The phone on her bedside table lit up as it received another message, illuminating the dark bedroom as its vibration sent the device drifting across the wooden surface. From her position face down on her bed Reiko lazily lifting a hand up and stretching her arm over to it, dragging the mobile towards her and tilting the screen so she could see what it said; one of her ‘friends’ wanted help studying for an upcoming math test and of course it was her they came to first. With a sigh she quickly tapped out a response promising to schedule a tutoring session before throwing the device back down on the mattress and burying her face back into her pillow.

It was less than a minute later before the phone began vibrating again, no harsh light filling the room this time with the mobile screen down on the bed but she could feel the vibrations through the mattress. Lifting herself off of the bed Reiko flipped herself over so that she was lying on her back, giving up on the idea of having a moment’s peace and quiet. It was a different person this time, another ‘friend’ inviting her to a sleep over next week.

Reiko frowned at the screen, staring at the message with the obnoxious number of emojis before tapping out another response and dropping the phone onto her stomach. She’d have to attend the sleepover, there was no way around it; parties she could ignore with excuses about other engagements or wanting to get an early night, double dates she avoided with her usual excuse of wanting to stay single till college, but for things like this she needed to put in some effort if she didn’t want people to start asking questions. One whole night where she’d have to keep up the façade the entire time; at least it was on a school night so she could make an excuse to retire early if she was getting frustrated.

Her head dropped onto the pillow and she stared at the ceiling, eyes glazing over as she tried to let her mind just drift away. The spell broke when she felt her phone vibrate again, this time directly on her stomach. The screen illuminated her room with its searing blue light, revealing a room filled with typical teenage girl paraphernalia; the walls were adorned with posters for bands she’d never listened to, but whose albums she could all name from memory, and pictures of male models she despised but whose entire history she could recite if needed. Her vanity was covered with make-up kits and fashion magazines and the floor was home to a number of stuffed animals that had been thrown from her bed so she could slump down in their place.

Reaching behind her head Reiko lifted the pillow she was lying on out from under her and raised it above her face. She lowered it down till it covered her head, drowning out the sounds of the phone to an extent while also making it difficult to breathe, and held it there for a few seconds before easing up. Throwing the pillow to the side she reached down and recovered her phone, holding it over her face to see the screen, expecting to see another message with a request for help she would need to deal with or sending an invitation to something she would have to find a way out of.

It was neither of those. Instead it was a message from a name she didn’t recognise, the first few words of which sent a chill down her spine. Reiko sat up, swinging her legs around to set them on the floor and reread the message again and again to make sure she wasn’t imagining things. Whoever had sent this knew about her activities in EDEN, the break-ins and her less than legal trespassing on private places. They even knew about her life outside of the digital world, her lying and her ‘character’; was this a stalker?

No, this was from Jormungundr, and even someone like Reiko knew of that name. This was a hacker group, but weren’t they shut down years ago? Was this a remnant, or just a copycat or a fan reusing the name? They were a creep either way; the fact that this person was stalking her to recruit her instead of… other reasons didn’t make it any less disturbing. She should just delete the message and pretend she’d never received it, forget she’d ever heard about the Net Sheep Café and go on with her life.

But… would it be dangerous to ignore an invitation like this? Whoever this was could clearly find out enough about her to find out where she lived if they wanted to, if they didn’t know already. Would they just accept a simple ‘no thank you’ and leave her alone if she didn’t respond? Would it be better to go to this meeting, hear their offer, and then turn them down?

And, maybe, just a little bit, she was slightly interested in hearing what they had to say.

****

Reiko pushed open the door to the Net Sheep Café, sticking her head through the entrance and looking around warily before stepping inside and letting the door close behind her. As she walked up to the counter she pulled her cap lower over her face and placed her hands inside the front pocket of her oversized hoodie, one fist clenched around the small container of pepper spray she had brought with her and the other holding her phone with equal fervour.

To say that she was being cautious was a bit of an understatement; despite her online activities Reiko was not used to this sort of thing, sneaking around and attending illicit meeting after answering ominous messages from famous hacker groups. It had been two days since she had read the text and she hadn’t been able to stop looking over her shoulder since finding out that [i]someone[/i] was apparently watching her every move; she hadn’t even been to EDEN since then and the whole situation was starting to wear on her nerves.

In spite of her fears the cashier greeted her warmly and his demeanour along with the fact that he looked like the kind of pretty boy some of her friends would go wild over felt entirely at odds with the way she was feeling right now. [color=6ecff6]“Um, I received an invitation?”[/color] Her voice was lightly muffled by the face mask she wore, her eyes similar obscured by sunglasses, but he seemed to understand her nonetheless.

Without saying a word the cashier pointed her towards a set of cubicles that seemed to have signs hung on the doors, presumably to reserve them, and left her to it. Walking in that direction Reiko became aware of a small commotion in one corner of the establishment and was surprised to see the famous idol Yuzurin apparently conducting an interview right that moment. The sight was unexpected enough that Reiko stopped in her tracks; so far this place wasn’t nearly the wretched hive of scum and villainy she had expected it to be, instead resembling any other net café she had ever seen or visited.

She considered taking a picture of the idol, even though she absolutely hated her music, so she’d have something to impress her ‘friends’ with at school tomorrow, but then she’d have to explain where and how she’d found her and that would lead to more trouble than it was worth. Instead she just walked over to the row of reserved cubicles and found the one with her name on it, ripped the tag off of the door and stepped inside.

****

Reiko’s appearance within EDEN was almost nothing like her real world appearance. It was a different kind of disguise compared to the cliché face mask, sunglasses and hat she was wearing at the moment, but a disguise nonetheless. Her long hair had been cut into a short bob and dyed blonde, her eyes coloured blue by contacts and her clothing was a lot brighter and ‘out there’ compared to her usual fashionable chic look. It all served to draw attention to any place other than her general facial structure to the point that even her closest acquaintances would need a second or third look before they actually recognised her.

It was this altered avatar that people saw when Reiko arrived in the cathedral, having logged into EDEN and found the URL to the private server on her Digivice just as the message had said. She found herself in the middle of an expansive, ornately decorated hall of some kind with a distinctly religious feel to it and even she couldn’t help but gape in awe at the grandeur of it.

She wasn’t the only one here however and Reiko quickly schooled her features to something more neutral, hopefully before anyone noticed. There were five others besides herself in the cathedral, seven if you counted the nun-like figures but they matched the aesthetic of the place too much to not be part of whoever recruited them here. Every seemed to be around the same age as Reiko or slightly older and most of them, aside from one girl who appeared to be trying hard [i]not[/i] to look like she was listening, were in the middle of conversations.

Having no interest in engaging with anyone until she knew what was going on here, Reiko kept her distance from the rest and did her best to look disinterested until whoever recruited them arrived.

[@Pyromania99]