Just a Game

Before the Game [Producer Side]

The airship chugged lazily in circles against the backdrop of purple-and-orange skies, pink exhaust trailing behind, forming puffy cotton-candy clouds that drifted down the way fallen leaves did. A small girl in twin braids who happened to be standing underneath caught a piece and devoured it.

Bryce briefly wondered if that was healthy, but he had more pressing matters on his mind than to bother about virtual children snacking on virtual airship exhaust. He was on a mission, a mission spying on enemy headquarters to be exact, and it wouldn't do to get distracted right now. He needed to concentrate on the man he was following. It wasn't difficult, mind you, for the man was terribly flashy, with purple anime eyes and a gigantic set of wings that were slightly lopsided. Bryce chuckled to himself. Whoever was in charge of the artwork in that Guild was definitely not very detail-oriented. He was glad that at least his Guild had capable designers. They made his in-game character look much better than he himself ever would in real life. At least, unlike his real life self, his in-game character wasn't obese—

Beep.

Bryce cursed. Yanking off his virtual reality headset, he squinted at his digital watch that doubled as phone, heart monitor, and calorie counter. Four a.m. Damn, break-time was over.

Without the VR headset everything looked grim on the dimly-lit roof of the drab, small-town building. The night sky was devoid of emotion and devoid of stars. Bryce trudged toward the stairs, absent-mindedly placing the headset into his bag. It cost him two whole months' salary, but it was a good investment in his opinion. It brought him about as close as one could get to the virtual worlds that existed only in his favorite games. Too bad he was still able to hear and feel the real world going by when wearing it.

Perhaps, one day, there would be a device that could truly immerse players in game worlds. He would not only be able to watch in-game children eat cotton candy, but also taste it, smell it himself. He would be able to touch the soft, sticky pink floof and feel his own steps on the pebbled road, instead of being very well aware that despite everything he was still on the roof of his company building and not in a dreamy orange-skied city.

The uneven tiles on the floor of the roof were barely visible and Bryce cursed yet again when he got caught off guard by a stray loose tile, which as soon as it was stepped on sent a jet of sticky water flying all over Bryce's only good pair of work trousers. The hidden puddle had probably accumulated underneath it from the shower the evening before.

Bryce's boss, Mrs. Hunt, didn't really care about the condition of his trousers, that was true, so it wouldn't matter whether they were dirty or not. Mrs. Hunt, executive of tiny game developer Lazy Weasel, had very little interest in what her employees wore. She herself regularly came to work in sweats. Her main concern was making money, which was why her employees worked around the clock, often to the point that they had to stay at the company overnight. This was one of these nights. Short smoking breaks were allowed, yes, and that was how Bryce found himself on the company roof, trying to squeeze in a little bit of quality gaming time, but that only ended too quickly and Bryce knew that if he didn't head downstairs back to work soon Mrs. Hunt would bite his head off.

Bryce never liked Mrs. Hunt. She was always barking orders at her tiny team of ten and constantly sending the newer recruits (Bryce was one) on coffee errands. She would mass-text everyone in the middle of the night purely because she knew it would annoy them. Sometimes she would leave the office for personal reasons (probably afternoon tea with friends, Bryce supposed) and arrive back way after closing time so the whole company had to sit around waiting for her to return just because if they locked the door she wouldn't be able to retrieve the designer handbag that she left in the office.