“You’re not listening!” Nate growled.

  “I’ll listen when you have something useful to say.” I pushed past him and continued walking down the office hallway.

  Nate must’ve reasoned that if he lowered his tone and attempted to stand up straight for the first time in his life, maybe he could get his asinine point across.

  But I had bigger issues than my babbling brother trying to cut off my path to the Connection Hub. As I walked, I slid on my suit coat. I glanced at the hallway clock. If I allowed one more minute of this chump’s maneuvering, I’d be late for the crowning moment of my career.

  As I wove through hordes of my employees, Nate followed me, continuing to jabber. “You said I never have anything useful to say, but—”

  “Nate, you never did have any sense for timing. We’re about to go live, and we’re about to make Scrooge McDuck money with no end in sight.” To no one in particular, I announced, “The lone IP is dead, folks.”

  “Erik,” Nate barked, and I stopped midstride to glare at him.

  “Come again?”

  He hesitated. “We’re brothers. Are you really gonna make me call you… that?”

  “I am your boss, Nate.”

  “Fine, Mr. Shaw,” he corrected, and I continued walking. He followed. “For once, just listen. I’m not the only one who’s expressed concerns about the network and the governing AI. It’s not ready. Besides, if we had more time, we could get the full rights to these IPs. Just another two months of testing would do it. I’ve worked with it for these last two years and—”

  “It’s ready,” I asserted.

  “Mr. Shaw! Mr. Shaw?” a woman called.

  “Wait!” another woman’s voice, more familiar, called. “He’s about to go live. You can’t just—wait! Oh, please wait!”

  I glanced back to whatever fresh hell awaited, but I saw heaven instead. A gorgeous blonde in skin-tight jeans, a black blazer, and black-rimmed glasses hurried over to me. My PA—whose name I couldn’t remember for the life of me—waddled after her, meaning this chick didn’t have an appointment.

  But she was a ten, so she’d get ten seconds.

  The woman approached me with a tablet and concern on her perfect face. My PA stumbled after her in those ridiculous heels, complete with wraps and claps suffocating her kankles. Her expression said she knew she was getting fired.

  “Mr. Shaw, I’m from the Tech and Development team,” the hot blonde said. “We’ve never met.”

  “Oh, I know that. I’d remember you.” I let my gaze wander her shape—all of them—because boy howdy, they were all great. Tech nerds who looked like her were rarer than Nate attempting a pull-up or getting a date.

  Ten seconds wasn’t long enough, I decided. I was enjoying myself, so we could delay the launch juuuust a bit longer.

  She ignored my gratuitous gaze. “My name’s Sydney. You can’t go live right now.”

  Nate thrust his little bird arms into the air. “That’s what I’ve been saying!”

  “The lady is talking, Nate. Shut up.” I didn’t even bother to look at him as I said it. No reason to take my eyes off the marvelous creature in front of me.

  Sydney tossed her long hair over her shoulder and adjusted her glasses. “Sir, hear me out. The governing AI, Lucretia, is not ready.”

  My eye twitched at the name, but I didn’t respond otherwise.

  Sydney continued, “It’s showing a disturbing lack of critical distinctions. This could lead to a catastrophe with our new body pods and the stream-of-consciousness in the game world, among many other things we can’t even account for. It’s not safe at all.”

  I folded my arms across my chest, primarily to treat Sydney to the gun show through my perfectly fitted suit. Tech nerds worrying about tech-nerd-crap ranked even lower on my list of concerns than Nate’s personal life. I’d hoped Sydney had something better to bring to the table.

  “We’ve tested it multiple times, and there’s no indication of ‘frozen consciousness’ or that such a state is or would be permanent. It’s a game, people—a game. Legally, you cannot argue otherwise. Our attorneys have won every court challenge against Ascendant Games thus far. Believe me—I pay all the legal fees.”

  Nate huffed at that, but I continued, unfazed.

  “If these—I’ll be generous and call them people—want to waste their lives in a digital reality, that’s their business and my profit. We’re just creating the market and empowering an AI to manage that market.”

  Indignation crossed Sydney’s pretty face, really bringing out the aquamarine in her eyes. “Ignoring your morally repugnant attitude, that’s only part of it. People’s lives could be at risk. Lucretia is simultaneously more advanced than we knew, yet she can’t distinguish between reality and the digital world we’ve created. It’s called the AllVerse, and Lucretia truly thinks everything is the AllVerse.

