The ramen shop hadn't changed. Same cracked vinyl booths. Same handwritten menu on the wall with prices that made no sense. Same old woman behind the counter who never smiled but always gave you extra pork if she liked your face.
Marcus watched Lily from across the table and tried not to stare.
She was eighteen. Full scholarship to State. Perfect grades. Perfect future.
And she could see.
"Okay, seriously, what's wrong with you?" Lily pointed her chopsticks at him. "You've been weird since we sat down. Did you and Jessica break up?"
Jessica. Right. His girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend, technically, from this morning when he'd sent her a two-word text: We're done.
She'd responded with twelve paragraphs and three crying emojis. He'd blocked her number.
Harsh? Maybe. But Jessica would cheat on him with a CFO from Seattle in eight months. He'd wasted enough time on betrayal.
"Yeah," Marcus said. "We broke up."
"Oh." Lily's face fell. "Marcus, I'm sorry. Do you want to talk about—"
"Nope."
"Are you okay?"
He looked at her. Really looked at her. The concern in her eyes. The way she leaned forward like she could will his sadness away through proximity.
In five years, those eyes would stop working. Unless he prevented it.
"I'm fine, Lil. Trust me." He picked up his bowl. "We weren't good for each other."
"Well, you seem pretty calm about it." She squinted at him. "Did you already know she was going to break up with you or something?"
Something like that.
"Just didn't see a future there," Marcus said. "No point dragging it out."
Lily shrugged and went back to her noodles. "Fair. Hey, did you hear about that new game launching in June? The VR one?"
Every muscle in Marcus's body tensed.
"Eternal Dominion?" He kept his voice casual. "Yeah, I heard something about it."
"Something? Marcus, everyone's talking about it. Full neural link. Real-time economy. They're saying it's going to change everything." She grinned. "Please tell me you're getting it. We could play together."
No.
The word almost left his mouth on instinct. Lily couldn't play Eternal Dominion. In his first life, she'd tried. Got motion sick from the neural interface within twenty minutes. Gave up gaming entirely after that.
But more importantly—he needed her away from the game. Away from Ethan. Away from everything that had poisoned his first life.
"Maybe," Marcus said. "The headset's pretty expensive though."
"You literally have a sponsorship deal with NeuralTech."
Had. Past tense. He'd fumbled that opportunity the first time around by being too proud to negotiate aggressively.
This time?
"We'll see," Marcus said. "Focus on school first. You've got finals coming up."
Lily rolled her eyes but dropped it.
They finished lunch. Marcus paid—strange how much forty bucks felt like nothing when you remembered having forty-three dollars total—and walked Lily back to campus.
"Same time next week?" she asked at the gate.
"Yeah. Same time."
She hugged him. Quick and fierce, like she sensed something was different but couldn't name it.
When she pulled back, her eyes narrowed. "You'd tell me if something was really wrong, right?"
Marcus smiled. The expression felt foreign on his face. "Of course."
Another lie. But a kind one.
He watched her disappear into the campus crowd, then pulled out his phone.
Eighty-nine days until launch.
Time to get to work.
The NeuralTech office building looked exactly how Marcus remembered it. All glass and steel and corporate minimalism. The kind of place that spent more on lobby furniture than most people made in a year.
He'd walked out of this building five years ago with a decent sponsorship deal. Not great, but decent. Enough to get his foot in the door.
That version of Marcus had been grateful for scraps.
This version?
Marcus pushed through the revolving door and headed straight for the elevator. Pressed the button for the fourteenth floor.
The receptionist on fourteen glanced up from her computer. "Can I help you?"
"Here to see Sarah Chen. I have a meeting."
"Name?"
"Marcus Caldwell."
She checked her schedule. Frowned. "I don't see you on the calendar."
"She told me to come by around two." Marcus leaned against the desk. Casual. Confident. "We talked about content creation opportunities."
The receptionist's frown deepened, but she picked up her phone. "Let me check with her."
Thirty seconds later, she hung up. "Ms. Chen says she doesn't have any meetings scheduled today."
"Weird." Marcus pulled out his phone. Pulled up an email he'd sent himself last night—backdated using an old exploit he remembered from a cybersecurity job he'd worked in his first life. "I've got her email right here. Must be a miscommunication."
He turned the screen toward the receptionist. The email looked official. Timestamps matched. Header information clean.
The receptionist hesitated. "I can ask if she has a few minutes."
"Appreciate it."
She made another call. This one longer. Marcus caught fragments: "...says he has an email...content creation...yes, I'll ask."
She hung up. "Ms. Chen can give you ten minutes. Conference room B."
