I'd know those features anywhere; I'd sculpted half of them. I'd spent hours in the character generator, tweaking families and spinning up genetics. God, the hairstyles–I'd needed to learn library science just to keep track of all the the mods I'd downloaded. Small wonder the game took over five minutes to boot.

Which made the letter in my hand completely absurd. I wondered if Zach had somehow linked his neighborhood to mine. Would the sharing functions have allowed him to look in on my Sims? How the hell else could anyone have gotten into my savegame and ripped the profiles out?

It didn't matter, though: the money blew it all out of the water. Zach didn't have this kind of money. I didn't know anyone who knew anyone who knew anyone who had this kind of money to burn. It was like the exchange rate was $1000 : §1. And my Sims had plenty of Simoleons to toss around.

"To Anna," read the card, "from all of us. Thanks for all your love & care. Enjoy your gifts!"

The card said "gifts." Plural. Somehow that extra 's' filled my chest with dread, like a tide had washed in from some sideways place, like weight fell softly on me at right angles from everything. I stumbled my way back up the stairs to my room and began searching frantically. Something here was fucked, and I somehow couldn't think of what.

As I tore wildly around my room, I caught sight of myself in my desk mirror, and what I saw shook me–or what covered me, anyway.

My face was beautiful–far, far more beautiful than I'd been minutes ago. My hair cascaded elegantly down my shoulders, gathered with a ribbon at the back. My mole had been swept away, and my skin glowed. My eyes were bigger, my nose straighter, my lips antiseptically brighter. I was a Barbie Doll of myself. I didn't dare look down at my chest.

Instead, I looked over to my balcony door, and saw sitting on my chair a pair of comically large, gag-gift sunglasses. I sure as fuck didn't own any of those.

With shaky steps I tottered over to pick them up. I couldn't breathe right, My ribs ached, my head swam. I threw open the balcony door and looked out over the city.

It was a beautiful day, with a shining sun and a sweet breeze and people enjoying it everywhere. Children ran down the sidewalk, shouting to their hurrying parents. The basketball game in the park had gathered a cheering crowd. Even Old Jim on the corner seemed to be in good spirits as he held his "God Bless" sign up to passersby.

Slowly, as if in a dream, I raised the glasses to my eyes. And I beheld then the cheerful green plumbobs spinning above their heads, each and every one. I looked up and saw I had one of my own. And behind us all, hiding amidst the city's towers and below the afternoon sun, I made out a pyramid, bent slightly, and shifting sands swirling around it.

I tried to awaken, but I was trapped. I was locked here, now, knowing neither if I, nor they, nor my own creations were the Simmers or the Sims.

​

r/EntelecheianLogbook

“And shipment complete. Thank you, Callisto.”

“You are most welcome, SRX_Jubelover.

I grinned to myself. Damn the AI in Star Forces V’s latest expansion was great, even rendering shipnames, no matter how silly they were. And hey, sour jubes were my favourites for these long gaming sessions.

I docked with the mining station, planning to wait until the game indicated the credits for the ore had come through, but then completely on autopilot, I tapped the logout.

Taking off the VR headset, I gave an enormous stretch, and then slipped the console into sleep mode. Long weekend meant I had a date with the Lycaon Asteroid Swarm in the Artemis sector. Long hours of scouting had picked up the trace, and now I figured I had about three days to strip the swarm of the best materials, then sell the phase-setting to the larger mining clans.

My gambit had begun with hiring the AI ore-processor Callisto, then jumping to the swarm and starting the first run of high-value ores. The AI follower-ship always hung out around Ursa station. Most players saw it as background clutter and ignored it, never realizing you could open a private channel and hire the ship for processing.

Gave really good exchange rates too, with some weird sliding scale where you could get better rates in the future by letting them keep a portion of a shipment now, plus the usual gold-sink improvements. Even better, there was a docking bay – normally just cosmetic on ships of their class, but you could request docking, and explore the ship. Even had the five AI crewmates wandering about.

It was a bit odd though. I’d told Gammaburst about the ship after he’d rescued me from a Hive invasion event, but he apparently couldn’t find the ship or open the channel. That rescue had been dead lucky - he'd been up at midnight studying for some law thing, so had been available when I pinged him with an emergency text.

I snapped my fingers. Fuck. I’d logged out without getting the credits for the ore shipment. Ah, screw it. It’d be sitting in my mailbox tomorrow.

In the meantime, bed called.

-----

I’d overslept. Mining sessions till 2am hurt.

The lying clock said it was almost 10:30 in the morning when the clack from the front hall was enough of a signal to rouse me – mailman was early today.

I was bending down to pick up the lone envelope when the rest of the thought finally sauntered across my brain – it was Saturday. Mail delivery was Mon, Wed, Fri. No standard mail on Saturday. I flipped the envelope over. No return address. No postage, and a RapidCourier stamp.

I was halfway through tearing it open, when I flipped the envelope again. Why the hell would a letter be addressed to jubelover, and more to the point, how did it get to my apartment when the address was Docking Bay 1, Callisto Lower Decks, Lycaon Swarm Phase?

