Papers lay scattered on the desk around him, covered in numbers and equations mostly. There were notes scrawled in messy handwriting on some parts, and yellow post-it notes dotted other parts with everyday reminds; ‘get more milk’ and ‘get Whiskey more cat food’ and ‘topics for study confirmed by professor’. The man didn’t use the paper too much though; he lazed in the centre of the dark room, curiously observing the holograms projected by the laptop lying on the floor. A tortoiseshell cat was curled, purring, on the chair.

It once again occurred to Digit that he should really get a pair of glasses, or get surgery for his eyes – he hated wearing glasses. Every pair of sunglasses he had tended to constantly slip down his nose. He would be fine for the technology exams, having already memorised the position of every piece of information. The hologram numbers floating mid-air continued to increase in their count as his computer processed the programming he had finally managed to run. Even for seasoned IT students, debugging was a long and arduous process. Digit couldn’t explain how he’d been naturally competent at information technology.

Bony fingers brushed over the number tattooed on the lower back of his neck. Habit. He couldn’t feel it, but he knew it was there. It had always been there. In a way it made him self-conscious. People were constantly asking what it meant, even referring to him by it. It made him uncomfortable, but he had become attached to it in his own way, like it was his own little mystery to work out..

Didn’t stop him from wearing a hoodie to cover it up.

He was not the only one with a tattoo; his ‘brother’ had one as well. They were not related, but they were close enough to be siblings. They were roommates, and had been best friends for as long as Digit could remember – which wasn’t saying much since Digit’s memory was a bit hazy.

There was a knock on his bedroom door, “Come in.” Registering his permission, the door slid open, revealing his rather haphazard looking roommate. Digit checked the time before beginning to smirk, “Bit early for you to be awake, don’t you think?” It was three in the morning, and though both boys liked the occasional party, Digit was the one who used the late hours of the night to produce most of his work while Falcon slept until five thirty at least.

“I got a call. Important meeting for some sort of work or something.” Falcon grumbled, running a hand through dark brown waves of hair to massage the back of his head. His eyes caught sight of the cat of the chair and he moved towards it, stroking the soft fur on its head. “I’m a little envious of you, Whiskey. You get to sleep all day without a care in the world.”

“The police just love to run you rough,” Digit tossed one of his precious oats milk drinks at his friend, who immediately made a face upon catching it. “Does everyone have to wake up early for this one or is the honour entirely yours?”

Falcon shrugged noncommittally, “The fuck would I know?” He squinted at the holograms; his vision still blurred by sleep even though Digit knew the lucky bastard had 20/20 vision. “This for your exam or whatever?”

“Yeah. We’ll be given some prewritten code or whatever and find the errors as part of it, and at some point we’ll be asked to pull apart a program and rewrite it.” He explained it as vaguely as possible to his roommate, knowing full well that computer code was as about as familiar as Kantonese was to Falcon – which was, to say, not at all. Falcon was good at one thing, or so he humbly said around their friends’ acquaintances, and that was ‘locking people up’, which was a line he often liked to whisper in the ears of interested girls. Somehow, whenever Digit described what he did in the same way, it didn’t have the same effect. “But it’ll all take two hours tops. After that I’m free for a whole month!” He threw his hands up into the air to add to the dramatic affect.

“But you’ll still end up doing the same thing every day because you code compulsively.” Falcon rolled his eyes, “Why not just drop out of school and start up a company, I don’t know? You’d get filthy rich.”

“Because I want to enter the government,” Digit stated, matter-of-factly. “They only accept the very best of university students and all the big competitive companies get bought out by them anyway. Why not use my prodigal skills to benefit the people? I am only following in the footsteps of my role model of a roommate.”

“Yeah, yeah.” The said roommate finished his breakfast drink with a disgusted slurp and chucked it into the garbage bin which was almost overflowing it was so full. Whiskey jumped down from her chair with a mew, curling her way around Falcon’s legs as she expected her breakfast to be served now that her two humans were awake to do her bidding. Falcon sighed, moving lethargically towards the kitchen, “Come on, you.”

So helping people really wasn’t the only reason Digit was interested in the government. He also knew of people who would pay very large sums of money to get their hands on the secret behind the new source of renewable energy – but whatever it was, it was not impacting the environment in any particular way so the general society didn’t have much of a problem with it except for the fact that they didn’t know what it was. What powered their homes, their companies, their fridges, and the holograms in front of his own face?

