Arthur woke with a jolt, his heart hammering against his ribs. The fragments of dreams—bulbous heads and wrong-faced men—scattered as he blinked himself to clarity. He glanced at the digital clock: 9:47 AM.
"Shit." He'd overslept. His stream was supposed to start at 10.
He stumbled to the bathroom, splashing cold water on his face. As the fog of sleep cleared, memories of the previous night returned. That strange new game. The missions. The disturbing realism of it all.
Back in his bedroom, he grabbed his phone and scrolled through his usual morning notifications. Subscriber alerts. Comments on yesterday's stream. A reminder about his coffee meetup with Mike tomorrow.
Arthur padded barefoot to his office, drawn to his computer. The screen remained dark, just as he'd left it, but the tower hummed with quiet life. He tapped the power button on his monitor, and it blinked awake immediately.
Zero Latency was still there. No desktop, no familiar icons. Just the command interface, the global map now showing dozens more mission markers than the night before. More timers counting down.
His analytical mind catalogued the changes since he'd last logged off. mostly that most urgent quests had expired and replaced by new ones.
A mission timer in Sacramento flashed red—fifteen minutes remaining. Some NPC about to be grabbed by those alien beings. By reflex, Arthur's hand moved to accept the mission, then stopped.
His stream. His viewers would be expecting him online in eight minutes.
After a moment's consideration, Arthur opened a stream from the phone and went live.
"Hey everyone," he began simply. "Quick update—I won't be streaming regularly for a while. I'm working on something that requires my full attention." He paused, scanning the confused chat messages. "Nothing to worry about, just a project I need to focus on. I'll be back with some new content soon. Commander Corioli signing off."
He ended the stream before the questions could multiply. A few subscribers would be disappointed, but they'd survive without him.
His attention returned to the game interface. The mission timer now showed 12 minutes. With no further hesitation, Arthur clicked accept.
The days that followed settled into a new rhythm for Arthur. Wake up, check missions, eat something, complete missions, research alien technology, establish safehouses, sleep briefly, repeat. Zero Latency consumed his attention completely.
The game's progression impressed him. Each completed mission unlocked new options, technologies, and personnel. His initial success with rescuing Emily Chen from the office tower led to a functional safehouse in Austin, which became the hub of his North American operations.
Arthur approached the game with the same methodical focus he brought to all his strategic challenges. He prioritized missions that yielded the highest resource returns or rescued individuals with valuable skills. A physicist from MIT. A former Army Ranger. A cybersecurity expert who'd worked for the NSA.
He lost some missions, of course. That was unavoidable in any well-designed game. A botanist in Seattle was captured before Arthur's team could reach her. The newly formed Washington cell was wiped by a full 12 cephalod team. These setbacks were frustrating, but they only made him more determined to master the game's systems.
What impressed Arthur most was the apparent AI driving the NPCs. They responded to his commands with what seemed like genuine emotion—fear, determination, occasionally even humor.
By the fourth day, Arthur had established secondary cells in Chicago and Miami, with preliminary operations beginning in Toronto. The aliens—which the game had so far designated as "Infiltrators" and "Cephalods"—seemed especially active in urban centers with high population densities.
Unfortunately as every good game, the difficulty kept going up, new types of missions included raiding "processing facilities" which he didn't feel he was ready for yet, and fighting new units called replicants, clones of kidnapped people that looked like perfect facsimiles and could even speak short sentences to trick his units and stab them in the back.
The research system proved particularly complex. As his teams collected alien specimens and technology, they unlocked new directions and possibilities, such as mental shielding, infiltrator disrupters and even meta improvements such as being able to speak to all the members of the team at the same time or triggering alarms and other simple switches from Arthur's interface.
The meta improvements in particular costed the mysterious crystal premium currency that Arthur hadn't been able to obtain or even figure how to obtain yet despite a week of playing.
Another problem with research was that it proceeded painfully slow. It required multiple researchers working at the same time to even see the progress bar move once a day, plus laboratory equipment that was incredibly complex to procure. Arthur was half-tempted to set up a safehouse specialized in research and move all his researchers there, but the resource cost remained prohibitive for now.
On the sixth day, Arthur received a notification that his first international cell was operational. London, established through a series of missions lead by newly recruited Royal Air Force officer Colin Mackenzie who under Arthur orders had assembled a small team operating from an abandoned Underground maintenance station.
Tokyo followed shortly after, centered around a virologist named Dr. Tanaka who'd identified anomalies in blood samples from government officials. Her team was smaller but had access to advanced laboratory equipment that accelerated research progress.
Arthur didn't specifically need international bases, but he reasoned that while he focused on north America, the other cells would independently grow on their own. In particular, Arthur discovered he could just send a team to do a mission without having to spectate himself, which dramatically sped up the rate of growth.
He had at this point transitioned away from a squad tactic simulator to a grand strategic game on planetary scale.
Something else he had discovered was that by paying credits for a recruitment drive, he would participate in a gacha styled summoning where instead of him finding and recruiting new members, the other party would instead contact him and ask to join up. Most were policemen and other shar-eyed individuals that had noticed something going on and wanted to help their countries.
This sped up the creation of new independent cells. The only brake to his exponential growth was the costs to open new safe-houses and arming his men.
But he had found a little trick to help alleviate the problem, ask rescued people to contribute their finances to take care of their own supplies, which actually had a in-game effect by reducing maintenance costs but increased the stress of his men.
He barely noticed the passing of days. His apartment grew cluttered with empty energy drink cans and takeout containers. Texts and calls went unanswered. The outside world receded in importance as the global struggle against the alien invasion consumed his attention.
By the end of the week, Arthur had established a network of resistance cells across three continents. The game's narrative had advanced significantly, revealing more about the aliens' infiltration methods and apparent goals. They seemed to be targeting individuals with specific knowledge or authority—scientists, military personnel, law enforcement officials.
Finally, he felt confident enough to lead an operation against a processing facility, he looked around and finally decided on one built in Austin, in Javier's sphere of action, the kid had proven himself both lucky and resourceful.
The mission brief was straightforward: neutralize the meat processing plant and extract prisoners. What caught Arthur's eye was the secondary objective list. The game provided 23 names of people supposedly held in stasis tanks inside. One jumped out - Sheriff Dale Harmon, Red Creek County. His profile listed him as 52 years old, 27 years in law enforcement, currently on ice while some Infiltrator wore his face and used his badge.
A cop that connected with that many people could be useful. Plus, the game hinted at bonus intelligence if he rescued someone in law enforcement. Dual objective efficiency. Nice.
The mission difficulty rating was flashing "EXTREME" in red, but whatever. Arthur had beaten three of those already. Austin cell had grown to eight people now, with actual gear.
Arthur accepted the mission and began planning. The risk calculations, personnel assignments, and tactical approach occupied him until well after midnight. He finally fell asleep at his desk, the glow of the monitor casting blue shadows across his face.
In his dreams, Arthur directed his growing resistance against the alien threat, unaware that each command he issued affected real people fighting for their lives. To him, it was still just an unusually engaging game. One he was determined to win.