The TV went black and turned itself off. The arrow floating over it disappeared. A series of messages spammed across my vision, but my mind was racing, and I couldn’t take them in. I waved a hand irritably at the messages and was surprised when they minimized to a blinking tab at the bottom of my vision.

  “Jasper?”

  The AI popped into view.

  “Yes [Victor]?”

  “Who was that?”

  “Who was who, [Victor]?” Jasper said, question marks appearing in place of its eyes.

  “That guy. Adam. The one on TV just now.”

  “I am unable to answer.”

  I stared at the thing. One eyebrow might have gone up.

  “You don’t know or you can’t tell me?” I said.

  “I am unable to answer,” Jasper said, a stop sign emerging from its head and floating off.

  I sighed and shook my head. That was pretty clear. I thought about Adam’s message. Watch your back, he’d said. No kidding. I hardly needed some random guy to tell me I was in danger. Ninjas aren’t a standard apartment feature. I looked down at the blinking tab. Might as well get it over with. I clicked on it and the messages popped back up and into view.

  Tutorial Step Three Complete!

  Tutorial Complete!

  Quest Tracking Activated!

  Achievement Unlocked: Didn’t Die!

  You didn’t die during the tutorial and have reached your first Milestone! Congratulations!

  Milestone

  You have three points to add to your stats. You may not raise any stat by more than one.

  You may choose one of three new Abilities!

  Ability: Hemokinesis

  Spend 1 blood point to attract all spilled blood in a 10 foot area. Instantaneous.

  Ability: Facsimile

  Create a duplicate in your off hand of the weapon held in your main hand.

  Cost varies with size of weapon.

  Ability: Sense Donor

  Spend 1 blood point to locate all living creatures within 50 feet. Instantaneous.

  Note: You have an unassigned specialization from your [Hand-to-Hand: Expert] skill. You may select a specialization.

  Drill down on the [Hand-to-Hand: Expert] skill on your character sheet to make a selection.

  I decided to focus on picking a new ability first. The first two choices seemed the most useful and the last one creeped me out. I considered Facsimile. I was used to fighting with two weapons, my eskrima sticks, but I wasn’t sure if that would translate to paired tanto. If I had two knives I wouldn’t even hesitate, but a tanto was longer and, even held reversed, I wasn’t sure how useful two of them would be. I briefly wondered if the +2 damage would carry over to the Facsimile, but then I remembered the ninja’s head flying off. Damage didn’t seem to be an issue at the moment.

  It wasn’t hard to imagine how Hemokinesis might be useful. My Matrix ran on blood and being able to gather more of it during a fight seemed pretty solid. It would also keep me from having to stick my hand in puddles of gore to refuel. I selected Hemokinesis. The ability blinked twice, then all the ability messages faded out. That done, I pulled up my character sheet.

  I scanned over my stats and saw a little plus sign had appeared next to each one. Thinking back to how much easier my fight had gone once my Agility increased, I immediately put a point into it. I contemplated Intelligence. Would putting a point in it actually make me smarter? The idea seemed ludicrous. Presence was of zero interest. The less attention people paid me, the better. Will would help my Mental Resistance, but I wasn’t sure if that was important. Shrugging, I plugged one point into Strength and one point into Vitality. A message appeared.

  Assign Stat Points?

  Y/N

  I clicked yes, then looked at my Skills. The message said to drill down on Hand-to-Hand, so I concentrated on it and four options populated below Hand-to-Hand.

  Curb Stomp

  You know where to kick. Increase damage done with kicks by 20%.

  Iron Fist

  Target gaps in your opponent’s defenses. Ignore 15% of Physical Resistance when making unarmed attacks.

  Bullet Time

  Your movements are unpredictable. (Agility x5)% chance for ranged attacks to miss. Caps at 50%.

  Deflect

  You know how to take a punch. Increase Physical Resistance by (Agility)% against Hand-to-Hand and Melee attacks.

  I considered my options. Unlike abilities, these all looked to be passive effects. Both Curb Stomp and Iron Fist seemed good, but I wasn’t sure how much fighting I was going to do with my hands and feet. My fight with the ninja had reinforced the lessons from my training. If you are faced with a weapon and don’t have one, your best bet is to run. With the Tanto of the Void, I’d never be without a weapon.

  Deflect seemed to fall into the same category as the first two specialties. While the increased defense against melee weapons would be nice, Sanguis Vita would make healing from the occasional scratch or bruise pretty trivial. As long as I had blood, anyway. Bullet Time seemed like the clear winner to me. I really didn’t feel like being shot, and I approved of anything that reduced that chances of that happening.

  Selection complete, I looked my character sheet over.

