Arthur leaned forward, intrigued despite himself. The production values were impressive. Whoever had developed this had invested in solid UI design.
A world map materialized on screen, rendered in the same blue-gray color scheme. Points of light pulsed at various locations—some steady, others blinking at different rates. Status bars and data panels framed the map, displaying information in a format eerily similar to his favorite strategy games.
He didn't focus much on those, likely flavour text to make the screen appear more dynamic or counters for resources he had no idea how to use.
What caught his attention were the mission icons scattered across the globe. Each one pulsed with a different colour and carried a distinct label: INVESTIGATE, SUBJUGATION, DEFENSE, RESCUE. Next to each, a countdown timer ticked away the seconds until expiration.
Arthur's eyes narrowed. Standard mission structure, but the global scale was ambitious. He hovered his cursor over a SUBJUGATION mission in what appeared to be rural Montana. The tooltip expanded: "Neutralize hostile entity. Threat level: Moderate. Time remaining: 3:42:17."
He clicked it.
A new window popped up: "SQUAD SELECTION."
Arthur leaned closer, but the roster was empty. No units available. In the corner of the interface, a small icon labelled "RECRUITMENT DRIVE" blinked invitingly. He clicked it.
"Insufficient resources," the system informed him. "Credits required: 500. Current balance: 0."
Arthur's lip curled. Of course. He glanced at the resource counter in the upper right corner. Zero credits and, beside it, zero of some other crystal-like currency.
"Micro-transactions," he immediately identified. The bane of every player's existence—premium currencies designed to separate gamers from their money. He'd seen countless games ruined by predatory monetization schemes.
He closed the recruitment window and scanned the map again, looking for alternatives. His eyes landed on a RESCUE mission marked in Sacramento. The countdown showed less than ten minutes remaining.
He clicked it. No squad selection appeared. Instead, a mission brief materialized:
"Secure target: Mark Raffaeli, 20, chemistry student. Prevent extraction or elimination. No allied forces in vicinity. Local assets only."
A video feed appeared below the text, showing a modest studio apartment. A timer in the corner displayed 5:14, counting down.
"Interesting," Arthur murmured. It felt like a challenge. He studied the interface, looking for controls, resources, anything to work with.
The countdown suddenly pulsed red. A new message flashed beneath it: "THREAT IMMINENT."
Arthur's instincts kicked in. He clicked "ACCEPT MISSION."
The display zoomed in on the apartment building, then through the walls—X-ray vision style—until it centered on what must have been Mark's kitchen. The young man sat at a small table, spooning cereal into his mouth while staring at his phone.
Arthur took in the scene with a quick, practiced eye. The studio was exactly what you'd expect from a college student's place: barely 40 square feet of organized chaos. A futon doubling as a couch during the day and bed at night. Textbooks stacked haphazardly on a desk overflowing with papers and empty energy drink cans. A periodic table poster hung crookedly on one wall, while a whiteboard nearby was covered in chemical formulas and doodles.
Mark himself looked every bit the stereotypical chemistry student—dark circles under his eyes, rumpled t-shirt with some obscure science joke, hair that hadn't seen a comb in days. He scrolled through his phone with one hand while the other mechanically delivered spoonfuls of cereal to his mouth.
The timer hit 4:30.
Arthur's eyes darted across the interface, searching for controls. What exactly was he supposed to do here? The game had given him a goal, but no tutorial.
He moved his cursor around the screen, hovering over furniture in Mark's apartment. To his surprise, each object highlighted with a faint blue outline. He clicked on the refrigerator. A small dropdown menu appeared:
[INVESTIGATE] [INTERACT] [MOVE]
Arthur clicked on [INTERACT]. A warning flashed: "NO UNIT SELECTED."
He tried the microwave. Same options, same error. The kitchen table, the textbooks, the window—all yielded identical results.
The timer hit 4:00.
With growing frustration, Arthur clicked directly on Mark. The young man highlighted with a green glow, and a different menu appeared:
[OBSERVE] [SELECT] [TALK]
He clicked [TALK].
The interface changed. A dialogue wheel appeared at the bottom of the screen, reminiscent of RPG conversation systems:
1) "Hello, Mark."
2) "You're in danger. You need to leave now."
3) "Don't be alarmed, but I need you to listen carefully."
4) "Get down and stay quiet."
At the bottom of the wheel was another option: [DIRECT COMMUNICATION] with a microphone icon.
Arthur hesitated, then selected option 2.
A digitized voice emerged from Mark's ear, feeling as if it was coming just a couple feet behind him: "You're in danger. You need to leave now."
Mark froze mid-bite, milk dripping from his spoon. He looked up, eyes wide.
"What the hell?" he said, words appearing as subtitles at the bottom of Arthur's screen. "Who's there?"
