The camera fades from black revealing a sprawling mansion in European nobility style. The camera zooms into the left wing of the house, focusing on a window on the second floor. As the camera goes through the window, it reveals a man sitting in a lavishly decorated room, his body almost disappearing into an overly padded chair. The man, by all appearances, looks young and healthy, though there is a slight hint of fakeness, a little too perfect of features, which seems unnatural and slightly plastic. From the back of his head snakes a cord which is plugged into a metal box the size and shape of a pencil.
The camera shifts around until it is facing the back of the mans head. It zooms in, approaching in such a way that it appears the camera is entering the place in the mans head where the cords are plugged. As the camera enters the mans head, the screen suddenly turns black, with green, red, blue, purple, and other colored tubes and lights flashing around the peripheral of the screen. In the center of the screen is what looks to be a bank vault door. On the door are the words:
User name: OtomoYoshi
Password:
Into the password box appear, as if typed, ******. The portal opens and the screen displays a warp effect. At the end of the warp effect, the camera ends in a room dominated by a large, four poster bed. On the bed is the same man from the earlier room. On the bed with the man is two scantily clad, giggling, women. From the bottom of the screen appears a black, shadow-like creature. The man and two women ignore the figure, as if not seeing him. As the man approaches the bed, five robots appear, hovering between the figure and the bed. From the two robots on the extreme ends a beam is emitted, which turns into a purplish barrier which surrounds the bed and its still oblivious occupants.
The view shifts to a red-tinted screen. In the middle of the screen is a shadowy figure. A green crosshair on the screen wobbles around before locking onto the figure, turning red. The view changes to a close-up of the Gauss gun of one of the robots, which begins firing.
The camera view again shifts, now showing the shadowy figure, bent down, the wooden walls of the room exploding into splinters at the impact of the robots bullets. In front of the figure, the impacts from the bullets cause water-like ripples to appear in front of the figure, as the bullets apparently never reach it. In a rapid move, the shadow rushes forward, aiming for the center robot. As it sticks out its hand, with its open palm facing the robot, the air around the hand glows, as if on fire. Suddenly the hand breaks through, hitting the robot. At the touch, the robot explodes into pixels, which drift around like oversized dust particles, obscuring the figure. The two robots on either side turn towards the cloud, firing their guns into the pixilated haze.
After a few seconds of firing, the robots stop firing. The view shifts to the robots vision again, as all you can see is tinged red smoke, a green crosshair rapidly darting across the screen. From the middle of the haze emerges the figure, bent almost double, weaving its way across the screen. Futilely, the green crosshair tries to track with the figure, but it is always slightly behind, unable to lock on the target. A last leap takes the figure the last few feet, and just as the crosshair finally turns red, a hand fills the entire screen. The screen flickers slightly before going completely dark.
The screen shows the figure standing in front of the purplish barrier, its head bowed. All around, smoky particles swirl, temporarily obstructing certain sections of the screen. The two robots that had constructed the barrier remain stationary, as they have for the entire fight. The other robot slowly circles the shadow, until it is completely behind it, the figure standing between the robot and the barrier, at which point the robot started firing its guns. The figure, unlike the previous occasions, did not try to doge. Instead, it merely raised its head, holding one arm out, palm facing the robot. From the open palm leapt a pillar of light, small explosions racing down its path from the exploding shells of the bullets. When it hit the robot, the robot exploded into particles. However, instead of dispersing into a fog, as the other particles had, these particles, still caught in the beam, merely curled, as if pieces of paper caught in a fire, before disappearing completely.
Turning around, the figure once more stared at the barrier in front of it. Reaching out with its hands, it thrust forward, as if its hands were swords. The barrier bent a little, sparks flying around the hands before they broke through. Grasping the edges of the broken barrier, the figure pulled, as if opening curtains, until a hole large enough for it to walk through is made.
Now through the barrier, the shadow slowly approaches the bed. By now, the man is on his side, one hand running down the side of one woman as the other sits over him, kissing his neck. As the figure reached the bed, he grabbed the woman who was hunched over the man, throwing her easily over his shoulder. In mid-air the woman suddenly exploded, turning into a shower of pixels, similar to the just destroyed robots. At this, the man sat up, looking wildly around.
Almost inaudibly, you hear Goodbye as the shadow reaches its hand out to the puzzled man.
The scene switches back to the real world, showing the man in the overstuffed chair. Suddenly, he stiffens, his eyes rolling into the back of the head until only the whites showed. Giving one last shake, he falls to the floor. The camera starts to pan upward as you see the man lying face down on the floor before fading to black.
On the center of the screen is the words Inferno. Underneath are the options, Single Player, Multiplayer, Options, and Exit Game. Bright, neon colors streak across the background, headed towards a common point at the back of the screen, as if traveling down a glass tube. The cursor on the screen clicks Single Player, selecting, New Game, and Medium Difficulty at the next two prompts.
As the screen fades in from black, the words Celestial Games appear, surrounded by a field of stars. The screen dissolves, as the previous screen is replaced by a picture of Gladius, holding two flaming swords, with the words Gladius XXI on top, and On Sale Now on the bottom. The camera pans backwards, showing that what had previously filled the screen was merely a billboard advertising the latest game.
As the camera continues to zoom out, it becomes noticeable that beside the billboard is a giant TV mounted to the side of a building. Across the bottom a news ticker runs. On the screen is an impossibly beautiful woman.
And police have confirmed the death of seventy-eight year old Otomo Yoshi. On the corner of the screen shows a picture of a man that one can recognize as the person from the mansion prior to the start screen. Otomo was a key member of Parliament, having chaired the Bioethics Subcommittee for the past seven years. Police have not yet confirmed the cause of death.
The camera continues to pan, bypassing the TV monitor, the sounds of the city overwhelming the anchorwomans voice. As the camera continues to zoom around, the landscape changes, moving from high-rises and crowded streets to apartment style complexes interspersed with shady looking bars, strip clubs, and twenty-four hour convenience stores.
The camera zooms in on one run down apartment complex, specifically, on a fifth story window. Inside, the room is dark, the only light coming from the neon signs and streetlights which struggle to illuminate the room from outside the rooms single window. In one corner of the room, a man is sitting in a chair that looks like the love child between a bean bag and a recliner. From the back of his head snakes a cord which is attached to a box that stands about knee high, which itself is perched underneath a desk loaded down with various cords and electronic-looking devices.
One of the devices on the overburdened desk starts to flash, emitting a small beep at every red pulse. S***. Suddenly the man springs up, this time yelling, Holy s***!
The scene switches to a slightly distorted green screen, as if seen from the curvature of a camera lens. In the screen, five heavily armed men are seen entering door. Each is dressed all in black, with a black helmet obscuring their faces. In front of the men, barely seen are a flight of stairs. On their backs are the initials S.A.T. in white.
The view goes back to the apartment room, as the man rips the cords from the back of his head. Inarticulate mumblings are heard as the mans head whips around the room, his two hands surrounding it as if afraid that the violent shakings would cause it to fall off. Finally, he approaches the desk, opening the bottom drawer. The drawer is empty except for a book with Simulacra and Simulation written on the cover. Taking the book out, the man opens it, revealing that the book is actually hollowed out, a snub-nosed pistol resting in the open space. The camera spins around, placing the viewer in a first person position, as you hear the words, I need to get out of here now!
