how many times had he told Eiji—told himself?

But that was abstract, nothing more than a possibility.

Now that it was actually happening, he realized he'd never truly believed it. If he had, he would’ve stayed in bed.

Another layer of reality had been stripped away in a flash—his moment of clarity in the elevator exposed for what it was—just another fantasy.

What the hell was he thinking? He wasn’t going to find Runa in a prison cell.

“Uh-huh, through a fake elevator in the back. Sneaky, huh!”

Keshi watched as a bright orange potato stick dropped to the floor. He heard the technician’ chair creak again—then a feeble:

“Shit…”