  “We can’t get her—it—to distinguish between the game and the real world. The entire team is scared it won’t allow itself to be shut down and that it will exert more control than it’s designed to. You’ve built an expressway with insufficient guardrails, and now the traffic’s about to careen off the first cliff. We’ve brought this up multiple times, but you kept pushing for a faster release.”

  I furrowed my brow. “First, Nate, what does ‘repugnant’ mean?”

  “It means—”

  “Ugh, never mind.” I waved him away, but as usual, he didn’t leave. “I can’t believe I asked you. Most of the time, I’m amazed you even remember your own name. Second, Sydney, why don’t you share these concerns with me over dinner?”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  I flashed her my trademark Erik Shaw smile.

  Her fantastic bow-shaped lips curled with a frown, seemingly immune to my charms. Not even that was a bad look on her, though.

  Sydney set her jaw. “This is serious. Don’t. Go. Live. We can reschedule. We need to shut this down right now.”

  I straightened my suit coat. Though she was a ten, postponing was no longer an option. I couldn’t trash the AllVerse launch solely on the pretty-solid-almost-inevitable chance I’d score with her.

  Priorities. It was the one helpful thing Dad had ever taught me. Wish he’d listened to his own advice. Maybe then the real Lucretia would still be around.

  Besides, as far as I knew, Nate had roped her into his little coup. Little weasel. This whole thing reeked worse than his Hatchet body spray.

  “Sydney, relax. This is happening,” I said. “Although thanks to you, I’ll be slightly late, so you did officially delay the launch, which was your goal. Huzzah, bravo, cheers and celebration. Now…”

  I glanced at my PA and genuinely tried to remember her name. It’s very important to me to use someone’s name when I fire them. They need to know it’s personal.

  I remember a K?

  “Karen…”

  Her eyes flashed with pain, and her voice filled with disappointment. “It’s Kathrine. I’ve worked for you for over a year…”

  “I was close. Well, good grief, put on some makeup or something.” I waved my hand over her whole face and shoulder region. “Fix… whatever you’ve got going on here. Maybe then you’ll be memorable.”

  Tears formed in her eyes, and it took all of my considerable gym-bro strength not to laugh in her sad droopy face.

  “You drove me to it, Kathrine. You’re fired. I thought Sydney had a genuine concern, like what nights I’m free this week. You’re supposed to vet out nonsense. Since you can’t even handle that… goodbye. Sydney, you wanna grab dinner and drinks, find me. Otherwise, do your job.” I checked my Excalibur body monitor watch, an eighty-grand piece and one of my favorites. “I gotta go.”

  Nate dared to step in front of me. “Erik, please! The whole company is at stake, and—”

  CLAP.

  I clasped his shoulder just hard enough to send the point home—and maybe enough to leave a couple of finger-sized brotherly bruises. What was the benefit of training grip strength if you never used it?

  “Now you listen to me very carefully,” I said, voice low and threatening. “You had two months before we announced the launch to bring this or any other issues to my attention. Instead, you waited until the day of the launch ceremony to try to make me look bad. You didn’t want to do any actual work to get where I am, so you arranged this.”

  A dumb, wide-eyed expression crossed his face.

  “I know the rumors you’ve been spreading and the game you’re playing. I also know the maneuvering you’ve been trying with the cryptocurrency and company stock behind my back. But it’s not gonna work.”

  Nate gulped and frowned. Not for the first time, I wondered how this guy was my flesh and blood. We were nothing alike, either in personality or appearance.

  “I—I, that’s not…” he stammered.

  I leaned in and tightened my grip, a reminder that I could snap him over my knee like a dry twig if I wanted to. He cringed and physically crumpled under the pressure.

  “As if a basement-dwelling incel like you could ever be like me. And even though you’re my older brother, Nate…” I used his name, because this was personal. “…you’re still fired.

  He gawked at me.

  I released him and gave him a wide smile and a quick pat on his shoulder. “Don’t fret about it. You’ll be hilariously rich by the time the launch is done. Not as rich as me, but way better than if you didn’t own a small piece of this company. Now, I’d remove you myself, but I’m late for my own party, and I make too much money to bother.”

  While Nate attempted to process what had just happened, I motioned with my chin to a pair of security officers nearby. Then I left them all behind and power-walked to the Connection Hub.