His curiosity had to be sated. He did not dare tell Falcon who would automatically sit him down and lecture him on the importance of not poking his nose where it was not wanted.
The computer chirped, bringing him back to the present as it gleefully showed him that his program was done processing in a series of flashing lights. “Good boy!” He responded enthusiastically, petting the screen as if it were a pet. A dog hologram popped up in kind, wagging its tail and ready to please. Note to self: actually choose a name for pet dog.

Within moments Falcon was striding back out through the living room, pulling his uniform collar high over the back of his neck and appearing a lot more alert than he was five minutes ago. Those oats milk drinks were miracles; Digit would swear his life on it. “Break a leg!” He called out encouragement from his comfortable place on the floor.

“Break your head,” Falcon answered in kind before he bravely faced the biting cold of an early dark winter morning. Ah, his roommate – always the hero of the nation. When Digit had once asked Falcon why he was a cop, the latter had looked completely stunned at the question as if he didn’t really know himself and then had shrugged: “it’s what I’m good at, right?”

It was true that Digit himself didn’t remember if he’d had any other dream of being a fire fighter or an astronaut (though he very well could be), for him it’d always been computers. The dim of the winter morning began to pale and the distant sun shone light through the soft curtains of the gloomy room as Digit absorbed himself into the numbers and the compilations. Whiskey sat heavily on his lap and snoozed after ignoring his complaints of her weight and the hologram dog that seemed put off by her close presence.

Eventually he pushed the cat off and pulled on a fresh sweater to make it seem like he had actually changed clothes between the days and set off for his exam. People veered out of his way as soon as he squinted at them, obviously assuming that he was leering at them though he had no reason as to why anyone would be scared of a guy his size, and Digit wondered once more about investing in glass.

No. We shall not conform to the stereotypical geek kid. It occurred to him that what most people had were those super cool head gear sets now which looked more like sunglasses and you could play games on them instead of listening to an chubby, single lecturer mutter inaudibly on about binaries. Sounded like heaven, but Digit doubted he had the money. When did any student have any money? With the increasing workload, a lot of them had to choose between work and school – no one would hire a student.

Focus.

Digit pulled himself back to the present and waited impatiently at the crossing. With the invention of the hovering zebra crossing, one actually had to wait at the lights or face the long fall. It was actually quite a popular method of suicide. He heard of ‘jaywalking’ and it sounded absolutely barbaric the way the oldies would describe it in the tales their grandfather’s grandmother’s great aunt passed down. He began tapping his foot, observing the people gathering around him in one giant, bored herd. He wished Falcon were here.

His gaze wandered over a woman not far from him, frustrated as she juggled between her bag and her folders and her keys—wait, was that? Digit did a double take, his stare resting on the back of her neck. He could make out a ‘2’ in black ink and was that a partially hidden ‘U’ or a ‘J’? Whatever letter it was, he’d obviously been burning a hole into her skin because she froze in her activities and turned directly towards him.

Ah shit, she’d call the police if he didn’t stop acting suspiciously and Falcon would have to arrest him. Digit didn’t think ‘I lock Digit up’ would have exactly the desired effect on girls. Or maybe they were into that.

She shuffled further away from him, clearly uneasy, and almost sprinted when the walk signal went. Did he look like a criminal? Maybe the bags under his eyes were getting too prominent. He’d get more sleep once the exam was finished – as if his area of study didn’t drive people away already. “Could be worse.” He said under his breath, “You could be cutting up people in a morgue.” He knew people who did that with more than a professional interest in bodies.

After a few more blocks where Digit further confirmed he either needed glasses or to work on his smile, his university loomed over him like a dark foreboding shadow. He sorely wished he could bring Whiskey here at some point to at least lighten the mood. The examination room was darker still, and after ten flights of stares, half of his fellow classmates were panting as though they’d run a marathon up them. None of them had tattoos on their necks. He’d had plenty of time to check that over the years spent in their company.

“Digit.” The Professor smiled at his appearance and Digit did not miss the greasy looks his classmates gave him. “Come see me after the examination. There is something we must discuss.”

So much for immediately going back home, but Digit could only nod to the teacher’s request and take his seat. His fingers went once again to his neck, running over the tattoo for luck. Not that he would ever need it.

It went according to plan. Digit deciphered the binaries, debugged the prewritten software, and he was halfway through rewriting the error in the code when he faltered. SM94. It was right there amongst the equations, split across it like puzzle pieces. SM94 and… JH325.

“Digit?” The professor’s concerned voice cut across his observations. He started, he hadn’t realised he’d been sweating until then. He had to be hallucinating. He should’ve slept more. “Is everything alright?”

