Superior saw the grubby little goblin that everyone else ignored. It huddled in a familiar desolate clump beside the street, not asking for help, just watching with an empty expression as people passed by it.
He turned and approached it. "Hey, do you need anything?" he asked.
The goblin looked so surprised that the person behind Superior's screen actually smiled. This game really might be as realistic as everyone said. The smile turned bitter as the goblin replied doubtfully, "I could use some food?"
"Right, let's go get some," Superior agreed promptly. This character had plenty of coin on it, there was no reason to be stingy.
Superior's player wasn't surprised when the dirty little goblin asked for something else after devouring the food. A little disappointed maybe, but not surprised. The third thing it asked for would be what it needed most.
After the goblin left with the materials it needed to complete the device it was working on, another NPC approached Superior with a cheerful smile. Superior eyed the slightly plump, clean, and cheerful figure warily.
The merchant didn't ask Superior to buy anything, he merely said, "That was very kind of you."
Superior responded with a noncommittal shrug.
The merchant persisted, "You've done so many good deeds today that you seem like a completely different person?"
The player examined the available responses: "It's a good day for good deeds!", "What are you saying? I'm always good!", "Of course, because I am a different person!"
After a moment Superior replied, "Of course, because I am a different person!" There was really nothing to lose by telling the truth.
"Are you hungry?" the traveling merchant asked with interest? "You haven't eaten anything yourself this morning have you?"
"The food here has no taste," was one of the options, and that's how Superior replied. It didn't matter if it was real life or digital life, those with money could enjoy eating, and those without it were supposed to consider themselves lucky to receive enough calories to survive.
"I've heard that food tastes better when you obtain it yourself," the merchant said agreeably. "Would you be interested in learning a new skill?"
The player eyed the suggested responses warily. After a moment Superior replied, "I don't have time to learn anything useful today."
"When you are ready, you can begin this quest to learn a useful skill by telling any instance of myself that you have the heart of a provider, and are ready to learn," the merchant said gently.
The player tapped, "Thanks," and then set the phone down and walked away.
--
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Ericka bought a data plan with the money she made off her service job instead of moving out of the shelter. The first thing she did was start downloading new games. She'd been stuck with the same handful of games that had an offline mode for at least half a year since her card had expired.
Shaun asked, "Why didn't you use the money to move out of this place?"
"How far would this much get me?" she asked bitterly. "And what would I gain? Dignity? That's worthless."
There was no argument he could make, so silence fell again. He pushed a nutrition cube over to her, and she ate without looking up. Her fingers danced across the screen and her expression brightened.
As far as addictions went, Shaun figured that hers was less dangerous to her health, but deeper than most chemical dependencies. "Hey," he asked suddenly, "can you run 'Living Jade Empire' on that?"
"Sure, but it's just a fantasy MMO right? I prefer games that make you think," Ericka replied distractedly.
"I've heard you can learn real things from it, if you tell the merchant that you have the heart of a provider, and are ready to learn," Shaun ventured.
"Real things?" she asked doubtfully. "If you want to learn something, just look it up."
Shaun shrugged.
--
A month later Ericka saw Shaun again, and walked over and shoved a phone into his hands. "Take it. It's not as good as mine, but I'm too selfish to give mine up."
"What? Why? And where'd you get this?" Shaun asked. It had a crack in its screen, but otherwise it looked relatively new and well cared for, which usually meant someone would be looking for it.
"Some idiot threw it away with the card in it, it's been reset so it doesn't have any other useful accounts or anything, I checked. But if you mostly use free connection spots, it should last you quite awhile," Ericka explained.
"Last me to do what?" he questioned.
"Play it. 'Living Jade Empire' like you told me. I didn't get it, y'know, why a teaching game would be helpful. But I told someone who was playing it anyway the code you told me, and she says it's actually teaching her enough math and accounting to get promoted to a real job. She shared it with some others and they've all gotten analyzed by it somehow, because it's always teaching something they can actually use," Ericka explained.
"What about you then?" Shaun asked warily. The NPC hadn't really made the request sound like it was a secret code.
Ericka rubbed her nose. "Well, it's a little different for me. It knows who I am."
"Who you are?" Shaun questioned blankly.
"Yeah," she agreed without explaining. "I kind of got hmm, a lesson in the psychology of social positioning, when I tried it. Anyway, I guess the only way to find out if it's really accurate is to go home."
"That… you…" he didn't know quite what to ask.
"It'll either kill me or cure me," she added, and turned away quickly.
"Hey," he said worriedly. She barely glanced back, so he called after her, "Keep living well. Here or there, it doesn't matter…"
She held up her fist without looking back and replied, "Yeah, exactly!"
--
Shaun chewed the bitter nutrition cube and waited. The device that had been abandoned for being a little broken, instead of being repaired, charged too slowly. On the other hand, once it finished, it would run reliably for a long time. You couldn't say that about a lot of things these days.
He silently promised the inanimate object that he'd make the repairs eventually. When it finished, he didn't turn it on right away. First he carried it to the free access point that had a place where you could loiter about all day, even if it was halfway across the city.
It turned out that 'Living Jade Empire' really did contain something worth waiting for, but he wished he'd started sooner, because it required a lot of time to obtain when you didn't even have access to VR. Time and money really were interchangeable sometimes, but Shaun had time for now, and someday he'd have the resources to create a good place to return home to.