An alarm blasting annoyingly as Janet woke up. She rubbed her eyes, contemplating whether she should finally get rid of the alarm clock. A memento of a love long gone, wanting to wake up earlier so they could work out. Self-improvement he said, getting healthier and happier he said. Maybe he should have tried to improve himself by not cheating. She stared at the alarm clock for a while longer before she got up, dressed, downed a coffee and some quick food and left for work, shivering her breath fogging up the air she walked to her car. Fucking winter.

"Hey, Janet. How are you today?" Spoke an overly chipper voice, Janet turned her head and locked her dead eyes with the glowing smile of her next door neighbour. She internalised a smile as she held the other woman's gaze for several moments, she briefly entertained the idea of just getting in her car and driving away, not going to work, not coming home and not dealing with this lady's shit. Just driving into the unknown, living free. The American dream.

"I'm fantastic Linda, how are you?" She winced in shame, she was nothing if not a follower.

"Oh you know, can't complain. Are you going to work?" No, Linda, I like waking up at 6 am to drive around town for no reason before returning home 8 hours later, where do you think I'm going?!

"Yes, you know how it is." Janet smiled warmly as she screamed inside. The conversation petered out after some passive aggressive comments that implied Janet should marry. She sat down on the ice like leather of her car seats and shivered until the heating kicked in. Pulling out of her driveway in a damaged getz she drove through a beat-up neighbourhood, watching at least three felonies on her way to work.

When she finally arrived it was several minutes late, she had, had to wait in traffic. Some soccer mum had rear-ended someone and was making a show and holding up the main street. She walked up the spartan hallways, at least here she wasn't expected to greet anyone. Reaching her desk she slumped down and threw her head over the back of her chair. Looking upside down at the myriad of encouraging posters that smothered the concrete walls of the office building.

"Janet, wake the fuck up, you're on the clock." Her boss hissed from his office down the hall. A sigh managed to pass the borders of her mouth as she sat up and forced a freezing earpiece into her ear and began to start her job.

"Customer service how may I help you today?" She said, imitating Linda to the best of her ability. It was a skill she had developed to get the proper cadence for feigned interest.

"Ugh, yeah I would like to report a bug or a hacker. Yesterday someone in the desert regions managed to gain both the miracle and world leader achievements. And I believe that this should be impossible within the first day of the game's release." A snort at the end of the statement punctuated it, fucking gamers. She worked at a call centre for the most recent and first ever full VR game. Something the developers had made in preparation to the game as they had anticipated a large number of bugs. Janet had first excepted the job as she had imagined gamers to be too socially awkward to call in large numbers, free money for little work. She had grossly underestimated the vindictive and argumentative power of a disenfranchised nerd.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"Alright, your complaint has been noted let me check with or analysts to see whether or not it is a valid complaint. If you wouldn't mind I am required to put you on hold as I do so." After receiving a grunt of confirmation she smashed the hold button and rubbed her eyes again before yelling into the office space about the complaint. Truth be told she had no idea who checked these complaints or made sure of them only that they always responded to her yells and that they were situated at the far left side of the room. Also, they had done a shit tone of work during the Beta and Alpha phases of development. Around five minutes later she received a response.

"Nah, some guy in quadrant 4592 just, apparently managed to trigger the damsel in distress quest and then defeat the dungeon that spawned from it with a dust storm spell. Lucky bastard, no idea how he managed to do it but it checks out. Bastard is going to be rich." She was about to respond to the caller, except one word had caught her ear, a special word. The word rich.

"Rich, what do you mean?" She was slightly nervous as she asked, this was the first time they had spoken two or more times to one another. A break from the monotony at least.

"You don't know? The points or experience in the game have a real-world value. The kid who owns the account just made the equivalent of over $120,000 or thereabouts in one day." He sounded incredulous, and truth be told so was Janet. She didn't let it show and resumed conversation with the complainer that she still had on the line.

"Sorry for the wait. It seems that this was achieved through completely legitimate means, the player managed to defeat a very high-level dungeon." She resumed the fake voice.

"You're telling me that someone managed to defeat a legendary dungeon on the first day of release?!" Janet didn't know what a legendary dungeon was or if this was a significant achievement, but she was just about done with this call.

"Yes." Then she hung up. It got her thinking, however, $120,000 in a day, that was more than she made in a year. Maybe she should try this game. Yeah, that could be fun. At least more so than this. Janet stared accusatorily at the posters behind her one last time before resuming work, it was going to be a long day.