Montana sat on the bed of his truck, towel hanging from his head, as the young girl, couldn't be more than 20, vehemently apologized for causing him to lose his phone and take a plunge. The earbuds were long gone and his pack of smokes; he always had a spare in the truck, but replacing the phone would be a pain. It was connected to the Department and there would be a headache's worth of paperwork.

"It's okay. I'm really not worried about the phone. I still have my beer and extra smokes from the truck, so my Saturday isn't ruined."

"Will you let me pay for the phone. Working for AoF has its perks, one of them being phones are on the house. There is a store inside the Garden. I haven't gotten one of my allotted phones since starting work two years ago."

Montana was starting to take the loss of the phone as a stroke of luck. He wasn't planning on going inside anywhere, but he couldn't think of a better way to get an idea of the campus and what took place there than witnessing it himself. "There's a phone store?"

The raven haired girl smiled, she had a blue line of hair (which Montana took as a sign in his favor) and her teeth were white and straight to the point that he wondered if they were veneers. Her eyes had that spark that made casting directors' Spider Sense tingle. "It's kind of crazy. I'm still not use to living here. There are so many shops and restaurants and bars tucked into this place it had to take an engineering genius to design it."

"No kidding," Montana said, "I just come out for the lake and the trails. It was nice of AoF to build it for the city."

"Yeah, it's cool to work for a purpose driven business."

"What purpose is that?"

The girl shrugged and her face scrunched a little with the expression of surprise. "Making the world a better place by making it about people and not profit and shareholders. AoF offers free asset control and investment to all its employees and at a small percentage to anyone willing to sign up. Nim has doubled people's wealth without a single loss to one person. Studies are showing it's been responsible for the resurgence in the standard of living that was declining for decades."

"I've heard something like that about it, supposedly gaining management of people's finances to make Government control normalized, if you believe the conspiracy quacks."

"It's working. Most of the twentieth century marriages had one person controlling the income and they weren't anywhere near as efficient as Failsafe."

"Failsafe?"

"That's the management program's name."

"Ah, okay. I guess if you're not going to stop asking about it, I'll have to say yes to the phone. My name's Montana."

"Thank you, Montana, for letting me do this. I'm Wynter, it was my gamer tag, I had my name legally changed last year. Spend most of my time in-game, just makes it easier."

"So what are you doing out here, dunking people in the lake in the real world?"

Wynter laughed and her eyes went to her feet for a second which Montana thought was annoying. "I made a New Year's resolution to spend one hour every morning exercising outside. So, here I am destroying your stuff."

"You're a professional gamer? I guess I still have the stereotype of a skinny nerd indexed as gamer in my mind. I'm old."

"Surprisingly, still happens all the time, people being stupefied I'm a professional gamer, not really so much just a gamer anymore, but girls still get relegated to occasional players who like match three puzzle games with candy."

"Is there a story to AoF or is it just a free-for-all set in the dark ages but with magic and monsters?" Montana lit a cigarette and tossed the towel from his head over the gate of his truck.

"There is the underlying thread of good vs. evil that is in every story. Who or what is good or evil is up to the players: what king to fight for, overthrow; what god to follow or fight; what guild's creed do you agree with and see putting to practice, that sort of thing. If your talking about one evil baddie that is attempting to control everything in  a LOTR sort of way, not exactly, though there are rumors of a god who wants to destroy all human players and who wants to bring his kingdom into the real world, which is a cool take given how real VR is nowadays. His name is Lord Ashwater."

Montana popped the top of a cold Pabst can and couldn't shake the eerie feeling he got hearing about Lord Ashwater's agenda. It was a little too close to some of the online wacko's beliefs about AoF, about its true purpose, taking over humanity as we know it through some damn mind control implant and replacing their minds with the NPC's from the game. "What do you fight for?"

Wynter looked at the beer and the cigarette and didn't hide her negative feelings. "I'm part of a smaller guild, we specialize in cracking dungeons that haven't been beaten. We get involved in defending the North, which is the region of the continent Brithos where all players begin the game, from the shadow-men that come from Rip Portals, I know I'm getting you lost in the lore."

"Just a little, but it's interesting."

