Having been abandoned by their parents, Ethyl and Ether are two "accidents" who love to mess around with technology. They're surprisingly good at it and can construct a myriad of items with a few mismatched parts. However, they can only do their work in the Un-City, where authorities can't track them down and give them the boot for unauthorised tampering with products. Yet, for some reason, they hate the Un-City and prefer to make their money honestly through actual working and a government-approved game called Chromatic. Day by day, they get by, just trying to pay off the rent on their apartment and other bills. They aren't living in poverty, but they sure are in the bottommost percentage of the middle class.

But their life turns sour when Ethyl loses the Chromatic Championships.

It is the biggest game of the year in Chromatic and billions of people have a day off from work just to slip on their headsets and spectate the match. This year marked the game's 50th anniversary and it was hyped to the point where everyone knew about it, even people in the countryside who had no technology. Ethyl's team, the "NASA Wannabes", had almost snagged the 100,000 notes that would be evenly distributed to the 4 people on the team. All of them were high level players (80+) and had been playing since childhood. But Ethyl's single rookie mistake cost her team the game.

Her team had turned their backs on her afterwards, booting her out of the game and erasing her from their records.

Then the blackmail began.

They were chased out of their apartment, even chased off the streets. The only place left for them was the city that wasn't a city.

But there were dangers lurking there as well.
Ethyl and Ether knew the Un-City was always dangerous. No matter how frivolous, bright, and calm the atmosphere may seem, no matter how friendly the shopkeepers are, everyone is alert and ready to draw their guns at any moment.

The twins threw their identities away to become nameless, undocumented citizens. They changed their looks from average citizens to synchronise with the eccentricities and neon-lit hotspots of the Un-City. They tried to become untrackable. Ether informed his boss about his situation, and he was henceforth "rehired" to "replace" Ether who had been "fired" for making multiple mistakes on his reports. Ethyl rebooted her headset so that she became a new player and she worked to devise new strategies that wouldn't resemble her old ones.

They thought all was well after the blackmail stopped. They were hiding behind a mask that could be ripped off at any moment, but for now, they could live without being threatened day and night.

But their fake identities can only last so long before the real ones slip out.