As I sliced through the throat of the final boss, a loud squishing sound resounded over the hall. With a meic pull of my sword, its yellow blood gushed out, and a metallic fragrance lingered in the air. Thanks to my finishing move, I defeated the Boss; thus I had pleted the quest of the World’s End, my st assig.

  [QA #954137 has been pleted, ending session]The system severed my e to the test envirohe moment I closed the notice. With a grunt, I crawled out of the VR capsule, my mind still foggy from the immersion. A voice, calm yet calcuted, cut through my haze from behind me. “John, thank you for all your hard work. It saddehat even your turn came up.”

  Sure, boss, like you really care. I smirked to myself. To show him how little his words mattered, I stayed silent, letting my gaze drift over the huge, eg hall filled with old capsules. Only a few dim lights remairag a path to the exit. This pce buzzed with people, but now it was just me, Lucy, and our annoyingly insincere boss.

  The department’s golden days felt like a distant memory, almost a lie. I gave a silent nod towards the st lit capsule across the hall. Good luck, Lucy, I thought, feeling a pang of loss for the one friend I had here.

  “Don’t worry,” he tinued, with a thin, practiced smile. “I’m sure you’ll find another job.”

  “Save the fake sympathy,” I muttered, my voice rough, refusing to even gnce his way. At least one good thing came with bei go—never having to deal with him again. “Tell Lucy I’ll miss her,” I added, my to. She deserves better, too.

  Without looking back, I left the building at a steady pace, my hands curled into balls. I became a lone wolf. As I walked oreets, I met crowds of robots going their ways, but only a few actual people. If you didn’t py the game, or you were going outside, pyers called you “a wolf”, as in a lone wolf. Normal people were unig only in the game. The robots that humankind created were doing their jobs instead.

  Like any other day, I made my way to the small bar wedged between two t luxury apartment plexes. They loomed above, crowding the building in shadow, as if mog the pce’s ck of sunlight. The developer even cimed it was an advantage—no bzing sun hitting the windows.

  I smirked at the memory of me and the guys moving his German car to a river bank before stepping inside. Enteri like stepping bato simpler times. I gave a nod to the old man behind the bar and slid onto my favorite stool. Hello, sadness. Patrick had already started p a whiskey, our usual ritual. A whiskey to fill the void.

  Though he was well past 80, his hands remaieady—a small blessing from medical advances. When he caught sight of my expression, he raised an eyebrow. “Is it over? Did they let you go?”

  With a pained smile, I lifted my head just enough to watch his hands pour. Even me. He cleared his throat to remind me of his question, and I finally responded, “Yeah. Guess I’m a wolf now.”

  “Eve tester of the game?” he muttered, setting anss in front of me. I didn’t respond, just downed half of it and turo stare out the small, blocked-in window. Darkness greeted me, with the neighb building just inches away.

  My gaze drifted to an old, faded photo hanging proudly on the wall. I polished off the whiskey. “Your bar hasn’t ged a bit in a hundred years.” The photo showed his Irish grandfather, beaming, standing beside some old celebrity who’d sig. The signature was nearly gone now, lost to time.

  Patrick sighed and shook his head. “Maes took over everything! End of the world, if you ask me. hought I’d say it.” He polished a gss, a sad smile tugging at his lips. “I’m not getting any younger. My sons and grandsons, they’re all pying that game, and most of my regurs… well, they’re in the graveyard now. You and a few others are the only thing keeping me here. If you go, I may just cave ahis pce to that snot-nosed brat.”

  I must’ve had at least ten drinks as we went on about how everything used to be better and how the world was barreling toward doom. Just the usual Friday. By then, I was a little tipsy, words slipping out easier. “Everything ged twenty years ago when my old pany uhe learning AI. At first, we thought it would improve things—simple manual bor and all…”

  Patrick chuckled, shaking his head. “I told you back then, d. The Terminator had it right; they’re going to wipe us all out.”

  “Oh, really? I don’t think so!” I blurted out, my voice rising. My sce kicked in, remindi to bother anyone, so I gnced around the bar. Nobody in sight. “AIs are everywhere, sure, but did we ever fight them? Did we lose some great war? No, we gave up on this world ourselves. Moved to the game, to the new one. And unism won, thanks to that universal ine from the AI tax. Not because it was better—but because it was the only optio. I hate it.”

  Patrick gave a weary nod. “You’re right, d. The ies got in through the youth. I saw it with my own eyes. Now I ’t even order a whiskey without a robot handling it.” He shook his head in exasperation, his voice trailing into the familiar grumble I’d heard so many times before. “Imagi, robots, making whiskey!”

  “Patrick, if I could get into the game, I’d go there too,” I admitted, voice quieter, my gaze fixed on the amber liquid in my gss.

  Yet I couldn’t.

  I illing my sob story to anyone who’d listen—about being a tester, banned from the game. “Made by Nathan. The so-called savior of humanity. He got cozy with the gover, f everyoo py his game. Except me; I wao, but I couldn’t.”

