The door shoved back against his palm with a dull dorm-issue thunk. The fluorescent hummed over cinderblock walls. Alex Hale stood on the threshold of Room 3B, chest heaving, an ache pulsing behind his eyes.
"Alex? Dude, weren't you going on a date? Why'd you double back?"
Dylan Blake didn't look up at first. He was bare-chested in basketball shorts, hunched over his keyboard like it owed him money, headset crooked and glowing. The laptop fans roared. On his second monitor a fortress smoked in grayscale while tiny knights flung themselves at a gate in waves. Chips, energy drink, college wreckage.
Alex braced one hand on the doorjamb, the other on his forehead. No way. The room smelled like ramen and body spray. Sun cut a bar through the blinds, dust hanging. Again.
"Dylan." His own voice sounded hoarse. "This… this is Seaview."
Dylan finally swiveled, eyebrows going up. "Where else would it be, the Ritz?" He squinted. "Why're you pale as printer paper? Did she ghost you mid-entrée?"
Ghost. The word snagged. Alex closed his eyes and the other room crashed over him: bright set lights, a fake office window sugar-glass and a cue, Action, his shoulder rolled the way he'd done a thousand times, the pop and slash of safety glass, gravity taking, the air snatched out of his lungs, the mat below not where it should've been, a rectangle of blue two feet left, the crew's faces pinwheeling upward, a rising white roar.
He swallowed. The ache in his skull pulsed once, hard enough to bloom stars. He didn't hit asphalt. He was here. In this stale little Amazon-basics microwave of a room, alive, nineteen. Five years early.
He pushed off the door and crossed to Dylan in three unsteady steps, then wrapped him in a hug. Dylan jolted like he'd been tased.
"Whoa, whoa - hey! The hell is this?" Dylan's hands hovered, then patted Alex's back awkwardly. "Bro, if the date went that bad, we can roast her handle, but keep your shirt on. And by the way, if you're drunk, I'm not spotting you for another Uber. You still owe me from… last time."
Alex let him go and stepped back, laughing once because it was either that or pass out. "I'm not drunk."
"Okay, you're something." Dylan lifted the headset ear cup. In the tinny bleed, his guild screamed about someone pay-to-winning the match. Dylan slid his mic up. "Who even hugs at Seaview? Is this a social media challenge? Should I be filming?"
Alex glanced at the cheap wall clock. Four PM. The calendar thumbtacked by the light switch showed September - in the wrong year. The wrong life. A flicker of hysteria passed, then steadied as he took inventory: the dent in his metal dresser, the tape line on the rug where Dylan had declared the neutral zone, Jack Dalton's neat bed in the corner, hospital corners sharp even when he wasn't around. A faint gouge in the desk edge he remembered making with a mug. It's real.
"Bathroom," Alex said. "Gimme a second."
"Shower before a date and after a date? Power move." Dylan pointed at the door with a handful of Doritos. "If you use my towel again we're fighting."
The hallway felt narrower than he remembered. Alex flicked on the bathroom light and blinked at his reflection: nineteen-year-old face, the jaw he hadn't learned to unclench yet, hair a touch too long because barbers cost, shoulders compact under a faded band tee. No harness marks. No bruise map. Water thundered as he twisted the knob, steam clouding the cheap mirror.
This can't be a coma dream. He touched the bump on his brow, hissed. Pain was clean and immediate. He leaned under the spray until the pressure shoved thought out of his head. In the white noise, he let the memory spool once: the tumble, the missing mat, his last clear thought - not like this.
He laughed, short. "If this is a do-over, I'll take the cheat codes," he muttered to the tile. "Hell, give me a system."
The word hung, stupid and earnest. He killed the water, towel-dried, and padded back down the hall. Dylan hadn't moved much except to die on-screen a few more times. He lifted a finger for quiet, then remembered he didn't need permission from anyone to breathe.
A pop, quiet as a notification. Then another.
[Patron System detected.]
The words weren't sound. They were there, superimposed in the middle distance like someone had etched them on air with a laser pointer. Alex froze. A thin border outlined an empty rectangle, pale and crisp, hanging just past Dylan's shoulder. He blinked. It stayed.
[Compatibility scan…][Candidate: ALEX HALE.][Status: Eligible.][Binding…]
His pulse kicked. He slid sideways to sit on his own bed, eyes on Dylan, practicing not seeing the impossible rectangle four feet off the ground. Dylan didn't look up, deep in a tirade about whales ruining game balance.
The rectangle irised open into a panel, white on slate, typography clean as a bank app. Lines resolved one by one like a printer spitting them out.
[NAME: ALEX HALE][AGE: 19][SPECIES: HUMAN][TALENT: CHARISMA (TIER 1)][ACTIVE PERKS: TIER-1 MONEY PERK; TIER-1 CASHBACK PERK][UNASSIGNED ATTRIBUTE POINTS: 1]
Alex let out a strangled breath. Okay. Okay. He sent a thought at it like a ping. The panel didn't respond to voice, but when he focused on a line, it expanded into a neat card.
He focused on TIER-1 MONEY PERK and the card opened below:
[TIER-1 MONEY PERK][Effect: Random critical multiplier applies when you RECEIVE money.][Range: ×2 to ×3.][Daily cap: $100,000.][Exclusions: Borrowed funds and System-origin funds do not trigger.]