“Yes.” He answered with wavering confidence. “Let’s keep going.”

Digit wished he could just shut his eyes and it’d be gone. He knew those numbers. They were printed on the back of his and Falcon’s necks.

ZJ312 had lost her sense of time she had been in Core for so long. The years had slipped by and she no longer remembered the smell of the slums, could no longer recall the feel of trash and debris underfoot. She wasn’t sure if it had even been real or just a dream of another life – a life where she had been someone other than ZJ312.

There was nothing but Core, nothing but assignments and missions to complete. She could not afford to think of anything else, not when she was a strategist for the coming battle. The city defences had to hold otherwise they would lose the sector. They had lost the last attack and ZJ312 had met the end of a gun. Two bullets – one to the heart and another to the head, which she thought was a waste of ammunition, really; one bullet would have been enough. Should’ve just gone for the head; people often speculated that she lacked a heart.

ZJ312 would rather not die again. Reviving was like a really awful hangover, but worse because the night before hadn’t been fun at all, just painful. She’d spend her Revival Day indoors, retching into the lavatory. There were no painkillers for it either, it taught one not to die often. And there were whispers about people just disappearing after they died – they did not revive, they were just gone. Dead. It scared her. She’d always taken Revival for granted until the rumours reached her ears. She’d even done a bit of research on her Revival Days between bouts of gut-wrenching illness, but she was no Techie and she did not die often – thus she’d sent a request to an ally who knew how to work around the systems.

“I’ll owe you one.” She spoke to the hologram, passing over the digital message. Her friend did not look pleased.

“Don’t tell me you’re getting all paranoid. Sometimes people just disappear off the map. I don’t blame them; all the missions can be pretty stressful. Haven’t you ever just wanted to run away?” DO215 questioned her, taking the message anyway as ZJ312 towel-dried her glossy dark hair. She would be lying if she said she hadn’t thought about it – but she took pride in the warm yellow-fringed black uniform that proved her worth as a strategist. It had taken a lot of hard work, and so many levels to pass.

“They can’t just abandon their teams like that.” She said, shaking her head. “We all get the teamwork speech every so often, we all know how important it is to protect our sides.”

“Yeah, that damned speech drives me crazy.” DO215 grumbled, before jumping into a mocking impersonation of her supervisor, “We are gears, Techies. Gears, wires, circuits. A computer cannot work if the motherboard malfunctions!”

ZJ312 bit back a smile. Had she not been chosen for strategy, she suspected she would’ve enjoyed having classes and completing missions with DO215. “Just tell me what you find, DO215. Nobody leaves Core by choice.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re not going to let the issue go until you get some sort of evidence.” DO215 said with an eye roll, “I’ll let you know what I dig up. Let’s keep this between us though, yeah? I don’t think our supervisors will agree with what we’re doing. They probably know about it more than we do.”

“Agreed.” ZJ312 nodded, “We can’t be the only ones looking into it though.”

“Good luck on the battlefield tomorrow, ZJ312.” DO215 said, saluting before cheekily adding, “Don’t die and disappear before I can get any information to you. Revival can drive anyone mad after long enough.”

“Encouraging.” The strategist snorted before DO215’s hologram flickered out. She moved towards the window, taking her health and mind supplements as she watched Core’s three moons appeared in the sky and the golden light of the sun dimmed from the orange digital sky. With major city battles every week and side missions between those, ZJ312 found very little time for company – probably the reason why her fellow soldiers called her heartless, a few of them at least. A lot of them were rather odd and always had been, so she learnt not to question it. The years had been hard, but rewarding, and she had earned enough gold from the missions to get her own place in one of the cities instead of living in the colleges. Of course, she also lost money whenever they lost, as well as her life in the common case.

The enemy would usually go for all the green uniformed soldiers first before they sought out the strategists – but often they’d already be down there in the thick of things when things where getting dire. The blue dressed techies were generally safe or had enough time to escape.

And then there were the elusive red uniformed people. She’d rarely seen them, maybe once or twice in her entire time in Core, and when she had she had always been at the end of their gun. There was never time to react. They were there and then they weren’t and you were dead. Tricky buggers. She hated them.

She fell into her bed and set her arm clock for seven hours of sleep.

In the Core, seven hours went by in a moment.

The City defences had to hold. Amidst the gunfire and the all out assault of cannons on their walls, ZJ312 was screaming to the soldier holding a grenade launcher next to her. It was something along the lines of ‘can’t you aim, you bastard? I said the cannons not our own defences’. The man was sweating, torn between doing as she said and shotting a grenade at her. Nobody ever killed someone from his or her own team by purpose though. To turn on your own was treason, and while the other person generally revived, they sure as hell were going to make you pay for your choices.

