Harmony

"Haaah."

Mint-colored hair spilled long down her back, cat ears perked sharp atop her head.

Winter's fierce wind whipped the breath cascading from her lips like a waterfall, scattering it every which way. Even as the swirling white of it briefly tickled her hair before vanishing behind her, the somehow clumsy silhouette of a girl carefully fretted over her laptop.

"It's summer in real life, but winter here. At least it doesn't actually feel cold… that's a relief."

She looked less like a person speaking to some invisible audience and more like a small cat — a girl whose appearance carried that faintly endearing, slightly foolish quality. She stared hard at the laptop screen, fingers never stopping their restless dance across the keys.

But for all the tactical look of her, the reality was a little different.

Customization. Character settings. Creation.

Those faintly impressive ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠gestures she made throughout the process were, in truth, nothing more than one of the random motions that played during character generation. Even so, the opening sequence built around activating an operative ID remained one of the most well-received features of the virtual-reality FPS game Dark Zone.

Regardless of that fact, the chat window floating small in the corner of her vision had plunged into a full-blown cauldron of emotion.

She glanced at it and, as always, left a word of thanks.

"DreamOrReality, thank you for the donation. My friends kept recommending this so hard. And, well, I'm supposed to be a variety streamer — I've been thinking I should try an FPS at some point too… so, yeah. That's the idea."

She carefully adjusted the sliders.

Aim assist. Recoil compensation. Damage scaling. Health scaling. Movement scaling. Five sliders that governed the difficulty of the game itself.

Not a single one of them showed any intention of dropping below ninety percent, and as always, chat was transforming faster and more capriciously than anyone else in the room.

She didn't let it show, but Harmony snuck a sidelong glance at the flood of messages.

And nestled among them was one word she simply could not tolerate.

The red button buried deep in her heart got mashed flat, and she went full throttle.

"…Kh— no, hang on a second. Hey! You guys told me it was hard even with all the sliders maxed, so I did it this way — why the hell are you calling me a super coward?!"

Chat instantly became a sea of laughter.

Of course, she knew from years of streaming experience. The several thousand people permanently camped in her chat were, to put it bluntly, just a bunch of bastards who wanted to watch her every possible reaction.

Put nicely: little rascals. Put honestly… absolute menaces.

Still, she had taken all kinds of advice beforehand — her goal was clear — and so character creation itself didn't take long at all.

A mechanical voice and a hologram popped into her ears and vision, blessing the girl who had just set foot on the earth for the first time.

"Whoa…."

The gasp slipped out on its own.

In any other virtual reality — a fantasy game, say — a fairy or something might have fluttered over to guide and acclimate her. But the mechanical, inorganic lines of dialogue had a quality that sparked her interest instead.

Meanwhile, a firearm had somehow found its way into her hands on its own. Without giving it any particular attention, Harmony looked at the in-game objective floating before her eyes.

It was a rather daunting instruction, so she carefully opened her mouth.

"…I heard before I started this game that getting to Central Park HQ is the tutorial? Everyone said it was really hard."

A deluge of words.

The pandemonium was the purest embodiment of collective brainlessness — hard even to look at.

But Tricky, the latest streaming platform operated by Icarus, had a system that automatically pulled the most useful logs for the streamer and displayed them. The moment those popped up, she cross-referenced the information she had researched beforehand against what her viewers were offering, then gave a small shake of her head.

"I heard every user gets a random spawn, and you can't meet other people until you reach an Armed Safehouse. Is that true?"

Countless people played Dark Zone. And yet the barrier to entry was so high it bordered on savage — so in a rare display of helpfulness, chat began leaving agreement comments under the viewer who had offered the correct take, desperate to pull newbies into the game somehow.

In plain terms, they just spammed "fr lol" like their lives depended on it.

And then came the mission that put the finishing touch on the whole spectacle.

She smiled without a sound.

Jackpot.

Something she had to do anyway — and now there was money on it? She couldn't resist.

But the moment Harmony opened her mouth to accept on the spot, as if it had been coordinated in advance, another new mission dropped in.

…

She felt a vein throb at her temple and added, flatly:

"…I'll take the party mission."

