Tokyo5: Prosper’s Law

‘Welcome! Welcome to Tokyo5!’ As the ad-birds sing. When they’re not being scavenged for parts, that is. Or reprogrammed by hack-worms. Or - well, in any case... welcome!

Tokyo5. Just one of the thousand AR cities that now occupy the site of Old Tokyo, itself no more than a legend beneath the layers of The Stack.

It began with the discovery of S-Light and the Somatic Conversion Therapy (or Soft-Death) that allowed people to co-exist for the first time without ever coming into contact.

Yet the bigger the code, the bigger the bugs…

It’s been 130 years since the split and last contact between the cities. Sato Kurama is a Prospectr, known as Prospers, the corporate police’s specialised ‘Geist’ hunter units. These dangerous glitches have been the only stain on the new world’s otherwise glittering surface.

But now a new threat emerges, one that could force the cities to reestablish old ties… but if they do, will there still be anything to bind them?

This is my submission for the MAL x Honeyfeed Writing Contest 2022. I’ll be updating at least several times a week starting on Tuesday evenings.

Comments are very very welcome, please leave any you would like to! It would be so nice to engage with the community h...