The Cards

the raptor

"Arnurna, did you hear about the new arcade opening at the mall?"

"No."

"They're supposed to have this new M.U.D.[1] that nobody's supposedly ever seen. It was, like, banned from being released to the public for a couple of decades."

"You serious, Pelagie?"

"Yeah. It was supposed to be dangerous or something, but I guess they fixed it."

"What was wrong with it?"

"I dunno, I think it was something about the simulations being too scary. One guy died from a heart attack- I read about it online when I was doing my science paper last quarter."

She sighed. "The topic was on how radiation affected cancer. How the heck did you stumble across a heart attack?"

"Well, you know, I just wanted to make sure that... um..." Her face began to redden.

"What?"

"Ok, ok, he I saw this picture of the head scientist, and he was REALLY hot. I just kinda scanned the article, since they sometimes put extra information on some people..."

"Let me guess," she muttered dryly. "You were looking for his phone number?"

"Well, you know, that was before I met Argath, and-"

"Oh, hush, I don't care about your boyfriend, and I don't care how you spend your free time, either." She thought a moment, poised over their current science poster. "But I would like to hear more about this game."

She giggled. "Ok, like I said, the idea's really old, but these people like, inherited Yahoo! and they put a lot of money in to it, so now it's out. It was pretty old to begin with, actually- the whole theory of the game was devised when that totally hotty came across some old DVD's-"

"DVD's?"

"Yeah, you know, what they recorded old television shows on in the twenty-first century."

"Hm. Maybe I should take technological history. NOT! Keep talking."

"Ok, so anyways, he had a really old game consol stored in his attic, and a 2-D TV too, and he watched them, and decided that the plot and characters sucked but the universe was cool."

"Which was...?"

"He calls it "Spirit Card" Space."

"Hm. Ok, so what do you mean by "universe" and "space"?"

"Well, it's just an alternate reality. You know, like you might say MunchCroc lives in "MunchCroc" Space or something."

"Don't pick on my number one game, man. So what was it that he liked about it?"

"Well, um..." She smiled uneasily. "The article didn't really go much beyond to say that there are these cards with, well, spirits dwelling inside of them."

"So, what, you collect them?"

"I dunno, I think that's what the movies did, but the game's probably completely different."

"Well, ok, if you think so. When's it opening?"

"Not sure, but we can go check tomorrow- it's already ten o' clock, we should probably get ready for bed."

"Yeah..."

~~~~~~~

the death

The room is dark except for a single bright beam shining down on one person. Strapped to a chair, head drooping, the prisoner has just woken. His eyes are misty, lingering in the drug's effects, but he is still able to process the words in his ears. His mind groggily wakes and the entire situation finally clicks.

"Why the hell am I the one?!"

"You know everything."

"I don't know shit."

"You hacked into our files. You read our data."

"So? That doesn't mean I remember it all, or that I understood it!"

"You got past everything, you accessed every file chronologically, you copied it into your computer and we observed you reading all of the data. You understood it, you even commented on it."

"How the hell...?"

"There is a type of virus that we use to access every computer with access to us."

"This is bullshit. I'm not doing anything for you guys."

"Yes you will."

"Kiss my ass!"

"The rewards," he began, and pulled out slip of paper, "will be great."

"I don't want your bullshit money."

"What do you want?"

"I want you to leave me the fuck alone!"

"..... We can't do that." He slipped the paper back into the shadow, and two elaborately decorated cards were passed to him.

"The fuck is this?"

"The Create and the Dream."

"I said I'm not doing your shit!"

"Ah, but you are wrong. Very wrong. You will face seven opponents, detectives, civilians, and one of you will be victorious. You have read the data- either you will win, or the single hero. It's very simple."

"It's fucked up bullshit, that's what it is."

He smiled in the dark.

~~~~~~~~~

[1] M.U.D.- multi-user dimension.

I don't own Card Captors.