Thicconda

"Ugh…."

What time is it?

As the distinctive dizziness of VR sleep faded, the floating text scattered around him came into focus. Real-world time was creeping toward ten in the evening. He'd only meant to rest for a moment — and had ended up sleeping for hours.

A drowsiness so thick he could barely tell dream from reality still clung to him, but he managed to unclip the choker-type disconnect around his neck and pull himself out of VR. Triple time acceleration had a nasty habit of wrecking any coherent sense of bedtime.

Cold water went a long way toward scattering the leftover sleep from his head.

As his mind cleared, half-forgotten facts bubbled back up. Fortunately, there wasn't much he needed to do. He hadn't come home without finishing everything that needed finishing.

The one regret was this: after grinding through a part-time shift, eating dinner, and finally settling in for a little personal time — he'd just drifted off.

And he'd missed Eugene's live stream.

"I actually missed it."

The disappointment welled up in little bursts.

Since he ran her FanSpace edits as something between a hobby and a passion project, watching her broadcasts live was fundamental to catching the right cut points. Beyond the funny moments on stream, he had to keep an eye on the chat, too.

Watching the VODs after the fact just didn't have the same immediacy, which was a shame. Of course, being able to rewatch the good bits as many times as he wanted meant it wasn't a total loss.

He checked the channel belatedly, but the stream was already offline. Early end tonight, apparently. Judging by a VR runtime of under eight hours, she'd only streamed for about two or three hours in real time before signing off.

He was mostly awake now. And if he went back to sleep, he'd be wide-eyed by three or four in the morning no matter what. His alarm was set for eight a.m., so staying quietly awake was the smarter play.

Instead of collapsing onto the bed, he sat down at his desk. A hologram unfurled across the front of his vision, distributing a personalized UI across his home screen. The first thing he checked — somewhat unexpectedly — was the YourSpace notifications.

He scanned for any sloppy edits, any typos that had slipped through. He checked the reactions, answered questions…

He could do all of it because this was pure fan work. Every bit of it was its own reward. The only real regret was wondering whether today's stream had mentioned YourSpace at all.

Well. Since things had turned out this way, he might as well write up a résumé.

Clack.

The sound of keys being pressed. Letters gathered into words, words into sentences, sentences into paragraphs. He was still a little clumsy at it — he wasn't at the stage of submitting résumés to companies or public agencies yet.

Maybe that was why. Deep down, what he really wanted was to work as an editor. The part-time job he had now wasn't particularly fun, and ever since before Eugene had started streaming to put the hacking accusations to rest — ever since she'd been tearing through Dark Zone with Harmony — he'd found a reason ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to get up in the morning.

So he'd moved faster than anyone. While other people were still poking around Eugene's streams out of idle curiosity, he'd been collecting her clips. While freelancers were just starting to wonder whether she even had a YourSpace, he'd already launched a FanSpace.

Fan devotion was fine and all — but it was also true that if that devotion went unanswered, things got bleak.

Until now, he'd held back from reaching out, hoping she might eventually put out an official call for editors. But maybe it was the residual haze of just waking up. Or maybe everything he'd been bottling up had finally found a way out.

Riding that thought, he finished a file containing his résumé, cover letter, and portfolio in under an hour.

He set it carefully aside, then navigated to the profile section of Eugene's channel. Her email address — a string of a dozen or so English characters. He'd been trying not to think about it. Now it was time to try.

He dragged the mouse across it. The text turned blue. Ctrl+C. After that, it was simple. Open a new window. Paste it into ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the message field. Send.

His own inbox hadn't been lonely since he'd started the FanSpace — a few messages a day, at least. On the rare occasions someone sent a gift card saying they'd enjoyed a video, his mood stayed high for the rest of the day.

Wonder what came in today, he thought, and opened the compose window.

Or rather — he was about to.

Until a familiar name stopped him cold.

First, he doubted his eyes.

Second, he launched out of his chair.

"Gyaaaaaaaaaaah! Yes! Yessssss—!"

───Crack!

Tragically,

the very first thing he did as Eugene's editor was destroy his own chair.

