Eve and Maaya located Penny between two CRT monitors, the left one running the attract mode for the first Ryū ga Gotoku (or Yakuza, as she knew it in Canada) and the right running Phantasy Star Universe’s, both on PlayStation 2. Penny was hypnotised by the left screen, its fictionalised depiction of Kabukicho reminding her that, yes, she really was in real-life Tokyo, something she had always dreamed of but never thought would one day become reality.

“Are you ready for the final level?” Maaya asked her.

“I don’t know if my heart can take it,” Penny said half-jokingly.

Maaya looked at her in concern. “Do you have a medical condition?”

“Penny’s medical condition is that she likes games a little too much,” Eve explained to Maaya with a smile.

“I think you’ll survive it,” Maaya told Penny reassuringly. “The last floor is a small arcade and snack shop.”

Maaya led them to the next set of stairs, which had some old prints of atmospheric Katsuya Terada fantasy artwork on display.

“Do you come here a lot?” Eve asked Maaya from behind as they ascended.

“No, but I try to learn the area in order to be helpful to tourists. Not just foreigners, but people visiting from elsewhere in Japan. The more helpful you are, the more likely it is the person you’re helping will get around to the maid café you told them about.”

“But you must like games if you work in Akihabara, right?”

The girls reached the final floor. Maaya turned to Eve and smiled.

“Of course, I like games. I don’t own any consoles, though – I do all my gaming on my phone.”

Eve and Maaya then turned to the spot Penny had been standing, but she was already gone, having disappeared into the arcade without a word.

“Oh, we need to record a video of her playing at a cabinet!” Eve said. “We missed our chance the last place we went.”

Eve and Maaya entered the small arcade in search of Penny. They were immediately struck by the unexpected jungle theme, with fake trees and plants set up around the game cabinets, including vines hanging down from the ceiling. The theming made more sense when they stumbled upon a life-size statue of Naked Snake from Metal Gear Solid 3, who was holding a broken wooden gun. Maaya figured the statue came first, with the jungle aesthetic thrown together afterwards.

Maaya took a picture of Eve as Eve copied Snake’s pose, her gun fingers pointing to the floor at an angle. Unlike Snake’s stoic look, however, Eve had a cheesy smile. She was thinking about how big a surprise the photo would be when she showed it to Penny. Maaya and Eve then exchanged contact information, so Maaya could take pics and vids with her own phone and send them to Eve at the end of the night.

“You’re like an unofficial member of Girls Mode now,” Eve told Maaya happily.

“You can pay me when you’re famous,” Maaya joked.

Eve thought about it for a moment.

“We should be thanking you for your help,” she said seriously. “If you see something really cool, and it’s not super expensive, I can buy it for you.”

Maaya smiled in amusement.

“No, I was only joking,” she said. “Please don’t. I’m happy to show Akiba to people. It’s a passion of mine, since I love it so much.”

“In that case, if you ever come to Canada, I’ll be the one to show you around!”

Maaya smiled warmly.

“I’d like that.”

Eve smiled back.

“We just have to be careful of the shadow people,” she said matter-of-factly while still smiling.

Maaya looked at Eve in confusion, unsure whether she was joking or not. Maaya and Eve then looked at Penny, who had appeared from the next row of cabinets. Penny looked at Eve with a somewhat haunted expression.

“I think something’s wrong with the arcade games in Japan,” she said.

“What do you mean?” Eve asked.

“I . . . I’ll show you,” Penny said. “Make sure you’re recording.”

Penny led the girls down the next aisle as if in slow motion, flicking glances left and right; it was as if she expected a digitised creature to jump out of one of the screens and attack them. Maaya recorded Penny from behind, following her like a camera in a third-person videogame. Maaya was also looking left and right, wondering what it was that had weirded out this shy girl from Canada.

Kandy by Fever Ray was playing over the PA.

Eventually Penny brought Eve and Maaya to the cabinet that had concerned her. The marquee made it clear it was a Marvel vs. Capcom 2 machine, but the screen was rapidly flickering black and white. Two players were sitting on the stools in front of it, their hands on the sticks and buttons, a look of concentration on the left player and a joyful smile on the right.

But their hands weren’t moving, and neither were their bodies, their expressions frozen unblinking on their faces. Maaya recorded the players, and at this point she was a bit freaked-out as well.

“Don’t look at the screens,” Maaya warned Penny and Eve seriously.

Penny and Eve then looked around them, and noticed that all of the screens were now flickering, and every single one of the players was frozen in place. They then glanced at the exit, having noticed some movement in that direction, and spotted one or two women just as they were leaving. They had only caught a glimpse, but they’d swear the figures were wearing black-and-pink maid outfits.

“Is it some type of seizure?” Eve asked Maaya.

“That seems most likely,” Maaya responded.

Maaya leaned down and spoke to the frozen Marvel vs. Capcom 2 players in Japanese, asking if they were okay. The players failed to respond.

“If it’s a seizure, we shouldn’t risk moving them,” Penny offered shakily.

Maaya nodded and contacted emergency services on her phone, explaining the situation as calmly and clearly as she could.

The girls then headed to the snack counter, hoping to find an unfrozen attendant, but the space past the counter was devoid of life, and they didn’t want to head into the small back room uninvited.

Their next thought was to head back down. They exited the arcade and went into the down-only elevator, where the only options were the emergency button and the button for street-level.

“What do you think they’re seeing?” Eve asked Penny curiously.

“What do you mean?” Penny asked back. “It’s just flickering screens.”

“But . . . what if they’re seeing what we saw in the other arcade?” Eve hypothesised. “It wasn’t normal, right? Maybe we were frozen, too.”

Penny looked at Eve, wondering if she was right. Then she looked down, not wanting Eve to see just how anxious she was.

The elevator door opened, and the girls stepped into a dark, shadowy hallway with flowers hand-painted on its wallpaper.