Taemi and Dongwoon huddled under the leaves with a glint in their eyes. Luckily, the foliage was high and thick enough to conceal the both, especially Dongwoon, the taller of the pair. They had been separated from their team shortly after the lights went down, but no worry because the two were a great team by themselves. Dongwoon held up a green cloth with a crude red triangle printed on it. Taemi smiled and nodded; their conversations never needed words. She jutted two fingers in a gun motion and they began their trek across the field.

When they reached the first dirt covered outpost, a cute attempt at trying to make it less visible, Dongwoon scraped some mud from the ground and covered his vest's blinking blue light; Taemi mimicked him and followed Dongwoon up as he climbed the tower. They didn't use the ladder because it was sure to be guarded by some gun-happy 52. Once Taemi slipped over the side of the rail, they started moving towards the central base.

Even though there were thin, hard mental pathways, they were silent as hunting foxes, save for the occasional soft thud that would sound when a bad spot was stepped on. All in all, no one would notice them until it was too late. They were two posts away from the base when a harsh zing came from behind Taemi. She gasped and then pixelized away into nothingness. Behind where she used to be stood a smirking boy with height challenging even that of Dongwoon's. Dongwoon acted through reflex and shot him down; without checking to see if he had succeeded in his wild fire, Dongwoon turned and sped toward the base.

No satisfying zing went off, but the boy must've fallen off the rail because he didn't pursue Dongwoon. A whole five minutes later, the lights finally came back. Dongwoon had torn the opposing team's emblem, a red cloth with a crude green circle printed on it, and placed his team's own in the place of it. As a result, everyone zapped out of the map and came back into the pod room.

Taemi was scowling when Dongwoon approached. He gave a hearty laugh and spread his arms out for her to run into. In response to his offer, Taemi kicked the ground in front of her and glared warningly up to her best friend. 

"Now, come on, it wasn't that bad," he assured her. Still, Taemi was bitter over her capture. It was so very rare that either of them would be captured when playing; Taemi wasn't used to the defeat.

"It was! And you know it," she huffed angrily, "I mean, where did that guy even come from! I sure didn't hear him approaching." To humor her, Dongwoon nodded and patted the top of her head encouragingly.

"See? Neither of us noticed him; it was inevitable." Still, she was unpleased. Taemi looked around the pod room and settled her eyes on the same boy that took her down. He was off by himself, ignoring compliments from his fellow teammates. Anyone who frequently went to the immersive center there would easily recall the power pair. The two only visited once a month when Taemi had enough money to pay for a game, but one game a month was enough to give them an impressive reputation. When Taemi and Dongwoon were together, they would never lose; however, they were notable alone, too. People always tried to come and play with them, it'd help your rank, a guaranteed win. Others were less fortunate and while they would arrive on the same day, be on a different team, a guaranteed lost.

They didn't make friends at the immersive center, though. The most anyone knew about the two were their names and their ranks. Ranks were different from  worths; they were specific to the immersive center and gauged how well a player was comparatively. Taemi wasn't as good as Dongwoon, but she hadn't had as much practice as him. Her initial game was his doing; her training and love for immersive gaming was result of Dongwoon also. It was a hobby they enjoyed together. That meant Dongwoon never played by himself and since too noble Taemi refused to be paid for, a game a month it was. 

Taemi wasn't poor; she just wasn't as rich as Dongwoon. He had the desirably high worth number of 87. Anything higher than 65 was something like a dream to everyone Taemi knew in zone 48. Her worth was 48, irresponsibly low. Her friendship with Dongwoon was a danger in itself. The thought of someone so low freely interacting with someone with so much potential, it was shocking. It was shocking because it was made to be through numerous laws. The laws didn't stop friendships from forming; they just made it a lot harder than it needed to be. It was also difficult once the friendship was already made, too. Dongwoon and Taemi had to be careful about how they conversed in public and the topics they could talk about.

These silly laws were also the reason Taemi didn't like it when Dongwoon escorted her places. It was nice and she was protected, but the attention it brought was almost not worth the trouble. Anyone who was close enough to Taemi or gossiped enough with others knew her best friend was out of their reach, if they couldn't figure that out from his clothes. Dongwoon said he dressed down whenever he could, but she knew he couldn't always sell himself short for her. Taemi also knew she couldn't always be there for him; at least, not in the way he could for her. How she even managed to capture him was the mystery to solve in sub 3.

"Why do you insist on sending me home? You know it isn't as nice as yours," stated Taemi with a frown. Dongwoon smiled and ruffled her hair affectionately.

"Because I like to and I want to and I don't like the thought you could get hurt and," Dongwoon mumbled slowly against his knitted scarf until he was barely audible, "it's just so nice being with you."

She easily dodged his caring words and blew her cheeks out in annoyance. "All you really do is draw attention." He chuckled and leaned against the transport capsule's sleek white wall. It was similar to the pods in the pod room; the capsule was oval shaped but had built in couches and was much more spacious. Pods only had enough room to stand in and there were no windows in those. Just like the pods, capsules were expensive. It had taken Taemi time to understand that this was how Dongwoon traveled everywhere. While she was resistant to him providing for her games, she said nothing on the expenses of their travel or sometimes, food. He liked paying for her and it wasn't like Dongwoon would suddenly drop worth.