Honestly.

The world was full of contrarians, and people who wanted to watch someone else suffer or get humiliated were even more numerous still.

Figuring it was better to prevent herself from dying over and over until every last scrap of interest in the game evaporated — worth more than double the mission payout — she selected the objective marked Shooting Practice and began slowly crossing the death-city blanketed in white snow.

Without the faintest idea what kind of beginning this truly was.

They said the start of this game was truly random.

Even the spawn points were randomized — some people began on a beached destroyer, some opened their eyes underground, and a lucky few even started inside a safehouse. The shooting practice that served as the tutorial within the tutorial followed the same logic. According to the information she'd checked, some people shot at various fixtures on a destroyer, some lit up the target range at a safehouse, and some hit tin cans.

And among those targets… there were also people.

Splut.

Crimson blood spilled across snow that had been nothing but white, pooling in a shallow puddle before slowly freezing and, at last, vanishing. A silhouette cut through the space between. Smoke unfurled from a muzzle and melted ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠into the sky. Two thugs fled, abandoning a comrade whose life functions had ceased with wind-holes punched through head and chest — and the sights stayed on them.

It was far too realistic to call a game. Some people might have hesitated to shoot a person. But when those two had, until moments ago, been bringing axes down on someone else — that changed the story.

A familiar weight.

A familiar feel.

A familiar field of view.

Four rounds, fired in sequence with recoil felt without the slightest addition or subtraction, added two person-shaped objects to the cold New York pavement.

I stopped aiming, checked the surroundings, and let an honest impression spill out.

"This game is ridiculously well made…."

The texture of air against skin. The vibration that slammed into my shoulder every time I pulled the trigger. Even the dazzlingly clear sky that seemed utterly indifferent to whatever was happening on the ground… everything about this game was far too much like my four years.

I melted back into the world I had once inhabited, and the feeling was… always the same. It was a little sad that I could no longer look at a game as a game.

Three hostiles and one victim. After confirming that every one of them had ceased living, I walked forward.

As simply as breathing, I worked the gear and fixed my current position.

I have no good memories of Brooklyn. Maimonides Hospital, maybe, at best… not that it would happen, but I hoped the Captain wasn't sitting around as an NPC or anything like that.

I really hoped not.

From memory, Central Park HQ was roughly eight miles out — about ten kilometers, if you converted to the superior metric system. If I'd had a RHIB or something, I could have ridden the East River up in comfort and relative safety, but there was no point hoping for that at this stage.

"Loadout is… just okay, I guess."

One round in the chamber, thirty in a standard STANAG magazine. The rifle was a plain AR-15. Two rounds each into three hostiles made six spent. The UI had already displayed it, but I wasn't satisfied until I checked myself.

Buildings left completely unmanaged, a total mess. Between the avenues, the vast span of the Brooklyn Bridge filled the view. As I recalled, without a boat you had to take a long detour to reach the bridge approach… but the me of the past had ridden a Valkyrie transport straight to HQ.

Actually walking it might prove pretty annoying.

After once again methodically confirming there were no enemies nearby, I attempted to operate the systems properly.

However—

"Damn it."

Figures. What kind of gear were they going to hand a newbie who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had started the game less than five minutes ago?

The only weight I carried now was the faintly familiar bulk of a ballistic vest and a tactical rig, fourteen magazines nested inside it, and a few grenades. Add to that, for some reason — hardcore mode or whatever they called it — a small EMP generator issued into a multipurpose pouch.

In a way, it was thousands of times better than being thrown in bare-handed. But in my memory, the enemies I was about to face were truly numberless. Plenty of them were better equipped and geared than I was right now, and some of the lunatics even ran UAVs and drones.

White breath painted the air between the heavy equipment pressing down on my body, then vanished. I adjusted my grip on the rifle and checked once more that the zero was properly set.

"It'll work out somehow."

Time to recall the lessons Brooklyn had taught me once before.

Right now, this AR-15 with nothing but a decent red-dot mounted on it, the pistol holstered at my side, and a tactical knife were my only meal tickets — but in truth, it wasn't so different from the past. There was no time for complaints.

I began to move.