June 2057

“What was the hardest part of the national competitions?” The interviewer, Caris, who seemed to have a permanently white smile and beautiful honey-blond hair, asked. She sat across from the five of them on the black platformed stage, surrounded by hundreds of eager fans bursting with excitement at the sight of them. It made Eniola’s heartbeat with nervousness and pleasure.

It still fazed her she could relate to all of those fans, as she once trailed behind famous teams with stars in her eyes, and that she could one day be like them. Now Eniola was official alongside her teammates. She wondered if someone in the crowd had that same raw talent and unconstrained passion, and would become like her.

There were drones everywhere, getting every angle of Theo, Jay, Lucia, Eniola, and Iris, up close with their cameras for the rest of the world to see and analyze.

Her coiled hair was up in an elaborate bun, with gold string woven in. She was wearing a short black dress that hugged against what should’ve been curves. There was dramatic eyeliner drawn on boldly around her eyes.

Lucia had picked it out, and Eniola had no serious opposition as her best friend had an immaculate taste. Lucia’s cropped hair had grown out into waves that swept her shoulders. A shimmery bodysuit hugged her plump and round figure.

Everyone else looked their best, including Jay, Eniola’s boyfriend. She took an extra second to peek at him, long hair tousled to perfection. His piercing brown gaze burned sharp onto the crowd; the gaze that made everyone feel like they were the only person in the world. It’s what captivated her.

His deep brown eyes who Eniola took an extra second to peek at for comfort. His deep brown eyes caught her gaze again, and he gave her a quick wink before he turned away with his face curled into a smirk.

Her heart melted into a puddle.

“Well,” Theo, Rogue’s captain and hypothetical father, began running a hand through his curly brown hair.

Theo always took the lead. It was his second nature, besides drooling over anime characters. He was the person most comfortable in the many interviews they had. He was quick with it too, like he did with everything he stepped up to do. It was good for Eniola because all she had to do was smile and listen and talk sometime.

“The hardest part was being on par with all the teams from other states. We’ve never played with any of these people, so it was harder to figure them out.”

The crowd and Caris hummed in agreement at his perfect response. “But I guess your hard work paid off because you guys are going to Seoul!”

She finished on a loud, exciting note, and once again the reminder washed over Eniola in euphoria. The crowd cheered, and Eniola smiled. It still felt unreal when they had won days ago in a neck-and-neck battle.

Eniola still had to remind herself that she had won. It was almost like it didn’t happen. The final states were California, Ohio and Rhode Island. It took place in Planet Lumia, this time without the worldwide glitch and the homicidal AI madman of last year. They hid the disk beneath the surface in the sweltering lava and had to swim in bright red lava. The feeling of adrenaline still lingered in her bones, buzzing with rushing euphoria. She remembered the feeling of relief when the simulation shifted back to the arena, stopping her fight with the Lumians when Lucia had grabbed the disk.

“We are so excited!” Lucia cut in. “We really want to do well and represent the US.”

Caris smiled. “I’m sure you do. So now, I have a question for Eniola.”

Eniola immediately stood up straighter than she already was at the mention of her name. She looked directly into the main camera with her wide smile. It was a while since she got a direct question for her. All eyes laid on her.

“Give it to me,” Eniola said in a confident tone that masked her nervousness.

“Your birthday is in 5 days,” Caris remarked, leaning in forward in anticipation like this was world-breaking news. “What do you want?”

“I already got my birthday wish,” Eniola said. “To play SCOPE and have such amazing fans. There’s really not much I can ask for.”

The audience gushed at her response. Eniola smiled even wider that her face hurt.

“That’s great! It’s so wonderful you care about your fans!” she said, then turned to the camera. “That’s a wrap for this interview of Rogue the US SCOPE Championships. Please cheer for the members of the US SCOPE Team: Eniola Adeyemi, Jay Yoon, Lucia Vargas, Iris Palsson, and Theo Aurilio.”

