Jason Reed's fingers danced across the keyboard, the sound of his typing filling the otherwise quiet break room. Three hours until the deadline, and the inventory system still had that duplication glitch. His coffee had gone cold an hour ago, but he barely noticed.

  "You know, staring at code for six hours straight isn't healthy," said a voice behind him.

  Ellie Chen, the art director, placed a fresh cup of coffee next to his laptop. Her blue-streaked hair was pulled back in a messy bun, and paint smudges dotted her hands – evidence of her morning spent on concept sketches.

  "Thanks," Jason replied, taking a grateful sip. "And I know, but this bug makes no sense. The items keep duplicating themselves when players drop them, but the code is clean."

  "Maybe the universe just doesn't like your code," Ellie teased, sliding into the chair across from him.

  Jason snorted. "That would explain my entire career."

  It wasn't far from the truth. Since his first programming class in college, Jason had battled an inexplicable curse – his code, no matter how perfectly structured, inevitably spawned bizarre bugs. Variables changing themselves. Functions executing backwards. Features working perfectly during testing then imploding when pushed to production.

  He'd been at Meridian Games for eight months now, longer than his previous two jobs combined. It was a miracle they hadn't fired him yet.

  "Speaking of ghosts," came a theatrical voice from behind them. "I need those for the Phantom Peaks quest line."

  Lily George, Meridian's narrative designer, perched on the edge of Jason's desk, her ginger hair falling over one shoulder. She wore mismatched earrings – one a tiny robot, the other a miniature book – and her usual assortment of obscure video game references on her t-shirt.

  "Your ghost-catching skills might be useful for more than just debugging," she continued with a grin. "Think you could trap one in the code for me? Much more atmospheric than just writing 'spooky ghost appears' in my quest notes."

  "I'm good at making things disappear, not appear," Jason replied, grateful for the distraction.

  "That's why we make a good team," Lily said. "I create things with words, you make them vanish with code."

  Their shared project—a procedurally generated quest system—had been Lily's idea initially. "Imagine," she'd said during a late-night brainstorming session, "quests that write themselves based on a player's actions. We'd only need to create the narrative building blocks, and the system would assemble them into unique stories."

  Jason had been captivated by the technical challenge, while Lily saw it as a way to create stories that responded organically to player choices. Together, they'd mapped out an ambitious system that had impressed even the skeptics on the team—assuming Jason could make it work without his usual plague of bugs.

  "Marcus wants an update on the quest system by end of day," Ellie reminded them.

  "Speaking of which," Devon Williams said, appearing beside Jason's desk. As the lead programmer, Devon had taken a chance hiring Jason despite his spotty employment history. "Good news—the combat system passed all QA tests this morning. We're celebrating at lunch. Kenta's at noon. Thomas is coming."

  Jason raised his eyebrows. Thomas Reynolds, the company's founder and creative director, rarely emerged from his glass-walled office at the far end of the floor.

  "Even Director Reynolds?" Lily asked, her eyes lighting up. "Perfect! I can pitch him the branching narrative concept directly."

  "Just remember, he's allergic to the word 'revolutionary,'" Devon said with a grin. "Every junior designer claims their idea will revolutionize gaming."

  "I prefer 'paradigm-shifting,'" Lily replied with mock seriousness.

  "Save the quest system talk for after we've fed you," Devon laughed. "You're both too intense before lunch."

  At noon, the team gathered in the lobby. Besides Jason, Lily, Devon, and Ellie, there was Zoe the UX designer, Chris the junior programmer who had joined last month, and Marcus Patel, the project manager whose perpetually worried expression had only deepened as their deadlines approached.

  Thomas Reynolds met them outside, his imposing frame and silver-streaked beard giving him the appearance of a Viking rather than a game developer. Despite the man's intimidating presence, Jason had always found him surprisingly approachable.

  Kenta's Ramen was only a block away, a cramped but authentic spot that had become the team's go-to celebration venue. Jason found himself squeezed into a booth between Lily, who was already scribbling quest ideas on a napkin, and Chris, who regarded the senior team members with a mixture of awe and anxiety.

  "To six months of blood, sweat, and code," Reynolds raised his glass once their food arrived. "Realm Unbound is shaping up to be our best game yet."

  Everyone cheered, though Jason's enthusiasm felt hollow. His contributions to the project had been minimal at best, troublesome at worst.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  As the team fell into easy conversation about upcoming features and the latest industry gossip, Jason found himself mostly listening. Zoe was explaining her redesign of the player interface while Chris nodded eagerly, clearly in awe of her expertise.

  "What about you two?" Reynolds' deep voice cut through the chatter, looking at Jason and Lily. "Devon tells me you're working on something special for the quest system."

  All eyes turned to them, and Jason felt his face warm. Before he could speak, Lily jumped in with her usual enthusiasm.

  "We're breaking the matrix," she declared, gesturing dramatically with her chopsticks. "A procedural narrative system that builds unique quests based on player choices and behavior patterns. No more 'kill ten rats' repeated ad nauseam."