"Perfect. Thanks."
Conference room B was smaller than Marcus remembered. Or maybe he'd gotten used to bigger rooms in his first life, back when the guild had real money.
Sarah Chen walked in three minutes later. Mid-thirties. Sharp suit. Sharper eyes.
"Mr. Caldwell." She didn't offer her hand. "I have to be honest, I don't remember scheduling this meeting."
"You didn't." Marcus gestured to the chair across from him. "But you should've."
Her eyebrows rose. "Bold opener."
"I don't believe in wasting time." He pulled a folder from his bag. Slid it across the table. "Yours or mine."
Sarah picked up the folder. Flipped it open.
Inside: a complete marketing strategy for Eternal Dominion. Target demographics. Content schedules. Projected ROI. Platform optimization. Competitor analysis.
Everything NeuralTech would spend three months figuring out—except Marcus had just handed it to her on day one.
"Where did you get this?" Sarah's voice had changed. Still professional, but with an edge of interest.
"I wrote it."
"In the last twenty-four hours?"
"I'm efficient."
She kept reading. Marcus watched her eyes move across the pages. Saw the moment she hit the revenue projections—conservative estimates based on what he knew would actually happen.
"These numbers seem optimistic," she said.
"They're low if anything." Marcus leaned back. "NeuralTech is sitting on the biggest gaming revolution since the internet. But your marketing team is treating it like a hardware launch. It's not. It's a cultural event."
"And you understand cultural events?"
"I understand what makes gamers spend money." He nodded at the folder. "Page seven. Influencer strategy. You're planning to throw budget at established streamers. Big names. Safe bets."
"That's standard practice."
"It's wasteful. Established streamers have established audiences. You won't create new markets, you'll just rent access to existing ones." Marcus tapped the table. "What you need are rising stars. People hungry enough to build Eternal Dominion into their brand identity."
"People like you?"
"People like me."
Sarah closed the folder. Studied him.
Marcus held her gaze. Didn't flinch. Didn't sell. Just waited.
In his first life, he'd been desperate in this meeting. Eager to please. Willing to take whatever they offered.
Desperation killed negotiations.
"You're very confident for someone I've never heard of," Sarah said.
"You'll hear about me soon enough." Marcus stood. "Keep the folder. Call me if you want to discuss actual partnership terms instead of a standard content creator contract."
He dropped his business card on the table. Walked to the door.
"Mr. Caldwell."
He turned.
Sarah was smiling. Not the polite corporate smile. A real one.
"I'll call you tomorrow," she said. "Don't make me regret it."
"I won't."
Marcus's apartment felt different when he got back.
Same furniture. Same walls. Same view of the city skyline he'd forgotten existed.
But everything had changed.
He sat at his desk. Opened his laptop. Stared at the Eternal Dominion beta invitation email.
Eighty-nine days until public launch.
But closed beta started in six days.
Six days until he could log in and start changing everything.
Six days until Ethan Cross's future began crumbling without him ever knowing why.
Marcus opened a new document.
PHASE ONE: PREPARATION
Objectives:- Secure funding (NeuralTech sponsorship)- Enter closed beta- Locate the Cursed Knight questline- Acquire Shadow Knight class before Ethan knows it exists
Timeline: 6 days
He added another section:
ETHAN CROSS - STATUS
Current location: Seattle (won't move to SF until May)
Current game: None (casually plays League)
Current girlfriend: Emma Richardson (they'll break up in 8 weeks)
Weak points: Arrogance. Impatience. Needs validation.
Marcus saved the document. Added it to the VENDETTA folder.
His phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
He picked up. "Yeah?"
"Mr. Caldwell. Sarah Chen. I know I said tomorrow, but I showed your proposal to our CMO. He wants to meet. How's your Thursday looking?"
Marcus smiled at his reflection in the dark laptop screen.
"Thursday works," he said. "Send me the details."
"Will do. And Marcus? That strategy document was impressive. Really impressive. I'm curious—how long have you been following Eternal Dominion's development?"
Five years.
"I pay attention," Marcus said.
"Clearly." A pause. "See you Thursday."
The call ended.
Marcus set his phone down. Opened his email. Started drafting a message to the beta forum moderators—a trick he remembered from his first life, a way to flag himself as a "valuable tester" and get priority access to certain features.
His fingers moved across the keyboard. Muscle memory. Patterns burned into his brain from thousands of hours of strategic planning.
Except this time, he wasn't planning someone else's success.
This time, every move he made was for himself.
And for the ghost that Ethan Cross would learn to fear.