  With a grunt, I closed out my character sheet and leaned back into the couch. It looked nice but wasn’t actually very comfortable. Now what? I supposed I should start with figuring out what to do with the dead ninja littering the apartment floor. I looked over and blinked. The body was gone. The head and the body were gone, come to that. The blood was gone, like it had never happened, even my puke was gone.

  Curious, I reached under my shirt, noticing for the first time that neither suit nor shirt had a hole from where the shuriken had entered. Other than a slightly tender spot where I’d been hit, I didn’t find anything. No blood at all. Hell, it didn’t even seem like I’d been sweating, which I knew couldn’t be right. You didn’t fight for your life without sweating.

  “Um, Jasper?”

  It popped into view.

  “Yes, [Victor]?”

  “Can you explain all that?” I said, waving my hand toward the place where the corpse had been.

  “Could you be more specific, [Victor]?”

  “The body? The blood? My puke? Where did it go?”

  “Bodies don’t persist for long after they’ve been looted,” Jasper said. “Messes are cleared up even faster. Can’t have people slipping in blood!”

  “OK, but where did it go?” I said.

  “I am unable to answer.”

  “Of course you fucking are,” I said, rolling my eyes for what felt like the hundredth time today.

  I stood up, looking around the apartment, with the idea of tossing it to see if I could find anything useful, when I noticed something new on my mini-map. It had a yellow arrow pointing west. I frowned and clicked on the mini-map. My vision filled with a mostly grayed out map, but I spotted a new yellow dot to the west of me. The arrow pointed directly toward it. I tried zooming in and found that dot was labelled: Quest: Shots! Shots! Shots!

  I crinkled my brow for a second before remembering one of the messages had said something about a new quest. I tried pulling up a quest list and found a single item.

  Shots! Shots! Shots!

  Get a drink at the Black Orchid to celebrate your victory!

  Get a bunch of drinks! Buy a round for the house!

  Reward: Ring of Inner Peace, 200 Credits

  The arrow and dot were obviously part of the quest tracking system. I cleared my view and considered. I still had no real idea where I was or what was going on. The video Adam had interrupted said welcome to somewhere. Anora? No. Anera? That seemed right. Was that the name of a city? I wandered over to the kitchen and opened the fridge. It was empty. I checked a cabinet. Also empty. Other than the TV, I hadn’t seen a single device. I clearly wasn’t getting any answers here.

  I headed toward the door out of the apartment. On my way out, I spotted a keychain resting in a ceramic bowl on top of a narrow side table by the door. I picked up the keychain and saw it had a single key attached to a plastic tag that read, “The Lux.” I opened the door and tried the key in the apartment’s lock. It turned.

  “Huh,” I said, and pulled the door closed, locking it before pocketing the key.

  I was at the end of a nicely appointed hallway with white marble floors and paneled walls. The door I’d just left had the number four on it, and, looking around, I saw three other doors. Number three was across from me and I saw two more doors at the opposite end of the hallway. The middle of the hallway sported a set of gleaming, steel elevator doors. I walked over to the elevator and looked at the buttons. My only option was down.

  I pushed the button and the doors immediately slid open. Stepping in, I turned to check my options, but there were only two choices. Up or down. I pushed down, and the doors silently slid shut. I looked around as the elevator descended, frowning. Something seemed off. Only two buttons. No emergency stop, no door open or close, no emergency communication option. I glanced up to the corner and didn’t see a security camera. It didn’t even have a safety inspection notice. Weird.

  The elevator came to a stop and the doors slid open revealing a large lobby. I stepped out and saw a security desk next to the elevator, with a guard behind it, and I could just make out the form of a doorman outside. I’d just started to wonder how someone could afford to live like this, when my brain caught up and my eyes snapped back to the guard.

  He looked mostly human, with a thin, wiry frame, and hints of black hair poking out from under his hat, but his ears were pointed. Not like, “Look at my mod, bro!” pointed, either. Long and pointed with no lobes and a half dozen piercings. He must have sensed my confusion, because he turned to look at me and I saw his eyes were a bright green. I’d seen Lord of the Rings. Who hasn’t? This motherfucker was an elf.

  “Can I help you, sir?” he said, somehow conveying a sneer, despite the polite tone.

  I plastered what I expect was a completely unconvincing smile across my face.

  “Nope, all good. Thanks.”

  I nodded to him and forced myself to walk through the lobby and out the doors without turning around to stare at him. I was concentrating so hard I almost ran into the doorman as I passed through the doors. I started to apologize, then stared, completely flummoxed.

  The dude was over six feet tall and built like a brick shithouse. That was fine, though. I’ve known plenty of big guys. None of them had bright red skin or pupils that glowed orange.

  “Ah, sorry?” I said, backing away.

  “Not a problem, sir,” he (it?) said. “Should I hail you a taxi?”

