THE GRAND SWITCH [ROUND 1: iGHETTO]

Life could be hard in the iGhetto. Many of its residents reguarly opted to forego it entirely; "come on down to the Apple iCade!" the adverts said, "plug yourself into one of our state of the art isolation pods and experience the wonder of the all new iReality!". If you'd spent any time hanging outside one of those iCades a) you'd notice that people seldom come out of there and b) you'd probably be shot under suspicion of being a Microsoft Spy.

Alexander King did not have a hard time living in the iGhetto. The only thing he worried about was Apple Trademark Enforcers and he kept an iRifle handy to deal with those scumbags. He was also in the business of offering escapism to the poor downtrodden folk of the iGhetto, though his was less permanent... at least for most. Just off Genius street down an unnamed alleyway you'd find a dingy little shopfront lit up with flickering blue neon. Inside you'd find a man in an old fashioned suit and tie, the like of which is seldom seen nowadays. The outfit is a little battered and stained but classy nonetheless. He has short slicked back hair and a little goatee beard. This is Alex King, he would greet you warmly, enquire whether you were one of those Apple Trademark Enforcers as his security guards discreetly prepared to blast you into bloody chunks if you gave the wrong answer. Then he'd ask you what kind of girl you'd like, after a little negotiation you'd find yourself in a dingy little bedroom with one of his famous iWhores and you'd do what you came there to do.

Alex had his feet up on his desk and leant back in his chair. Business was brisk. Nowadays he was less concerned that the Apple Trademark Enforcers would want to shut him down than he was that they'd want to buy a controlling stake in his business and the intelluctual property rights on the iWhores. He tucked into a tasteless salad while reading the latest news off his iTop; some kind of freak weather incident a couple of blocks from here. Alex liked to think of himself as smarter than most; not eating unhealthily, drinking or smoking. He would not allow himself to be cut down in the prime of his life by those iPoisons. He also liked to think that he would never dismiss something out of hand for the mere fact that it was unlikely, he'd seen too many iFilms where nobody believed the heroes until it was too late. Even so he wasn't about to believe that there was a dragon loose in the iGhetto. It was more likely some kind of hobbyist geneticist's experiment gone horribly wrong.

There was a scream from one of the rooms down the hall. He glanced towards the source of the noise, but did nothing. Screams weren't all that uncommon what with all the perverts he got in here. It was only when the door slammed open and the client stumbled backwards into the corridor, nude and terrified that he grabbed his iRifle and ran down the corridor. Pushing past the petrified and indecent client he stood at the door of the bedroom, where inside a mostly white toy spaceship expelled real flames and flew drunkenly around the room. He looked at it for a moment and then slammed the door shut. It was not that he doubted the evidence of his own eyes or anything silly like that. Alex was perfectly certain that there was a toy spaceship flying around room 7. It was just that he was already certain there was some way he could spin this thing to make himself some cash and he didn't want the thing getting out.