I stared at my plate as another piece of sushi was added.

“Here Ichiro, have another. It’s your favorite.”

Sushi was good. I remembered a conveyor belt sushi place I visited in Japan years ago. I ate so many dishes they brought a trolley to store the empty plates. Their looks shamed me, but it was worth it. This stuff on my plate wasn’t sushi. Not good sushi, not bad sushi, just fake fish on fake rice.

I didn’t complain and just looked over at the woman.

“Thanks, mother,” I said, trying to smile. She looked perfect. Not beautiful, not pretty - perfect. Pale plastic skin, deep blue eyes, black hair swept back like an anime character. She’d long since passed into uncanny valley territory for me.

Despite the weirdness and despite how hard it is to get used to someone claiming to be your mom after only a week, I still called her mother. I didn’t want to see the hurt in her eyes again.

“Hey, Ichi, do you remember when you took me to see Dad’s tech exhibition?” asked the youngest at the table.

I felt the tension at the table whenever my younger sister spoke. My mom was in denial, but she knew her son was gone and I was here instead. Himari, my younger sister, was nine, excitable, and thought it was great I was being nice to her now. Though me being nice made it harder for everyone else.

“No, Himari, I don’t remember, sorry,” I said to the young girl sitting next to Mom. “We’ll have to do it again!”

Despite my best efforts, the table stayed silent. I pushed the limp fake fish and rubbery rice around my plate with my plastic chopsticks. The silence lasted until Himari jumped in again. A nine-year-old with energy and no filter kept saving us with her innocent questions.

“Ichi, I can’t send you the pictures. Why aren’t you on the home network?”

Mom’s eyes flashed with brief frustration. “Himari, remember what I told you. Ichiro lost his neural link. He can’t do a lot of things right now, so don’t keep pestering him about it. You’re being rude and inconsiderate.”

Mom’s fingers tightened around her chopsticks, the only sign of the pain under her warm facade.

“Oh. Sorry, Ichi. When are you getting one?” Himari asked.

“Tomorrow?” I said, but it came out as a question.

My father finally spoke. “Yes, tomorrow. Masuyo will take you to get it implanted. It is all arranged,” he said, gesturing to the last member of my family. Masuyo, my older sister, sat with us but didn’t join the conversation. She was distant, her posture rigid and her expression unreadable. She’d kept her distance since my return, a silent observer whose eyes never quite met mine. Her movements were precise and efficient, her words clipped when she did speak. I knew almost nothing about any of them, but at least the others tried to fill in the gaps.

“Then I can show you all the stuff we did together!” Himari said.

“I’m looking forward to it,” was all I could say, and bam, we were back to awkward.

I relented and shoved the sushi into my mouth. The taste was awful, but it was the texture that made it disgusting. I drank tea to wash it down. I don’t think anyone missed how much I wasn’t enjoying the food.

My father, a tall man with sharp features and graying hair neatly slicked back, put an end to my suffering. He put down his chopsticks and stood, his posture as rigid and formal as always.

“Ichiro, come see me in my office once you are done with dinner,” he said. He was no-nonsense and the epitome of a middle manager. Except Japanese, so he probably yelled at his subordinates and was polite to everyone else. I was very much his subordinate, so his words were more a command. I wouldn’t have taken him seriously in my old world, but the metal chrome on his face and arms made him seem like Skynet’s middle manager. I nodded.

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I waited a few moments after he left, glancing around the table at the family I was supposed to belong to. Himari’s curious eyes were on me, and I forced another smile. Masuyo had already cleared her plate, efficient and detached. Mother was tidying up the remnants of the meal, her movements quick and precise.

The corridors of the house were sleek and modern, lined with soft recessed lighting that bathed everything in a sterile glow. The walls, smooth and metallic, were adorned with minimalist art pieces that felt as cold and impersonal as the rest of the home. Too perfect. Everything placed just so, everything clean. It didn’t feel like a home.

The door to my father’s office opened silently, revealing a room dominated by a large desk. This room was even more cold and sterile, even with more of my father’s personality. Steel walls, metal bookshelves, and a small collection of spiritual-looking items. He sat behind the desk, his face illuminated by the soft glow of a holo-screen displaying data I couldn’t comprehend. Or more likely couldn’t see.

“Ichiro. No. Son. Sit.”

My father stared at me with the same lack of emotion. Then he bowed while sitting.

“Allowing this to happen to you has shamed me,” he said, head still down. Before I could answer, he lifted his head. “I do not want to confront you now, while you are confused in a home you don’t know, with a family you don’t know, but you need to get your neural link as soon as possible. And for that, you need to know a bit more about the situation.”

He drew himself up. “I do not know who did this to you, but I suspect it was one of my competitors. Inside the corporation. I could have pursued this and fully intended to before I was given the option to simply not. By the corporation. In exchange, insurance would be paid out,” he said, then scoffed. “That’s enough to know the corporation knows it’s related to them. An insurance payout is just a bribe. They never pay.”

“However, that insurance payout means you get your neural link paid for. I negotiated for a top-of-the-line replacement. The cash payment is notable as well, and I must put the family first. What was done to you means you will not be able to attend the corporate classes further, will not be able to take a position in the corporation. Masuyo will take that position now. You will receive a third of the settlement, and it will be on you to find your own way with it. The rest will go to pave the way for Masuyo.”

He looked at me, still without expression, but obviously expected a reaction.

“I see. I accept that. Thank you,” I said and meant it. This was far more than I expected when I woke in this world.

He stared a bit longer. “I will seek revenge if I find out who did it, but I won’t be searching for it.”

I shrugged. “Revenge won’t help me, and it’s hard to have feelings about something I can’t remember.”

He nodded. “Ichiro would have sought revenge,” he said, and I saw the pain inside him. “But you are not Ichiro. But you are my son. Find your way, then come to me, and I will help you. But I have little time, and Masuyo will have even less.”

I left after that. There was no point lying to myself. My chest hurt. What this family was going through was almost harder than having their child die. And then there was me, trying to keep from panicking every moment of every day. The only thing that prepared me for something like this were novels. And games.

This wasn’t my world. It wasn’t a world I knew either, but the themes were obvious. Dystopian corporate hellscape, attacking the kids of your competitors, terrible fake food… it’s cyberpunk. But not one I knew. 80’s Japanese corporate life, megacorps, environmental destruction, ads… the ads defied words. The iconography was indecipherable to me. How do I interpret a spirit mongoose defending a spirit fox against a spirit snake? And how awkward is it to see an ad in your flying ambulance car thing, sitting next to your nine-year-old sister, as someone deep throats a bottle of beer?

And at the other end of the spectrum was my room. It was simple and utilitarian, stripped of anything that gave it personality. That seemed the default around here, but I could see where posters had been removed. I imagined my family had removed all remnants of the Ichiro they knew and left me with a blank slate. There was a computer terminal and a laptop both keyed to me, except that was useless to someone like me. You needed a neural link to access everything, even the TV embedded in the wall.

That hampered my ability to gather information, but the hospital was prepared for people like me—injured, handicapped, invalid, and unable to function. Those were the words used. They had given me a dumb touch tablet that let me learn about things, starting with the neural link.

I was nervous, my hands sweaty every time I stopped to think about it. Tomorrow some doctors would open my neck, reach into my spinal cord and brain, and implant the link. And then a whole lot more. My eyes would need to be replaced too. While I was awake.

Considering I had a panic attack during laser eye surgery in my old world, I wasn’t sure tomorrow was going to go well.