Lightspeed: Edited by John Joseph Adams

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Fiction

City of One

CITY OF ONE

In City of One, the object is to avoid being seen.

  • You begin at a random point in the city. If you are seen, you die.
  • You cannot leave the city. If you try, you die.
  • Your wellbeing starts at 1 out of 100. At 0, you die.
  • To maintain your well-being, steal food, water, and shelter. If caught, you die.
  • Remaining unseen does not increase your well-being.
  • Sleep does not increase your well-being or decrease your exhaustion.

Remember: You are surrounded.

You will be seen if you are:

  • Heard by someone.
  • Too close to someone.
  • Recorded by a camera.
  • Captured by a microphone.

Traces you leave may make others curious. If discovered, you die.

Remember: Covering your tracks also leaves tracks.

Side quests include:

  • The Government Is Concerned: The authorities hunt you.
  • There Is Work to Be Done: Teachers and employers hunt you.
  • What Is Wrong with You: Doctors and therapists hunt you.
  • Your Disappearance Was Noted: Strangers and neighbors hunt you.
  • But We Love You: Friends and family hunt you.

Remember: The city is not your ally.

Challenges include:

  • Only You Can Help: Your conscience hunts you.
  • No One Cares: You cannot help checking whether others are hunting you.
  • Someone Should Care: You cause someone to hunt you.

Remember: You are not your ally either.

At the start of the game, you possess:

  • One power: Mind Shield.
  • One item: Invisibility Cloak.
  • One skill: Hide in Plain Sight.

Remember: None of them work for long. Nothing does.

Strategies:

  • You cannot be seen until after your initial movement, so never move.
  • Reveal yourself immediately.

Remember: There is no winning move.

City of One is a single-player game. If you click on the multi-player option, you die.

It is also a single-play game. If you die, you may not replay it. If you try to play it again, you die.

Remember: You will be seen.

CITY OF ONE 2

City of One 2 is a hidden game at the end of City of One. The object is to be seen.

  • You begin at a random point in the city. If you remain unseen, you die.
  • You should not leave the city. If you do, you die.
  • Your well-being starts at 1 out of 100. At 0, you die.
  • The more you are seen, the higher your well-being. At 100 you become Overexposed, and you die.
  • Sleep does not increase your well-being or decrease your exhaustion.

Remember: No one really wants to see you.

You can be seen by:

  • Getting into a great school.
  • Getting a great job.
  • Getting a great spouse.
  • Getting a spouse who is seen.
  • Having kids who repeat this cycle.
  • Displaying fashionable food, clothes, and shelter.
  • Getting surgery to look like everyone else.

You can be unseen by:

  • Getting into the wrong school.
  • Getting fired.
  • Getting divorced.
  • Remaining single after 30.
  • Having kids who repeat this cycle.
  • Being unfashionable in unfashionable ways.
  • Looking like yourself.

Remember: When others see you, they want to see who they themselves want to be.

The lower your well-being:

  • The more rapidly it decreases.
  • The harder it is to increase.

The higher your well-being:

  • The more precipitously it can decrease.
  • The harder it is to maintain.

Your well-being decreases:

  • If you remain unseen for a certain amount of time.
  • If it is not increased after a certain amount of time.

The higher your well-being, the shorter this time is.

You cannot be certain how much time this is.

Remember: A high well-being does not mean you are winning. Or well. Or being.

You can also be seen by Performing Spectacles. These include:

  • Quitting your job in protest.
  • Committing adultery.
  • Committing a crime.
  • Getting dramatically injured.
  • Dramatically injuring others.
  • Taking an unfashionable stance that soon becomes fashionable.
  • Becoming a meme.

Subsequent spectacles will decrease your well-being unless you have installed either the “Hot Mess” or the “Table Flipper” expansion pack.

Remember: Spectacles define the real you for anyone watching, whomever you imagine you really are.

Side quests include:

  1. Who Am I: Touch up your profiles.
  2. Is This Who I Want to Be: Touch up your photos.
  3. How Did I Get This Way: Touch up your resume.
  4. Look, I Got a New Follower: Touch yourself.

Remember: You are not real. You are seen.

Challenges include:

  1. Nobody Knows the Real Me: Create a whole new you.
  2. Haters Gonna Hate: Force others to see you in a whole new way.
  3. I Hate Myself: Try harder.
  4. Aging Out: Everything gets harder.

Remember: You are your own reward. And your own worst enemy.

At the start of the game, you possess:

  • One power: Passionate Drive.
  • One item: Exclusive Accessory.
  • One skill: Relentless Positivity.

Remember: None of them work for long. Nothing does.

Strategies:

  • Keep your head down.
  • Keep your chin up.
  • Do something about those lips and that forehead. And your chin. And belly. And ass.

Remember: Twisting yourself into knots is a great way to get seen.

City of One 2 is a single-player game. You are on your own.

It is also a single-play game. If you die, you may not replay it.

Remember: You will stop being seen.

CITY OF ONE

City of One is a hidden game at the end of City of One 2. The object is to avoid being seen . . .

Stephen S. Power

A late-50s white guy with brown hair wearing a blue denim shirt, black glasses and not so much a beard as a sign of no longer really caring if he's seen or not.

Stephen S. Power is the author of the novel The Dragon Round, and his new novel, Safe at Last, about a traumatized woman trapped in a smart house, is currently under submission. His short fiction has appeared recently in Heathen, MythAxis, Unorthodox Stories, and the anthology The Growers, and will soon appear in Stupefying Stories, and Tales of Horror, as well as the anthologies Cost of Living and In Another Time. His site is stephenspower.com, and he’s on BlueSky at @stephenspower.bsky.social.

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