ZJ312 picked off the enemy with her pistol, swearing constantly under her breath. If they lost this battle, they were going to lose the sector, and it had been a long war for it. It had been under their control for as long as she could remember and she wasn’t about to lose it under her command.

“There’s too many of them, ZJ312!” The soldier panted after a few moments. She checked the vitals displayed on his back, noting how low the stamina bar was.

“AB52, take over here.” She called another officer over to replace the grenade launcher. “JD411, get to the back and take stamina supplements and then get your ass back into battle. And bloody hell; make sure you take them the night before next time. Basic procedure.” The man went, if possible, even redder before he hurried off only to be replaced by his comrade. AB52 could shoot grenades better than his friend, which was a relief.

Her messages chimed and she placed the hand-held hologram on a block next to her as she took aim and fired once more. Another strategist appeared on the device, “ZJ312, the flanking team is in position. We stand by for orders. Is Commander FL25 ready for the charge?”

“Commander!” She signalled to her supervisor. “The operation is ready, shall we give the signal?”

“Yes, ZJ312, we are ready here as well. Tell them to move in immediately and take out those cannons, we shall take the ground forces. Go!”

“Ready, SO11. Go, go, go!” ZJ312 responded to her fellow strategist. The hologram shut off and she turned her full attention back to the battle. She could feel her own stamina beginning to wear down and she swore once again under her breath. This better be over quickly. The City gates were weakening.

“Want to go to coffee after this?” AB52 asked beside her, so casually that ZJ312 couldn't really believe that she heard what he had said.

“What?” She said, dumbly. She must have misheard, there’s no way a soldier would ask something so ridiculous during a battle.

“You, me, coffee.” He repeated calmly. ZJ312 had to glance at him in utter confusion, only to find that he seemed so at ease. It was out of place in a situation like the one they were in at that very moment.

“Focus on the moment, AB52. Maybe if we both get out of this without dying.” She said, a little snappily. She was supposed to be the one in control here, especially in comparison to a soldier, but when had that ever been the case. ZJ312 had always screamed orders at least once during each fight.

AB52 smiled, “Easy.” And he launched yet another grenade into the mass of enemies below them. He had far more practice than he let on. She felt ruffled.

“Mind back on the job, ZJ.” She muttered to herself, but it must have been loud enough for him to hear because he chuckled. Bastard. A cannon ball crashed into the wall and part of it broke off, sliding down to the field below, taking cries and shouts and lives along with it. She went back to swearing.

But they did win, barely. There were about two-dozen of them left and they looked shell shocked, eyes wide and covered with ash and blood. AB52 winked at her and she was secretly glad that JD411, the soldier who had forgotten his stamina supplements, hadn’t come back again for another try at the grenade launcher. The Commander placed a hand on her shoulder, getting her attention.

“Sir?” She asked, straightening.

“ZJ312. Good work today, though I see you had a slight… distraction.” He sent an amused gesture at the soldier. “Walk with me, we must discuss the next attack and prepare. We have a hold on the sector for another week.”

They wandered over the cracked and broken wall, ZJ312 taking in the sight of the smoking rubble against the bright pale orange sky. “You’ve made quite an impact on the last few battles, ZJ312. It makes me proud to see how far you’ve come. I remember when you and your fellow strategists were just small squirts selected for the bold yellow and orange. You have come very far from there. Possibly one of the top strategists I’ve worked with.”

She was taken aback by the praise, “I… thank you, sir. I have put a lot of work into my job.”

“Yes, yes,” He waved away the thanks. “You must be looking forward to bigger and better things than playing battle on the field.”

“Well, I hope to have a major position and title.” She admitted.

“I do not mean that.”

She was confused, what else… was there? This had always been her life. The Commander sighed, “No doubt you, like everyone else, are interested in the rumours of people missing?”

“It would be a lie to say that I wasn’t, Commander. Do you know what is really happening?” She asked, focusing even more attention on him.

“Yes. They are merely… ready. You will understand, ZJ312, very soon in fact. You did not need to get your friend to research it for you.” He smiled, and the smile held a secret and it caused her to hesitate.

“I don’t know what…”

“You’ve done very well today, ZJ312.” He cut her off. “You really proved your worth. There’s a new battlefield for you to conquer.” ZJ312 eyebrows rose at his comments; what was he saying? “You don’t belong here anymore.”

And his smile grew even wider as he pulled out his gun and shot her in the face.