  The thing was definitely a doorman. It had on the same ridiculous uniform they all wear, with enough gold braid to make a general jealous. I couldn’t see any hair under its cap, but the features suggested it was male. He? We’ll go with he. He looked at me, patiently.

  “Um, sure,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “Absolutely, sir,” he said.

  The doorman stepped to the curb and raised his arm to call a cab. Within moments, one appeared out of the stream of traffic, rocking to a stop in front of him. The doorman opened the back door and nodded to me again.

  “Enjoy your evening, sir.”

  Wordlessly, I got into the cab. It smelled like every taxi you’ve ever been in. Stale sweat, old cigarettes, and just the faintest hint of an overworked air freshener. The cabbie looked at me in the mirror.

  “Where to, pal?”

  The driver was blue. Like one of those things from the Avatar movies, but thicker. Even his eyes were blue, though a bit paler than his skin. I briefly wondered if I’d gone insane. He had no hair at all and a pair of big, clunky gold earrings. My mouth took over for me.

  “The Black Orchid please.”

  The cabbie nodded and pulled back into traffic.

  Victor: Jasper? What the actual fuck?

  Jasper (AI): Could you be more specific, [Victor]?

  Victor: What are these things? Was that a fucking elf in the lobby?

  Jasper (AI): The driver and the doorman are both jann, descendants of the djinn. They have different colored skin depending on affinity. The guard was a fane. Don’t call them elves.

  Victor: You’re serious? Djinn? Like, genies?

  Jasper (AI): Don’t call them genies. That’s considered quite rude.

  I looked out the window and saw more fane and jann, and a few actual humans, along with other beings I had no name for. One of them appeared to have gray skin and was reaching up two stories with a thin, extended arm to wash a window. Another had green skin, a mohawk, and was typing furiously into something that looked like an extra chunky smartphone.

  Victor: What about those guys? The, uh, gray one and the green one?

  Jasper (AI): The window cleaner is called a shiftling. They can alter their bodies and gender, but not their mass. They’re always gray, no matter what form they take. The one with the mohawk is a gobbek.

  Victor: How about the others? The ones that look human. Are they just normal people?

  Jasper (AI): Human, yes. Normal, no. Every human has one or more abilities. Every Agent appears human, but not every human is an Agent.

  Victor: OK. Anything else?

  Jasper (AI): That’s it. Mostly.

  Victor: Mostly?

  Jasper (AI): I am unable to answer.

  I snorted. That answer was getting to be annoying. The cabbie looked into the mirror at me.

  “Did you say something, pal?”

  “Nope.”

  He shrugged and went back to driving. I continued to stare out the window, fascinated by the different races. A gobbek pulled up next to us at a stoplight and, closer up, I could see she had a small pair of tusks poking out from her lower lip. She also had an undercut, enough piercings to set off a metal detector, and was bumping to some music. I pushed my head nearer the window and could just make out “Right Thurr” by Chingy.

  I frowned. That seemed odd. Trying to ignore the strangely colored people around, I started looking for things that were familiar. It didn’t take long to spot a convenience store with the usual signs in the window advertising Coke, Marlboros, and Bud Light. As the taxi continued to roll we passed a McDonald’s and Taco Bell. The cars around us were what you’d see in any American city. A Ford here, a Chevy there, a smattering of Hondas, and the occasional BMW or Volkswagen.

  I was still thinking about what all that meant when the taxi pulled to a stop.

  “Here you go, pal.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I started to reach for my wallet then stopped when I remembered I didn’t have one. No wallet, no cash, no cards. Shit. How was I supposed to pay for this? I might not know where I was or what was going on, but I was sure any cabbie anywhere would be pissed if a fare couldn’t pay.

  “The thumbpad’s in front of you, buddy,” the cabbie said.

  I looked and saw a small plastic square set in the back of the seats. It was yellowed and grimy with age and the only thing that seemed out of place. Hesitantly, I pushed my thumb against it and the thing gave a beep before turning green. A message scrolled across my vision.

  You lost 45 credits.

  “There ya go,” the cabbie said. “Have a good one.”

  “You too.”

  I slid out of the cab and onto the sidewalk. Now that I was looking and thinking not just shocked and reacting, I noticed a few other oddities. None of the vehicles passing by were emitting any kind of fumes. In fact, looking closer, none of them even seemed to have tailpipes. And I couldn’t see any wires anywhere. Sure, most modern cities run cables and wires underground, but there’s usually a few snaking up the side of a building or attached to the stoplights. Here though, nothing.

  I looked across the street at the building I’d come to visit and had a moment of déjà vu. This was the exact same angle as the memory I’d taken from the dead ninja. Waiting for a pause in the traffic, I jogged across the street and headed for the door lit by the Black Orchid’s purple neon sign.