The city bled neon.

Holo-screens filled the skyline, flashing scenes with bright, cheery colours that starkly contrasted with the smog-filled streets below. One displayed a steak cube sizzling in a reheating dock with the slogan 'Taste Real Again™' flashing across the screen. Another zoomed in on a neural implant lighting up in the shape of a cat's face that made it look like a tattoo before zooming in on the model's face as they navigated through the menus that were only visible to them with the slogan 'upgrade, obey, transcend™' zooming around the model in time to a pop song. Another, the largest, played a girl running through a maze while trying to avoid homicidal. At the same time, the title flew at the came announcing 'GameEnders: Final Cut."

Above it all, a drone wove through the highrises, unfurling a banner behind it with the VirtuNet logo. An emotionless voice rang from the drone that echoed through the entire city:

"VirtuNet: protecting citizens, one narrative at a time. Your safety is our story."

No one stopped or even looked up at the drone, but still, it continued its advertising:

"Why execute when you can educate? Every villain earns their end... so the villain won't be your end."

The message looped as the drone continued to move around the city.

Below, the city was crowded and compact, trying to stuff too many buildings in a tight little space.

Buildings leaned into each other, contemplating whether it would be better to collapse rather than pretend to be homes. Sheet-metal walkways stitched towers together like surgical staples. Heat shimmered off the gutters in greasy waves. Everything reeked of burnt oil and melted plastic.

People moved through it like clockwork—jerky, timed, worn, half-dead.

A man in a patched jacket ducked under a half-fallen holo-screen that still flickered with ads showing the next death games. A girl elbowed into a food line and flicked her cigarette at those who tried to fight her. Meat—or something that tried to pass as meat—crackled under heat lamps, its glaze gleaming an unhealthy green sheen as if it had been dunked into a radioactive drum of honey. 

A chime sounded, followed by a synthetic and emotionless voice as it announced a new program that would air that night: "Category 4 Simulation Upload... Don't miss the premiere at 2000."

A rusted service hatch screeched open and spewed out steam as two coughing workers exited. The stench of ammonia and burning metal followed.

"Holy shit," the older one rasped, Jules, peeling off his respirator. "Smells like someone took a piss in the acid vat." He was thickset and grizzled, with a beard streaked with grey and dark droopy eyes marked with thick creases.

Next to him, Ava stripped off stained gloves and shoved them into a chute as if they'd personally offended her. She was wiry, with curly ginger hair stuck to her sweaty face and green eyes glowed with an unnatural modified light. The sweat running down her back made her half-zipped jumpsuit stick to her body, accentuating the curves of her hips and bottom. 

"If I see one more cockroach the size of a cat," she muttered, cracking her neck, "I'm quitting."

"You said that last week." Jules snorted. "And the week before that, and the week before that."

"Yeah, yeah," Ava groaned. "But this time, I mean it."

They fell into step as they rushed home. They passed a bot in the shape of a young boy scrubbing a holo-screen with black spray-painted words in sharp scribble: Are they really evil?

Ahead of them, a screen pulsed bright red, and the logo 'Villain Rehabilitation Program' took up most of the screen. 

A voiceover sounded from the speakers, "New Broadcast Incoming: Category 4 Villain. Viewer Rating: Restricted."

"Category four?" Jules raised an eyebrow. "Must have done something truly heinous, but don't we have enough villain programs?"

"How can you ever get bored of seeing the downfall of someone you truly despise." Ava laughed. "But I actually want something truly juicy this time. The last one was crying before the show even started. What's to love about a villain already broken before the audience can join the fun?"

Their housing tower loomed ahead, nothing more than windowless metal slabs stained with rust and pipes dripping with whatever liquid ran through them. A half-dead holo-sign with a smashed screen flickered as if trying its hardest to stay alive above the lift:

NEUROVISTA COALITION // For Safer Tomorrows

Jules thumbed over the console and dinged as the doors opened. 

"Welcome, Jules Addencroft. Taking you to Block H, Unit 2047," the voice announced as Jules and Ava entered the lift.

The elevator groaned and rattled as if climbing each floor was an effort. When the doors finally slid open with a hiss, the apartment lit up with a soft blue light that showed nothing more than a small box that could only fit one bed, a couch, a small area that fit a reheating dock, and a fold-down sink that sat half-shut. When they stepped in, the pungent smell of lubricant mixed with fresh apples assaulted their noses.

The doors sealed with a soft hiss. 

"Noodles?" Jules asked as he moved over to the reheating dock. 

"Whatever you choose tonight." Ava barely paid him attention as she moved over to the panel on the wall and started fiddling with channel options.

The wall lit up, showing the flicker of shows: Escape Tower, The Execution Games, Prison Sweethears, Date or Die.

One frame lingered too long on a girl running in a bloodied wedding dress as she tried to escape from a hotel that had turned into a deadly escape room.

Ava didn't stop changing the channels and soon landed on a red screen with the VirtuNet logo flashing in the top corner and a ten-second countdown. Feeling satisfied, Ava collapsed on the couch with a long sigh.

