“Geanna’s plan to ‘unify’ the station communities by bringing the space stations even closer together is laughable,” she said, her speech translated to English. “Buanne already made the mistake of changing the Station Line’s coordinates to line them all up. Look how many raids take place in these cities every day. Look at the amount of humans and non-humans that live off of scraps and pocket digits. The kidnappings and hacks that happen every few hours. Now Geanna wants to bring them closer? She’s out of her mind.”

  Katelyn unconsciously nodded, agreeing with Burna. She had no say in who would be Planetary Leader; they were elected every decade by all of Earth’s country leaders— the leaders were supposed to take their public’s response into account, but it didn’t seem like they were doing that. Too many of them agreed with a lot of what Whitley Geanna said, and Katelyn still didn’t get why. She was only 16, but she was smart enough to understand that the ‘Most Beautiful Earthian’ wouldn’t make a good leader for Earth.

  Thiki ‘Bendy’ Burna was a Mearthian, but one could hardly tell; she only had a quarter of Martian DNA, so her appearance was mostly Earthian, with short, black hair, brown eyes, and a tan complexion— it had a slight gray tint to it, but one could barely see it. She was from Japan and had competed in the 2338 Versus, the same year as Lisa White. She was known for her remarkable flexibility.

  “We need order restored to the space stations,” Thiki continued. “They were meant to be havens to avoid overpopulation on our planet. Mars’s space stations have an amazing safety record. Mercury has their moons, which have their issues, but they don’t have raids every other day. What is happening to ours? What is with the buggy SECURE programs and drones, underfunded supply systems, and terrible overcrowding? There’s twenty residents per apartment! This is unacceptable, and clearly, Geanna has no clue how to make it better. Her solution is to get everyone closer— including the prisons— so… what? People can feel an imaginary embrace? Yeah; an embrace of death.”

  “Eabola Shock, light-” The customer’s voice glitched, switching to another language, which brought Katelyn’s attention back to her job. He grunted, annoyed, and fiddled with the invisible translator chip on his cheek, resuming his order. “Sorry. Eabola Shock, light on the iyote.”

  “Iyote is Klausian rum, correct?” she asked as she entered the order.

  “Correct.”

  She stared at him, narrowing her eyes. He was disguised as an older Paeseoan with banana-colored skin and an orange beard. His tag said:

  Aiowen Prakk

  Cosmos Customer

  Level 135

  She didn’t remember him. She hadn’t memorized all her regular customers, but she had a general idea of who usually visited Cosmos, being good with faces. This guy was not one of them.

  “New here?” she asked him, generating the drink.

  The man seemed confused, but then said, “Ah. No, I’m a regular, but I usually do not come here on weekdays. I prefer the weekend.” The translator gave him an Earthian American accent, so she couldn’t tell what species he really was under the Mask.

  “What made you come here today, then?”

  “A particularly hard day at work.” He downed his drink in a long, clean gulp.

  “That explains the risky drink. You’re not Klausian, are you?”

  “Definitely not,” he answered with a chuckle. “But I can handle it well enough.”

  Katelyn refilled his order, still trying to see under the cloak and Mask. When it glitched, casting moving rainbows across his features, she could just barely catch some of his real face, but not enough for her to recognize. The only hint she got was that he was actually Paeseoan, but he had green skin, not yellow. The tag glitched, too, but not enough to reveal his real identity.

  It wasn’t uncommon for patrons to have faulty Masks. Most got the cheaper, temporary ones to use for a few hours while drinking away their sorrows. Those only covered their faces and hid their names. Katelyn had invested in a high-quality, full-body Mask off the black market, hacking her mother’s savings and disguising it as a mani-pedi expense.

  She was always fascinated with cybersecurity as a child. At first, she thought she’d follow her dad when she grew up. When he was closer to his children, he’d bring Katelyn to work and show her how he defended the city against viruses, bugs, and all sorts of threats.

  Then, after her mother decided to turn their life into a daily source of entertainment for total strangers, Katelyn started finding ways around the micro-cameras and viewer trackers. Over the years, she’d learned to hack, and she got even more well-versed in it after starting at Cosmos. She couldn’t hack as often as she wanted to at home, though, even if it was child’s play for her. Her father would eventually notice, and she had to be careful to not put Calista under extra pressure.