Arthur clicked option 3.
"Don't be alarmed, but I need you to listen carefully," the same robotic voice announced.
Mark stood up, knocking over his bowl. Milk splashed across the table.
"Is this some kind of joke?" He spun around, searching the small apartment. "Jake? Is that you messing with my laptop again?" His voice cracked slightly. The subtitles captured his nervous laughter.
The timer: 3:32.
New dialogue options appeared, cliché and cringeworthy even for Arthur, whose social skills were non-existent; However, he supposed that one of the options or a combination should count as the correct one.
On screen, Mark's face hardened. "Oh, real funny. Hacked my laptop, got the whole place bugged?" He stormed over to his desk, rifling through papers, looking behind his laptop. "Did Taylor put you up to this? Because it's not funny, it's just creepy."
Grabbing his phone he tried calling someone, probably the people he had just mentioned, but for some reason none of the calls connected, even when he tried calling the cops.
The timer hit 3:00.
Arthur kept spamming all the options warning him that he was in danger and that he had to trust him, and unsurprisingly Mark grew increasingly agitated stalking around his apartment, yanking open cabinet doors, checking behind the shower curtain. "Right, and I'm supposed to believe a random voice telling me I'm in some kind of danger? Do you know how insane that sounds?"
He paused for a second, unaware the timer had reached 1 minute. "And what kind of peril O' voice, am I in danger of?"
Arthur was temporarily stumped, he didn't know either; None of the options offered any explanation, just vague mentions of a threat.
"Fuck it." He spat, and clicked on the direct communication, "listen here, you dimwit!" Arthur's roar into the headset startled Mark, causing him to jump. "You have less than 50 seconds before something very bad happens, I don't know exactly what, but if you don't get out and run RIGHT FRICKING NOW, you will regret it!"
Arthur did his best to win using only the options he was given, reluctant to abandon his original decision to stick with them. But more than that, he hated losing—an outcome was increasingly likely.
A moment of hesitation flashed past Mar's eyes as he quickly weighted his options, but eventually the skeptical part of his mind won over. "Listen here, I don't know who you are or who set you up to this, but I'm not playing your stupid game. Come morning, I'll call the police and we will figure out how you got in my apartment and where you live, then we will see who's really in danger."
The timer ticked down to zero, as Arthur slumped back in his gaming chair. "Fine, don't come crying back to me." he harrumphed curious to see what would happen next.
The doorknob to Mark's apartment turned—slowly, deliberately. A metallic scrape that sent a chill through Arthur despite the miles between them.
Mark froze, eyes fixed on the door. His shoulders tensed, his breathing shallow.
A knife he'd used days ago to prepare a sandwich lay on the table, old crunchy peanut butter still on the edge. He snatched it up, gripping it so tight his knuckles turned white.
"Is that you?" Mark called out to Arthur, voice cracking. Then, louder, to the door: "Who's there?"
The doorknob stopped turning. Silence stretched for three heartbeats.
Then—the unmistakable sound of a key sliding into the lock.
Click.
Mark lunged for the door, desperate to hold it shut. Too late. The door swung open, revealing the dimly lit hallway beyond.
They stood there. Six men in rumpled suits, their faces—
Arthur recoiled. Their faces were wrong. Proportions distorted, skin texture like melted wax. Features that would make a baby scream and a grown man look away.
They rushed in, uncoordinated and jerky, as if not used to having two legs and arms.
Mark slashed with his knife in the air, wild and desperate. "Get away from me!"
The threatening gesture almost invisible to the figures lumbering inside towards the young man.
"Jesus Christ," Arthur whispered, watching helplessly as the nightmare unfolded. "help!" Mark finally called, hoping the neighbours would hear him.
Mark backed until he hit the wall. Nowhere left to go. He slashed again, a horizontal arc that should have opened throats.
The blade connected with the foremost intruder's arm, slicing through the cheap fabric of his suit. No blood. No reaction. Not even a flinch.
The not-men didn't even bother dodging.
They swarmed him, six hands grabbing his limbs, another clamping over his mouth, muffling his screams. Mark thrashed, wild-eyed, but they moved with machine precision, restraining, binding, silencing.
Thirty seconds. That's all it took.
Mark Rafaeli, chemistry student, cereal enthusiast, now trussed up like a package, eyes bulging with terror above the duct tape across his mouth.
His face ultimately disappeared in an extra large duffel bag two of the men carried out the door while the rest tidied up the room, erasing any trace of what had transpired.
The screen flashed red.
[MISSION FAILURE]
Arthur sat motionless, hands frozen above his keyboard. That hadn't felt like game graphics. That hadn't felt like a scripted sequence.
That had felt real.
Arthur felt a pang of nausea and the next moment, he retched on the floor.