After she exhausted his entire supply of metals, Maya thanked the smith for his generosity, gave him her extra lower-quality crafted items as promised, and assured him she'd return soon. Then she returned to the mage academy, headed straight to her room, saved the game, and logged out of World 9352.

99730, she thought firmly, and the universe view whizzed past until it centered on a small icy world with a hole burned straight through it, magma dripping out from the center, sending steam billowing up in huge clouds visible from space.

Maya frowned. Wasn’t this supposed to be a high-tech communications hub? Maybe she’d remembered the number wrong?

She focused back on 9352, loaded in, checked her journal, and sighed. Yep. She was an idiot.

77930. She’d reversed the digits. Alright, try this again. 77930, 77930.

There it was. A glittering omnitropolis, a neon city-world that looked like it belonged in any of the great space epics.

She smiled, and mentally tapped it.

World full. Current estimated wait time: 77 minutes. Join queue?

“Yes.”

She wasn’t sure if she could safely log into 9352 while she waited, so she instead tapped its sister-world, 77931, deep green and gleaming with countless patches of light in greens and purples.

World full. Current estimated wait time: 40 minutes. Join queue?

“Sure, why not.”

She didn’t know of any other worlds that might have internet connectivity. She supposed she could start joining at random? But, no. Then she’d have to go through character creation, and she’d get distracted, caught up in it …

Well, why not? She didn’t have anything better to do.

No, no. If she could log into other worlds, she could log back into her homeworld. And if she couldn’t do that, she shouldn’t start something new anywhere else.

She wished she had a body to pace with, mentally pacing wasn’t nearly as satisfying. It was more like swiping side to side in an app than actual movement. For all the flying around the universe she did, it always felt more like she was remaining stationary while the universe flew around her.

Time ceased to exist as she browsed through world after world after world, constantly astonished by the variety and creativity on display. Some worlds were exact replicas of Earth. A lot of them, actually, though with a few significant changes from the Earth she’d known. A lot of the same changes, which made her wonder. Replicas of the moon also featured heavily, as did another larger earthlike planet she didn’t recognize.

She noticed a few worlds that seemed recreated from various games, books, or movies. She suspected rather more than she could make out probably were, but from media she didn’t know and thus wouldn’t recognize.

It felt strange to suddenly realize that everything she’d grown up reading or watching was public domain now, and had been for centuries. Probably most of what she’d consider popular or widespread was completely forgotten by now. She didn’t know how to feel about that.

She spent some time fiddling with the interface, figured out how to designate World 9352 as a favourite, found the friend list integration panel - which showed that Player 11849-822-3 was currently offline, while Player 27893-598 was currently playing as Volo Warrior on World 9352.

Curious, she searched for world 11849. It turned out to be another fantasy planet, she assumed as there was no indication of modern cities, ringed with a massive mountain range on one side and a vast forest on the other, green valleys between. She didn’t know what she’d expected to find, but it didn’t shed any light on the mystery of the stranger in her friend list.

Notice: World 77931 has 1 available slot open. It has been reserved for you for the next 5 minutes.

Maya switched to 77931 at once. The character creator was vastly different from the one on 9352, but she didn’t really care so accepted the default selections and logged in as quickly as possible. There were no stats to assign or a class selection, just the physical appearance.

The world appeared around her, a vast spreading canopy of an endless forest above which she hovered unsupported.

Maya panicked and flailed, but she wasn’t falling. Just hovering. Gradually, her instinctive fear subsided, though her heart was still racing. She looked around for anyone to talk to, but she seemed to be hovering alone.

“Menu—” she started to say, but before the word was even begun, her vision filled with a menu like a desktop with dozens of icons that probably meant something to normal people but none of which she recognized. “Uh, internet—”

“Internet is currently active. Do you want to turn it off?”

Maya spun, and found a glowing purple globe of energy hovering behind her. “Who are you?”

“Assistant.”

