At the far end of the hall, I heard the ding of an elevator opening. It took me a moment to realize what that meant.

If somebody else is here, they are more than likely trying to rob my vault.

Committing to playing the game meant defending my vault. I drew both of my grappling guns and exited the metal room warily.

By the time I reached the elevator, the doors had already closed. Whoever had paid me the briefest of visits was on their way back down, according to the digital display. 13... 12... 11... 10...

“Childe, call Brad,” I said, knowing Childe would probably be installed nearby.

“Brad is away,” came Childe’s response.

“What do you mean by ‘away’?”

“Brad is not in his home tower, the Pillar of Technology.”

“Where is he, then?”

“This information is not available. With my current setup, I can only detect when someone is not in their home tower.”

Meanwhile, the elevator display had finished counting down and gone black. The opportunity to chase the would-be thief was slipping from my grasp. Irked by my my immobility, I boarded the other elevator and selected '23.'

Back in my office, I peered out the large window. The other three offices were empty, as were the glass tunnels thirteen floors below. I couldn't make anything out through the other windows.

If my assumptions were correct, someone had been after the cubes in my vault, which I guessed were meant to represent sums of cash. It would have been nice to narrow down who it had been.

“Childe, do I have access to any sort of security system? Are there cameras I can access?”

“No.”

“Call Blaine.”

“Blaine is away.”

“Call-,” I stopped myself just in time, “Is Addy away?”

“No.”

Good, so that question worked as well. It would save me some awkward conversations in the case of somebody actually picking up a call. Now, I could periodically ask Childe about everyone’s status, my friends being none-the-wiser.

But it didn't satisfy me to stop there. If possible, I would create my own security system. It sucked not knowing things. Like who had broken into my tower and whether they would strike again.

I sat down at the computer to 'invent' a new product. Entering ‘0 fun, 10 practicality’ produced a flat grey gem in the shape of an octagon. It filled the palm of my hand, and as I observed it closely, I could feel a pressure building. There was a sudden premonition that I needed to be elsewhere and fast.

When I returned from the master bathroom, I gave a name to the stone in the computer: ‘TedLax’. I pitched the product to the man himself and then returned to the office. Ted had offered no reaction to my moment of comedy.

‘1 fun, 9 practicality’ yielded a black pouch decorated in pinpoints of white. Again, the object was barely larger than my fist. I used two fingers to pry the top open and slid my hand in to see what was inside.

When I was somehow able to feed the rest of my forearm into the pouch, my worldview fractured.

Apparently, Ted’s scientists had learned how to bend spacetime, allowing for a pouch that was - for a lack of a better term - bigger on the inside. Was it because Cause was funding research in dark matter? I didn't know much about dark matter - nobody seemed to - but I was pretty sure it couldn't do that.

Ted told me he was impressed by my presentation for the ‘bag of holding,’ and I returned to the office once more.

Money was steadily flowing into my account now, at a rate of about fifty dollars every twenty seconds. Each successful sales pitch accelerated this rate, and my total balance had grown to $102,505.10.

Twenty-five hundred in just over an hour? Not bad at all.

A part of me hoped I could keep the money. Maybe I was on a game show?

Brad was shot. Addy was shot at. We could have died in that crash.

Maybe not. I put the theory to rest.

When asked, Childe informed me that Addy and Blaine were in their respective towers. Brad was 'away'. I would check the vault soon. If anything was missing, I would know who to blame.

2 fun, 8 practicality. A thirty-centimeter stick of white wood materialized behind me. There were two buttons on the side, which I could access with my thumb while holding the tool out like a wand. I aimed at the wall and pressed the yellow button. For as long as I held the button down, a dot of yellow light appeared on the wall. I tried the red button, but nothing happened.

It didn't take long to learn the mechanics of the wand. Holding down the yellow button allowed me to trace a yellow shape on a surface. While still holding down the yellow, I could press the red button and the shape I had traced would be separated from the rest of the surface, essentially cutting it away. Blobby chunks of wall littered the floor of the office, and there were now five funky holes through which I could see my bedroom.

Using the wand on the glass window did nothing.

