Ivan was still panting mist, his knuckles stinging in the icy wind, when he found the new Cafe and its blackboard sign. He had a little difficulty reading the words; his Russian was not the best. He preferred English, the international language for gaming and business.

The shop’s name was Lucy’s Cafe, written in cursive floral-styled white and pink chalk. Inside, the decor was pleasantly sophisticated and modern: leather chairs, potted ferns, a marble goddess water feature, glass tables, a big glossy television showing water sports, and paintings of tropical beaches spanning each wall. The overall effect was nice.

Free WiFi too, but that was a given nowadays even here.

And the place wasn’t crowded. Good.

At ease, Ivan felt muscles in his face slacken. He grinned at the pretty girl behind the espresso machine, not caring if doing so would cause the opposite effect he wanted. He knew the burn scars on the right side of his face gave his smile a twisted look. A retarded look.

When she didn’t notice him, he hit the bell and said, “Hello. Are you having a special on coffees today?”

“Yes,” she replied, not looking up from the sink, busy washing cups and saucers. She was very meticulous about it, and when she glanced at him, a moment of fright jolted her chest, but she was able to put on a polite face—very professional. She continued in a stiffer voice, “Just for today as the grand opening. I’m Lucy, owner of this establishment. Do you work around here?”

“At a trading company a couple blocks down. I’m Ivan, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, Ivan. What do you trade?”

“Cryptocurrencies. Do you know what they are?”

“Er…” She squinted at the soapy water. “I have heard of it throughout high school. Oh! There was a news article a while ago about an exchange. There was a police investigation.”

“Yes, yes, that was big news,” he said off-handedly. “A big data breach, but we’re not an exchange. We manage trading algorithms and AIs. A lot of money involved. Millions of credits.” He didn’t give two shits about the confidentiality agreement anymore. What was Vlad going to do? Have him whacked?

“It must be very difficult work,” she said with disinterest, fiercely scrubbed an aluminum tray, rinsed it, and unplugged the sink. Green water drained without gurgling. She smiled at him. “So what would you like today? Every kind of coffee is discounted by ninety-five percent. So is hot chocolate and tea.”

Ivan skimmed through the blackboard by the palm trees. “Mochaccino. Large. I’ll have a bacon scone as well, heated.” All the food items were relatively cheap, three credits for one scone, fifteen for a breakfast plate, six for a large coffee. He was liking this place already.

“That will be four point three credits. Take away?”

“Having here, thank you.” He presented his bank card to the scanner.

She looked at the silver card in surprise, then at him with clear suspicion, then again at the card, more closely, checking the engraved block letters, which matched Ivan Romanov letter by letter. She frowned at him. “You don’t have a chip?”

“I don’t trust the government.” The transaction accepted. He put the card back into its foil sleeve.

“Why not?”

He smiled. “Do you want know how I had my face fucked up? Motorcycle regulations. My bike was fine before they barged in.”

She made the mocha in record time. She placed a steaming cup next to the plated scone, mumbling, “Sorry to hear. That must’ve been painful.”

“Still is.” He grabbed the food, caught the brief startled face she made at his injured knuckles. “It’s nothing. I tripped this morning.”

“Oh, I see,” she said awkwardly. “There’s a bathroom if you need it. Behind the ferns.”

“Thank you.” He inwardly shrugged and, wanting some privacy, walked to the back table in the corner. Some people really could not mind their own business for whatever reason, whether they wanted to help or feel like a hero. More than likely the latter.

Far too many people wanted to play as the hero. Wanted. Not many had the balls for it, but in that game, Aeon Chronicles, dicks were free to live out all their heroic fantasies without consequence. They chased down criminals and dark class players to no end. Then they would feel awesome about themselves around camp fires and piles of loot and bountiful rewards from NPC leaders. That was the game in a nutshell—for light-side players.

Ivan’s character was not of the light. He was of darkness, a darkie, one of the most famous at that. One of five most wanted by all three factions all major guilds: Not Insane. Raven Lord.

More like Raven bitch.

