Kai: Snow-neon slashed the Sapporo arcology window like faulty code. Inside Club Void’s Susukino dive, bass throbbed through permafrost bones. My analog rig hummed warm against my scarred thigh.
I was Kai, no.screenager to the slum kids. Tonight the chrome execs and hybrid suits packed the pit. My duet partner was Lena Voss, Neo-USR’s golden girl.
Her hologram leaned in mid-chorus, lips syncing my glitch-haiku.
Virus hunts the host…
Then she shattered.
Projection melted into claws, jaw unhinged, eyes burning viral green. The crowd cheered, thinking it was effects. My implants disagreed. They hissed a gain-of-function screech: Hokkaido GOF lab signature. Spliced aggression genes.
Lena had forty-seven minutes.
I yanked the jack. Vision blurred. Neo-USR’s “gift” — the botched vocal upgrade that turned me into an oracle. Every performance a precrime prophecy. Murder encoded as melody.
Tonight’s killer beat came layered: an enforcer growl, a rival diva’s venom, and my own ghost harmony pleading underneath.
“Remix this plague.”
My fingers slammed the synths. The crowd roared. I hid the GOF coordinates inside the 808 drops: 43.0618° N, 141.3544° E. The slum kids would decode. They always did.
Vents hissed. Hybrid hunters dropped from the rafters, chrome glint dialled to rage-eleven. My AI muse whispered a haiku into the mix:
Snow falls, foes chase /
Analog heart won’t glitch out /
Sing them to the void.
Backstage, Lena’s real body convulsed. Claws beginning where fingers should end.
Time to run.
[Listen: “Virus Hunts the Host” – no.screenager]
(Embed Song 1 here)
For Chapter 2 and the ghost-town map: patreon.com/no.screenager
#RemixThePlague #CyberpunkKai @no.screenager Arcology Chronicles
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