“Ah. Nice to meet you. I’m looking for Andrew Stader, I think he may be on World 01. Is there any way to get a message to him?”

“There are currently twenty seven thousand, thirty nine players with the name Andrew Stader. Four thousand, six hundred eighty seven of them are currently online. None are on world zero one. Who would you like to contact?”

A list appeared, replacing the desktop in her vision. It began with Andrew Stader: world 0137, and went up as high as Andrew Stader: world 342998. Her heart sank. How was she supposed to sort through all these people to find the one that was actually her brother? If he wasn't on world 01, he could be anywhere.

"Is there any way to find someone based on when they were placed in the database? Do people have a universal number or something?"

"It is against current ethics laws to track or discriminate based on upload date. Therefore, Otherworlds does not maintain any record of such information."

"So there's no way to narrow it down? No way to find my Drew?"

"There are eight hundred fourteen players named My Drew, two hundred eleven of whom are currently online. None are on world zero one."

Maya faltered. She hadn’t really believed it would be this easy, but she’d held out hope that somehow things would turn out to be simple. Or at least possible.

But either Drew wasn’t on World 01 at all, or he was there under a different name. Either way, it meant she couldn’t hope to contact him directly.

“Can I send a general message to World 01?”

“World 01 is private and currently locked from public networks. Direct access only.”

“Is there, um, some kind of general forum for finding people?”

“There are currently over two million forums for locating other players.”

“Can you search them for Stader?”

“Ninety thousand sixty seven matches found for Stader.”

“Oh. Maya Stader?”

“Four matches found for Maya Stader. Another eighteen are near-duplicates or backup copies.”

“Oh, good! Can I see those four?”

Four windows appeared, each containing a discussion thread.

The first was a list of founders scheduled to be uploaded to Otherworlds. Maya’s name was near the bottom. Another comment a few months later mentioned that the uploads had been completed.

The second was a cross-post of the same list, but which someone had appended various personal data to; addresses, usernames, known worlds. Maya’s name had only a question mark next to it.

The third was from a World 9352 discussion forum, in which Martin8831 asked if anyone could verify Maya Starborn’s claims to be Maya Stader, and whether anyone know if Maya Stader were in fact the Andrew Stader’s sister. There was no consensus, though one poster commented that most birth and death records from that era should be archived and could be searched if it really mattered. The majority of posts simply mocked the OP for even considering such a claim credible. One contended that Maya Stader had been uploaded long ago in an earlier batch, and the newcomer must be an impostor.

The fourth was a genealogy site, which had recently posted a family tree for Andrew Stader. He had no children, but Maya Stader was listed as his sister. Mostly it seemed interested in his cousins, and their descendants. It seemed there were a whole lot of Staders still around.

Maya wondered if there were any way to find them, but then dismissed the thought. Without any way to prove who she was, it would be even more awkward than an ordinary family reunion. And she was sure they had enough crap to deal with from Drew’s fans.

“I want to make a post.”

“Name?”

“Maya Stader.”

“That name is unavailable.”

“Of course it is. How about … Maya9352?”

“And the contents of the post?”

“I am Maya Stader, sister to Andrew Stader. I am currently playing on World 9352 and would like to get in contact with my brother. Please PM—” she cut off and turned to Assistant. “Are PMs still a thing?”

“Yes.”

“Then, yes. Please PM me if you have any way of contacting him or anyone else on World 01. Thank you.”

“Where would you like to post?”

“All four of those. Well, no. Not the third one. All but that.”

The post wrote itself out below each thread’s current last post.

“Please verify that this is correct.”

Maya looked them over, corrected the paragraph spacing, then nodded. “Go ahead. Post them.”

“Done.”

“Now, how can I check my PMs?”

“The message icon on your left.”

Maya saw five icons on the left, none of which said messages. She clicked each of them in turn, and found that the square with three vertical dots apparently meant messages.

To her surprise, there was already one in her inbox.

“Wow, that was fast.”

She opened it, but it was not in response to her recent posts. It had been sent two weeks ago.