Jules handed Ava one box of reheated noodles with a strong, fishy smell. It was best not to question what it actually was. 

"You're not actually considering watching that villain show, are you?" Jules groaned as he sat down and swirled his fork in the noodles box. "Couldn't we try something new tonight?"

"But aren't you curious about what a category four did?" Ava asked, not taking her gaze away from the screen as the counter reached 0.

"Fine," Jules let out a sigh. "But this one better be more interesting than the previous one who couldn't even survive past the first episode."

The screen suddenly faded as a voiceover sounded from the speakers, "VirtuNet: Your Safety. Your Entertainment. Your Justice."

A cartoon city that looked more like a utopia than the world they were currently living in filled the screen with happy citizens who were going about their lives until a robber stole their bag. The scene then changes to the robber fighting someone who looked like a gleaming hero with a sword, eventually dying a dramatic death.

A voice narrated the usual marketing pitch before all these shows, "In an age of chaos, VirtuNet offers rehabilitation through immersive simulation. Criminals are not executed. They are reformed. Their stories... are yours to control."

The screen faded once more, and when images returned, they were newspaper articles with the headlines:

Betrayal in the Core: VirtuNet Insider Slaughters Family

Daughter of Simulation Architect Destroys Home in Cyber-Terror Plot

School Prodigy Turns Killer: Rein Ashlin Arrested.

Security footage then played, showing a girl in a bloodied school uniform leaning over a dead body while the security team surrounded her. The footage changed to the courtroom as the girl sat with a dead look in her eye as she was sentenced to the villain rehabilitation program.

Ava blinked as she stared at the girl. "Shit. She's still a kid."

Jules just shook his head. "Even kids can be monsters."

"Yeah," Ava said, holding a hand over her stomach. "I just hope..."

"Don't worry," Jules said as he placed his hand over Ava's. "I'm sure her environment turned her into that."

A voiceover echoed from the screen: "Rein Ashlin. Age seventeen. Sutdent. Designer. Traitor. Convicted of high-level data sabotage. Multiple murders. Simulation breach. Sentence: Full Immersion. Category 4 Villain Path. Observation begins now."

"Let's just hope she gets what she deserves," Ava said as she returned to the screen as the simulation began.

The screen faded, and the courtroom was replaced by a ballroom. Marble floors and dark wooden walls were polished to a sheen. Golden chandeliers hung above the people dressed in fancy dresses of various colours and suits. Velvet drapes hung over high-arched windows, which showed that it was pitch black outside.

At the front of the room, a man stood dressed in a midnight blue suit lined with silver. Cold blue eyes darted around the room as if looking for someone, and a scowl spread across his face.

Beside him stood a girl who felt entirely out of place in a faded yellow dress that looked two sizes two big, trying its hardest not to lose to gravity as it slid off her shoulder. Silver bracelets jangled with every twitch and fidget. Her eyes darted about—the door, floor, feet, man in the suit, back to her feet. She looked like she knew she shouldn't have been there and waiting for someone to kick her out.

"What is this?" Ava asked. "That's the saint, right, but where's the villain?"

Jules leaned forward but didn't answer. The usual program started with the villain already being condemned for her behaviour and given a warning. But where was this villain? If she had died before the show started, then the program would have been cancelled. But they were just looking at a very uncomfortable ballroom scene.

Murmurs echoed around the room, growing louder and louder until the man in the midnight blue suit finally snapped.

"Silence," the man screamed, his voice rattling the portraits hanging on the walls. Then he turned to a servant standing at the side. "Where is she?"

The servant trembled as he moved into a low bow, his gaze locked on the floor. "I'm sorry, my lord. She... she just vanished. We haven't seen—"

"Enough," the man said, cutting the servant's words off. I don't care what it takes; I want her found."

The servant didn't get a chance to answer before the doors burst open with a crash, revealing two figures standing in the doorway.

The first was a boy of seventeen or eighteen with storm-grey eyes and dark hair tousled just enough to look messy. He was wrapped in a black coat stitched with gold. He held out his hand, and the second person took it.

A girl in a pitch-black dress swished across the ground with each step forward. Her snow-white hair hung down her back, and her eyes were the colour of blood-red rubies. She moved into the room like she had every right to be there, her heels making sharp clicks on the marble.

Everyone in the room gasped as whispers grew louder and louder.

"That's the second prince."

"I thought he was dead."

"What's she doing with him?"

"Wasn't she supposed to be unrefined?"

The man in the midnight blue suit ignored the guests' commotion and stepped forward. "Where have you been?"

The girl smiled, not sweetly but with a vicious curl of her lip. "I'm home, Father."

The man's nostrils flared as his face turned red. "I said, where have you been?"

The girl laughed and said, "That's some greeting for your precious daughter." She shook her head and said, "Can we start this disinheritance ceremony?"

The man opened his mouth, but before he could respond, the girl continued.

"But it's not going to go how you planned," she said, tapping the arm of the boy escorting her. "This is my story, and I will get to decide what happens next."

Ava and Jules sat on the edge of the couch, staring open mouths as their noodles stood long forgotten.