The sun began flickering over the horizon and its dull beams danced across closed blinds. Across the street from a large housing complex, the sounds of heavy boots, metal from belts and guns jingling, and whispered conversation broke the dawn's silence. A few minutes later, a large metal security gate crashed open and the mad dash of folks to get inside began.
The chaos stirred a young woman inside a small studio apartment within the housing complex. She yawned, stretched, and glanced out the blinds of her singular window that overlooked the hoard of people below. She sighed. Another week, another chance for people to place their bets on the Apex games.
She briskly stood up, made her bed, and began her morning routine: a quick shower, coffee and toast topped with a fried egg, brushed and pulled her hair up in a neat bun, and slipped into an ironed suit jacket and pencil skirt. She straightened her thin tie and then leaned down and grabbed a small lock box from underneath her bed. She punched in "832001" and produced a set of keys. With one key she unlocked her closet and quickly disabled her self-rigged motion alarms. She pushed aside a rug and with a second key, lifted up a hatch in the floor which revealed a shallow hiding place with a trunk. A third key popped the trunk open and inside was a currency sized envelope, dozens of forms of ID, and a mask.
She grabbed an ID card with her portrait and the name "Malory Dridesten" and looped the attached lanyard around her neck. She put her locks, alarms, and keys back in place and was promptly out the door. Each footfall was efficient and mindful as she made her way through the dusty, narrow, iron door lined corridors of the complex. The smaller apartments were on the sixth floor and up, cheaper rent for more stairs. She didn't mind, and descended the 10 stories before stepping out into the bustling street.
On every other day of the week, one could hear a pin drop down the road at this time in the morning. Today, shouts of different numbers and names of Legends shattered through the air. She had a creeping anxious feeling, like someone was watching her. She gave the betting booths a wide berth and took some back roads to her office.
In front of her, pillaring monolithically above the surrounding buildings, was a skyscraper of jet black metal and red tinted glass. She held out her ID badge to the armed guards out front and they nodded and punched a button, opening a single exterior metal door. She grabbed one of the lifts and made her way to floor 59, the second to the top.
She politely reciprocated the "good mornings" and "how are you"s of her coworkers, never stopping for more than a moment until she was in her office with the door closed behind her. She let out a sigh of relief as she sat down and looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Her office was small, but the view was breathtaking. To the West you could see the island of King's Canyon across the bay and to the East, the massive Apex Headquarters facility on the outskirts of the city. Her boss, Lucas Ghatt, was the mouthpiece for the puppet master of the Apex games and ran everything in his stead. This entire city was raised from the ground up by the Apex organization.
She turned away from the windows and swiped her finger across a tablet on her desk. Just a couple appointments in the next couple hours and then filing some reports. She tapped on the first appointment, a wealthy benefactor looking to sponsor the games. Child's play.
When the appointment time drew near, she took the lift to the top floor. This floor was furnished with luxuries and a warm orange-red light from the surrounding windows filled the entry. There were two doors on this floor, one lead to Ghatt's office and the other to a vast conference room complete with a boat-shaped table and twenty chairs. She took her seat in the back corner behind Ghatt's chair and waited for him and the benefactor to arrive.