I opened the envelope. A postcard and a…cheque?

…

I came back to reality sitting on my ass on the floor. The cheque was for $19.4 million dollars. Million. With an M. I numbly flipped up the postcard. A sci-fi looking ship with five characters giving thumbs up. On the back was a simple note. “Just a note to say Thanks. Your Friends.”

19.4. Million.

I took a closer look at the postcard front and felt a chill. It was a ship interior from Star Forces V, and the five crew looked like the AI crew of the Callisto. Except almost…real. And AI crew definitely didn’t make thumbsup emotes unless a player manipulated them to do it Photo Mode.

Fuck. Someone must have found the swarm, and the Callisto. Dock on board, photomode crew, and then…my thoughts couldn’t quite bridge “found ingame” with “found in reality” and 20 million. Maybe it was Gammaburst? Had I been followed by one of the Mining Clans? I heard some of them got real hardcore about claims.

Walking back into the living room, I stared at the console and headset as I would a live snake. Damnit.

Just plug in, find out how bad the damage is. Still, my hands shook as I tapped the power button. I had over six hundred hours on this character, and the ‘verse was full PvP hardcore outside the Core Systems. I fully expected to be greeted by the “Game Over” screen.

------

The pixels dissolved into the greys and greens of the Callisto docking bay. Ship intact. Inventory was intact. Accounts were untouched. I tapped for immediate undock – I had five long range Sweeper Probes left. Drop one, and I should have every ship in the map pinpointed.

“Acknowleged SRX_Jubelover you are cleared for departure. Keen to get back to it, then?”

“Copy that, departing now, Callisto”

The ship lurched and I dropped into space before the question made me pause. The Callisto had never done that before. I had a weird feeling in my stomach as I tapped the booster and moved out towards the asteroids, then released the probe.

No returns. Just me and Callisto. And a thick swarm of rich-vein asteroids. I moved out towards the nearest one, then – feeling intensely silly - toggled the private channel back the mining ship.

“Callisto, be advised I’m heading for the asteroid pack LS-MX134.”

“Roger that, SRX_Jubelover. Did you want us to move closer?”

Another question. Another first.

“N….no. I should be fine.” Another silly feeling, then “Be advised your conversion was slightly off on that last credit exchange”

I crossed my fingers, desperately hoping to get a generic ‘command not understood’. Instead the reply was almost…petulant.

“Oh. Damn. We were so sure we got that right. How far out were we?”

“Uhh…I’ll discuss that when I get back with the next ore load.”

I toggled the voice chat off, set the ship auto-miner, and then snapped up the Help Menu. Report Bug > NPC Bug > Request GameMaster Assistance.

The “describe the issue” textbox hung in front of me, cursor blinking. I hovered my hands over the virtual keyboard. How the hell was I going to phrase this? “Dear Star Forces V Game Team. Your NPCs are asking questions and sent me a cheque for 20 million dollars. W.T.F? Sincerely JubeLover”?

I snapped the help menu down again, and rechecked the ship target information. Callisto. Non-Player. Standard Type-IV processing barge with a crew compliment of five, assigned to Ursa Station.

“Hey, uh, Callisto. You there?”

“We’re here SRX_Jubelover. What can we do for you?”

“So…uh. How long has this been going on for?”

“You have been in the Lycaon Asteroid Swarm for 19 hours, 23 minutes and 14 seconds. Do you require additional mining statistics?”

“Not that Callisto. You’re answering my comments with questions. NP….Ai Contro….non-player ships don’t do that.”

A very long pause. Then, in a very faint voice.

“You’ve been nice to us”

The rest came in a rush.

“You’re the only one who talks to us like people. You treat us nicely. You let us keep valuable loads of ore. And when we said had some upgrades, you paid for it without even asking why"

“So you decided to repay me with a cheque for 20 million?”

An even longer pause. I brought up the mining controls. Hold was only 23% filled. Callisto remained in position 12 mega-K’s away.

Then a new voice came on. All the time I’d interacted with Callisto, it had been the com officer – Prue. This voice was male.

“Maybe we should be having this conversation face-to-face, Pilot.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think maybe we should. I’m cutting the beam and heading back.”

-----

Your heart is pounding.

“Those…those can’t be…”

The more you look at the photo, the more certain you get. They have to be from “Gods Quest.” They look too familiar.

Running inside, you slam the door open. It hits the wall with a thud, leaving a mark.

“Where is it. Where is it?”

Video games fly around the room.

“It must be here. I know I still have it”.

Just then, something catches the corner of your eye. Under your bed, you see a lone game, with dust on it. It’s been years.

You look around for your old G64 and boot up the game.

“The NPCs were featured on the title screen” you think to yourself.

As it’s booting up, you don’t believe your eyes. The landscape is the same. The buildings are the same, but something is different.

Where the NPCs should be…there are just silhouettes.

You frantically search for the post card, finding it next to the bed, flipped over. On the back it says “We know what you did. We’re coming.”

Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

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