Significant worth changes were rare, rarer than the two's relationship even. Perhaps someone would go up one or down one but the worth assigned at age ten was almost sure to stick for the next thirteen years. People tried whatever they could to change it: crazy surgeries, personality training, black market classes that promised results. Nothing seemed to sway the computer. It might've helped to know what the computer even looked for.

It looked at basic features like height and weight and what color someone's hair was but it also gave tests asking abstract questions that lasted two hours. One girl said she was given the task to draw something with only yellow paint and it was pretty believable for everyone had been given at least one ridiculous task when they were tested. Most people were sure the computer looked even at their DNA. If they could, people would pay to change who their parents were. Yet, with all these factors and tests, no one knew what exactly the computer was looking for. No one.

With the capsule's assistance, they were in zone 48 within twenty minutes of sitting down. An impressive feat to Taemi since traveling that distance would normally require an hour, at the least. It came into the dock with a clean hissing noise; the capsule locked into place and waited for its patrons to leave. Taemi hopped out of the thing cutely but Dongwoon stood inside waiting for permission. He didn't feel like he would be lucky.

"Go home." Taemi said simply. She was looking in his best interest and he knew that, which was why it was so hard for him to argue.

"Are you sure? It's not that far." He rebutted slowly. She grinned pleasantly and nodded in response.

"That's why you should go home. It's not that far, remember? If anything even happens, I'll pretend like I'm in the center and World Three their sorry face." World Three was Taemi's favorite map. It looked like an abandoned iced-over planet. It borderline freezing, but everything was so beautiful. Whoever coded that map deserved infinite congratulations.

Dongwoon his lips and nodded once. He pressed a palm against the capsule's built in scanner to activate the holographic keypad and entered that he wanted to go home. As the capsule door began to slide shut, he peeked out and waved goodbye to Taemi, who giggled and waved back. She heard him scream one last thing, but she couldn't catch it all. Yet, Taemi knew what he was trying to say. "Good luck on your Worth Test." She shouted a thanks back even though he couldn't hear her anymore and stayed at the dock until the capsule blasted away. Taemi smiled and left the dock a good while after he was gone.

She was almost fifteen. Her birthday was in three days. Their game today could be seen as a sort of celebratory session, but it honestly wasn't. The two would've played whether it was Taemi birthday coming up or Dongwoon's or no one's. Birthdays weren't celebrated in zone 48; people just crossed their fingers and hoped they didn't get marked down. Some of the younger boys were the best workers and they certainly didn't want their wages to be cut because of a bad reassignment.

"Taemi!" As soon as she stepped out of the dock, someone hollered her name from across the street. It was a thin boy with short black hair that stuck to his forehead; his name was Kikwang. He was her friend. They had met when Taemi was twelve and running errands for her uncle; she had strict instructions to not talk to anyone, and obviously those rules were broken since she befriended Kikwang. He was running somewhere; Kikwang was always running.

"Kikwang" greeted Taemi. He ran over to her and casually slung an arm around her shoulder. Kikwang smelled of motor oil and dirty cash; then again, everyone smelled more or less like that. Taemi frowned at him, sensing something was off. Their relationship was no where near what she had with Dongwoon, but it was still strong enough for Taemi to notice disturbances. Kikwang smiled uneasily, whenever Taemi frowned, he would get an earful.

"You," she murmured, softly drawing out the syllables because of her concentration, "you have been--have you been drinking?" Her sudden revelation alarmed him so that he tripped and fumbled on the hard, cracked concrete ground. This slip-up only confirmed growing suspicions of Taemi's. Kikwang pushed himself up gruffly and chuckled. His arm resumed its previous position on Taemi's shoulder and he urged her forward in a forced casual manner. She walked with little resistance.

"It's not that much," he began with a newly added reasonable tone to his voice.

"Not that much! Any is too much. You know you still have months before you're allowed to." She scolded him softly. If anyone heard their conversation, Kikwang would be in great trouble. He had a misunderstanding with the zone guard a year ago and was prohibited from attending or consuming a blunk. A blunk was, depending on context, a slimey orange liquid with foaming white bubbles but it was also a bar that served this poison. Blunks had an inordinate quality to them and if you had too much, you were sure to go to sleep on the sidewalk and never wake up again. Taemi didn't like them one bit.

Kikwang shushed her urgently; they walked in a tense silence until their subset was reached. He ushered her up the damp moss covered steps to their set. To anyone who was watching, it would have looked like two ordinary kids hurrying home before curfew. Taemi kept quiet through all of his drunken pushings; she waited until the two were safe inside his room before daring to speak again. However, as soon as Kikwang entered, he staggered to the couch and shut down, but  this wasn't the blunks' doing. He didn't want to hear Taemi's disgust and warnings; it was easier for both of them this way.

Taemi sighed and checked the time on the clock built into the wall. She had just enough time to find the large cloth he used for a blanket and cover Kikwang before scurrying off to her own room for the night check. It was one of the new laws that had been passed: each night anyone with a worth lower than fifty-five would have to succumb to a check in their room. Attendance, you could call it. No one questioned this law, no one that mattered anyway.

She had barely closed the door when a red light blinked and scanned her room. It disappeared wordlessly, satisfied with the results. Taemi put her hand over her chest and panted in relief. Afterwards, Taemi crawled into her cold, hard bed and wrapped what meager blankets she had around her body. The brief joy from her game with Dongwoon was gone, replaced with the scowling darkness she was accustomed to. She snuggled closer in her blankets and drifted into sleep.