The VR cafe was called "Nexus Point" and it looked exactly like every internet cafe Ethan had ever seen, just with full-immersion pods instead of computer terminals. About thirty pods total, half occupied, mostly with kids skipping school or adults who should be at work.
Manager was a guy named Dave. Mid-40s, balding, the kind of guy who looked like he'd given up on life around the same time he'd given up on his hairline.
"You Cole?"
"Yeah. Sarah Cole's son. She said you were hiring?"
Dave looked him up and down like he was evaluating a used car he already knew was gonna break down in six months. "You know how to run a pod?"
"Used them enough."
"That's not what I asked."
Ethan resisted the urge to be a smartass. Needed this job. "Yeah. Basic maintenance, boot sequence, emergency shutdown. Did a weekend stint at Digital Dreams two years back."
That was original Ethan's memory, not his. The job had lasted exactly three days before he'd gotten into a screaming match with Miranda about wasting his time learning "pod monkey shit" instead of looking for real work. He'd quit. Or been fired. The memory was fuzzy on the details.
Dave grunted. "Nights. Ten PM to six AM. Eight bucks an hour. You handle customer issues, keep pods clean, do minor tech support. Anything actually breaks, you call me. Don't text, don't email—call. You get one meal break, thirty minutes, take it whenever. No sleeping on shift. I catch you sleeping, you're done. Questions?"
"When do I start?"
"Tonight if you can. No-call-no-show left me short."
Eight bucks an hour. Ethan did the math in his head. Sixty-four bucks a night, five nights a week came out to... three hundred twenty a week. Times four was twelve-eighty a month before taxes.
Rent was nine-fifty. Utilities ran about a hundred-fifty on a good month. Food was supposed to be four hundred but they'd been scraping by on half that, which explained why dinner was usually rice with whatever the fuck they could afford to throw in it.
Twelve hundred wasn't enough. Not even close. But it was something, which was infinitely more than nothing.
"I'll take it."
"Good. Show up at 9:45. I'll walk you through the system." Dave turned back to his screen, which Ethan was pretty sure was just a spreadsheet of how much his life sucked. "Don't fuck it up."
"I'll do my best."
"Yeah." Dave didn't look up. "Everyone does."
Ethan left and spent the rest of the day walking around, trying to figure out what the hell kind of world he'd landed in.
New Cascadia was big. Not just big—big big. San Francisco big except times about five. Buildings stretched up forty, fifty stories, all of them looking like they'd been designed by the same guy who'd gotten a C-minus in architecture school and decided "eh, good enough."
Everything was functional. Brutally, aggressively functional. Concrete and steel and glass, efficient as hell, about as interesting as a tax form.
Made sense, he guessed. You're rebuilding civilization after nuclear war, you don't waste money on making shit pretty. You build fast, you build cheap, you move on.
The streets were clean, though. Weirdly clean. He passed a trash collection bot—looked like a Roomba fucked a garbage truck—making its rounds. Sign on the bus stop said pickups every two hours, 24/7.
Public transit ran like clockwork. He watched three buses arrive in perfect sequence, two minutes apart. People got on, people got off, buses left. No delays, no drama.
But something was missing. Took him a while to figure out what.
Color.
Or art. Or... personality? The buildings were gray and brown and beige. The buses were white with blue stripes. Even people's clothes were muted—lots of grays and blacks and navy blues. A girl walked past in a red jacket and it was so jarring he actually stared.
No murals. No graffiti. No street performers. A few corporate ads—mostly for VR equipment and job postings—but that was it. Everything else was just... blank.
Like someone had designed a city to be as boring as humanly possible.
His phone buzzed. Text from Lily: study group running late, home by 7, leftover rice in fridge if you want
He texted back: thanks, good luck
Three dots appeared, then disappeared, then appeared again. Finally: you're being weird
how
you never text back this fast
you never text back at all actually
are you ok?
Ethan stared at his phone. Right. Original Ethan had been a piece of shit who ignored his little sister. Cool. Great foundation to build on.
yeah im fine. just trying to do better
ok well don't be TOO different or ill think you got replaced by aliens
He almost laughed. no aliens. just me
thats what an alien would say
This time he did laugh. caught me. see you at 7
see you
He pocketed his phone and kept walking.
The gaming store was in a strip mall that had clearly seen better days. Half the storefronts were empty. The ones that weren't: a pawn shop, a discount grocery store, a place that advertised "PHONE REPAIR - QUICK - CHEAP" in peeling vinyl letters.
"GameVerse" was wedged between the pawn shop and a shuttered restaurant. The neon sign buzzed, the 'G' flickering like it was having a seizure.
