He swiped his bankcard at the door, but the system beeped sadly and denied him entry—apparently it found his financial situation, his credit rating, or his entire identity somehow lacking. He thumped on the window and pressed the hundred-euro note to the glass, his body blocking the view from anyone passing behind.
Eventually the manager manually opened the door and let him inside, bowing and smiling in the eager way of someone who knew how to survive on tips. She showed JD to a table by the window, and took down his order with a stylus over a small tablet, wrapped in a case designed to make it look like an old-fashioned notepad—nostalgia fetish written into the chain’s DNA.
The heating was cranked high against the damp weather, and condensation fogged the windows. Outside, clouds hung low and dark, broken up only by the wisps of white that hid surveillance apparatus, as though the city refused to admit the clouds could ever be gray over Neo Songdo.
As he watched one white cloud drift by, the soft body of its Augmented cover flickered and disappeared, revealing a ball of cameras held aloft by a dozen rotors large enough to threaten birds. JD had never seen one of these multifaceted eyes, only the simple quadcopter drones that hovered over the outskirts. His brow creased in confusion, but his thoughts were interrupted by the clank of a plate hitting the table. With effort, JD took his eyes off the outside world to acknowledge the staff delivering his breakfast. He tried on a smile, but the server rolled his eyes and returned to the counter, leaving JD alone.
The poached eggs were rubbery, but the sourdough bread was warm and slathered with butter—real butter. That pale yellow dollop, slowly melting as it slid down the toast, caused JD to briefly question everything he’d eaten up to that point. It was a simple flavor, but so much richer than the butter substitutes he’d tasted before. How little of what they ate could compare to the real thing?
JD sipped his coffee—a short black, with hints of hazelnut and a heavy-bodied aroma—and his existential crisis deepened. The blight-resistant coffee strains lacked something indefinable, but he had never realized before that moment. He disabled notifications on his phone, flipped it over so its screen couldn’t distract him, and savored the drink.
When he was done he raised his cup and motioned to the barista, who made him another at the espresso machine—larger, and probably more expensive, than any computer rig JD had ever owned. It hissed and hummed like a living thing as it produced those few precious milliliters of black gold.
While he waited, JD opened VOIDWAR—connection established quick over the café’s complimentary broadband. He swiped through the screens of news updates, changelogs, and privacy agreement alterations that had accumulated since he last logged in. After another short loading screen he connected to his ship, still drifting in the star system he had begun to create on his home rig. He zoomed out for a full system view and his mouth … dropped … open.
A massive crystalline structure stretched across the system—a dozen planets’ worth of minerals and ore arranged in impossible fractal geometry, the entire superstructure orbiting slowly around the local sun, gleaming in that artificial sunlight.
Progress should have stalled when Kali and her people trashed his stuff. Even if they somehow missed the machine droning loudly under his bed, this was impossible. No system could have been created that quickly, certainly not one so complex.
A different waiter delivered his second coffee and JD flipped his phone—movements caffeine-addled, so fast the server must have thought he was watching some particularly gross porn. When the black-clad teen had retreated, JD tapped the slotted datacube with a fingernail.
“What are you?” he said quietly. It didn’t respond.
He turned his phone back over and stared silently at the system. If he confirmed its completion, the game would credit him with its discovery and he’d be paid for the processor cycles he’d spent … but he didn’t want to share it, not yet. Not until he knew what it meant.
He closed his eyes and transitioned to first-person—the black of space tinted pink from the light shining through his eyelids. With his fingers against the screen of his phone, he pushed the throttle up, heard the low growl of his corvette’s engines. He flew through the massive structure, following its curves to the outer edge of the system. As he neared the end of the construction, the arm of glinting mineral to his left began to grow, spiraling out before turning back. JD followed it, pushing his engine to redline as he flew between the structure’s organic curves, pieces of it splitting and joining like a strand of DNA leading him all the way to the center of the system.
JD realized he was grinning, and felt self-conscious enough that he opened his eyes. No one in the café seemed to be paying any attention. He transitioned back to third-person view, and left his ship drifting in the middle of that impossible system.
He shut down the game and absently checked social media and news outlets as he drank his second coffee. South Korea’s World Cup win dominated the headlines, and as JD scrolled further and further he realized there was nothing about the heist. About the fire and the police chase, yes, but not the heist itself. Did they get away with it? It was too early to tell.
From his table, JD could see a crime watch billboard slowly flicking through ID photos of citizens wanted for questioning. He watched it rotate through its full selection, heartbeat pulsing steady at his neck, expecting his face to appear, or Khoder’s, or Soo-hyun’s, but they never did.
As he drained the dregs of his cup, JD
