The pimply man took off his VR headset and placed it back on its charging station. His phone vibrated in his pocket.

“Hey Jonas, what are you doing?! You know we’re not allowed phones on, on the floor!” His colleague chastised him.

“I know, I know, but it’s mother. She’ll worry if I don’t reply. Besides, we’re done for the day,” he tapped on his phone.

“Psst! Incoming,” his colleague warned, “it’s Brendan.”

He sent his message and pocketed his phone in one smooth motion. “Jonas!” a fat man with far too many rolls in his neck called out.

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“Oh, hi Brendan!” His sweaty palms betrayed his calm voice, so he wiped them on his pants, hoping no one would notice.

“We need you and the other testers to login to the live environment, immediately.”

He reeled in response, “Huh, I can’t. I told my friend I’d game with him tonight,” he looked toward the exit. Two men in black suits and sunglasses he had never seen before, stood at the door.

His superior leered at him, “Don’t worry, you’ll all be getting double-time-and-a-half, it’s already been approved.”

“Approved at what level?”

“The top.”

His eyes lit up. “What could be so important?”

Brendan stroked his fat rolls. “We’ve lost all visual connectivity with the game…”

“What? That doesn’t make any sense. Has the servers’ shutdown?”

“The game is still running, but we’ve all of the controls,” Jonas noticed Brendan’s pupils flicker to the top right of his eyes before he continued. “We need you to figure out why…”

“Ok… sure…” Jonas whipped his phone out and fired another text to his mother and one to his friend, apologising for not being able to game tonight.

“And turn that phone off.” Brendan grumbled, waddling off past the suited men.