"We don't do it out of the goodness of our hearts. Since it is the starting point for all players, it makes a good place to scout talent before another guild swoops them up. Also, some of the greatest loot in-game comes from beyond the portals, inverted enchantments, ice swords that burn like, for instance. Something weak to fire will be shredded and also something weak to cold. "

"So it's like the best of both worlds."

"Exactly."

Montana downed his beer and put on the old black t-shirt he had in his dry bag in case he did happen to tumble in. His shorts were a quick dry material and were only mildly damp. He was in good shape and old enough that he didn't look at Wynter in any other way than just a girl, but he was glad to have the shirt, being an active alcoholic with smoker's lungs made him instinctually leery to have to have his shirt off in public. He took a drag from his cigarette and put his hand toward the Garden. "Lead the way."

Wynter nodded and the pair took off. "What were you listening to so intensely back there? My dad would say you were as jumpy as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs."

"Your dad sounds like he has a southern twang. I was watching conspiracy theories about this place. It was a little spooky and then you snuck up on me and decided to talk at the absolute worst time."

"Oh man, those people are insane. Please tell me you're a journalist debunking them and publishing an article about the psychotic nature of conspiracy theories."

"I am doing research on them but not in an official capacity, more like a hobby, something to listen to while I paddle on the water and walk the trail."

"You had a badge in your truck. I'm sorry; I looked when I brought you the towel and you were going through it for your emergency cigarettes. So, you're a cop?"

"Detective."

"That's an interesting line of work, bet you see all sorts of crazy things."

"You do see a lot of the darker side of life. Detective is more desk job, information gathering, and interviews. I saw a lot more as it happened when I was on the beat, but I do get called out for the heavy hitting: murder investigation, pedophiles, higher level crimes. It's hard not to become numb to certain things, caring whether people think your smoking and drinking are off-putting." Montana smiled at Wynter who shrugged it off with an uncaring acknowledgement.

"It's just so unhealthy. They do have better alternatives now you know. You can actually smoke in virtual reality and get the same brain triggers from it without killing your lungs.

"My cousin always tried to convince me to get the port-a-smoke helmet. Not my thing."

"Right."

Wynter led Montana into the central building of the Garden, the largest structure on campus, it was the shape of a pyramid whose walls were made out of tinted glass. A large fountain was in the center of the giant open building. In the center of the fountain were four horses in extreme poses, one crouched with its head low and eyes up staring out angrily, another up on its hind legs, nostrils flared. The horses were coated in water from head to hoof which flowed down to the basin unbroken, giving a lustrous sheen over their black marble skin.

"That Phone Place is over here," Wynter said veering left to a storefront with blue neon light spelling That Phone Place in a hard to read cursive. The store's walls were soft orange, glowing canvas; cedar wood displays poured from them carrying phones and tablets and wearables.

"Nothing is priced." Montana browsed the shop as Wynter headed over to the Glass brand display.

"You should get the new Glazed 5.0. The diamond tech is good for a lifetime charge."

Montana walked over to the table she stood at. The ceiling was crisscrossed with taught cables and several round cameras like floating eyes hovered above them. A figure appeared out from the floor, built layer by layer of light beaming from several cameras working in tandem.

"A simulation?" Montana mused.

"At your service Montana David."

It was still unnerving to be identified by technology cramming itself into daily life. Did this one scan his eyes, his fingerprints, his heat signature? Montana hated being a digital item for companies to identify and enslave.

"I need the new Glazed phone, but I don't want it activated, actually, give me two, but I only want to update one with my Cloud and the other is for Montana. I accidentally broke his phone."

"That will only be the matter of a moment, Wynter. You have several phones available to you still after this transaction. Montana, if you like, I see that your cell phone provider is within our network of associated partners and I can transfer your data to this new phone at your request. I will also file the necessary paperwork with the city at your directive, Detective. Thank you for serving the community."

Montana should have known trying to observe AoF incognito would be impossible, but at least kayaking and having his phone destroyed were innocent enough reasons to be here and not cause to be murdered by an indiscriminate perfect serial killing company.

Right?

He wasn't so sure and it made him nervous. He needed to get a grip and brush away the conspiracy. The woman who just died accusing AoF of killing her son had sent him emails which were archived by this company, who now had access to his phone records, his entire digital existence he had no doubt, which, if this company really was a killing machine, he was surely on their hit list.