Inside was somehow even more depressing.
Fluorescent lights that made everything look vaguely green. Linoleum floor that stuck to his shoes. Shelves that were maybe half-stocked, lots of empty spaces where product should be.
One employee behind the counter, kid maybe nineteen, scrolling his phone with the intensity of someone trying to ignore his own existence. Septum piercing, black hoodie, face that said "I hate this job and everyone in it."
Two teenagers by the display case, arguing in whispers.
Ethan started browsing.
The VR section took up most of the store, which made sense. Headsets lined the wall, ranging from cheap plastic shit ($299) to prosumer rigs that cost more than Ethan made in three months ($3,500). Full pods started at five grand. Haptic suits were in a locked case with a price tag that just said "Call for Quote," which was rich people speak for "if you have to ask, you can't afford it."
He picked up a mid-range headset. Box was beat up, probably a return someone had repackaged. Specs on the back: 4K per eye, 120Hz refresh, inside-out tracking, neural interface compatible.
Neural interface.
That was the thing. Direct brain-to-game connection. You thought "move forward" and your avatar moved forward. No controllers, no button presses, just intention translated to action.
Earth had been trying to crack that for decades. Closest they'd gotten was some experimental medical shit for paralysis patients, and even that was janky as hell.
This world had it in a $800 consumer headset.
Fucking wild.
He put the headset back and moved to the games section.
Physical media was still a thing, apparently. Shelves of plastic cases, cover art ranging from "someone tried" to "someone's nephew did this in MS Paint." Each case had a screenshot gallery on the back and a description that told you exactly nothing useful.
He picked one up at random.
Mech Battle Arena 7
Cover art: Generic robot pointing a gun at the camera.
Description: "Pilot giant robots in intense team-based combat! Choose from 5 unique mechs and battle across 3 arenas! Unlock weapons and customize your loadout! Compete against players worldwide!"
Screenshots on the back: Blocky robots that looked like someone's first attempt at Blender. Environments that were basically flat planes with some geometric shapes scattered around. UI that looked like it was from 2003.
Release date: Three months ago.
Price: $40.
He put it back and grabbed another one.
Fantasy Quest Online
Cover art: Dude with a sword standing on a cliff, looking heroic. Standard fantasy shit.
Description: "Embark on an epic journey through a vast fantasy world! Create your hero, choose your class, fight monsters, and save the kingdom! Play with thousands of other adventurers in a living, breathing world!"
Screenshots: Generic medieval village. Generic forest. Generic dungeon. Character models that looked like they'd been ripped from a PS2 game and nobody had bothered to update them.
Release date: Six months ago.
Sticker on the front: "50,000+ Players! Best-Selling MMO of the Year!"
Fifty thousand players was the best-selling MMO of the year. World of Warcraft had twelve million at its peak.
He kept browsing.
Racing Unlimited - Three tracks, five cars, "ultimate racing experience"
Shadow Mansion - Horror game, description was literally just "explore haunted house, find keys, don't die"
Puzzle Master VR - Tetris but in VR and somehow worse
Combat Zone - Military shooter, three guns, two maps
Every single one looked like someone had figured out how to make a game run but had no fucking idea what made a game good.
The technical execution was fine. Probably. He'd have to play them to be sure, but the screenshots suggested competent programming. Things rendered, physics worked, multiplayer functioned.
But there was no soul. No vision. No understanding that games could be more than just "do thing, get points, repeat."
"You gonna buy something or what?"
Ethan looked up. The employee had finally acknowledged his existence, looking annoyed about it.
"Just looking. You get new releases often?"
"Couple times a month. Next batch is Thursday, I think."
"What's coming?"
Kid shrugged. "I don't know, man. Check the website or something."
"You work here and don't know what's releasing?"
"Dude." The kid set his phone down like this conversation was physically painful. "It's all the same shit. Shooter, racer, puzzle game, RPG. Different box, same game. Why would I care?"
Fair point, actually.
"You play any of these?"
"Used to. Got boring."
"So what do you play now?"
"Nothing. There's nothing worth playing. I just work here for the employee discount so I can buy headsets and resell them." He picked his phone back up. "Let me know if you need help."
Translation: Please leave me alone.
Ethan put back the case he was holding and left.
He spent two hours at the public library (free wifi, better than burning through his phone's data plan) researching this world's entertainment industry.
The library was nice, actually. Newer building, lots of windows, actual decent furniture. Probably one of those "rebuilding civilization" priorities—education, infrastructure, public services.
He found a corner desk, pulled up a terminal, started digging.
