I was standing on the summit of Mt Everest, the frigid wind threading my hair. The sun fractured across the distant horizon, and the clouds were drifting distantly below like silent thoughts. Dang. The rendering really is god-tier in here. This is insane. I looked across the Himalayas. They reminded me of waves. Jagged, frozen waves crashing against a sky as deep as space. The Earth curved away into the distance. No trees. No birds. No signs of life. Just white. Blue. Stone. Wind. And Winsford.

  "Today, it begins." I turned with the others to face him as he spoke. Sophie the pretty psychologist was standing next to him, mental notes materialising on the tab floating by her side. He'd kindly arranged a luxury resort-style cafe and patio for us. On top of Mount Everest. Good coffee. Warm fire. Clear skies. This was good. The wind pulled at his scarf.

  "Sophie and I have got some big things planned, but before we get to that we want to be as well prepared as we can be. That means we're going to take some time to really stretch the legs of this technology. Push the limits of what we know it can do, so we're well placed to start exploring where it might be able to go."

  "Imagination. Focus. Memory. These are our three key and basic tools in here. Today, we start with imagination. Game-casters – this is where you come in." Ross, Chen, and I glanced at each other as he spoke.

  "You three are the top three game-casters alive. That means you have more experience, and probably ability, in game-constructs than anyone else on the face of the planet. In the world of thought-casting, that skill is obviously valuable. AI can help a lot for most people, and provide the same sorts of semi-automated skills in thought-casting that it can in normal game-casting. In some ways AI can take us places that nobody else can. But the intuition, originality, and experience of a skilled homosapien still remains unparalleled."

  "Today, what we want to do..." he paused and smiled, "... is find out which one of you is the best." We looked at each other again. Ross' grin covered his whole face. "While the rest of us watch – for now – the three of you will engage in a three-stage contest. Each one of you will have the opportunity to cast a contest for one of those stages. Obviously, whoever scores highest on each stage, and then scores highest over all, wins. The rest of us will be watching from the comfort of my penthouse. Choose who's starting, and begin when you're ready."

  Winsford and the others blipped and their avatars disappeared.

  The three of us looked at each other.

  "Either of you keen to go first?" Ross asked.

  "Sure, I'll go" Chen said. She sourced a door in the middle of the platform, opened it, and we went through.

  I stepped through... into a cityscape that the world had never seen. Skyscrapers twisted like vines. The city stretched upward and upward in sharp, angular lines. But nothing was quite... right. Buildings leaned at odd angles, some curving subtly as if resisting gravity. The streets below broke apart mid-block, continuing as floating slabs or staircases that lead nowhere. Transluscent platforms shimmered, hovering here and there. Walls became floors in unexpected places, and alleys curved upward like ramps.

  "This is Flux-run. Impossible parkour. All you've got to do is get to the other side. First one there wins. I've randomised the environ with AI so I don't have an advantage. Touch the red flag – about ten city blocks that direction. If you port to skip anything, there's a reset function and you'll start again. No flying or you get a reset and a ten second penalty. Ready?"

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  As I crouch ready to start running, I'm already using AI to access some automated parkour skills.

  "GO!" We're running across the rooftop at an impossible speed. I wanted to go full flash, but – unfortunately – even the human mind has limits. We needed to look ahead, calculate our first jump, and process the environ even as we ran. You can run fast, a lot faster than the real world, but we're still human.

  I sprinted hard across the rooftop, boots pounding the concrete. The other two were right next to me—blurred ghosts in my peripheral vision—but I didn't look, I had to focus. The edge came fast, and I launched into open air, suspended for a second and waiting for gravity to switch. It didn't. Yet. I hit a floating slab mid-stride, and kept running as it slanted with my weight. I launched at a wall, hit it and... ran sideways, rewriting a couple of rules to pull a move out of Spidey's book. As I looked up again, the course stretched ahead. It was chaos! Stairs spiraling upward into nothing – nope, not an option. Every step felt like a dare, and I had about one second before I had to leap again.

  I launched toward a horizontal flag pole and then the world spun and twisted mid-leap. Gravity snapped sideways and I started plummeting towards the sidewalk below. No time to think. The buildings around me stretched and bent, warping like mirrors at a carnival. I twisted to try and recentre, hardly even knowing which way was down anymore. THWIPP. Thank you – again – Spiderman! As I sourced some webshooters, my shot hit a building and I swung out in a long, impossible horizontal arc.

  Gravity returned to normal, and as I finished my swing I managed to land unsteadily on an unbroken plate of the sidewalk at street level. Chen was ahead of me – spiraling, running, and leaping effortlessly at top speed – still up at rooftop level. Clearly she'd had some experience with a game like this before. Time to even the playing field. I sourced a massive ball and chain and attached it to her leg. "Ooohhh!"

  Her cry of dismay was eminently satisfying.

  As I started running, leaping across the breaks in the sidewalk, I watched as she came plummeting down to earth. I split my attention between my own manouvres and trying to keep some of my focus on the ball and chain construct I'd made. I wanted it to be a bit more difficult for her to break it and keep moving. Slow her down. Every second counted.

  I winced as I kept running – feeling the strain as I willed the ball and chain to withstand Chen's now obvious attempts to destroy the construct. I couldn't do both, and my mental link snapped as Chen managed to destroy it.

  I leapt, and... fell! The block of pavement I was aiming for simply disappeared, and I began tumbling down into a void of nothing. "Thanks for the idea, Peterson!" I heard Ross calling as he overtook both of us.

  I snapped back to the rooftop we'd started on. Reset. Dang. I zoomed my vision, and saw that the other two were now racing – over halfway toward the flag. I could try and slow them down, but any attempt to do that would stop me from focusing on moving forward myself. Dang! I started moving. Just had to hope that they would slow each other down enough to give me an opportunity.

  I moved. No hesitation, no calculating, just instinct. My foot hit a tilting platform and I was already shifting weight, launching sideways toward a floating wall-run. Three steps across, twist, kick off — landing on a narrow beam without breaking stride. The city blurred around me, but I saw everything. A window to vault through, a ledge to slide under, a turning stairwell above me spinning like a screw. I timed it perfectly, grabbed a step mid-spin, and used the momentum to slingshot up onto a rooftop. I didn't think. Every move was clean, I was in the zone. I sourced traction gloves before I hit the next climb, ran straight up a glass wall, and flipped off the edge.

  Ahead, Ross and Chen were closer now, dodging shifting blocks. I threaded straight through, I was still gaining.

  BLLEEEEEEPPPP.

  "Well done, Ross. First point to you" Winsford's voice blared from the skies and filled everything. "Next stop – your turn, Ross."

  The scene changed.

  The world snapped into focus with a whisper of wind and a shimmer of light. I stood barefoot on polished wooden planks. Tatami mats stretched beneath me, and my martial arts uniform—deep blue, trimmed in white—clung like it had always been mine. The dojo was silent and peaceful, birds singing distantly outside, and cherry blossoms drifting against an endless dusk.

  At the far end of the dojo. someone stood. White robes, with black sunglasses that hid his eyes. Eyes which I could already tell were analysing us. His easy, silent stance didn't quite hide the sense of cold menace.

  "Ross... you've got to be kidding! You cast him!?!"