The audience cheered one more loud and energetic time, and Eniola smiled in response, but mostly in relief.

All these people believed in them. Believed in her. They loved SCOPE just as much as she did, and she couldn’t disappoint. She sucked in a slow breath.

The camera whizzed away on command before another cheer erupted from the audience. Eniola sank a bit in her seat before Caris stood up and approached them with her radiant personality.

Caris approaches them. “Good luck. You guys really deserve this!”

“Thank you,” Iris replied with a splitting smile.

Escort-droids hovered onto the stage before surrounding them in a border, before walking down the steps and into the path that separated two crowds of fans. They’ve walled over the fans behind a barrier, and it seems a bit much, but it makes her feel protected. Screams from all ends blast onto them and Eniola hastily gave out quick smiles before being led out into a huge foyer, with glass ceilings that glittered in an illusion before they walked out arched doors and into the busy nighttime streets of a city that never seemed to sleep, with bustling action from all over.

A sleek black auto-car waited for them outside and the doors opened automatically as Eniola climbs inside and sinks down into the cushiony seats, sighing in relief and tiredness. She didn’t realize fatigue had been slowly creeping over her body until her limbs felt sluggish and her eyes fluttered before she snapped them apart.

Everyone piled in, and of course, Jay sat next to Eniola, but she wasn’t complaining. In fact, she hadn’t complained about being closer to him in a long time. Despite everything, he still wore the same jacket he always wore. Eniola still didn’t know why. But he had changed. His hair went from being shaggy and curled to being fluffy and long to his shoulders.

“You missed one thing,” he suddenly whispered down to her, curling his arm around her shoulders, revealing the rose tattoo etched onto his left hand that came down into a hidden sleeve. He had gotten a bunch of tattoos last year, and they curled up all the way onto his arm and over his tan skin. It made him a bit more rugged on the outside, but Eniola knew inside he was still boyish.

“What do you mean?” she asked, a smile creeping up onto her face.

“You never said I was your birthday wish,” Jay said as he smirked at her, and she rolled her eyes playfully. Some things never changed, and that was okay.

“That’s because I already have you,” Eniola said before reaching up to peck a kiss onto his cheek.

At that same time, a sigh of fake annoyance filled the air. Eniola turned back to see Iris fake-grimacing at them through her fringe of hair, red filling her pale cheeks.

Iris’s hair was one of the many changing things from last year. She dyed one-half a vibrant purple and the other a misty grey. Eniola had to admit she was skeptical of the change at first, but Iris could honestly rock any hair colour.

“You guys are too affectionate,” Iris grumbled with a smile. “Right in front of me.”

“I think it’s cute,” Lucia gushed, sitting beside them with Theo’s arm around her.

Eniola almost felt bad for Iris, being sandwiched between the two couples in the group, but Eniola just smiled at Lucia. She was the one person who wanted them together at first. Eniola thought she was crazy, but she and Jay made a good match with each other and that’s something she would’ve never admitted a year ago when he was still lurking on their Discord.

“Really cute,” Theo reinstated. Iris grumbled and slumped down into her seat.

She wondered if this new status of fame would bring new trials to everyone, and it did, but they got through it. So much had changed. Eniola had to essentially convert to being extroverted because being SCOPE famous came with being a public figure. They were being in the public eye, having details of their life become common knowledge, and everyone always reacting to what they said. But it was the thing she loved and what she wanted to do. Even if it came with downsides, it was better than not playing SCOPE.

In a week, they were going to South Korea to compete with teams from around the world. It was both nerve-wracking and exhilarating, playing in front of the entire world. The reputation of the United States hung on all 10 of their shoulders.

The auto-car stopped, the doors slid open, and everyone piled out into the night. Their hotel ‘AZURE’ had its sign rotating around the digital building, rippling with multicoloured tiles on its wall. The guard-droids escorted them into the glittery blue foyer, mixed with high-profile people and androids. Eniola held her head up like she always did, and tried not to feel poor in such a place like this, knowing that SCOPE paid for the hotel since they had no dorms here. They went for the orb-shaped elevators that were open at their motion and went inside.

