Touch To Start

The news reached me that a game I'd dropped ages ago had finally gone under.

Undercity — a game I'd been playing at full tilt just a few years before.

Convinced it had to be some kind of mistake, I searched the game's name — and sure enough, the end-of-service announcement was the very first thing on the list, complete with the official mascot bowing her head, a scrupulously polite notice, and even instructions for refunds.

'So it really did shut down.' I hadn't spared it a single thought since quitting, but hearing the news like this, of all ways, left a strange taste in my mouth.

These days it was a fairly common breed of game: a cute-girl collector. You pulled characters into some despairing scenario, handed them equipment, and pushed onward by clearing fixed stage after fixed stage… you know, just another mobile game, the kind you could find anywhere. A collection game where the girls came pouring out in droves. Pretty characters. Limited editions. Collabs and equipment banners piled on top of that. I remembered it all too vividly — grinding pulls all the way to hard pity while cursing the game out, then slamming my wallet down again the moment the next character I liked showed up.

And then, at some point, I'd simply dropped it. The excuse was that real life had gotten busy. Probably. Truth be told, I might just have grown sick of the same events and the same patterns on endless repeat.

Still — maybe it was precisely because I'd heard it was shutting down. A strange wistfulness crept over me, and I found myself reinstalling that enormous game, tens of gigabytes and all.

The title screen, too, had changed a great deal from my last memory of it. Characters I'd never seen stood alongside a handful I knew. Before long the words Touch To Start came drifting up, shimmering as if to hurry my hand along.

I pressed down on the screen, and a loading bar began its slow spinning circles. It would take a while, I figured — downloading voice files, unpacking the archive, that sort of thing.

'Huh?'

But the game, having flashed its error message, went right back to displaying Touch To Start.

Thinking it a momentary connection hiccup, I tapped the screen again — and got the very same error message for my trouble.

'It's not even the shutdown date yet…?'

I hit the home button and re-checked the announcement on the website. There was definitely about a month left before service ended. And yet all the game would show me was that error message. But knowing it wouldn't work only made me stubborn; I pressed the screen again and again, calling the error up over and over.

Then—

Kzzt. A short burst of static skittered across the screen.

The game that had shown nothing but errors now spat out that message — blunt and graceless, without so much as a confirm button.

"What the…?"

There was no data download anywhere in sight. The game was simply throwing up strange messages and running something all on its own. Well — some kind of returning-player event cinematic, maybe? Talk about putting in effort for a game days from dying.

That's what I was thinking, when—

A torrent of blinding light poured from the phone screen, bleaching my vision pure white — and I squeezed my eyes shut before I could help it.

"Aaagh!"

What swallowed me a heartbeat later was a dull, heavy impact. Feeling as though I'd dropped from somewhere impossibly high, I rubbed my stinging eyes and barely managed to push myself up off the floor. Before I could even register the strange cold hardness beneath my hands, what met my eyes was a sight that made me doubt the reality of the present moment.

"…Huh?"

A modest, cramped little room lit by pale lights. A map I knew somehow, dotted with X marks here and there.

This was the first screen that appeared when you launched the game — the lobby. The room of the Leader, the title the player went by.

'No — no… but this doesn't make any sense, does it?'

Confusion kept my thoughts from settling. The sensations were far too vivid for some meticulously staged hidden-camera prank, and that very vividness turned to a chill that ran down my spine. What on earth was going on? The phone I'd been holding mere moments ago was gone without a trace.

'A dream?'

Don't tell me this was one of those lucid-dream things? I pinched my cheek and pulled, ordering myself to wake up if this was a dream — but all I got was pain, and not a hint of returning to reality.

Feeling hollow, I sat down in the chair for the time being and lightly touched the transparent panel that stood out on the small desk. Beep — and with the chime, a flurry of screens bloomed open all at once.

'This is…'

Across the translucent holographic panel: Start Operation, Replica Management, Restoration… Words and buttons I'd seen a thousand times somewhere before. Right — here, the characters were called Replicas.

It had changed a little since my day, sure, but no matter how I looked at them, these were the functions I used to operate from the game's lobby.

'This was definitely step one of the daily quests.'