When I exited the subsequent sales pitch, Childe informed me that I had missed a call from Addy. I sighed and told Childe to return the call.

Childe was everywhere. I could walk and talk.

“What's up, lil' Palpatine?” Addy greeted, “Just talked to Teddy. That man definitely fucks!”

My thumb tapped the button for the 24th-floor, “What do you mean by ‘just?’”

“Like, three minutes ago,” Addy said, “He wasn’t taking any of my shit. Put up or shut up. Power moves only! He must get legendary pussy. Oh, oh! I gotta tell you about this press meeting!”

“Hold on. You couldn’t have been talking to him three minutes ago, because I’ve been talking to him for... at least the past three minutes. You sure it was three?”

“Dude, teleporters. He might have some. I’d buy it. I mean, I'd buy into the idea of him having some. But I'd also buy a teleporter. Haha, can you imagine?"

Teleportation wasn’t even a stretch. Not when the bag in my pocket could bend spacetime.

“I don't know what to believe anymore," I told him, acknowledging my cognitive backlog, "But right now I'm busy. I gotta go.”

“Wait! Three more things!” Addy pleaded.

“Three- what? No!” I said, annoyed, “Somebody tried to break into my vault. I gotta go!”

“Probably Brad.”

“Yeah, could be. I'll talk to you later.”

Childe ended the call and the elevator doors slid open. I exited and started ambling towards the vault.

Addy's right. Brad would be the one to rob my vault.

I had strong doubts about it being Blaine or Addy. They were competitive spirits, but fair all the same.

The door at the end of the hall was shut, which meant the vault probably hadn’t been breached in my absence. I walked halfway down the hall and then stopped.

A yellow dot traced the edge of the carpet, where the floor met the wall. I formed a rectangle of yellow light which extended from in front of my feet to the foot of the vault door. When I pressed the red button, the section of the floor fell into the hallway below. The impact sent vibrations through the walls and ceiling and was incredibly satisfying.

A ten-meter gap now existed between myself and the vault door. I grinned, doubtful that Brad would find a way across, or that he would even bother. I could rid myself of this distraction and return to the office to resume playing the game.

I had to shuffle past piles of debris from the collapsed floor in order to reach the door to the office. A consequence I hadn't considered. Inconvenient but manageable.

I asked, and Childe reported that only Blaine was away from his tower. A quick glance out the window showed Addy back in his office, sitting at the computer. I consulted my own computer in turn.

My balance stood at $106,150. Blaine's sat at the initial $100,000. Brad was leading with $112,000, and Addy was in dead last with $742.32.

Addy's funds were invested.

I returned to the home menu to select a new task. Four successful sales pitches had provided a steady stream of revenue, but Brad was still ahead. It was time to try something new, and my eyes scanned between ‘Services’, ‘Stocks’, and ‘Scams’.

Investing in stocks would be too risky. I didn’t have Addy's four years of schooling in financial economics. Scams didn’t seem like something I would have success with either; I lacked the necessary deception skills.

“Sir, you are receiving a call from Andrew Delainy.”

Again?

“Forward it,” I ordered, clicking on the button for 'Services.' A text box appeared, which read: ‘[Service Task 1 - Move]: Report to F11 and move the appliance into the appropriate position.’

As I boarded the elevator, Childe said, “Sir, you have a message from Andrew Delainy.”

“Read it, please.”

"Andrew Delainy says, ‘Yo bitch, answer my fucking calls. Somebody stole twelve-thousand big ones from me. I think it was Brad. He would defo go for a cheap tactic like that. Or maybe Blaine. Actually, yeah, it was definitely Blaine. Sly mothafucka. Call me, bitch.’”

Hearing the crass message read in Childe's thick British accent distracted me for a moment. I had to blink my eyes a few times before I could return to my thoughts.

Would Blaine really steal from others instead of playing the game? It didn’t seem like something he would do. Also, Brad was ahead of all of us, whereas Blaine’s bar on the graph hadn’t moved.

I sent Addy a message to remind him of the facts.

Then exited the elevator into a high-end kitchen. I knew it was high-end because every appliance featured a logo in some foreign language. Even the fridge, which was on the wrong side of the room, isolated from everything else.