  “Sati, could you give me another?” Scaaskal asked. His drink refilled and he took a swig. “Anyway… I think you should just focus on yourself from now on. Don’t… who are you looking at?” He followed Katelyn’s green eyes to the Masked customer and smirked. “I know you’re single, but you could go for someone younger,” he joked.

  Katelyn clicked her tongue and playfully smacked his forehead. “Shut up. Have you seen that guy before?”

  “Mmm.” He sipped his drink, looking at the man. “Hard to tell with that glitchy Mask.” As he spoke, said Mask glowed once again. The Paeseoan grunted in response, smacking the pin on his cheek to fix it.

  “I know him. There’s just something about him… I know this guy.”

  Scaaskal shrugged. “There’s dozens of people with bad face Masks that-”

  A yell from the HARP area interrupted them. A drunken Hajjian customer was shouting at Thiki Burna’s hologram, stumbling as he punched her and his fist went through. Some other patrons started laughing at him. Curious, Katelyn pointed her AIDA band at him, translating the non-Earthian language.

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  “You humie glitch! Hack off with your rules! Glitching humie, Earthy, masky MAKAKIAN!”

  Katelyn raised a brow. His insults were amusingly colorful, yet unoriginal.

  “Ruin my business, you glitch?! We’ll come back fighting! You can’t stop us!”

  Some of the other patrons jokingly shoved the Hajjian, which instantly made him fly into a smoky rage and throw a ball of fire at them. A Klausian quickly got to countering his fire with ice, preventing a disaster, but plenty of other patrons started harassing the drunk Hajjian, shoving, punching, and throwing their powers at him. Katelyn simply rolled her eyes and got back to work.

  When she had first started working at Cosmos, she had been petrified by the explosive arguments between the patrons, but by now, she was so used to it that she found them quite boring to watch, especially compared to real Versus fights.

  Her attention was briefly caught when some of the patrons rushed past her bar to cheer on the brawl, one of them crashing into the cloaked Paeseoan, who had remained in his seat, unbothered by the fight… until now.

  When he hit the floor and his drink spilled all over him, his defective Mask deactivated with a brief flash, revealing green skin and bright yellow eyes. His tag had flashed for just a split second before he hid it. Only then did Katelyn know exactly who he was. Luckily for him, the bar brawl kept most people’s attention, so the brief reveal went unnoticed as he left, his green face under his cloak.

  There was no mistaking him. How many times had he come here? She had missed such an important patron this whole time? Working weekends suddenly didn’t seem so unappealing.

  Task In Progress: Reach Benson Kalley before he leaves

  “Stay here.” She vaulted over the counter, startling Scaaskal, who was watching the fight with an amused smile.

  “Hey, wait, where are you-?”

  “Excuse me! Sir! Wait! Uh- pae!” She stopped him right as he stepped through the holographic wall.

  “Kha-tia!” he exclaimed, snatching his arm away.

  “Please! Just wait- pae. Uh… ki ennen Katelyn. I mean-” Oh, glitch. She’d revealed her real name. “Um… josi no…” She wasn’t even sure if this was the language this man spoke. She only knew a handful of other planets’ languages from holo-films she’d watched.

  Task Complete: Reach Benson Kalley

  Task In Progress: Convince… tell… ??

  The man smacked his translator into working on his other cheek. “There. Girl, let me through. I need to-”

  “You’re Benson Kalley!”

  “Shh!” He looked behind him, paranoid. “Not so loud!”

  “I’m sorry. I-I’m a huge fan. What are you doing-”

  “Girl, I’m sorry, I do not have time to give you an autograph.” He brushed past her.

  “No, that’s not it. Wait!” She ran after him.

  “Would you stop making a fuss?!”

  “Just hear me out. Please. I promise I won’t tell anyone if you hear me out.” She summoned her confidence and even flashed a smirk— something she’d inherited from the Zyben half. “I know you wouldn’t like anyone to know that the Vice President of Fistborn Academy was at a hacked bar on Genesis X.”