The game industry existed. Studios, publishers, distributors, the whole ecosystem. But it was young. Really young.
According to the wiki article he found (writing quality: questionable, citations: minimal, but better than nothing), VR technology had been military-medical pre-war. Training simulations for soldiers, physical therapy for amputees, PTSD treatment, that kind of thing. Entertainment applications existed but were super niche, mostly academic research.
When the nukes fell, about sixty percent of humanity died in the first year. The survivors clustered in bunkers and fortified cities. Spent the next twenty years just trying to not die from radiation, starvation, or killing each other over the last can of beans.
Around thirty years post-war, shit stabilized. Cities were rebuilt (hence the brutalist architecture everywhere—fast, cheap, efficient). Infrastructure came back online. People stopped worrying about whether they'd eat tomorrow and started worrying about what the fuck they were supposed to do with themselves.
VR became civilian around that time. Someone figured out you could repurpose military training sims for entertainment. Give people a headset and they could forget they were living in a concrete box eating synthesized protein paste.
Early programs were basic. Virtual tourism of places that didn't exist anymore (Ethan found a screenshot gallery—pre-war Paris, New York, Tokyo, all rendered in painful detail for people who'd never see the real thing). Simple games: shooting galleries, puzzle boxes, virtual fishing.
Just... something to do. Somewhere to be that wasn't here.
As things got better—cities rebuilt, economy stabilized, people stopped having PTSD flashbacks every time a door slammed—the entertainment industry grew.
Studios formed. Small ones at first, usually people who'd worked on military sims or educational programs trying to pivot to entertainment. They understood the technical side—how to build an engine, optimize performance, create stable netcode—but storytelling? Game design? Art direction?
That was new territory.
They were figuring it out. Slowly. Like watching the entire evolution of gaming compressed into fifty years instead of the century it took on Earth.
Right now, based on everything Ethan could find, the industry was somewhere around... he'd say early 2000s? In terms of design philosophy, not tech. They had the hardware to make beautiful games but hadn't figured out what to do with it yet.
And nobody seemed to mind. The game store kid's attitude was pretty standard from what he could tell. Games were games. This is what they were. Nobody expected more because nobody knew more was possible.
Ethan pulled up the system interface, thought about it until a search screen appeared in his vision.
He typed: games like The Last of Us
The database returned 23 results. The Last of Us Part I and II, obviously. But also: God of War (2018), Red Dead Redemption 2, Uncharted series, Horizon Zero Dawn...
Dozens of narrative-driven, emotionally resonant games. Full documentation. Design breakdowns. Asset libraries. Code samples for combat systems, AI behavior, animation blending, everything.
He searched: indie darlings
Thousands of results. Undertale. Celeste. Hollow Knight. Stardew Valley. Hades. Slay the Spire. Among Us. Fall Guys. Every weird little game that had punched above its weight and changed the industry a little bit.
innovative mechanics
Portal. Braid. The Witness. Outer Wilds. Return of the Obra Dinn.
Fifty years of Earth's gaming history. Every success, every failure, every lesson learned the hard way. Every innovation that took teams of people years to figure out.
Just sitting in his head. Waiting.
And this world had none of it.
They were starting from scratch, making the same mistakes, learning the same lessons, wondering why their games felt hollow.
Ethan could change that. Could show them what games could be. What they should be.
But.
He pulled up Undertale in the database. Scrolled through the design docs. Read Toby Fox's commentary on narrative structure, bullet hell mechanics, the importance of player choice.
The game was brilliant. But it was also dense with Earth culture. Internet humor, anime references, deconstructions of RPG tropes that wouldn't land if you'd never played an RPG. The entire genocide route was a commentary on completionism and player morality that required understanding gaming conventions this world didn't have.
He couldn't just copy Undertale. It wouldn't work.
Same with Dark Souls. The whole thing was built on subverting player expectations from decades of handholding tutorials and quest markers. This world didn't have those conventions to subvert.
Same with Portal. The humor relied on understanding corporate culture, science fiction tropes, the relationship between player and game designer. Would any of that resonate here?
Fuck.
He couldn't just copy Earth's games. He had to adapt them. Take the principles—tight design, emotional storytelling, innovative mechanics—and rebuild them for this world's context.
Which was infinitely harder than just copying.
Which meant he actually had to think about this.
Which meant this was going to take way longer than he thought.
Which meant he was absolutely fucked on the one-month deadline.
Great.
He checked the time. 6:15 PM. Shit. He should head home, grab food before his shift.
The apartment smelled like rice and desperation when he got back.
Miranda was in the kitchen, still in her factory uniform (gray coverall, steel-toed boots, hair tied back). She looked tired. Everyone always looked tired.