  "Jason's handling the technical architecture," she continued, nudging him with her elbow. "Tell them about the adaptive difficulty scaling."

  "It's still just a prototype," Jason added more cautiously. "The system uses player behavior patterns to generate quests that feel personally meaningful. If you're an explorer, you'll get discovery-focused content. If you're combat-oriented, you'll see more action scenarios."

  "Ambitious," Reynolds said, looking genuinely interested. "Generating meaningful content algorithmically is the holy grail. How far along are you?"

  "I've got the framework mapped out, but..." Jason hesitated, glancing at Lily, who gave him an encouraging nod. "There's still some barriers to implementation."

  "Bugs," Marcus translated with a knowing smirk. "Our resident bug magnet strikes again."

  The table erupted in good-natured laughter. Even Jason managed a smile. His mysterious ability to generate bugs had become something of a team joke – better than being fired for it.

  "Some of the most innovative features come from working around unexpected bugs," Reynolds said thoughtfully. "The combos in our fighting game series? Originally a glitch that players loved so much we built a whole system around it."

  "Exactly!" Devon jumped in. "Jason may draw bugs like honey draws flies, but he also thinks outside the box. His solution to the rendering issue last month saved us weeks of work."

  Jason felt a surge of gratitude toward Devon. It was true – his strange relationship with code had forced him to develop unconventional problem-solving skills. Where other programmers saw rigid systems, Jason saw malleable frameworks that could be bent and reshaped to work around problems.

  "I want to see that quest system when you've got a working prototype," Reynolds said. "Bugs and all."

  "Yes, sir," Jason nodded, feeling a renewed determination.

  Lily leaned over to whisper in his ear. "See? Your bugs are going to make us famous."

  He was about to respond when a faint tremor shook the restaurant. Glasses clinked, and the overhead lights flickered.

  "Earthquake?" Zoe asked, reaching for her water glass before it could tip.

  The tremor intensified. Dishes rattled, and conversations around the restaurant died as everyone froze. A deep rumbling sound filled the air—not from outside, but seemingly from everywhere at once.

  "We should get under the—" Devon began, but his words cut off as the lights went out completely.

  For three heartbeats, there was total darkness and silence.

  Then blue light filled the room—not from emergency lighting, but emanating from nowhere and everywhere. Jason blinked, trying to clear his vision, but the azure glow remained.

  "What the hell?" Marcus whispered.

  "Is everyone seeing this?" Ellie asked, her voice tight with tension.

  Before anyone could answer, text appeared in Jason's field of vision, floating in the air:

  System Version 0.1.3 initiating...

  Followed immediately by:

  Hi, there, hello! Have a nice day. It's going to be easy. Not even peasy.

  He blinked in confusion. That couldn't be right.

  "Are you guys seeing text?" Chris asked, his eyes wide. "Floating words?"

  Murmurs of confirmation spread around the table. And judging by the reactions, even other customers at Kenta's were experiencing the same phenomena

  "Mine explains what's happening," Devon said, his voice tense. "Some kind of 'System integration' for Earth. Says we're being incorporated into something called 'The Realmverse.'"

  "Same here," Reynolds confirmed, his expression grave. "This doesn't make much sense, but we can't all hallucinate the same thing, right?"

  Lily turned to Jason, her eyes filled with curiosity despite the situation. "What does yours say?"

  "Uh..." Jason hesitated. "Mine just says 'Hi, there, hello! Have a nice day.'"

  "What?" Lily stared at him in doubt. "That's it? No explanation?"

  "And something about 'System Version 0.1.3' before that," Jason added, trying to read the expressions of his colleagues. "What exactly are you all seeing? Can you read it to me?"

  But no one seemed to hear his question. They were all focused on their own messages, which were clearly much more informative than his nonsensical greeting.

  The restaurant around them began to waver, walls seeming to become transparent, then solid again. Other diners were frozen in place, some mid-gesture, others with expressions of confusion matching their own.

  "This can't be happening," Marcus muttered, gripping the edge of the table.

  Jason felt increasingly isolated as his colleagues discussed details from their identical messages—something about skills, attributes, and classes—while his own interface showed nothing but that cheerful, utterly unhelpful greeting. Not even a proper error message. Just... pleasantries.

  Warning: Coffee break in 3 minutes!

  The new message was equally baffling. Coffee break? Now?

  "Jason? Are you okay?" Lily asked, noticing his bewildered expression. "You've gone pale."

  "My message changed," he managed to say. "But it's... it's not telling me anything useful. Just something about a coffee break."

  Lily frowned. "That doesn't match what we're seeing at all. Everyone else is getting the same information about—"

  A wave of dizziness cut her off, at least for Jason. He saw his colleagues swaying in their seats, some already slumping forward.

  Interface integration beginning. Put your best smile and say cheese! :)

  "What's the hell is wrong with my messages?" Jason tried to curse, but his voice wouldn't work anymore. The pressure behind his eyes intensified as the blue light grew brighter.

  The blue light consumed everything as Jason slipped into unconsciousness, having no idea what was waiting for him.