Eniola sucked in a breath and averted her gaze until it was looking at the sky, feeling the weightlessness catch underneath her and raise her up to the sky. And it was worse because she could feel and see the ground slowly get smaller underneath her. As if on reflex, Jay intertwined their hands together and Eniola sighed as her heart quickened. She turned her head to see him already staring, and she instantly looked forward.

The elevator stopped, and the doors slid open, leading them into a smooth white hallway, where glass panels and pictures of abstract moving artwork adorned the walls. Eniola walked forward with them and took in the sights before they left New York tomorrow with only memories left. The 5 of them stopped in front of 3 rooms before they separated. At least this time they knew where to go instead of having to solve a maze and many glass floors, like in the Los Angeles dorm.

Eniola and Lucia shared a room together, resulting in blissful chaos, while Iris happily took the single room, which was achieved through a series of competitive rock-paper-scissors and potential fistfights. The guys shared as they did in Los Angeles. Eniola stepped into their shared room, which had two fluffy beds in the middle, before it led out into a smaller living room with a lush fur rug, with a holo-screen nestled on a huge wall, before a narrow hallway led into a beautiful bathroom. Beautiful, yes. That’s how nice it was.

Lucia flopped down on her bed and sighed loudly before Eniola sat down next to her, and curled her knees into her chest.

“I just need a vacation,” Lucia sighed, rolling over to look at Eniola through her messy hair covering her face. She pushed it out, revealing freckles on her sepia skin, dusting her chubby cheeks.

“This is a vacation,” Eniola remarked wryly. “And Seoul will also be a vacation.”

“Being famous is exhausting,” Lucia replied. “Great, but exhausting. We just need to go somewhere and chill. What about Hawaii? It’s sunny over there.”

That’s where he’s from, Eniola said inside her head to save on potential heavy silence.

“No,” Eniola instead said.

“I wonder where Howie went on her vacation,” Lucia said. “To think of it, we haven’t seen her since California. She usually gives some hints or updates, but she’s been totally MIA.”

“And you thought I was a superfan,” Eniola laughed. “You’re obsessing over her location.”

Lucia did nothing but shrug and lay down. Eniola shrugged back.

Eniola reached over to her bed before grabbing her phone to check for updates on SCOPE and more news about internationals. It was cool seeing theories and predictions on who would win, and even better now that she was involved with it. But that wasn’t the only thing trending,

People seemed to freak out about “Matrix Man.” Eniola investigated further with a curious scroll, looking at reports and frantic posts about an attack in Portland, Oregon. Her eyes and brows immediately rose at the panic, and Eniola looked through the photos. It was of the world glitching in, inside of it looked like an electric lightning burst.

It seemed like a regular glitch, so why were people scared?

A video link of a newscast came up next. An alarmed reporter spoke out in dramatic words about something that happened in the last worldwide glitch. As Eniola watched, shocks of lightning appeared during it, but then the newscast turned into a second photo and it was of an enormous crater in the middle of a busy street beside an alleyway. Eniola’s eyes widened in disarray.

“What are you watching? Lucia asked, next to her. Eniola pushed the screen into her view.

“A glitch caused a crater in Detroit,” Eniola summarized, as she looked deeper.

The video cut back to the newscaster. “Witnesses say they saw a strange figure in green on the scene,” Eniola pushed her head back in disbelief before the photo transitioned once again to the alleged suspect.

Her heart dropped.

No, no, no, no, no.

Anything but that.

A sinking pool of fear swelled into her chest and threatened to take over her being with a million incoherent thoughts swimming inside her head, and words that seemed to stay frozen on her tongue.

“It’s him,” Lucia said, immediately sitting up, with nervous eyes glued to the screen.

