A/N: Welcome to my first story. I hope you enjoy it.

Changing the Game

Prologue

'The train doesn't leave until 7:35. What time is it?' I reach for my phone in my pocket. 'Ah, just turned 7:22. I guess I got here a little early today.'

It is July of 2025. My name is Michael. I'm 31 years old, 6'5", single, I used to be an officer in the military, but I left that life a while ago, and now I work for a game development company. As the head of my team I get to decide on the dress code, and today's dress code consists of a green silk polo shirt, light cream khaki shorts, and grey flip-flops, or whatever else you want to wear, I won't complain, as long as you are wearing clothes, because it is fucking hot outside today. It feels like it is peeking into the upper 80's already and the humidity isn't helping.

My team tends to appreciate my lackadaisical approach to management, see the dress code for example. I say that as long as you get your work done on time and ask for help when you need it, and not just sit on the problem forever, we are okay. It helps that my team enjoys that we focus on 'Role Playing Games', or RPGs for short. I know there was a huge push to change the genre title to 'Roll Playing Games' a few years ago, but my team and I agreed that the work we do here still allows the player to choose what role they wanted to play, unlike most first-person shooters that call themselves RPGs. True RPG's have always had a time honor tradition of giving the player a large open sandbox of a world, dumping you in a starting location, and giving you all the knowledge and tools you need to begin down whatever path you wish, as long as it was within the lore of the world. A storyline may last only 20 hours or so, but the possibilities of how to do it were almost limitless. Thus, allowing the player to experience the story through multiple perspectives, increasing the total amount of enjoyable play time several times over. With the introduction of full dive technology, a couple of years ago, we were able to take a considerable leap in player experience allowing for all five senses to be used in the world. But with all that extra data you are bound to run into coding troubles, and thus my reasons for going to work on a Sunday.

'Wait, Sunday?' I look at my phone again and see it is, in fact, Sunday. "Shit." With wide eyes, I took off towards the stairs that lead to my trains terminal. I never understood why but the train schedule was always different on Sundays from the rest of the week. As such my train leaves in 3 minutes. I began to run down the stairs taking them two at a time and through the terminal to my train. Just as I managed to get inside the doors started to close. 'Damn, that was close.' I hunched over to catch my breath. Three minutes of running is not that bad on it own, add to that dodging people and being in a slight panic, well, I was slightly flustered.

"Almost missed it, didn't you Mike?" a voice said to my right. You could hear the smirk on her face. I didn't even have to look to know who it was.

Amanda Stanton, age 25, 5'4", a natural brunette. She has begun adding blonde highlights to her hair recently to the point where it looks as if her hair becomes blonder the lower it gets. At the lowest point, just below her shoulder blades, it has grown close to a platinum blonde. Round it off with a heart-shaped face, a slight hourglass figure covered by a light pink sundress, and complete the look with a simple a pair of white thin strapped sandals.

Amanda and I met in college at a party. Friends of friends everywhere to the point where everyone was a stranger. Throw in alcohol, and you end up with a group of idiots trying to outdo one another. I didn't drink and hated the way others acted when smashed at a party, but I was making sure my friends got home safe that night, so I was putting up with it in a corner against a back wall. Luckily, I wasn't the only person with that mindset. Enter Amanda. We chatted for a while, and I learned that she was a computer geek like me. Oh, and she was also a total flirt through and through.

That was six years ago. On to now. "Hey, Amanda. They have you coming in too?"

"Not really, I just wanted to spend some time with you, you know… talking techy to me." And she hasn't changed since then.

I finally stood up straight and shot her a look that said I wasn't buying it. That teasing look on her face wasn't helping her case. But two can play at that game.

"I'm not just some cheap programmer you can just pick up off any old corner of the street," I said while crossing my arms in mock offense. "If you want to talk Teraflops you need to, at least, buy me dinner first." I shot her an unamused glare that was undermined by the smile tugging at the corner of my lips. After a moment we shared a laugh, and I sat down next to her on the train. "But seriously, what's got you headed in today?"