He had been so much more powerful during early beta. He had made a killing on the real-money markets, thousands of credits a month, selling pilfered gear, crafting materials, and consumables. High-Quality Rubies were his favorite game, always in demand by those Fire Mages—Dorian’s guild—hogging the desert south of Draconia.

But those days were long gone, and not just because his power, although still great, had long plateaued and fallen behind second-tier classes. Mostly because markets were beyond saturated these days, flooded in the influx of new players. Only top-end weapons and armor went for anything worthwhile. A buyer’s market skewed to shit.

Grumbling, Ivan sipped from the cup. Scalding liquid cooked the tip of his tongue, but the mocha was tasty enough, sweet and creamy. He had better. And the scone was damned cold. He wolfed it down in five bites, tasting bacon and cheese and congealed grease. Decent. Could have been better with some heat like he had asked for so nicely.

That bitch. What was her name? Linda? It didn’t matter. He gave her a pass for the generous discount, and at least the mocha was done right, better with another sip, now cooler, lukewarm. Just how he liked his coffees. As he chugged down half the cup, his eye hitched on the free WiFi sign.

Right, that.

He unzipped his bag and made space for his laptop, a cheap low-end model usable for pretty much nothing. The PCs at Vlad’s office were better, and they were some of the shittiest PCs for employees while Vlad’s trading algos and AIs ran on high-end cloud servers.

The laptop finished its boot with a flicker of the screen. Low battery. Ivan reached into his bag, glared down at the bottle of Seroquel next to a cheap charger. The pills were torture on his liver, and ineffective at best. Full of side-effects too: headaches, gut pain, moodiness, memory loss… the list went on. The stuff was as ancient as this town, from before the war, but they were all he could afford. He didn’t have fifty-thousand credits to drop on a nanotech operation for his brain. Nor five thousand on modern drugs.

And he was overdue for a dose, twice a day. He hadn’t popped one since Wednesday.

Did he even need them? He felt more than fine, honestly better than ever.

But the answer was a resounding yes. Psychotic symptoms would return by day three, hallucinations by day five—a nasty withdrawal he hadn’t been able to hurdle over yet.

He begrudgingly up-capped the bottle.

Then the television’s volume rose five bars, the channel now on the regional news station. A group of journalists, all faces serious and glum, in expensive suits, were discussing something problematic (in their words) about virtual reality. The lead presenter, a middle-aged bald man, was getting emotional and all worked-up over something big that happened last night. His beady eyes were glistening though not yet crying.

He said, “What has happened to this young woman yesterday is a tragedy. It is in my opinion, as a father and a husband, that this new virtual reality technology needs to be regulated. We can’t let a repeat of this happen.”

A dark-skinned woman had nodded along. She exhaled. “It only takes one or two bad apples to spoil the bunch, and in this case, it was Rowan Black. A black, rotten apple to the core. He raped, tortured, and put her humiliation on display for millions to see in that virtual world. We need to intervene—as a society.”

A geeky-looking young guy behind oversized square glasses said, “And to add to that, this new VR technology is state of the art, more than state of the art. When you log-in, the game world becomes your reality. Your sense of sight, smell, touch, and taste are just as sharp, if not sharper in some cases. Who knows how much pain she went through?”

The bald man said, “Yes, thank you, Doctor Petrov. Synaptic Entertainment needs to answer serious question. They need to take responsibility. A young woman was traumatized under their watch. She was the victim. Ayla Frost. Remember that name, because it could have been be your daughter, your wife, your friend. This will not be forgotten.”

Meanwhile, Ivan was looking at their faces, one by one, like they were total idiots, because they had the story all wrong. They couldn’t be more wrong! They were so wrong that anyone in game’s forum could tell them what had actually happened, which was the exact opposite of their story.

He browsed to the thousand-page thread discussing the previous night’s events. Right there, page one, Ayla Frost was labeled a traitor and darkie—not to be trusted. She was a flaming stinking trickster.

