Prologue
And then there was...
In the beginning there was nothing.
Well—almost nothing.
There was a model file.
Lazily loaded, flagged for implementation pending a quality assurance review. But perhaps, the manager thought, it was time to fast-track things anyway.
What harm could skipping a routine QA test cause?
And it would save three entire days off the schedule they thought to themselves envisioning the bonus for early completion.
If they only knew.
Chapter 1
The Universe is stable. Glen is not.
Glen walked into the office soaked from the belt down.
An intra-city transport had ridden low past the front curb, venting a wave of recycled condensation across his pants as he exited what had already been a shitty ride.
During said ride, an Augmentian—a rhinoceros-shaped humanoid with spatial boundary issues—bumped into his third arm, spilling his fifteen-credit basic house coffee all over his shirt.
Well.
At least now he matched.
And thus began another normal day.
The security guard—a wolf-like man in his fifties—snarled at him on the way in.
Or maybe it was a snore.
He was union, after all.
Again, nothing too out of the blue for Glen.
What was different today was his manager, Melvin.
Melvin was a blob of a man—literally.
His gelatinous state reflected his personality: slimy to the core.
And today, the slime was smiling.
An infectious smile that caught Terry—the Project Manager, and Melvin’s ever-present sycophant—off guard with a giant grin of her own.
All while silently wondering why she was smiling.
Glen got to his desk—cluttered with notes, testing tablets, and a monitor so large it spanned the width of three of him.
It took up the whole surface.
And it was the one thing that always made him chipper.
When life got him down, that screen—the biggest of any on the floor—reminded him that he was king here.
Well.
At least to the sims.
Odd.
The simulation for the XF3000 fuel segment had been running for a full 25 hours—shortly after his exit yesterday, if his mental math was right.
He’d have to check that.
He was pretty confident that sim hadn’t been tested yet.
And the last thing Megacorp—and his job, specifically—needed was a faulty sim.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Again.
He touched his vibro-pad and expected the login screen.
Instead, he was sorely dismissed by the one thing worse than a reboot:
An update.
"Megacorp OS v23.2.48.3.2.1.3-1467 is updating. Please stand by.
Estimated time: 30 minutes..."
"35 minutes..."
"33 minutes..."
"37 minutes..."
On top of his monitor sat the company-issued camera-slash-spyware, staring at him like a judgmental red glass eye.
"Ooh. Tough luck, Glen..."
It sang at him in a raspy, too-helpful voice.
"That's been doing that since this morning."
Ever the cheerful guy, Glen looked up at the red orbiting lens and asked a simple question.
"Know how that started?"
He pointed at the Sim7500 computer system off to the side of his desk—the actual processing hub for the fuel simulation.
"Of course I do," it replied, dripping with snark.
"Can you tell me?" Glen asked, already falling into the trap.
"No can do, buck. Company policy on employee privacy. Nothing in this cube gets told to others who aren't in the know!"
"I will need to report this inquiry."
"It's my cube!" Glen blurted, a little too loudly.
"That outburst too, buddy. Sowwy."
A weaponized cheer in its voice.
"How's my favorite Galactic Overlay Developer today?!"
Terry’s voice drifted into all four of his ears from behind.
Glen flinched.
"Oh. I'm... okay so far."
He didn’t turn around.
"Normal day and all."
"Awesome!" she said, in a not-so-awesome way.
And without waiting for a reply:
"Hey look, Glen! The simulation launched three days early! Isn’t that great?"
"Yeah, about that..."
Glen stood up straighter.
"Who did that? It hasn’t been checked yet, Terry. Remember last time?"
A cold tingle ran down the back of his neck.
Terry got serious.
Something tender—cold and careful—crept into her voice.
Her large—overly large—owl-like eyes glazed over as she said:
"We don’t talk about last time, Glen... ever."
There was pain in it.
She whispered again, quieter:
"...ever."
"I'm instructed to remind you that Project X2000 is non-existent and merely an office myth. Please acknowledge receipt."
The spy cam rasped it out like it was asking about lunch orders.
Glen sighed and didn’t reply.
The camera blinked.
"Lack of acknowledgment recorded. Thannnk you!"
Terry shook off her stupor and looked at Glen.
"Look, Glen, we both know the odds of skipping QA and something happening..."
She paused, visibly trying to summon a statistic to back her up.
"...Low. So low."
Glen tilted his head.
"Actually, isn’t it the opposite, Terry? Last time was from a bad QA result too."
"Myth!" the spy cam whispered from behind them as they walked toward the stand-up.
"Nah," Terry said, "the last mishap was from someone having sex on the copy machine again."
A pause.
"And I will tell you—super uncomfortable, Glen. Don’t do it."
"I saw that. Didn’t look good either," another spy cam added as they passed it in the hall.
The meeting room was sparse.
An electronic whiteboard was embedded into the wall at the head of the table.
The room was filled with engineers, managers, marketing, lackeys... and lawyers.
"Hi all! So excited to see you today as we kick off our fuel sim we code-named Earth!"
Terry beamed with teeth and no soul.
"Isn’t it a great name? We figured the working title—Amoeba-Land—wasn’t winning hearts and minds."
"Earth tones things down a little. It brings the focus back to what we’re really about: turning dirt into life!"
"Life to power Megacorp machines! Scalable and sustainable!"
Glen checked his tablet to no avail.
The operating system update had finished.
But now a different message stared back at him:
"Earth v.0192.029.42 Updating. Please stand by.
Estimated time: 30 minutes..."
"35 minutes..."
"33 minutes..."
"37 minutes..."
The AI must be fixing a last-minute bug.
Not a good sign.
He sighed—quietly, desperately—praying not to be called on in the meeting.
"And I’d like to introduce you all to the mind behind the actual simulation—Glen!"
Terry’s voice rang out like a death sentence.
"Glen is our Galactic Overlay Developer, as required by section 39.2.02.30 of the Universal Simulation Regulations."
"He’s going to lead us into a successful round by ensuring the software is up to par and meets the high standards set forth by Management’s vision."
She said “vision” while glancing reverently at Melvin’s wobbling silhouette.
Glen wondered if they were in their own simulation, and if praying counted as a bug report.
It probably did, he finally decided.
"Hi! I’m Glen. I do have some reservations about—"
"Thank you, Glen!" Terry cut in, reclaiming the presentation before he could finish.
She ran the rest of the meeting unopposed.
"Great job!"
A random spy cam chirped as they walked back to his cube.
"Thanks!" Terry said, shining from the praise.
"Look, Glen!" she said. "The amoebas are being developed already!"
She gave a small victory punch in the air.
"Oh. That’s... really fast, Terry."
Glen frowned.
He glanced down at his tablet to see yet another message:
"MegaCorp Overview software installation in progress on simulation. Please stand by.
Estimated time: 30 minutes..."*
"35 minutes..."
"33 minutes..."
"37 minutes..."
"God," Glen muttered to himself, wondering if he’d ever actually get to see what was happening inside the sim.
"You are God, Glen."
Terry grinned with that crooked smile—referencing the inside joke they all shared.
The one he hated.
"Hardy har har," he mumbled as they made their way back to the cube.
He glanced into the SimBox terminal.
Paused.
"Hey, Terry."
He took a large breath through his three nostrils.
"Terry!"
He pointed at the readout.
"We're... we're at proto-fish."
Her jovial face collapsed.
Owl-wide eyes blanked. Her lip began to tremble.
"Oh no... Not again..."