“That’s impossible,” Eniola quivered. “Iris destroyed the computer! Paradox is gone!”

“No,” Lucia mumbled, running a hand through her hair and let out a slow exhale. “We have to tell the rest of them.”

A thought plagued Eniola. “Maybe the glitches weren’t just an after-effect? Maybe he was the reason they’re happening now? He still has the computer!”

Eniola’s head dropped as she took in shallow breaths. All that time they’d spent risking their lives to stop him, but apparently, he had only been weakened, biding his time to strike again.

“What if he tries something in South Korea?” Lucia muttered. “We can’t put ourselves through that again.”

Eniola agreed silently. She just wanted to be normal, and play SCOPE regularly, not having to worry about some digital madman terrorizing her very being.

Why couldn’t she just have this?

But she could never be too careful. Keone left ULTRA last year shortly after California so that he could travel the world and “find himself”. That was a complete lie. How did she not see that? Maybe it’s because she didn’t want to see it.

Some believed he was a ghost or a phantom. Some thought it was VR. Some even said he was an alien. Whatever they believed, they called him Matrix Man, and it was the newest frenzy besides the glitches. No matter what people said, Eniola knew it was Paradox. Or Keone.

Eniola didn’t know how to feel. She just wanted to be a SCOPE player. She didn’t want to have to deal with him again.

But the world could change as they know it. And they were the only ones who knew.

“This is crazy,” Eniola said, finally, before copying the photos and the video and sending it to the rest of her friends on Discord.

“If this is Keone, then this is bad,” Lucia replied. “Whether we like it, we have to do something-

A fizzing sound popped into the air as the world disintegrated into an explosion that burst across the landscape in digital static colour cutting Lucia off. Eniola literally froze in the shock. Then it stopped.

“He’s doing that,” Lucia then said. “The glitches are because of him.”

“What do we do?” Eniola asked.

“I don’t know,” Lucia muttered. “I’m tired as hell. I’m going to shower.”

“Don’t take too long,” Eniola called out to her as Lucia entered the bathroom, saying nothing, meaning she was going to take a very long time.

Eniola lounged back on her bed and was about to call the net screen on so she could watch what streamed that day. Then, a vibration hit the bed and Eniola looked down at her cellphone.

She swallowed a gulp as she turned off the phone and set it down again. They had been texting her a lot since she’d been in New York, and Eniola stayed away from their texts like they were lethal. They had made it clear they didn’t approve and wouldn’t support her playing SCOPE, but now that she and her team had won for the US, they suddenly wanted to talk to her. Yet Eniola hadn’t had the heart to block them.

But if they disowned her, then she disowned them, too.

◣

“Your flight is delayed by one day because of an atmospheric glitch,” the android repeated to the 5 of them, all holed up in the boys’ shared room. “You will fly tomorrow.”

Eniola sighed first, before it became contagious around everyone sitting in their hotel room. One more day in New York wasn’t that bad, but they had a knack for being overdramatic. It was just because the glitches disrupted everything in their life and they could technically stop it.

Everyone freaked out last night when they’d found that Paradox was back, and it left them at impossible odds. This time, they had no lead or no ominous conversation that set off everything like a convoluted time bomb. They had nothing to bounce off of. It was just 5 of them.

“We’ve got one extra day,” Theo began, cutting into her thoughts, and Eniola looked over at him. “What are we going to do with that?”

“I’m going to sleep,” Iris said first, getting up and heading for the door. “I don’t want to get jet-lagged when we get back to San- I mean California,”

Iris said it with a split-second knowing side-eye to Eniola. They acted like San Francisco was some sort of curse word in front of her, and that a three-hour time difference had challenged their unbreakable bond.

As she said, they had a knack for being overdramatic.

“Do cyborgs get jet-lagged?” Jay joked.

