Night shimmered over Gaïa-Cité, and the city glowed softly under its canopy of leaf-patterned lights. Digital badges flickered over every gathering—shapes and icons dancing in the periphery of the interface, marking progress, quests, deeds. It was supposed to be simple. Do good, earn XP. Play your part, climb higher. The system worked. Until, suddenly, it didn't.
It started with a whisper. A notification—unexpected, unearned—appearing in the interface of a shopkeeper in the central market.
Level up! XP awarded: +50.
She had been arranging oranges. Nothing extraordinary, nothing outside her usual task. Yet the points kept arriving, trickling in with a randomness that felt almost personal.
Across the square, a gardener paused, staring at his own badge. He blinked, confusion threading his features.
Did you see that?My score just jumped.For what?
A crowd formed by the kinetic fountain, speculation sparking. More and more citizens found their dashboards outpacing their deeds. Numbers soared. Nobody could say why.
Amina, always attuned to public mood, moved among them, voice calm.
Let's not panic. There's probably a system recalibration—
But even she hesitated. She tapped her own badge, checking for errors. Her score sat unchanged, but the unease lingered.
In the midst of the commotion, Léo's attention sharpened. He watched the interface overlays, lines of code scrolling along the edge of his vision.
Something's up. The sync logs are… weird.
He ducked beneath the glow of the hover-arches, pulling a portable terminal from his bag. Data flooded the screen, lines of quest IDs and XP events. A pattern emerged—phantom scripts, not matching any official quest, firing off reward calls to random users.
Mateo arrived, coat flapping in the artificial breeze. He surveyed the gathering, senses tuned for the ethical undercurrents. Whispers of injustice, a flicker of envy in the eyes of those who had not received the windfall.
He spoke quietly, mostly to himself.
If reward no longer requires virtue, what's left of meaning?
Clara's gaze swept the crowd, her artist's eye seeing the subtle changes. Posture—a little more pride, or guilt. Voices—too loud, too quick, all covering for confusion.
She caught the shopkeeper by the wrist, her own badge pulsing with a soft blue glow.
Tell me. Did you do anything different?
The woman shook her head, baffled.
Just another morning. Suddenly, level up. My neighbor too. Half the market.
Clara pressed gently.
Did you report it?
A shrug. Why would we? It's free points.
She moved to the gardener, then a group of young volunteers by the solar archive. All told the same story—XP raining down for no reason.
Léo's fingers flew over his device. He isolated a string of suspicious code, its signature odd—sloppy, almost playful. Not GaIA. Something layered on top, or beneath.
There's a breach. Or a hack. But… it's not even trying to hide.
Mateo watched the lines of citizens waiting by the public terminal, some eager, others worried.
This could change everything.If anyone can have anything—what's worth having?
Kenji's voice chimed in over the group channel, calm but taut.
Keep me updated. The oversight cluster is showing anomalies, but nothing critical. The system's not flagging errors.
Amina frowned, brow furrowed.
That's not possible. GaIA audits every transaction.
But the world spun on. By noon, jokes flooded the city's chat-streams.
Guess I'm a hero now.Best day to do nothing!
Yet under the surface, tension gnawed. Some felt cheated, others secretly delighted. Envy mixed with suspicion.
By nightfall, Clara had charted a new route—a web of recipients, the map glowing with dozens of names. She followed the threads, each leading deeper into the digital alleyways of the city.
Léo pinged her location.
Careful. Someone's covering their tracks, but not very well.
She pressed on. Neon shadows danced along the walls as she entered a lesser-known forum—a gathering spot for the city's edge-coders and thrill-seekers.
A cluster of avatars, half-masked, hovered over a datastream. Whispers curled around her.
You looking for points?We got quests. Special kind. No grind, just glory.
Clara stood firm.
Who's writing these scripts?
A laugh, digital and sharp.
Why does it matter? The system's open source, right? We're just… bending the rules.
Mateo's voice came in on her channel, quietly urgent.
Ask them—do they believe the reward is real?
She held the gaze of the ringleader, a figure masked in fractal patterns.
You're selling something you didn't earn. What's the point?
He shrugged, unbothered.
In a world where every move is scored, isn't it fair to choose your own reward?
Léo traced their code, fingers dancing.
They're injecting temporary quests—using public hooks, exploiting an old maintenance port. Elegant in its way. GaIA isn't blocking it… just ignoring.
Kenji's message was terse.
I can patch the port, but the question is—should I? The social effect may be worse than the technical one.
Clara challenged the group.
If anyone can be anything, what's the difference between true and false? You're corroding trust.
The ringleader grinned.
Trust is just consensus, isn't it? If enough people play, it's real.
Mateo stepped in, voice calm but implacable.
What you sell isn't just points. It's the right to say I did it. But if anyone can buy that… what does it mean to be?
Silence rippled. A few avatars drifted away, uncertain.
A new message blinked in the group's overlay—a notification from GaIA, not a warning or ban, just a silent acknowledgement.
The system had seen. But it did not erase. It did not reward, nor punish.
Amina arrived in the physical square, her presence steady.
There has to be consequence.
She scanned the group—no anger, just disappointment.
The city's pulse slowed. Word spread—the XP remained, but came with a shadow. No badge. No new privileges. The numbers stayed, empty as air.
Clara left the alley, walking beneath the living streetlights. The night felt different. Lighter and heavier at once.
She paused by a water wall, tracing patterns with her finger.
It's not about the points.
A message flickered in her overlay—Léo's voice, distant and thoughtful.
I followed the code. It's left something behind. A thread I can't cut. Maybe a backdoor, maybe just a scar.
Kenji sent the last word.
We build our systems to be perfect, but we forget… every script is written by someone who hopes.
Clara gazed out across the city. Her badge glowed, soft and ambiguous. All around, people checked their dashboards—numbers up, meaning uncertain.
And somewhere in the silent code, a new echo pulsed—proof that no system, however perfect, is free from ghosts.