  Benson stopped, sighing. After a few moments, he groaned and his tag briefly showed up above him before his Mask reactivated.

  Benson ‘Kind Killer’ Kalley

  Versus Legend

  Level 2,004

  There was the confirmation.

  The Vice President of USA’s top fighting school. The younger brother of Irenna ‘Lalaasa’ Kalley. Katelyn had to be sure not to reveal her Socializer identity to him; he deeply resented her community, and she didn’t blame him after their disgusting reaction to his sister’s murder.

  He smacked his AIDA band to hide his tag again. “What do you want?” he asked Katelyn.

  “My sister has wanted to be a fighter for literally years-”

  “Miss, I cannot guarantee admission for any student. It is not only up to me.”

  “I know, I just wanted you to talk to her. I think that maybe if she got to see someone like you, she’d feel… more capable.”

  Benson cocked a brow. “Feel more capable? If your sister does not believe in herself, how can she be a good fighter? Has she already given up?”

  “Uh- n-no.”

  He smiled. “I have a good cache detector, girl.” He tapped his head.

  Katelyn blushed, embarrassed. “She didn’t give up, she just… The last time she applied, they didn’t accept her, and she trained for months. You know it. You talk about it all the time; how Hajjians, Klausians, and all of them are always favored because they’re big, and scary, and have powers or whatever.” Her words bubbled out of her like a babbling brook. This opportunity came way too suddenly for her to think coherently.

  Benson sighed. “What exactly is it you want me to do?”

  “Just talk to her, give her an interview. Tell your colleagues to just consider her.”

  “How am I supposed to assess her fighting abilities?”

  “She just needs encouragement to apply for the test, and then she can show you,” Katelyn begged.

  “And if she fails? If she does not get accepted, what will she do? Quit? The Games are not for these kinds of people. I am trying to achieve more opportunities for humans to represent their own planet, but I will be smart about it.” He patted Katelyn’s shoulder and headed out. “You will have to do better than that. Besides, where do you expect us to meet? I can’t be seen giving special attention to any applicant.”

  “What if I bring her here?” She followed him. “No one knows you come here, and no one here knows her, either. She can talk to you.”

  “Many flaws in that plan, girl. Any amateur hacker can find a way to overhear our conversation. I cannot give myself away at all.” He blew out his cheeks. “I should stay with weekends. It was foolish of me to come today.”

  “No, it’ll be… I know you’ll…” Her mind froze as she tried to make sense of her plan, but it was falling apart fast. Her brain was racing at the speed of light.

  Benson smirked. “I admire your persistence, but I am sorry. Your sister needs to prove herself if she wants a place in the academy.”

  Katelyn inhaled. “Okay. Sorry to bother you, Mr. Kalley.” She turned, then stopped with an idea. “Thank you, though. Cosmos will have a lot more customers when they know-”

  “Don’t you dare.” He stopped her, pointing at her seriously. “I will sue you.”

  Katelyn shrugged. “For what? How are you going to explain the lawsuit to everyone when they find out? It’ll be out there for everyone to see.” Her stomach clenched with anxiety. If he did sue her, everyone would know Katelyn worked there, and the Medley family would never recover.

  Benson clenched his jaw, clearly frustrated. Katelyn never thought she could get a Paeseoan so riled up— they were known as a calm, cool-tempered species, one of Earth’s closest allies. Paeseoans were one of the few species without special abilities or powers, but they were quite advanced in technological development and had heightened intelligence and flexibility. Many of them had dominated the Socializer world, as well.

  Benson was known to be against the Socializer community ‘infiltrating his species’, as he put it, but he did show kindness to those that showed him respect. Maybe, even if he found out what Calista was, he’d still give her a chance. She’d grieved his sister’s death along with millions of Versus fans.

  “So, all you want is for me to talk to your sister so she can apply?” Benson asked skeptically.

  “That’s right.”

  He chuckled, partly from ridicule, and partly from incredulity. “Girl, you are a strange one.” He blew out his cheeks. “I will return tomorrow at this same time.”

  Task Complete: Get an opportunity for Calista

  Task In Progress: Convince Calista to come to Cosmos