To others, an unmarked package containing a short note, unlabeled thumb drive, and what appeared to be an overly elaborate headset might be a literally mystery box. Knowing Winston as well as Colton did, the mystery box was instead a glaring 50-foot-tall neon sign blaring out their purpose. Understanding how Winston would be able to easily deduce out the package's purpose was easy once one understood their friendship and what made each of them unique.

Their friendship was one that, at least on paper, shouldn't work out. While neither was antagonistic to the interests of the other, those places where their interests overlap tended to be very limited, and when their interests did overlap, the level of enthusiasm each displayed varied greatly.

One might be tempted to call Colton a “jack off all trades,” but such a title tends to imply a high-level of skill among a wide range of tasks or jobs. Unfortunately, Colton simply lacked the motivation to truly become more than passably skilled with any given task. For this reason, there were an uncountable number of things that Colton had taken on as hobbies or money-making opportunities that were either discarded, or revisited on an extremely infrequent basis. Such endeavors include:

* Colton’s previously mentioned personal training certification ensured he could technically claim to be a certified trainer, but his own level of physical fitness and those of his occasional client was unlikely to ever surpass the “couch potato that began training for a 5k three months ago” stage. His own lifestyle of frequently riding his bike and grabbing a gig here and there that required physical exertion, along with a diet that not particularly healthy was at least sparse in calories, ensured that he stayed mostly lean with a decent amount of muscle tone. It was unlikely Men’s Health would ever knock on his door for a cover shoot.

* Receiving an old acoustic guitar as payment for a job when a client admitted to not having the promised $100 for a week of dog walking briefly awakened the sleeping rock god in Colton. Not wanting to immediately sell it for a pittance, he entertained brief notions of busking in the park during sunny days. After a few months of 2-3 hours a week spent watching YouTube videos and other free online resources, Colton was surprisingly enough able to play passable versions of songs like “Save Tonight” by Eagle Eye Cherry, “Where is my Mind,” by The Pixies, “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen, and a few other songs that had extremely simplified tablature someone had posted online. Between the exponential increase in difficult form “beginner” to

* Besides a year and a half as a full-time student and his notary course, Colton still regularly took classes at the local community college. Much like his never-applied-for Associate’s Degree, none of these classes were part of any long-term career trajectory. Instead, they represented blips of interest and low commitment for completion on his part. Over the past decade+, Colton had taken classes in first aid, archery, a wide range of physical education classes, basic computer science courses like Introduction to Excel or Python Basics, military history, creative writing, cooking, and several others. At this point, between the in-person and online classes, on a pure credit base Colton probably had enough credits to equal a Masters Degree, although the classes he took rarely reached, and never exceeded, the 200 level.

* By following step-by-step guides and YouTube videos, Colton had managed a small but semi-persistent trade in repaired electronics. In particular, older video game consoles found at yard sales, second hand stores, and occasionally outright discarded in the trash were projects Colton found himself able to focus on for the few days it generally took him to get them into generally fully-functional states. While he never did a true full restoration of these devices (such as cleaning the yellowing that occurred on the SNES console), 2-4 days along with occasionally having to purchase a critical part for repair online meant he had a console that he could play for a couple weeks, before flipping his generally low investment into $100-200 if he was lucky.

A comprehensive review of every interest Colton briefly entertained, or gig that earned him some spending money, could be the subject of an entire biography. Ultimately, Colton’s impetus could ultimately be summed up as a surface-level interest in nearly anything, but an inability to invest large amounts of effort or interest in any single subject for the slightest period of time.

Winston was the polar opposite. Interested in almost nothing, his foray into college was even shorter than Colton’s, and marked by abysmal grades as he would just stop showing up to nearly all classes. If you asked him why he attended at all, he would be very honest in saying that he attended college for no other reason than his parents paid for him to go, and covered his meagre expenses for as long as he was a full-time student. This would briefly ensure he could put off getting a job that he would almost certainly be even less interested in than college.

