Summary
After years of keeping both his name and the Kaiba Corporation out of trouble, Seto's world is turned upside-down when he begins receiving messages from an anonymous figure who calls themselves Atem, threatening to reveal dark secrets from his past that could topple everything he has worked to create. At the same time, a young security consultant named Kisara uncovers a despicable scheme at the most underfunded orphanage in Domino City, crimes that appear to implicate Seto Kaiba himself.
Prologue
Seto Kaiba sits alone in his office, filling out paperwork at his desk. The lights of Domino City glow dimly from the window behind him, obscured by a thick fog that clings to everything like dense cotton.
He has always been a workaholic, but it has only gotten worse since Autumn. In Autumn he helped Mokuba move from their estate to a cramped cinderblock room at a prestigious university with red-brick buildings that rise like sentinels from immaculate emerald-green lawns. Mokuba promises to call, but he's busy; he has a programming assignment due at midnight, and an essay due on Sunday that he hasn't started, and his TA is hosting a round of icebreaker games at seven, so, I mean, maybe later, big brother?
At least Seto still has his work, into which he throws himself wholeheartedly. He works on Kaiba Corp's patented virtual-reality software. He works on a new on-the-go Duel Monsters game, which can be run from any smartphone device. He starts a new program, the Young Paladins foundation, which focuses on implementing enrichment programs in local orphanages. Truth be told, he doesn't stop working. He just switches from one project to another, ignoring the bags under his eyes and the way his clothes are beginning to hang more loosely. He needs to be fitted for new clothes, but he hasn't been able to find the time.
Ding. Seto frowns at the noise from his cell phone, which lies on a corner of his desk. Few people have access to his private number. Grumbling irritably to himself about the interruption, he grabs the phone to look at the new message. He thought that he had blocked all spam texts, but phishing schemes are getting more advanced by the day…
His heart stops cold at the name on the screen. It is a name he hasn't heard in years, one that still sends electricity crackling through his veins like a jolt of lightning. It is so startling to him that he forgets that they never had his personal cell phone number, to begin with.
New Message: Atem
Overwhelmed by curiosity, Seto opens the text message.
Atem: TURN ON THE NEWS
Whoever is messaging him is already typing another message, as indicated by the ellipses in a message bubble at the corner of the screen.
Atem: CHANNEL 10
x
The Channel 10 news is beginning it's 11 pm news update. An attractive brunette in a navy-blue suit stands in front of a fence made of chain link and barbed wire. Seto's blood turns to ice as he reads the headline at the bottom of the screen:
Eleven Children Missing from the Domino City Children's Sanctuary
The Children's Sanctuary lies at the heart of the Young Paladins foundation. It is the most underfunded orphanage in the Domino region. Seto visited the Children's Sanctuary last week to meet with the director, a capable but overwhelmed young man named Gavin Steinborn. During his visit, Seto was overwhelmed by the flashbacks that the dirty rooms and dim lighting and screaming children brought him and consequently he had found himself shaking in a cramped bathroom stall, repeating to himself over and over again that places like this were why he had started Young Paladins in the first place.
"Police are investigating the Domino City Children's Sanctuary, a residential unit for children awaiting foster homes." The reporter's crisp voice slices through Seto's panic-induced reverie. "During the past five months, eleven children have disappeared without a trace from the facility, with their records being deleted entirely from the Children's Sanctuary database. These disturbing disappearances were brought to light by an anonymous tip to the Sheriff's department in downtown Domino City.
The beginning of these disappearances coincide with the beginning of the involvement of the Kaiba Corporation charity foundation Young Paladins, which has been working with the Children's Sanctuary to provide enrichment programs in science, technology, and the arts. The Young Paladins foundation, a pet project of Mr. Seto Kaiba himself, was founded only eight months ago."
Ding. Ding. Ding. Frantically, Seto scrambles for his phone.
3 New Messages: Atem
The first is a video: the thumbnail preview is black, and the video is three minutes long. He holds his breath, feeling his pulse in roaring in his temples, and presses play.
A man with thin, sandy hair and threadbare clothes stands alone in a room. A single unmarked door leads to the outside world; there are no windows, no furnishings, no appliances or any indication of the room's purpose at all. A voice crackles over an intercom system…
"Sir."
The man nods, his eyebrows furrowed with confusion as he scans the room for the speaker. "What's going on?"
The voice responds, "You have been chosen as an alpha-tester for Kaiba Corporation's state-of-the-art virtual reality technology, otherwise known as Solid Vision"-
He can't shut the phone off fast enough. He tosses it across the room, panting with fear, begging for the video to stop. To his great relief, the phone lands with a muffled thump against the carpet, and then all he can hear is the sound of his own ragged breaths.
He thought that footage was scrubbed for good. Highly secure, heavily encrypted backups existed on a backup server, in case there was ever a time that they would need to be used-for whatever purpose, he wasn't even sure. He was the only one who had access. Even Mokuba wasn't aware that those records were still in existence….
A soft, terrified groan escapes his throat, and he rests his forehead on his hands, staring numbly at the phone that he just threw across the room. He feels beads of cold sweat form at his hairline.
Step by step, he inches across the room, feeling his legs give out from under him as he sinks onto the carpet beside his phone.
The second message is a screen grab, with a terminal screen in the middle. Seto frowns, pinching the image to zoom in. The tiny white text takes a moment to focus, and he wipes his sweating palms against his suit pants. The white text displays a session on a server for the Domino City Children's Sanctuary. His eyes widen with shock as he realizes that the sender, whoever they are, are logged as him, and accessing the secure database that houses the records of the children at the Children's Sanctuary.
He is the only one from the Young Paladins foundation who has been granted access to that highly confidential information. He was granted that access about five months ago, at the start of the partnership between his foundation and the Children's Sanctuary.
Ice-cold horror overwhelms him, tingling through every nerve in his body. The implication is unmistakable.
The last message is a single word.
CHECKMATE.
Author's Notes
I wanted to try something new to expand my skills as a writer. The "skill" in question being writing something driven by plot, as opposed to loosely connected scenes (a la Extras). It started with the half-baked idea of "Seto Kaiba in a Batman-styled vigilante story", and was shaped into a very loosely Black Mirror/Gotham/Mr. Robot-inspired short suspense story.
Endless gratitude to my boyfriend, who was maybe a little too eager to help poke holes into my plot, and to Moon aka Moonluster, my friend, beta reader, and ongoing source of inspiration. Moon also gave suggestions for a title (since the title was first "something about cyber security and neo-noir vibes", then "dusk vibes", then "filler title"), which were incorporated into the final title, for which I am eternally grateful.
And as a young amateur writer always searching for validation, thoughts, messages and reviews are always greatly appreciated :)
Mei