  “Savior, my ass, d. When I was young, we worked hard for our money—not sitting around, pying video games and cashing gover checks!”

  “Hey, that was my job, old man! The only job I could do. I was QA, testing the game’s new expansions.” Patrick tensed up, probably on the edge of tellio it. Today he held back, though; yesterday, he nearly tossed me out when I started whining about this same thing for the huh time.

  “Nothis the real thing, d,” he said after a pause. “You know the best night of my life? With my wife on a bea Costa Rio simution could ever touch that.”

  I sneered. He obviously hadn’t pyed the game—it had thousands of pces better than some random coast. “Maybe, but as things stand, I’m out of a job. Not a single bug in over five years, so they kicked out their best exploiter.”

  I took a long sip, letting the thought sink in. People were choosing to live in a game, all voluntarily. Maybe I should go rewatch The Matrix. Here I was, sounding like some old man yelling at clouds. “So what now? Am I supposed to live like a wolf? There’s no job for someone like me. I was too dumb for college; video games were all I had. ie tax barely covers…” I pushed my empty gss forward with a sigh. “More whiskey, please.”

  After a while, some scruffy, fifteen-year-old punk in a brown coat popped up in front of me. Right, that’s my cue. I’ve had enough. I sed the bar for Patrick to settle my tab, but he was nowhere in sight. Maybe he’d slipped into the back.

  “Hi there, John!”

  What the…? I squi the kid, feeling a bit wobbly. “Since when do my delusions talk?”

  “Don’t worry about that! I don’t have time—look!” He thrust his hands forward, palms up. In his left hand was a red pill, and in his right, a murky green one.

  “You’ve got a choice. Take the red pill, and I’ll push your memory as far back as I ! My dad’s the warden, running all these sims, so I wao mess around! MATRIX MAN!”

  “Whoa, slohat the hell are you talking about? How much did I drink?”

  “Easy, man! I came from the future, and my dad’s running these sims to pass the time. Or to figure why the game is so weird? Dunno. We’re in a sim, too! No idea how deep it goes. Isn’t it awesome?”

  “Ugh, I think I’m gonna throw up…”

  “Then take the blue pill, and I’ll find someone else to bug.”

  “Blue? Kid, that’s green. If yonna be a halluation, at least get your colht.”

  “Aw, man, I was going for THE Morpheus vibe. The Matrix is the best historical film, you know?” He shrugged. “Anyway, take the red one. How could it be worse than your current situation? My dad’s ending this sim soon, but I transfer you to ohat repeats to my present—and beyond!”

  A wave of nausea hit as the world spun around me. “Slow down, punk! My head’s pounding, and you’re making it worse.”

  “No time! My old man’s ing things up any minute now. Hurry, take it!”

  I bit my lip to keep from hurling and gred at the kid. Time for my go-to drunken philosophy. “If we’re all just simutions, what’s the point of living?”

  “Dude, that’s, like, the deep question. I live because I want to. If you care, check out the people who kicked this whole thing off. Or they’re here because they’re bad? Dunno. But they call themselves the Ring of Smiling People.”

  I gave him a bleary look and sighed, feeling too sick tue. “Fine. Hand it over.” I grabbed the red pill and swallowed it down. It wasn’t an aspirin, because my head still throbbed. “Hey, punk! What did you do?”

  “Chill! I’m reloading your sim. I’m sending you back twenty years, just before the game started.” With that, he vanished. Weird kid. Now, where was a bucket I could puke into?

  In an instant, a calm darkness enveloped me. The tipsiness vanished, leaving my head and body clear. What? I opened my eyes to a familiar sight—a room. My room. What the hell? Why was I staring at the grimy ceiling in my apartment? Did I bck out and someone dragged me home?

  I rolled over and grabbed my phohe date wasn’t right.

  Oh, no. No, no, no. Did that mean… everything the punk said was true? Was I in a simution, within another simution? And why was I back twenty years? I freak out now? My mind raced, pieg it together. I’ve actually time-traveled!

  ***

  In a spaeeting room, six men sat around a round table. Nathan, a tall man in his te twenties with a long, pointed and an oddly shaped ood up.

  “Ladies alemeeemed members of anization, it is my pleasure to wele you thly anticipated tweh rebirth. As previously agreed, we have decided to begin just one day before the game’s unch. Regrettably, Jeffrey, I must inform you that we ot aodate your request to start earlier—it would promise the iy of fate. Furthermore, during our routine checks, we detected an anomaly that demands our immediate attention.” His gaze swept over the group with a stern iy, as though searg for a culprit.

  “Dear colleagues, we have discovered that, during transportation, an individual was iently brought back with us. I strongly reend we initiate a thh iigation and take all the necessary measures to eliminate any potential threats. In this rebirth, the seed will be within rasp. We ot afford any missteps; we must act diligently to locate aralize the source of this anomaly.”