  From behind, Sydney shouted something, but I intentionally didn’t catch it. The launch was set, we were moving forward, and that’s all there was to it. We’d squash any bugs as they popped up, no problem, like I’d just done with my two-timing cockroach of a brother.

  Sydney must go to the gym. You don’t get thighs and hips like hers by accident, I mused as I walked. Kinda mouthy, though.

  The Connection Hub at the top of our Ascendant Games headquarters offered a panoramic view of Seaboard City and the crystalline ocean beyond, yet above it all. If my office view weren’t even better, I’d just work in here.

  State-of-the-art body pods sat in the room, the only feasible way to access the AllVerse. I’d use one of these digital caskets once, and only once. I had better things to do than waste my valuable time in a stupid video game, even if it was the “Ultimate Gaming Experience,” or UGE, as our marketing department had branded it.

  The body pod tech, Brandon, nodded to me.

  “Yo, Brando. We all good?” I actually liked Brandon; he did his job and put out fires without complaining, and that was enough for me to remember his name, though sometimes I preferred to call him “Brando” instead. Or most of the time. Or every time.

  Anyway, I wished all my employees were more like him.

  Brandon tapped the techpad in his hand. “It’s Brandon, sir, and we’ve waited about as long as we can. The number of people logged in is insane, way higher than projections. I daresay we could cross a billion by the time your speech concludes, yet the servers are holding steady thanks to Lucretia.”

  “Excellent.” I glanced at the body pod, which hissed open like a gaping technical maw. The inside was lined with lights and circuits and screens. I thumbed my coat lapels. “It won’t wrinkle the suit, will it?”

  “You, uh… you’ll need to take it off. Didn’t you know? You have to wear one of these, or it won’t register you in the game.”

  He clapped the techpad into a super-nerd holster at his side and picked up a monstrosity of a haptic body suit. All along its surface, sensors blinked like lights on an incel Christmas tree.

  Brandon pulled his shirt down, revealing another one under his clothes. “I’ll hop in after you to help run things behind the scenes with the tech team.”

  He extended the suit to me.

  I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. I’d hoped to avoid having to actually put one of these things on, but it would make for good publicity, and good publicity would make me even more money. “Whatever. It’s just once. You got a hanger?”

  To my surprise and delight, he produced one.

  See? That’s why I remembered Brandon’s name… his first name, anyway.

  As I shed my suit coat and dress shirt, he opened his mouth to speak but stayed silent. With no time to change in privacy, I stripped down to my silk boxers right there. I worked hard to look the way I did, so I was never self-conscious. That was for lesser men.

  Brandon sighed. “Uh, not to be weird, sir, but what do you do to look like that?”

  “It’s no mystery. Eat clean and lift heavy.” I gestured to the body pod. “The problem with most people is they’re wasting their life in these things instead of working out or being productive with their time. Everybody wants what’s hard to achieve, but almost no one actually does anything about it. It’s way easier to play mindless video games.”

  Brandon gave a half-hearted nod but didn’t say anything. Fortunately, he had the good sense not to comment on the scar under the left side of my ribcage. I wouldn’t have discussed it anyway.

  I stretched the haptic suit over my six-foot-three, two-hundred-pound frame—at eight percent body fat, thank you very much. The blinking sensors sent a familiar pulse through my body, and I grimaced.

  “You’ve been in digital reality before, right?”

  “A long time ago. Haven’t in years.” I tried not to think about the last time I’d donned one of these nightmare suits. “And I never will again after this.”

  “There’s a few things—”

  “No time, Brando.” I crawled into the body pod and lay flat.

  “Brandon, sir.” He blinked. “Alrighty. You’ll be granted priority access to the AllVerse, and your dedication and speech will be viewable by all who are logged in. Then, insert the Keystone into the podium and turn it, and Lucretia and the AllVerse will go live, just like we planned.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I remember the details.” I waved at him. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  The pod closed, shutting out all light and sensory input. I waited in the blackness, finally about to see years of hard work, business deals, negotiations, blood, sweat, and tears come to fruition.

  Rickshaw Riot chapters will be posted every weekday. If you don't want to wait, follow us on Patreon:

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  Dungeon Crawler Carl Audio Immersion Tunnel for Soundbooth Theater, and he's the lead writer for the Dungeon Crawler Carl Role Playing Game.