She let out a frustrated sigh. "Well, we have been having issues with an item duplication bug in that fantasy, single player, RPG. Something about shooting an item as it spawns with glass arrows makes the item explode into, like, hundreds of them. But it only works with glass arrows, and it's a different number of items duped every time we test it. I just don't get it."

'That sounds familiar, I wonder?' Not seeing any harm in asking, I proceeded to do just that. "Is there a correlation between the number of items duped and the number of arrows you have in your inventory?"

Now that put a thoughtful look on her face. After a moment she replied. "I don't know, why?"

"An old game I used to play had a bug like that, except it was with every arrow type instead of just one. I don't know if that will make a difference or not, but if there is a connection, then I would look into seeing what they did about it."

"Oh yeah, I remember that one now! That was years ago; I'll look into it. Thanks, Mike."

"Any time." I glanced over at her with a smile while wiggling my eyebrows. "I mean, that's what friends are for, right?"

"Yeah, okay Mr. friendly." The short laugh that followed let me know my attempt at humor succeeded. "Come on; we're here."

"Wow, that was quick." We began to stand up as the train slowed to a stop. Once the doors opened, I motioned for Amanda to step out first with an over exaggerated bow. "My Lady, if you would please."

"My, such a charmer" Amanda quipped with a roll of the eyes accented by an amused smirk. She stepped off the train soon followed by me, and we began walking towards our office building. "By the way, you never mentioned what you were heading in for."

I couldn't help but release a heavy sigh at that. "We have been having some issues with the visual feedback program on that new RT game, Hunters of Remnant. All of the overlays are working just fine; it's just that whenever you get in there, it feels like everything is two inches to the left of what you are seeing. Its hard enough to pick up a cup or something, but combat?" A shiver ran down my spine. "That's a nightmare; I can hear the player's complaints now. Its fine after you spend a few hours in there, by that point you don't even notice it. But then the problem comes back when you get out. It's like your brain gets used to seeing things off kilter and compensates for it, just for you to come back and now everything is two inches to the right." I take up a thinking pose as we walk. I glance over at Amanda. "Say, you wouldn't know how to fix it, would you? Think of it as repayment for my assistance earlier."

She gave me a deadpan look. "You know I have no idea how that stuff works; you have to be a brain surgeon with a minor in rocket science to begin to understand what's going on, let alone write programs for it. You know you shouldn't even ask me."

I gave her a mock gasp. "Are you saying that you don't want to help me, even after my little 'friends speech' on the train? Your words honestly hurt me." The way I over dramatized those words would have made Shakespeare proud.

"Asshole! Don't go trying to twist my words and emotions like that." We came to a stop at a crosswalk, and she looked away with a pout and mumbled, "You'll make a lady cry."

I merely raised an eyebrow and looked over at her. There was bullshit in the air, and I could smell it. She glanced over at me, and we locked eyes for a moment. Then we began to share a laugh for a while. As our laughter died back down to a chuckle, I noticed the light for the crosswalk to turn green and we began our walk again. Amanda managed to get a few paces ahead of me and turned around to walk backward, a smile on her face. "What's with you today?" I ask, a joking tone in my voice.

She spun back around, smile still on her face. "Nothing. It's just; I've noticed that's it's never a dull moment when I'm with you. It makes me wish it could go on forever."

I see that she is putting it on thick again, but something feels off about this situation. "You never know maybe we cou-"

It all happened in slow motion. I looked to my right across the intersection to see a red car barreling towards me. I couldn't tell how fast it was going, all I knew was that I was powerless to do anything about it. Then the pain. It felt as if every bone in my body had shattered. I don't know if my eyes were closed or if I couldn't see anymore, but darkness surrounded me. The last thing I remember was the sound of tires screeching and a feminine voice screaming my name, then nothing. Complete and total emptiness was all around me. I tried to move, but I couldn't feel anything. Not my arms, my legs, nothing. Then it appeared. A tan panel with black writing.

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