What did interesting Winston was video games. In fact, Colton knew that if he was not currently at home, then he was almost certainly taking part in, and probably winning, a local video game competition. Winston dove into video games in the same way that Michael Phelps dove into a swimming pool. Not only did he have a natural talent, but once he was playing a game, he could not help but begin dissecting the mechanics and finding every possible exploit or advantage. Colton required the time they had sat down and watched the 1989 movie “The Wizard,” and rather than identifying with titular wizard character, instead immediately did things like notice the mistakes made when playing Ninja Gaiden. Another important distinction is that while Colton was certain his friend was probably diagnosable with something or other, he did not lack an ability to clearly communicate with others or any odd verbal ticks, he just could not bring himself to care much about interacting with others more than necessary.

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Even amongst the two lifelong friends, their conversations were surprisingly sparse. Often when Colton would fix a more niche console, they would spend some spare time loading up and playing some nearly forgotten cartridge, with Winston quickly identifying the quickest ways to victory and pointing out all the ways Colton could improve his playstyle. Such advice was never mean spirited or even a criticism, simply advice that he would give out to anyone he would observe playing a video game.

By all rights Winston should be a millionaire video game streamer if such things were awarded based purely on skill alone. Certainly, there were people that were better at specific games, but those were usually people that had obsessively played a single game for years. Colton was nearly certain that when it came to mastering any video game quickly, Winston was one of, if not the, best players in the world. The problem was not in skill, the problem is that he was immensely dull while playing. A successful streaming career almost always required something to engage the audience other than pure video game skill. Snappy banter, an intriguing personal life, entertaining tidbits about the video game being played, or generous feminine endowments were usually needed to capture audience’s attention, and Winston was unable or unwilling to provide any of these during his streams.

A small income did trickle in from his streams as he did manage to create a reputation for himself and minimal fanbase, but it consisted of nothing more than him turning on and then obsessively playing for hours with no dialogue or audience interaction. Even chess matches or gold tournaments have judges or commentators providing feedback to the audience when there’s a dearth of activity.

He was able to supplement his feeble twitch stream by participating in pretty much every gaming tournament in a 100-mile radius, of which there were a surprising amount. While he did not win every competition he entered, he nearly always placed high enough to take home some monetary prizes. The prizes were usually minimal, a $25 gift certificate for runner-up, $100 for the winner, free hamburger at a chain restaurant, but they did slightly add up. Sometimes the competition allowed him to play multiple games or participate in multiple categories, meaning he could take home multiple prizes for a day of playing video games, which he would ultimately have done anyways.

The bulk of his income was ultimately made in the larger national or even international competitions. His rate of winning was ultimately substantially lower than local and regional tournaments since the winners were ultimately those individuals who played a single game obsessively for months and year on end, but win he did routinely do. While more infrequent, these prizes added up much quicker as they were frequently in the thousands or even tens of thousands.

The small amount of celebrity he gained also provided one final income stream: unofficial video game tester. While never on an official payroll, and probably renumerated poorly because of that fact, many programmers and develops new of Winston as someone that could provide an unparalleled level of quality assurance testing. He could find exploits where an army of other testers failed. More importantly, while uninterested in human engagement himself, he could point out what potentially players would and would not find engaging in the games he tested.

It was this last job that provided the necessary hints leading to Colton’s hypothesis on the purpose of the mystery package. A long, detailed note requesting assistance would ultimately be unnecessary as Winston would be unlikely to reading anything beyond the single “we need your help” sentence. The lack of a return address or label on the thumb drive would ensure the likelihood of this extremely early access copy of the game being intercepted or the contest being easily identifiable was minimal.

The headset was the oddest part, but not out-of-line with current technology. While most haptic feedback devices gained much market traction, and Elon Musk’s neuralink chips never got beyond lobotomizing primates, there had been some recent in non-invasive neural feedback that had become incredibly light and non-obtrusive. These devices usually sat on a person’s head, and after some initial feedback and response, could provide basic sensations like breezes, scents, or very, very minimal pain.

The design of the headset seemed odd, appearing to be made of precious metals and stones rather than plastic and embedded circuitry. This was probably easily explained as well as a marketing gimmick for what was certainly a fantasy game, and they decided to model the headset to resemble something an in-game character might wear to boost their stats. While such flourishes would be unlikely to impress Winston, Colton could definitely see it gathering some potential customers’ attention.

Colton had decided that what he held in his hand was some beta version of a video game Winston was being asked to test. The only real mystery is whether he should borrow his roommates much more powerful gaming computer to give the game a spin before Winston came home.

Of course he should…