"A FanSpace editor, huh. That's actually a solid choice."

"Is it?"

"If an editor really understands the stream, the end product tends to come out well."

Hearing it put that way, it made perfect sense. An editor who grasped a streamer's strengths and weaknesses, the little quirks, the main laugh points — and knew how to highlight them — would naturally earn better responses from the audience.

I'd received countless emails from people applying as editors, and after reading through them one by one, the pattern was clear: some were trying to sneak in cheap tricks, banking on the fact that I'd only just started streaming. Others simply lacked the skill.

But the flip side was that there had been a fair number of gems among them. And in a way, the FanSpace editor I'd reached out to first was already a proven quantity. The account itself was one giant portfolio.

If I hadn't been juggling the prelim ranks and temporary coaching at the same time, I might have contacted them sooner.

Harmony nodded and checked the time on the watch strapped to her left wrist. It wasn't a standard accessory — anyone could tell it was military-issue.

And in the same vein: the personal gear draped all over her body, and two firearms. One was strapped to her pack with the muzzle pointed skyward; the other she held in her hands.

It had been a while since I'd done any PvE. Not a delusion so much as a fact, probably. Even at its longest it wouldn't stretch past a week, but the density of the schedule made thoughts like that inevitable.

Around us, snow was still falling the way it had last time.

The weather was a grim, dirty gray. The dead city looked desolate. Abandoned objects littered every corner — cars, overturned trash cans, garbage. Thick, untrodden ice and the corpses frozen between it.

It was a bitter sight for me. Only a few years ago, this hadn't been a game — I'd actually been moving through places like this. Then or now, the scenery hadn't changed much.

Artemis Technology.

It was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠time to clear the main missions I'd been putting off.

Harmony stood up from a chair that looked like no one had sat in it for years, and I rose with her. Ahead of us, buildings sat adjacent to a vast, long lake.

A little farther forward, floating text marked the start of the mission.

The core of this one was simple enough: smash the Artemis PMCs testing amphibious drones and assault craft on Skaneateles Lake in Syracuse, and stop the people trying to sell the technology overseas.

If my memory served… no. Not memory, strictly speaking. This operation was covering events from before I'd even been an operator — before Icarus had even been activated.

I'd flown to the United States around January 2030. I didn't know the details of what had happened in late 2029. What I did know for certain was that around then — or even earlier — Artemis had already been colluding with Russia and China.

So this operation wasn't really my past so much as a slice of what had been happening in America at the time.

That said, plenty of task forces had been working hard back then to stop Artemis and the coalition forces. There was Task Force Elysium, which got wiped out after botching their thermal settings and wandering around… well. Point is, everyone did their best where they stood.

Anyway.

"Do you remember what I told you about Artemis last time?"

"Ah — not a single word."

"I wasn't really expecting you to."

"Heyyy…."

A small grumble reached me, but what could I do? It wasn't the kind of information you needed to memorize by heart.

Harmony loosened up briefly, then flipped her stream ON. I did the same. Stream start times were always consistent, but today's opening was different. The people who logged in to find Dark Zone already running were understandably startled.

The title was [All-Day Main Mission Grind with Teacher].

"Aaah, hello everyone! Like the title says, today we're going to clear out all the missions we've been putting off. Probably at least ten of them?"

"It's been a while, everyone. Good to see you."

"StartIsARichMan, thank you for the thousand-won donation. The reason is… well, I noticed that one of the conditions for advancing to the finals is achieving one hundred percent main story progress. I don't want that to become a bottleneck, so we're clearing it while we're at it."

"Hey, you never told me that, Teacher!"

"If I said it out loud it would've sounded like I was getting ahead of myself."

Hmm.

Maybe I should have just said I felt like clearing missions for no particular reason. I'd asked them not to clip that last part, but whether they'd actually listen was anyone's guess.

Might as well just go beat up some enemies.

After one final check of our weapons and gear before entering the mission, Harmony and I set out in earnest.

"Oh. Eugene, it says it's really cold!"

"…Why do you always look at me whenever someone mentions the cold?"

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"Hehe."

….

I really shouldn't have done Survival Mode that time.