Even in the middle of this incomprehensible situation, a strange wave of nostalgia came over me, and I gave the Start Operation button a trial press.

Bzzt— ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bzzt—

But instead of the usual crisp chime, something very like an error tone buzzed out, and the button flickered with static.

'Now ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠what's wrong with it?'

Bzzt— bzzt— bzzt— bzzt—

Wondering what its problem was this time, I hammered the button, and it faithfully answered every single press with the error tone. Whatever the reason, it clearly wasn't usable for the time being.

I was just reaching to try another button when—

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Footsteps began sounding from outside the room — an even, regular stride, dignified and unhurried. They came straight toward the Leader's room, and before I had any chance to react, the door was flung wide open.

"Seri, how many times have I told you not to play pranks in this room…"

Beyond the door stood a silhouette I knew at a glance — a character that no one who had ever played Undercity could fail to recognize. A girl with long, straight white hair and clear blue eyes.

It was Ariel.

"…Leader?"

"O-oh. Uh… hey."

I waved a clumsy hand at the reunion I had never seen coming. It was a calm, intelligent voice — one I'd never heard from her beyond her scripted voice lines.

'The quality of this cosplay is insane… but of course that's not it, is it?'

Even as I went on denying the reality in front of me, I'd answered without thinking to the call of "Leader" — and bewilderment was plain on Ariel's face.

"Why… why only now…?"

A few words at last burst from her lips. A question laced with resentment, from the mouth of an Ariel who had offered nothing but advice and encouragement — it left me speechless. Her face crumpled, and without another word — leaving the door hanging open behind her — she left the room.

And so, with Ariel gone, I poked through the unfamiliar interface in the Leader's room and read through the records presumably left behind by her.

The first thing I checked was the earliest entry, left behind years ago and presumably written by Ariel. In it I could see the mood of an Undercity unsettled by my absence, and Ariel's own quiet anxiety.

'So this was from a week after I quit the game?'

Before long, the entries began appearing at longer and longer intervals, until the mood swung violently from one record to the next.

One entry had her wracked by the accusation within it — as if asking whether I had truly abandoned them — and then, one day, came a record of entrusting a search, clinging to the question of whether I might be dead. Even so, I was never found. In the end, after announcing the Leader's disappearance to everyone, came the final record: that, as an energy-saving measure, the highest-cost personnel had been placed into power-saving mode first.

In other words — she had done everything she could to find me, given up, and finally resolved to switch off the power to this entire underground city.

'And then I showed up.'

Only then, understanding — if only through words on a screen — Ariel's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bewilderment and despair, I closed the records I'd flung open. It meant that through all the time I'd spent forgetting this world, time here had gone on flowing steadily without me. A man who couldn't be found no matter how they searched had abruptly appeared, right at the moment everything had been given up on.

'Well, yeah. No wonder she made that face.'

I scratched the back of my head, thoroughly at a loss. By every measure, I was worse off than a brand-new start. My Affinity didn't even begin at zero — it started in the negatives. Even if I scraped together precious resources to wake the Replicas sleeping in power-saving mode, there was no telling whether they might try to kill me on the spot. Their savior had appeared out of nowhere, led them faithfully — and then vanished one day, just as suddenly…

Who knew how fierce the resentment and rage they'd been bottling up all this while might be? If even Ariel — calm, well-disposed Ariel — had been struck dumb and stalked out with a face full of reproach, the others hardly bore imagining. For all I knew, I could pour resources into reactivating one of them and earn a gaping hole through the chest for my trouble.

None of this made sense. I couldn't even fathom why it had happened. But right now, I had to act.

'First things first — I need to talk to Ariel.'

Mind made up, I wandered through an Undercity at once strange and familiar until, at long last, I found her maintenance room. In the game, once your Affinity passed 5, you could walk in at any hour, no matter the time or occasion…

'And it's shut tight.'

Ariel's door, now sealed firmly shut, stood as proof of just how far that number had plummeted. Which meant talking to her through the door was all I had left.

"Um… Ariel?"

"Please don't call out to me like that… as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠if we're close."

But all that came back from behind the door was that cold reply. And beneath the tremble in her voice, I could even hear choked-back tears and a thin edge of anger.

The road ahead stretched out bleak and endless.