My name is Leon. I was born 1995. 7. 02. I am a crystal child. My uncles committed suicide age 7. My grandmother, lung cancer 13. My last uncle passed at 15. Death has stalked me since the day I was old enough to think. My father's no good, a deadbeat. My mother, a talented manipulator. I am middle child, black sheep, strong enough to hold my own, too weak to keep it consistent. When I was eighteen years old New England opened its first online server for people to upload their consciousness to and escape from reality. I did it in a heartbeat. I took my younger sister with me.

Now, I am King.

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WORKING TITLE: NEW ENGLAND: https://open.spotify.com/track/61VpXmcxNIiTZoaYu63nJX

The rain has been persistent for the last fourteen days. It is mid-April. The server is a temple of smoke and rain. Some of the Lower Tiers have gone underground. Flooded to the core. Anyone too poor to pay for a new phase has drowned. I can't see out past the end of our district, the other phases are hidden behind smog. The artificial sun burns a dusty orange; the moon invisible, a black shade that barely makes itself known. The Immortal Coil is lit by a hundred thousand thousand LED strips. The go-go bars and noodle stands and late-night meat vendors peddle their wares as if the water isn't six inches deep and up past their ankles. Punters still pump money into the feelies; machines designed to let you feel any kind of emotion, provided you have the credits. The video arcades are still all the rage. No one wears an N95 mask. They'd rather install a new pair of lungs than hide their facial aesthetics. Business is the best its ever been. Everyone wants a high. Especially when the very air burns when you breathe.

My name is Leon. I'm a bruiser, a debt collector, and occasionally: a private detective. I'm 6'5'' of solid muscle, built like a line-backer, jeans distressed; faceplate made out of solid titanium, and most of it backed behind an aluminium core. I run a small team: Vex, Firefly, Spider. These are my crew. Together, we run the Immortal Coil, New England's premium gambling district; hidden from the rest of the server behind a pincode that you need to purchase with Karma just to get in. And you can't get it unless you already know someone from the Coil. So in other words: we're invisible. We are free. We are the last bastion of security and free autonomy in a server gone to shit. Outside, the motherboards are rotting, the pylons are banked, the Cloud is burning, but we have it all. All thanks to my team.

They say in New England that if you fall from grace, you're never coming back. You'll end up floating face-deep in water like all the poor S.O.Bs in the Lower Districts. Well, that's not neccesarily true.

You just have to know the right people.

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Tonight, a man died in a remote factory in the Lower District, somewhere in Section 7, out past the original cells and not far from the drop off where they go to dump androids once their warranty has ended.

How do I know this? ... Because I'm the one who killed him.