He shifted to TIER-1 CASHBACK PERK:
[TIER-1 CASHBACK PERK][Effect: Random cashback triggers when you SPEND personal funds.][Range: ×0 to ×3 equivalent.][Daily cap: $100,000.][Exclusions: Borrowed funds and System-origin funds do not trigger.]
"Bro, are you even listening?" Dylan asked.
Alex flicked his eyes to him. "Totally."
"You're not." Dylan pointed his headset mic like a baton. "Which means either A) she stood you up, B) she stood you up and posted it, or C) you stood her up and you're pretending it's a power move. Blink twice for C so I can respect it."
"I'm fine." Alex fought a smile. "How's the siege?"
"Pay-to-win scum," Dylan said gravely, then brightened. "Hey, since you're vertical - tiny favor? My guild needs a push on the last round and my card's in my bag. Can you hop on the site and drop, like, twenty? Just a twenty. I'll Venmo you back."
Two months from now, in the timeline he remembered, a modeling gig payment would have hit his account. His old self had limped through that stretch broke. The new self had a panel hanging in the air offering multipliers like a casino that paid you to walk in. He breathed against the grin threatening to break loose. Not yet. Not in front of Dylan. Not until he could test in a way that didn't look like he'd hacked reality.
"Give me five," Alex said. "I need to… check something."
"Check your feelings," Dylan said, but he was already back in the noise, barking orders at people named after fruits and mythological weapons.
Alex leaned forward, elbows on knees, and studied the panel. The TALENT: CHARISMA (TIER 1) line pulsed faintly, as if the system were pleased with itself. Charisma as a talent? He pictured auditions, rooms full of men pretending to be bolder than their bank accounts, the directors who'd smiled past him like he didn't light up a frame. If this thing shaved the silent tax off the way rooms read him, that alone was a weapon.
The UNASSIGNED ATTRIBUTE POINTS: 1 line brightened when he focused. A soft tone pinged - not sound, more like the idea of a sound.
[Attribute point available.][Assign now?][Options: Upgrade MONEY PERK to Tier-2; Upgrade CASHBACK PERK to Tier-2; Hold.]
A faint timer appeared in the corner, a minimalist pie graphic shaving away slivers of white. Alex's palms prickled. "You're kidding," he murmured, hoping Dylan's fans covered the words.
He sent a question at the system, thinking details. Cards slid into view, two stacks.
He selected Upgrade MONEY PERK and the stack fanned:
[TIER-2 MONEY PERK (Preview)][Effect: Random critical when you RECEIVE money.][Range: ×3 to ×4.][Daily cap: increases.][Note: Odds of high-end crit slightly improved.]
He selected Upgrade CASHBACK PERK and the other fanned:
[TIER-2 CASHBACK PERK (Preview)][Effect: Random cashback when you SPEND personal funds.][Range: ×0 to ×4.][Daily cap: increases.][Note: Variance increases - potential for "0×" remains.]
Risk and reward. A zero meant lighting money on fire. A four meant printing it by living life. Money-incoming crits felt safer, saner - get paid, roll a bigger number. On the other hand, if he intended to move fast, he'd be spending a lot and the cashback could turn every swipe into a jackpot. Who am I this time?
"Alex," Dylan said, dragging it out. "You're hovering. Do you need the laptop?"
"I've got mine." Alex flipped open his old machine to create cover, its hinge squealing like a baby gate. The HUD maintained its position relative to his gaze, not the room itself, tracking smooth as if on rails.
He risked one more question, thinking source of funds. A sliver of text popped, clinical:
[Funding sources diversified.][Compliance: Internal.][Security: Sufficient.]
"Sure," Alex whispered. "Reassuring."
"What's reassuring?" Dylan said.
"That the water pressure still works in this building," Alex said without a beat. Dylan grunted, convinced, or at least too preoccupied to press.
The timer shaved down another slice. He could let it auto-assign, but something in him said own it. Choices stack.
He looked at the dented dresser, Dylan's mess, the neat empty bed; the blinds buzzing in the AC. He pictured a misaligned mat and how money could move a crew, a career, a life, He pictured a checkout screen pinging paid and bouncing something back.
The HUD waited, patient and bright.
[Assign attribute point?][Select: MONEY / CASHBACK / HOLD][Auto-assign in: 00:00:19]
The numbers chewed smaller. Eighteen. Seventeen.
Dylan glanced over, momentarily unmuted. "So, not to be that guy, but if you are about to turn into a sugar baby, please loop me in. I can carry your books and fetch your smoothies. That's solidarity."
Alex snorted. "Not my business model."
"Cool, cool." Dylan clicked his tongue. "Also, if you're about to make any purchases, today's a great day. My lucky day. You know, synergy."
Alex's finger hovered over nothing, hanging in the air the way a conductor holds the baton before the downbeat. The panel offered him two doors and a closet to hide in. Outside, somewhere, the campus bell tolled the half hour - one, two. The sound folded into the fan noise, the hum of the light, the floor's low vibration as someone jogged past in the hall.
[Auto-assign in: 00:00:07]
Safer road or swing-for-the-fences? His mouth went dry. He drew in a breath that tasted like dust and cheap detergent.
"Okay," he said to the glowing air, to himself, to the version of him that died without a net. He raised his hand toward the hovering prompt as the timer thinned to a narrow crescent.