CARD 7: “DREAM STATE"
Location: Block Waterfall Lab, Akihabara, District 4
The stairs lead to LC-727's lab - a red-lit chamber that looks more like a liminal torture room than a lab. Transmission servers line the walls, their cooling systems creating a mist that drifts across the floor like an 1980s rock video. In the center, three leather neural-sync chairs form a perfect triad, their probe arrays gleaming like chrome dental tools.
"Welcome to the dream theater," LC-727 says, powering up systems that haven't been legal since the Reality Wars. Holographic warnings flicker to life: "DREAM-STATE PROTOCOLS ACTIVE" and "REALITY INTEGRITY: UNUSABLE." LC connects the Nokia's ancient prongs to his server. It clicks in producing a most satisfying sound.
"Ok. Initiating link,” LC-727 says as they settle into the sync chairs. 303 inspects the old school seat belts. "These necessary?"
​
"Mileage may vary." The probe arrays descend. The main part connects to their front lobes and the back of their neck. The second part goes int their mouth like a pacifier meant for the Terminator's baby. The Source Key pulses as they form the triad link, its energy spreading through their shared consciousness.
Third Protocol reality fragments.
​
Blankness.
All three instantly split into their own timeline.
LC-727 enters a vast digital ocean of consciousness. His consciousness is floating with countless minds uploaded during the Reality Wars, their data streams interweaving like luminous jellyfish. These subs represent the fragmented, deleted, aborted, and corrupted., infinitely waiting to merge or complete. The experience its at once peaceful and sad. A hypnagogic realm LC has experienced before, he is here to mostly chaperone the voyage.
YH-891 finds himself lost in a limitless neural forest. However, it's not like any forest he's ever seen. It all seems to be branching from a single incomprehensible tree, each branch a timeline spread like fractals across a great cosmic expanse. The branches feel so alive, each one a potential world, some bright with hope, others dark with despair.
​
YH-891 stares paralyzed into the endless weave, feeling its immensity, its beauty, its terror.
‘I’m lost,’ he whispers, though the forest does not answer. It only stretches on, the branches spiraling ever outward, whispering secrets he cannot understand.
GM-303 steps into a chamber of impossible dimensions, where the laws of space and time no longer hold meaning. The air hums with a low-frequency vibration, resonating deep within his being as if the universe itself is exhaling. Before him, The Akashic Record materializes—a colossal, hyper-tesseract structure, its crystalline facets shifting and folding in endless geometric permutations. Each surface reflects fragmented realities, data streams pulsing like veins of living light, flowing in and out of existence.
The structure appears both shattered and self-repairing—pieces floating free before locking seamlessly back into place. Within its depths, entire timelines bloom and collapse in flashes of spectral energy. Stars are born, civilizations rise and fall, echoes of infinite lives ripple outward and disappear. The sheer magnitude of this divine construct presses against GM-303’s consciousness, threatening to overwhelm him.
He staggers, his tactical display glitching as it struggles to process what he sees. It is a living database of all possible realities—past, present, and yet-to-be—stretching infinitely in all directions. A presence, both mechanical and ancient, hums within it, observing him in return. For a moment, GM-303 feels small and infinite all at once, as if his essence is being weighed, measured, and inscribed into the record itself.
The Godlike intensity of the moment is unbearable. His breath catches as radiant light fractures through the tesseract, cutting through the void like shards of glass, illuminating his trembling silhouette. He knows now—this is the source of everything, the nexus of creation and collapse. And it is waiting for him.
All at once, a shockwave travels across the room - a powerful vibration from below. The vintage machines all glitch out, their screens flickering with distortion.
LC-727 violently disengages the triad sequence mid-calibration. "They're here."
LC rouses 303. YH-891 does not move. "Fuck. He's caught in a neural loop. No time to retrieve him. Quick!" LC tosses 303 a BLIP, semi-automatic with auto-train functionality.
​
The Extractos pour in like liquid fog through multiple entrances, their leather armor reflecting the lab's emergency lights, red eyes scanning methodically for targets. Not the standard patrol units - these are elite hunters, and they’re always in the mood for more blood.
Behind their synchronized movement, 303 spots an imposing figure wielding a red katana, his blade already drawn. It's an Enforcer, the highest rank of Extracto. The other Extractos part as he moves in to engage.
The YAKUZAI shift seamlessly into combat mode, their fashionable frames giving way to lethal efficiency. LC-727 moves with impossible precision, BLIP in one hand, sword in the other, exhibiting the same sword technique as the enforcer. He's different from the others - with movements suggesting deep familiarity with older fighting protocols.
303 fires on the Extractos with genius precision, his recent neural link amplifying his combat abilities even further. The lab turns into a battlefield - Extractos moving in formation while LC and 303 fight as a duo.
Glass shatters. Extractos explode. The sound of leather and steel meeting in violent symphonic chords. 303's tactical display shows YAKUZAI•CORP bounty values increasing with each Extracto dropped, a percentage of their staked bounty tokens automatically transferring to the YAKUZAI's wallet with each kill.
But the Enforcer moves like an invisible specter through the chaos, his red katana leaving trails of light as he cuts through the fighting.
In one fluid movement, he severs the neural connection to the Source Key, snatching it mid-glitch. Before they can react, he triggers a reality dampener - a modern Raytheon tech that momentarily freezes local spacetime.
When the effect clears, he's gone, leaving only a trail of data distortions and a heap of wasted Extractos.
​
"Is he ok?" 303 asks. LC shakes his head. "Uh, not really. I think I can possibly defrag his mind, but it's not good. I'll need hours to recalibrate him." He looks at 303. "Help me get him up... We'll wrap him in this faraday cloak so that no other inputs can access him while he's vulnerable."
YH-891 stands there with a blank dead look in his eyes, staring off into an endless neural forest.
​
"The Enforcer knew exactly what he was looking for," LC says, checking YH's eyes. "That Nokia isn't just storing data - it's a key to accessing the original timeline branches. I think someone's trying to replace this reality with a different one. You've got to get it back."
​
LC projects a hologram and coordinates following the Nokia. "Luckily I installed an air track on the artifact while we were linking. Lookie here." They watch as the air track moves through Neo Tokyo.
"I just airdropped you the tracker. Now, go kill the fucker and take it back! Our realities might depend on it. "