Cytronica

Thirty

Hour one

"I don't believe it," Diego whispered to himself as his body arrived at the spawning point. His mind wasn't deceiving him—he was indeed inside the realm.

He stepped forward and entered the main atrium of Central Station. There weren't as many bots as there usually were during the busy weekday rush hour periods. A short distance away he spotted three familiar faces.

"Hey!" Priya called, waving as she saw him.

"Hey."

"Finally," Beck joked. "We've been waiting for like fifteen minutes."

"Huh?" Diego frowned. "Why did you log in so early?"

"She's just messing with you," Jiaying laughed. "Look at the time on your comm."

He did as instructed, glancing at his wrist. "What the hell? There are two times."

"Exactly," Priya said. "Remember yesterday when I mentioned Hunter said something about slowing down time?"

"Oh. Right."

Still, it was a strange thing to consider. Every time the group had ever used Cytro it was synchronised with the real world. In this session, however, everyone's comms displayed two different times: one for reality, one for Cytronica.

"So far, everything seems fairly normal," Jiaying noticed. "I hope."

"Don't expect that to last," Beck jested. "I'm sure shit's going to crazy real soon."

"I just can't believe we're here," Diego said. "How on earth did he fix Cytro?"

Priya began walking forward. "I guess we're about to find out. Shall we?"

The foursome made their way through the station alongside a crowd of other fellow students. They marched out into the open realm and headed for their usual meeting point.

"Whoa. That's a lot of people," Diego said. Across the road outside the common stood several hundred users, all ready and eager for the tournament to commence. Passing bots stopped and watched on, curious to know what was happening in their world.

"I'm guessing their autonomy is up," Priya said, noticing the bots' expressions and movements.

Diego looked up at the skyscrapers and everything else around them. "I can't see anything else different."

"Except for that," Beck said, pointing to Hunter, Justin, and Casey, who stood on the stone wall perimeter of the common. The horde of students gathered before them.

"I'm so excited!" a girl shrieked.

"I'm not," someone else flatly admitted.

"I guess there's a mixed vibe today," Jiaying pondered. "Not surprising."

"Hey, where's Zack?" Diego suddenly realised. "He's not here."

Priya looked around but couldn't see him nearby. "Weird. Maybe he chose not to log in."

They continued moving forward until they could walk no further. They stood idly by in the crowd, watching and waiting.

Casey checked the time on his wrist. "Should we start?"

"I think we should," Justin said. "We don't want the crowd to get restless."

"Good idea." Hunter cleared his throat and raised his hands. "Alright!" he called out. "Can everyone hear me?"

The gathering replied or nodded.

"Excellent," he said with a smile. "Welcome, everyone!"

A few dozen teenagers began cheering and screaming. Others stood impatiently, waiting for the show to commence.