Hello? Do you have any idea what's going on? Apparently people live inside video games now, which is kind of weird. You're the only person in my contacts. Can you help? I'm very confused. Actually I’m kind of freaking out here. I was just attacked by a bush. A BUSH! It almost ate me. WHAT IS GOING ON?! Please help.

Gerd says I should mention that I’m on world 11849.

Maya laughed incredulously. She’d vaguely assumed that the automatic friend might be an admin or someone to contact in case of emergency, but apparently the system just paired up noobs and expected them to help each other?

Hello, she typed out, then paused. She checked her friend list, she knew he’d had a name at some point, but since he was currently offline it showed only his player ID number.

This is Maya. I’ve been playing on World 9352 and will return there shortly. It recently opened several slots if you want to come join me. I mainly hang out at the mage academy these days. But I only started playing around the same time as you, so I don’t know a whole lot about the game in general. I do know that on 9352 at least bushes are non-carnivorous.

She glowered at the text. It was inane. Useless.

She tried to imagine being new again, the weird tracks of her emotion, the unsettling acceptance and apathy. What could anyone have said to settle her? She didn’t know. It felt like something she had to live through to come out of, not something that a stranger’s advice could have proven a shortcut away from.

She erased everything after ‘I mainly hang out at the mage academy’ and sat contemplating it for a moment.

if you want to meet. Or I can come by, she paused to check the number, 11849 next time you’re logged in.

Wait. If he was permanent, and from a similarly early era, how was he offline? She brought up the friend list again, but he still didn’t have a world or username listed. Maybe he’d blocked her for not answering? Eh, not her problem. She couldn't worry about absolutely everything.

I hope things are better for you now. I’m sorry I took so long to reply, I just got your message today. Best wishes, Maya.

Good enough. She sent it before she could second-guess herself.

Then another thought struck her. Could it … possibly be Drew? As far as she knew, he was the only person she had an irl connection to that was uploaded. Could he be the mysterious player from 11849? But, no. He’d created this world, he would hardly be asking her for help in a panic.

For a moment her imagination veered off down a convoluted tale of betrayal and deception, Andrew Stader turned on by his partner after his death, misfiled, forgotten and shunted off to a late batch upload, his memory as broken and shattered as Maya’s own.

For a moment, she desperately wanted to believe it. It would be so convenient, so … perfect. If they were on even footing again, both new to this universe, both exploring. Together, like they had been so long ago.

Perhaps he hadn’t moved on without her. Perhaps he hadn’t left her behind and forgotten her. Or, if he had, it had been only temporary.

Perhaps everything could be reset.

Maya shook the thought away. Selfish, unworthy, pointless. She would try to help the rando she’d been paired up with, and she wouldn’t try to turn him - or her - into a replacement for Drew.

She spent another several hours searching for ‘lost family member’ forums, adding posts reiterating her identity and desire to get in contact with Andrew Stader, but she didn’t hold out much hope. There had to be millions of people trying to trick their way onto World 01. Even if she was taken seriously, what were the chances anyone would notice her?

Wait. That was it.

She had to become someone worth noticing.

If she made a big enough splash, if she … made the news, went viral, found some way to get her name out there, then there was a much better chance Drew would hear about her and come find her.

She’d always wanted to win. But now it became paramount. She couldn’t just be satisfied with playing at her own pace. She had to go big, make the news, break the rules.

World 9352 was small right now, but it was growing. Domitius’s popularity was already enough to cause the new zone’s opening to fill up within minutes.

Maya had to find a way to top that.

She didn’t know how, not yet. But she wasn’t going to give up. Drew was the only family she had left. And even if he’d seemingly forgotten about her now, he’d once cared enough about her to ensure her survival to be uploaded.

If making her mark on the universe was the only way to get Drew’s attention, then that was what she’d do.

And if it didn’t work … she’d try to move on, like he had.

But not yet.

“Thank you,” she said, then logged out.

Time to go home.

Time to get started.