For the fourth time in five minutes, Taemin sighed. "C'mon Key, help me out a little here."

Key steepled his fingers and rested his elbow on the virtual white table. He pretended to think. "The last time you said that, we both got demoted. I thought I was busy before with analyst work but now I have to come in two hours early to do dispatching work. How do you think I feel?”

Taemin crossed his arms. "It’s not like I’ve had it easy either. After I wrote the report, Captain Lee sent me to District Two to patrol.”

“Mods wouldn’t touch that place with a mile-long pole,” Key snorted.

“Exactly. But back to the point–”

“I’m not giving you the file on Soonkyu’s murder, Tae. That’s against regulations and you know that.”

“Since when do you follow regulations?”

“Since I became a part-time dispatcher,” Key snapped. “You know the Commission sometimes do Mesh log checks before they clear it every month. There's always the risk of being found out. After I helped you last time with the elimination of the Mod gang against Commission orders, I’m up to my chin in work.”

Taemin glared at the ceiling of the call room and Key let him fume for a moment.

"How about–” Taemin’s voice cracked. He cleared his throat. “How about I give you my next paycheck and a spare key to my apartment when you need to crash?" He didn’t need to look at Key to know the other male was grinning.

“I want your word that if this gets out, you’ll take full responsibility.”

"Deal."

. . .

Back at his studio apartment, Taemin collapsed onto his couch after grabbing the first two things he saw on his kitchen counter. Then he downloaded and studied the file Key sent him. There was a lot more information on the victim in this one than in the one he saw in the Captain's van. The most important piece was the victim's Mesh activities.

Taemin shoved bread into his mouth and followed up with a bite of a banana. He chewed slowly.

Lee Soonkyu's Mesh activities was exactly what caused her death. She was an activist in an anti-Mod organization called "Purification" who openly bashed Mods and called Law Enforcers incompetent. Not very smart considering the Purifier didn't have control over Mods like it did everyone else. Get attacked by an angry Mod and you'll be defenseless. Violence was prohibited by the Purifier which meant it would paralyzed you until the Mod finished you off.

That was what happened with Soonkyu.

Taemin tsked. "What was the motive?" He thought aloud, his words muffled by the mixture of banana and bread. "Why Soonkyu? Everyone with a normal Purifier is against Mods. Why murder Soonkyu?" He drummed his fingers on his lap and opened a set of photos attached to the file.

There were many photos of the mutilated body, each taken at different angles.

There was the victim with the knife buried in her chest, eyes glazed, mouth opened in a silent scream, a pool of blood around her upper body and—Taemin zoomed in closer to the pavement. His eyes widened. Written crudely on the ground were two words: GAME STARTER.

Taemin inhaled sharply. The words were not there when he arrived on the scene that morning. No doubt one of the Deputies had ordered the Captain who arrived earliest to erase it. But not before the picture was taken as proof for the Commission to see.

This was their declaration, Taemin realized. With the death of a citizen who symbolized the rest of the population, the Mods had just initiated a war. They meant business.

But he doubted the Commission were even going to respond to the Mod's announcement. There would be more and more casualties and they would all be hushed away to keep the people from panicking.

Investigators would be the lowest government rank allowed to know of the issue. The only way Taemin would be able to get information was through Key but he couldn't continue to give up his paycheck. Giving it up this month meant he'd be living off fruit and water for the next one.

Taemin groaned.

What a time to be demoted. He fumbled for another piece of bread but there were no more. With an exasperated sigh, he closed his eyes and connected to the Mesh to blow off some stress.

Sometimes, the more he didn't think of the solution to a dilemma, the faster it'll come out of hiding and present itself to him. Answers were a lot like girls; they want to be chased after but when the chaser gives up, they’ll come running back.

. . .

He downloaded himself onto a virtual game called "New Earth." The name was ironic considering it was based off of how Earth was years ago before the technological breakthrough of the Purifier and the Hologram.

That meant, in this world, the Purifier didn't exist. Everyone was assigned to one team out of four when they first joined. To move forward in terms of levels, the player must use their brain, teammates and whatever resources happen to be available at the time. And the levels–or missions as they were dubbed–range from fighting another same level player to spying on other teams to assassinations even.

Of all the virtual worlds and games on the Mesh, this was Taemin's favorite. He'd clocked in twenty-two hours this week alone playing the game. Not bad if his occupation was taken into consideration. It was no wonder he was the leader of Team Blue and ranked second overall. He lived up to his Mesh nickname: Ace.

The player ranked first was a female with the Mesh nickname, "Minzy." She was the leader of Team Red. The two fought a one-on-one battle once and Taemin very nearly died. She underestimated him, however and he managed to escape.

Minzy was one scary female.

They hadn't seen each other since but today's mission was going to have them teaming up against the Green and Yellow teams.

It was an AON mission. All or nothing. Eliminate the other two teams entirely or be the ones eliminated.

Taemin could tell Minzy was feeling confident. Team Blue was pretty great at assassinations. They were the best out of the four. And with Red's assistance, they could surround the offending teams and take them out.

Easy peasy.  

Except Taemin didn't think so.

"Team Green had the brains to station their base on high ground," he reasoned. "With Yellow up there with them toting around their fancy snipers and night vision goggles, we'd be sitting ducks if we spread out to surround them."

His logic didn't wipe the grin off her face.

How strange.

"Any ideas?" Taemin asked. "Are we going to take them head on?"

"We could do that," Minzy replied, "Or we could just blow them all up at once."

"Their base is a fortress, Minzy."

"Sure, but nothing's impenetrable. Especially if you have a bomb or two planted inside." She smirked and Taemin gestured for her to go on.

"Well, there's an AON mission once every month and the system is supposed to be random but you know, everything has a pattern nowadays, however obscure," Minzy began. "I have a nerd friend and he discovered the creators of the game are using something called a Padovan Sequence. It's a sequence of integers which means—"

"Minzy," Taemin cut her off. "I don't understand nerd. Translate."

The female laughed. "That was my reaction too except I was a lot more patient. What I'm trying to say is I knew today's mission would be an AON mission."

"So?"

"So, you remember the mission we had to complete yesterday?"

"Yeah, each team was given one of four clues and one member had to protect it while the rest attacked other teams to get the rest of it and blah blah my team won." He planted his hands on his hips, slight arrogance present in his innocent expression.

"My point is," Minzy continued, "My teammates and I planted a bomb in the pocket or knapsack of all the teams' minus mine because I didn't know which one I'd be paired up with."

When the realization dawned on Taemin what Minzy had thought of, he could only smile in awe. He reached into his knapsack and pulled out a small black device, eyes narrowing. "You play dirty, Minzy."

"It's just a game, Ace," Minzy said and she moved to deactivate his bomb. After notifying their respective teams, the group moved out into the open until they were just under the hill of Team Green’s base just out of range of the Yellow's snipers.

"Now, let's rack up some points, shall we?" The girl held up her bomb remote and pressed the button.

Boom boom.

Minzy was one scary female indeed.