A buff man was sitting at an empty table, in an empty shop, on the biggest level of a skyscraper. Blue skies surrounded him, and could only hear the noise made by the breeze of a gentle wind. And the glitches from the environmental programs from time to time.

His table was filled with empty cups and plates with food scraps. While his appetite was out of the ordinary, something else made him stand out even more. He had a thick jawline, perfectly square, a bit too perfect, some might say, with angles that human biology could never sculpt.

The man was sitting motionless in his chair while accessing a panel on a virtual plane using his visual implants. A few seconds later, he used his robotic hand to swipe and move panels around, while keeping a stern face, as if he had to make an impossible decision. Soon after, his concentration was undone when two new figures approached his table. One as a virtual avatar, and a lady in flesh, bone and more.

-“Why hello Mister Joni. Working hard, I see?”, blurted out automatically the voguish woman, without even glancing at him. She graciously sat on a chair next to him, and firstly checked to see that her neck-long but lush hair was exactly as she prepared it. After she made sure that everything was intact, she stretched her glowing coppery skin, with little gems encrusted in her knuckles towards the man's sight, to garner his attention.

-" Joni. We're here, wake up darling."

The squared jaw raised his head for a second to check out his guests, and ruffed a greeting:

-" Priya, Robert." The man then raised both of his shoulders, and shrugged:“ I’ve been trying to find something expressive and cool to post on a sub-company’s feed, and to my account, but I can’t find anything that pops, you know? I’ve been using my preferred go-to pages, but none of them had anything that can be used, you know?”

The woman, while seemingly uninterested in his complaints, still grasped what his blight was and nodded in approval. The hologram appeared the same, but he still feigned ignorance, as, unlike his brunch buddies, he wasn't a hands-on type of CEO when it came to marketing. Priya had to play that game for most of her career, so she put her clenched fists side-by-side and used the jewels to summon an image and sound of applause.

-" Oh, certainty, I feel your pain. Yesterday I spent an entire hour checking the news flow to find something worthwhile, but nothing. An hour, can you believe it? I even missed some pricing offers for a small company from Robert’s Brand. “

The holographic figure, with map textures all over their body, answered with a mild annoyance in their tone. “Well, it’s not like you could have set some bots or C.Es to monitor the market, right?. And thanks to that, Alvara's Brand scored up by buying them instead. Now her Brand can use the number four denomination, while yours is...what, five?"

-“Six, beneath mine actually”, interjected the jawed man. “It doesn’t really matter Priya, don’t let it get to you. If you don’t mind, I can offer you some veteran wisdom - you can just refurbish some old products and market them again. You get points, and you satisfy your board of investors.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

-“Oh, that’s your advice?”, she thought to herself. “That’s exactly what I did right after, and even added some extras that needed to be bought separately. Still…”. She simulated applause again and tried to compliment her peer- “Right, right, you are brilliant, Joni. Thank you for that. This way, I get those geezers off my case for a while. Phew. Now, since my crisis was averted, we can proceed with the meeting, correct?”

-“In a moment”, said Robert. “ We are still waiting for Elina. Guessing she wants to do her usual entrance, especially now that her Brand had to name itself the Eight One three years in a row. Should we give her that dignity?”

-“Embarrassing. I guess this is her last chance before her board tries to ditch her?", asked Priya, with a bit of remorse in her voice though. " Still, I tried to help her this year, even pointed her towards some ways to, uhm, save up some points, let's say while choosing her team".

Joni lifts an eyebrow to that, and, as if right on cue, a flurry of wild colors and sounds cover the virtual entrance of the shop. The awaited fourth figure makes her presence known in the form of a sparkling hologram. Using whatever advantages the virtual space offers, from bombastic explosions, to sounds of extinct animals, the CEO conjures a glowing pathway before her.

Robert and Priya give her a :parent's smile at their six-year-old school recital: while Joni stares bored at the circus show. The guest glances hopefully at the table, takes a deep cyber breath, and decides on a model runway walk to approach the group.

-“Ola, hola, bonjour. Thanks for waiting for me and I apologize for being so late, but being a CEO is quite a challenging position, as you all know”. She plays her flamboyant role for a while, making small compliments, but before she could add a few more words, Robert starts speaking over her, deflating without any remorse all of Elina’s confidence and she mousily takes a seat.

-“ Ok, we are gathered, so can I officially start this meeting to talk about R.O.C or Robotics Operations Challenges!”

-“Wait, aren’t they called the Games of Enhancements?”, Joni asks. “Was the name changed?”

-“No, no, no”, stepped in Priya.” It’s the Contest of Robotics Challenges or Great Race for Enhancements. Well, at least that’s what some employees are calling it.``

Before the talks could derail more, ‌Robert intervenes with an even more raised tone.

- ”Yes, it has many colloquial names, as you know, but the official one is The R.O.C. Alright since it’s clear that you haven’t read the notes I sent for it-”

-“We are busy CEOs, Robert, you can’t blame us”, Priya cheekily replied.

The map man then muted the entire space for a few seconds to see if anyone else wanted to interrupt, and sighed in relief when he heard the sweet silence.

- “Good, let’s go over the basics quickly, then. So eight contestants, with a robotic partner, will be left in a random part of the arena, the Playground. From what I can see, all the Brands have selected their patients( note: as the participants are called) and registered their partners, or C.T.Ds. Afterward, they have to traverse the planes and pass the challenges to receive an experimental enhancement at one of our clinics. We also have the ok from the RnD departments and the clinics. Now, to our and the media parts.”

-“The fun parts”, added Joni with a chuckle.