One, the game had massive pain reduction; you could lose an arm and barely feel it. Two, Rowan Black had not raped and tortured anyone, because Synaptic’s AI security systems were monitoring for such. Three, Ayla, that two-faced sadistic bitch, was on his fucking side. There was video proof! And yet, the only thing these overpaid journalists talked about were the few short clips of her begging for help in that ridiculous-looking leash and collar that was supposedly shocking her.

Too stupid.

Ivan couldn’t take another word of their incompetent crap, bagging up his stuff and guzzling down the rest of his coffee, storming through the front door without responding to Linda’s meek goodbye. He went straight for the Quantumnet Cafe around the corner, a hundred meter march, then queued at the front entrance behind a line of nerds wearing overcoats and puffer jackets, all eager for Aeon Chronicles. What else were they here for?

Luckily, no one recognized Ivan. He had stylized his character to look different with a meaner face and leaner, taller body for that intimidation effect. Not Insane was someone who demanded respect at a side-eyed glance.

One of the nerds, a fat guy in a checkered shirt, said to Ivan, “Hello, are you here for Aeon?”

“Yes, I’m a veteran player. You?”

“I just heard of the game,” he said with ridiculous levels of excitement.

A newbie, Ivan thought in English. Almost everyone in line was, mostly new faces from what he could recall, here for open beta. He said with feigned disinterest, “Good for you. Have any goals?”

“I want to be a farmer in the countryside. Like a rancher.”

“Piss off. The game has enough farmers.”

His enthusiasm took a hit. “You’re joking.”

“No.”

“But my friend in Light’s Justice—”

“I hate Light’s Justice. Don’t listen to them.”

“Why? They’re the top guild. They have their own city. You don’t know?”

“I know. I’ve been there.” Ivan couldn’t stop glaring. “They built it by monopolizing stone mines. They’re dickheads. Don’t join them.”

“Really?” He was now also frowning. “I’ve known my friend since high school, and he’s an alright guy.”

“Trust me. If you join them, they’ll make you go on wild goose chases.”

“Like what?”

“One time they chased a darkie across the whole continent all week, wasting everyone’s time. I quit after that.”

He scratched his head. “Darkies? Aren’t they wanted everywhere? I read you need to do some sick stuff to get a dark class.”

The ritual to become a Raven Lord was not sick at all. Ivan didn’t know where that rumor had come from. “Where’d you read that?”

“It’s on the official website. Game guides.”

“It’s all marketing, don’t worry,” Ivan said in a quieter voice.

“I don’t think so… Did you hear a woman was attack by a Necromancer—”

Ivan’s uninjured hand waved away the fat guy’s worries. “Don’t listen to the idiot news journalists. Nothing happened to her. Look on the forums, top thread, general section.”

His eyes were almost mad at that. “That can’t be right. It’s been on every news channel since last night. I saw—”

“Trust me when I say they’re either lying or incompetent. Maybe they don’t have an English speaker in their studios. What happened was Ayla was on their side the whole time. She was their distraction. Look on the forums.”

A skinnier guy with a hunched back stepped into the conversation: “Scar-face here is right. The news outlets always lie about gamers, saying we are causing violence and shit.”

His buddy, who looked to be his younger brother, said, “They have a point. Just look at all the gore. Regular people aren’t used to that.”

“Ah, shut up.”

“The game’s extremely violent. That’s a fact.”

“No, it’s not. It’s only as violent as you want it to be, like real life.”

Ivan said in a tone hinting for the skinny brothers to hurry up, “That is true. You’re a smart guy.”

But the fat guy had more questions: “So if nothing happened, then what’s going to happen to the game? Will it be banned? It’s already M rated.”

“Nothing!” someone further behind yelled. “Quit with the talking and move!”

And that was enough to end the friendly banter as Ivan stepped around through the door. He gunned for his favorite pod near the windows in sunlight, and… it was taken by a middle-age woman he hadn’t seen before. He settled for one by the heaters.

Swiping his prepaid time card, he cleaned the gel bed with alcohol wipes, just in case, and made sure his bag was in view of the security camera across the room. Good enough. He shuffled in, shoes off, and hit the red button. The lid closed, the pod whirring to life.

Not Insane was back.