“Maybe,” Iris said. “I wouldn’t know because I always sleep the day before. I could put myself into temporary comatose if I wanted to really sleep, but I’ll do just fine. And I’m sure my moms wouldn’t be too happy if I’m not getting enough sleep.”

“See you soon,” Theo said, and Lucia came next to him before sinking into his arms and sighing into a smile. “There was one restaurant we really wanted to visit but couldn’t. We’re going now.”

Theo and Lucia had been doing this challenge of trying to have as many dates in the most bizarre restaurants they could find in each city. They already committed to a list for Seoul. When they first got there and it was the fourth-year anniversary, they went to an eccentric restaurant that was completely in the dark. Considering how that worked out for Eniola last time she went into a place like that, a dark restaurant, it surprised her they came back in one piece.

“Bye!” Eniola said as they all filed out of the room. She turned back to Jay, sitting on the other side of the room as they made brief eye contact with each other, eyes gluing to each other in a passionate trance.

But then a smile cracked onto his face, and they both broke out in feverish giggles.

“So, what are we going to do?” Jay asked as he stood, making his way over to her. He wrapped a tattooed arm around her. For a moment, she admired the designs. On his forearm, they etched a starry night sky onto his skin, before they snaked up his arms into a partial design of a compass. “We have one more day in New York to spend. We could do it together.”

“We’ve already seen everything,” Eniola reminded, leaning into him.

They went through all the ancient landmarks and all the new modern ones, immersing themselves in such a city, bursting with life and loudness. It almost made Eniola forget why she was avoiding this place with her life.

And then she remembered it was because of certain people.

“There is actually one place we haven’t gone that I think we should,” Jay mentioned with quiet anticipation.

“Impossible,” Eniola huffed, looking back at him with teasing eyes. “We’ve practically gone everywhere in this city. If you’ve truly found a place, I’m impressed.”

Jay sat back and smiled. “I found this underground network of untasted street hot dogs. I hear if you offer them your left pinkie, they’ll let you in.”

Eniola swallowed back a chuckle before it erupted. She looked at him teasingly. “How fancy! I’m intrigued.”

“Only the best for my girl,” Jay said back before reaching forward and planting a long kiss on her cheeks that felt intimate. Her heart blossomed in pleasure. Almost a year, and he could still make her feel that way. Feeling giddy, with her heart racing several miles a minute at every contact.

“But I had an actual place in mind,” Jay said quietly, averting his gaze away from Eniola, which seemed on purpose. She raised an eyebrow.

“And that is?”

“Your parents live in New York, don’t they?” Jay asked.

Eniola pulled away from him with a small sigh. “They live here. And so do 20 million other people. Your point is?”

“Look Eni,” Jay said, staring into her eyes. “It’s been almost a year since we started dating, and I don’t know your parents. I haven’t seen them.”

Eniola was about to retort she had never met his dad until she remembered she had met his dad over a call.

“I don’t know,” Eniola sighed, shrugging. “They’ve been so shifty. They’re talking about wanting to see me, but I don’t understand what they want.”

“Do they know we’re dating?” Jay asked.

“The entire world knows we’re dating,” Eniola replied wryly. “If they know about SCOPE, they know about us.”

“Come on,” Jay prodded. “I want to meet your parents and get to know them.”

“Are you sure?” Eniola said. “Meeting my parents can be a unique experience. It’s only for the bravest of souls. Are you up for it?”

“I’m always up for it,” Jay sighed, squeezing her tighter, before moving down to her ear. “But if you change your mind, we can always do something else.”

“Do what?” Eniola prodded, with an eyebrow raised, before she took her hand and slid it down his arm.

“Whatever you want,” he said in a low whisper, leaning into it. Eniola had to admit her heart fluttered at the prospect.

“Then I want to sleep!” Eniola exclaimed, cutting through the pull she felt with a teasing smirk.

“You’re always leaving me hanging!” he complained jokingly, as she got up from where they were sitting.

“Don’t I have good timing?” Eniola said before she walked out of the room with a smirk.