The carved hall and the oiled annex latch went out like a bad lamp.
No second body on the floor. No packet. No court. Morning was a classroom window and a phone in his hand. The name that fit was his own.
Aoi Aoi. College. That was the whole of it.
MANHUNT was a smash-hit smartphone game. You pointed the camera at a real person, the app turned them into a card, and you fought with those cards.
When you shot someone, the system picked them apart and stamped on stats. A ridiculous game. Of course it exploded.
The 3D models were so good people said they beat real life. Ordinary photos came out detailed because of a new AI they had jammed into the thing. Even so, it was a leap.
Shooting people without asking turned into a social problem, so asking permission started to settle as manners. Hidden shots still never stopped. If you got carded from a sneak photo, you usually never knew, so most of the time nobody cared.