The task was surprisingly simple. Refrigerators had wheels, apparently. Once I had pushed it across the room and between two countertops, I returned to the office to find my balance had increased to $109,150.

Absurd. They had paid me thousands of dollars to push something across a room.

Really, what is the point to any of this? Why does it make less sense the deeper I go?

Another answer I was never going to get. Best not to question it.

My numbers continued to climb, now at a rate of $200 per minute. I moved to tap the ‘Services’ button again, but a red flash caught the corner of my eye. I whirled around in the office chair, standing and advancing towards...

The power moves board. The pillar with the blue glow coming off of its surface had emitted a flash. I walked up to it and took my first real look at the glowing screen.

The touchscreen was navy blue, displaying a chart with five rows and five columns outlined in white. The five columns were: Sales, Services, Stocks, Scams, and Steal. The five rows were: Alec, Addy, Blaine, Brad, and Time. The square for Blaine-Steal was marked with a red ‘X’.

“Childe, what does this X mean?” I asked.

“Blaine now has a disadvantage when performing the ‘Steal’ task.”

“How do I mark a square?”

“When you reach a capital milestone, you will be provided a cube to place on the board.”

“And if I place a cube in the ‘Time’ row?”

“The business day will end one hour sooner for each cube placed in that row.”

"One hour sooner for everyone?"

"Yes."

“What is the current time?”

“10:52 AM.”

Childe had said that the business day would last until 5:00 PM. That gave me six hours to get ahead of Brad and stay ahead of the others. With haste, I returned to the computer.

The second service task involved washing nine stacks of dishes. I wondered what would happen if I missed a spot on one of them. Fortunately, I completed the task without a hitch.

Following that, I was prompted to give a back massage to a woman slightly younger than myself. Indian or Malaysian; it was hard to tell. I had tried speaking to the woman, but she only responded with remarks about how well or poorly I was massaging her; she ignored my questions.

Upon returning to the office, Childe informed me that I had earned a power cube. When I ignored this and tried to select a new task on the computer, Childe added that I wouldn’t be able to select a new task until I used the cube.

Which was kind of a let-down. My plan had been to save up three or four cubes, wait for a moment when I was ahead of the others, and then use them all at once to end the game early.

So much for that.

I approached the power moves board and picked up a tiny yellow cube that felt as if it had zero mass. As I perused my options, I noted the green X which now existed at the intersection of ‘Alec’ and ‘Stocks’.

What a waste. I was never going to invest in stocks anyway. I'm kind of glad I don't have a choice anymore.

I eventually plopped the cube down on a square which actually mattered, and the cube melted into the board, creating a yellow X at Addy-Stocks.

The fourth service task saw me preparing and cooking a meatloaf. The instructions and ingredients had all been laid out in yet another decadent kitchen, and the oven had cooked the loaf in less than thirty seconds. As I sheepishly retrieved the dish from the heated chamber, my stomach growled in absolute rebellion.

Shit, I thought, I haven’t eaten since... lunchtime yesterday!

The downright bizarre events of the past day-and-a-half had distracted me. But now that the aroma of meat, ketchup, and spices was flowing through the room, I could no longer overlook my hunger. I grinned greedily at the meal, transferred the loaf to a plate, grabbed a fork, and made my way back to the office.

In the elevator ride to the 23rd floor, a sudden and intense drowsiness took me over. Muscles all across my body relaxed, and I clutched the plate tightly.

No, no, no, no! They drugged me? How?

I hadn’t taken a bite of the meatloaf yet. Even in the wake of my insatiable hunger, I held to my rituals; I couldn’t eat a bite until I was sitting down at a proper dining space.

Panic and paranoia failed to energize my body, which was drifting rapidly into a dense slumber. In the moments before I could pass out, I slapped my hand against the wall of the elevator and trickled my fingers across all of the buttons. I couldn’t stay awake, but I could at least slow my captors down. Perhaps I would wake up before they got to my body, and I could make a run for it? It wasn’t probable, but-

I slumped into the corner of the elevator, and the world disappeared.