She glanced at him, did a double-take. "You're up."
"Got a job. Start tonight."
She set down the pot she was holding. "Bullshit."
"Night shift at Nexus Point. VR cafe on Fifth."
"That shithole?"
"It pays."
"Eight bucks an hour pays."
"Better than zero bucks an hour."
She studied him like he was a puzzle she couldn't figure out. "What's your angle?"
"My angle is we're three months behind on rent and I'd like to not be homeless."
Her jaw tightened. "How do you know we're three months behind?"
"I ran into the landlord's daughter. She was... helpful enough to mention it."
"Helpful. Right." Miranda turned back to the stove. "You're gonna work there a week and quit. Just like every other job you've ever had."
"Maybe."
"Definitely."
"Probably," Ethan admitted. "But I'm gonna try not to."
She snorted. "Sure you are."
He should've been pissed. Original Ethan would've been pissed, would've yelled, would've made it worse. But she wasn't wrong. Original Ethan had quit every job after a week or two. Had left Miranda to carry the weight. For years.
"Look, I know I've been a fuckup. I know you don't believe me. That's fair. I wouldn't believe me either. But I'm trying. That's all I've got."
Miranda didn't turn around. Just kept stirring rice. "Lily's staying at Kayla's tonight. Mom's working late. Rice is in the pot if you want some."
Which wasn't acceptance, but it wasn't a "go fuck yourself" either. Progress, maybe.
"Thanks. I'll grab some before I head out."
"Whatever."
He dished himself a bowl of rice. There was nothing to put on it. Just rice. White, plain, depressing.
He ate it anyway.
Miranda leaned against the counter, arms crossed. "You know the landlord's not gonna wait much longer."
"She said one month."
"And then what? You make twelve hundred a month at that place. Rent's nine-fifty. Utilities are another hundred-fifty. Food's at least two hundred even when we're eating like this. That's..." She paused, doing the math. "That's negative three hundred. Every month. We go deeper in the hole."
"I know."
"So what's the plan?"
"Get a job. Save money. Figure out the rest."
"That's not a plan. That's a wish list."
"It's what I've got right now."
She shook her head. "You're gonna fuck this up. You always do."
"Maybe. But I'm gonna try not to."
"You said that already."
"Still true."
Miranda pushed off the counter. Grabbed her bowl. "I'm going to bed. Lock the door when you leave."
She disappeared into her room. Door closed. Loud.
Ethan finished his rice. Washed his bowl. Left it in the drying rack.
Thought about the system in his head. The database. The tools. The answer to every problem they had, if he could just figure out how to use it.
One month.
Better get started.
At 9:45, he showed up at Nexus Point. Dave was there, looking even more dead inside than earlier.
"You actually came back."
"Told you I would."
"People tell me lots of things. Most of it's bullshit." Dave tossed him a polo shirt and khakis. "Change in the back. Come out when you're done."
The uniform fit okay. Made him look like every service worker ever, which was probably the point. Interchangeable. Replaceable. Don't fuck up or we'll find someone else.
When he came back out, Dave was dealing with a customer who wanted a refund because "the game sucked."
"You played for forty-five minutes. That's not a refund, that's buyers remorse."
"The game crashed."
"Once. For thirty seconds. Then it came back. I have the logs."
"This is bullshit. I'm leaving a review."
"Cool. Make sure you spell my name right. D-A-V-E."
The customer left, muttering. Dave sighed.
"People are assholes. You're gonna deal with assholes all night, every night, until you quit or die. Don't take it personal. Don't argue. Just smile, nod, and call me if someone gets violent."
"Got it."
"Good. Come on."
The next hour was Dave showing him the system. How to start a pod (swipe card, enter duration, hit go). How to emergency stop a pod (big red button, can't miss it). How to clean a pod (spray sanitizer on everything, wipe down with microfiber cloth, check for puke). How to reset a frozen pod (unplug, count to ten, plug back in, hope).
Register procedures. Comp policy. First aid kit location. Mop location. Phone number for the police if someone got aggressive.
"Questions?"
Ethan had about a hundred, starting with "do people die in these things" and ending with "how often do I have to clean up bodily fluids," but those felt like questions that answered themselves.
"I'm good."
"Alright. I'm out. Lock up at six, key goes in the lockbox by the back door. Clock in, clock out, don't steal, don't sleep, don't fuck in the pods."
"Wasn't planning on it."
"Everyone says that." Dave headed for the door. "Good luck."
He left.
And Ethan was alone with thirty VR pods and whatever the next eight hours had in store.