"Dad, what happened? The game, it just—"
"I did it!" his father cut him off, his voice strained with a mix of guilt and urgency. "You were in there, the time was ticking by, I was calling your name, and you were completely gone! I didn't know what else to do... I pulled the plug!"
"You pulled the plug?!" Ethan scrambled out of the pod, his mind reeling. "But Dad, we were winning 2-0! It was the first game of the season!"
"Winning doesn't pay the mortgage, Ethan!" his father retorted, grabbing Ethan's discarded jeans from a chair and thrusting them at him. "Mr. Henderson does! You're fifteen minutes late for your first-ever shift! Do you have any idea how that looks? Now go! Now!"
The real-world stakes crashed down on him with the force of a tidal wave.
He wasn't a gaffer. He was a shelf-stacker. And he was late.
