Ali’s chin slipped from his hand, his head nearly plunking against the keyboard. Waking up with a jolt, he checked if his fellow technicians had seen, but it looked like he was in the clear. That was one good thing about working as tech help for a virtual reality game — the visors hid the judgmental stares.

He’d stayed up too late last night playing the game, The Everlands, himself, and now he was nodding off on the job again. Slapping his face as subtly as he could, he focused on his screen and took the next available logged issue.

It was a text submission with a single line: They won’t let me out.

Ali blinked. That was a bit out of the ordinary. He quickly typed back. Hello, Gorget. Thanks for contacting Tech Support. Can you be more specific about the issue you’re encountering today?

He received a response back quickly. The Valyn. The gods. I don’t know anymore. But they won’t let me out.

Ali’s heart was starting to thump harder. Are you saying that your log off feature isn’t functioning?

I can’t leave this dungeon. I can’t leave the game. They say I’ll destroy Absalom. I’ve told them I wouldn’t dare touch him. I just wanted to see if it was true. But I don’t care anymore. Now, I just want to leave.

Ali read the message twice, then glanced at the open door to the office of his manager, Mr. Henderson. Mr. Henderson had told everyone in Tech Support that The Everlands couldn’t afford a PR disaster. With VR gaming at this level of sophistication being an entirely new thing, any hitch could compromise the future of the company. And no job for Ali. Hang in there, he typed back to the player Gorget. We’ll get you out soon. Then he took a deep breath. It was time to dive in.

Copying the player’s in-game coordinates — and only staring at them, impressed, for a moment — Ali put on his portable VR headset. He was logged in within moments, and the darkness of the dungeon filled his screen. He could barely see the outline of Gorget’s avatar curled up in the corner of the cell.

“Hello, Gorget. I’m here to assist you. You've had issues logging out?”

The avatar’s head snapped up. “Behind you!” he screamed.

An ear-splitting sound boomed through Ali’s headphones, and his vision fuzzed. He tore off the headset with a cry. The other techs were definitely looking now, but Ali didn’t care. Chills ran down his spine. “Nothing to see here, folks,” he said with a nervous laugh, but he hadn’t needed bother. They were already returning to their screens and visors, barely acknowledging they’d been disturbed.

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Sitting back down, his fingers flew as he diagnosed the problem. But he kept running into wall after wall. He glanced at the headset. He had to go back in.

As soon as he put them back on, he knew they were dead. Ali took the headset off with a sigh. That’d be another tick on his record.

But he had more important things to worry about. Something had fried his headset. Something was keeping that player Gorget trapped in The Everlands. This was a serious glitch, big enough that he had to report it to the manager.

He swallowed. Out of the “frying” pan and into the fire, you might say.

He rose and walked to the door — which was open, since management had “an open door policy” — and tapped on the frame. “Come in,” Mr. Henderson said wearily.

Ali came in. “Hello, sir.”

The manager blinked up at him. “Ah, Aaron. What can I do for you?”

Ali gave a nervous laugh and didn’t bother correcting him on his name. Mr. Henderson never seemed able to get it right, even though it was about as simple as they came. “I, uh, have a pretty serious glitch on my hands that I need to run by you. A player says he’s stuck.”

Mr. Henderson stared owlishly at him. “Stuck?”

“Er, yes sir. He can’t log off.”

His manager shifted back in his chair, eyes unfocused for a moment. “Are you sure? Did he tell you that?”

Ali tried not to fidget with his hands. “Not directly, actually—”

“Oh. Well.” Mr. Henderson smiled. “Do ask him then. Maybe it’s a simple misunderstanding.”

Much as he didn’t want to, Ali knew he had to push this. “I don’t think it’s just that. I think he’s really stuck.”

The manager sighed. “If he can’t log off, send me the specs of the issue log. I’ll address it myself.”

“Yes, sir.” But as Ali left the office, he didn’t feel any easier about the situation. There was nothing his manager could do that any tech couldn’t; in fact, he could probably do quite a bit less. And besides, that wasn’t the way The Everlands was designed. The game was run, maintained, and innovated by AIs that doubled as in-game gods. Theoretically, bugs like this would be caught and patched by the AIs as soon as they occurred. He and his coworkers of Tech Support were mostly there to lend a human face to helping with player problems.

But this — this felt like it went beyond a simple glitch. This was the sort of game-breaking error that the AI-gods were supposed to stop in the first place. And with mention of this Absalom — a name Ali had never heard before, and he knew the game well — he was getting a bad feeling about this.

The proper channels weren’t going to address this. They couldn’t; they weren’t made for it. So he’d just have to go via the improper ones.

Going back to his computer, he pulled up a private chat window. Hey. I have something for you. Something to investigate.

The reply came a minute later. You know I don’t want anything that isn’t crucial to the game.

This is crucial, Ali said with a smile. Sheika, his friend and already an in-game expert, was always like that. But once he told her about this, she’d be all over it like a kid drooling over candy. He didn’t know anybody who loved the game as much as her.

Fine. Lay it on me.

Ali stretched his fingers, glanced at his manager’s office, and began to type.