AUTHOR NOTE:
This auxiliary chapter shows what happened before Noah became Lilsprout, and why he had no choice. You don't need to read it to follow the story, but if you do, everything that happens next will hit harder.
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I have to do this.
The words were a broken record in Noah Slater's head, thumping in time with the shudder of the morning train.
Around him, people were ghosts. Glued to their phones, earbuds in, worlds away. His own phone was a brick shattered screen, dead battery. Another thing he couldn't afford to fix. So he watched. He saw the tired eyes, the slumped shoulders. He saw the boy.
The boy was maybe sixteen, wearing a hoodie with the swirling, green Mindstreamer Online logo. He'd been scrolling, then he just… stopped. His hand froze mid-air. His eyes didn't blink. They were pointed at the seat in front of him, but they saw nothing.
A girl next to him, a friend maybe, tapped his shoulder. "Jace? You zoning on me?"
No response.
She shook him, harder. "Jace, c'mon. Not funny."
The train squealed to a halt at a platform. The boy didn't sway with the motion. He was a statue. A cold knot tightened in Noah's stomach. A man in a suit sighed loudly, stood up, and hit the emergency call button. "Another one," he muttered to no one. "Third one this week on this line."
Voices crackled over the intercom. The girl was crying now, her fear cutting through the carriage's silent apathy. People glanced, then looked back at their screens. This was normal now. This was just a thing that happened.
I have to do this, Noah thought again, pushing the chilling scene away. It wasn't his problem. He had one problem.
He got off at the next stop, the image of the frozen boy seared behind his eyes. The city air was cold. He pulled his thin jacket tighter. His mind didn't wander to grand plans or moral debates. It showed him pictures, sharp and painful:
His mother's hands, once quick and strong, now pale and trembling on the kitchen table.
The bathroom sink, stained with a pinkish-brown splatter after a coughing fit she tried to hide.
The hospital bill, a number so large it looked like a joke, sitting unopened on the counter.
No philosophy. Just a fact. The medicine she needed wasn't covered. The charity applications were a maze of red tape. His sister, away at college, sent what she could. It was like trying to stop a flood with a teacup.
I have to do this.
He stopped in front of the pharmacy. The windows were bright, advertising flu shots and vitamins. His heart was a drum solo against his ribs. This was wrong. He knew it in his bones, in the way his stomach turned to liquid. He was a good kid. He got B's. He never stole, not even a candy bar.
He pulled a black hoodie over his head, yanking the strings tight. He fumbled a cloth mask over his nose and mouth. He looked like every sketchy news clip he'd ever seen.
Just get in. Get out. Don't think.
He shoved the door open, the bell jangling a cheerful, cruel sound. The inside was too bright, too quiet. An older woman at the register looked up, her eyes widening behind her glasses.
Noah's hand shook as he pulled the thing from his waistband. It was a stupid, cheap toy, plastic and obvious. It felt like a lie in his hand. He pointed it, his arm rigid.
"The cancer drugs," he said, his voice cracking on the first word. He thrust a crumpled piece of paper across the counter. His doctor's messy scrawl. "L-Lenvatinib. And the… the anti-nausea ones. Ondansetron."
The receptionist, her name tag reading Marlene, didn't scream. She didn't reach for an alarm. She looked from the pathetic plastic gun to his eyes, visible above the mask. They were scared, desperate, young.
She saw him.
Slowly, without breaking eye contact, she turned. She pulled boxes from the shelf behind her, scanning them. She filled a small bag. Then, she did something that almost broke him. She opened the cash drawer, pulled out a twenty-dollar bill, and slid it across the counter with the bag.
"It's gonna be okay, kid," she said, her voice low, almost a whisper. "Just go. Go straight home."
The kindness was a physical pain. Tears burned behind his eyes. "Thank you," he choked out, the words thick with shame. He grabbed the bag and the money, shoving them into his jacket.
He turned to run, and saw the second woman.
She was in the aisle for cough syrup, a phone pressed to her ear. Her eyes locked with his. She'd seen everything.
Noah bolted. He burst back onto the street, the cold air hitting him like a slap. He heard her shouting behind him. "He's running! North on Broadway! He's got a gun!"
Stupid, stupid, stupid!
Sirens wailed, terrifyingly close. His legs pumped, his lungs burning. Footsteps pounded behind him. It wasn't the police, but private security from the pharmacy complex, big guys in dark uniforms.
"Stop! Police are coming! Don't make it worse!"
He cut into an alley, trash bags and graffiti blurring past. The sirens were everywhere, echoing off the buildings. He was a mouse in a concrete maze.
He skidded out onto the next street, right into the path of a morning jogger, a man in his fifties, earbuds in, lost in his rhythm.
CRACK.
The sound was nothing like in the movies. It was a sharp, ugly pop. The jogger didn't fly back. He just crumpled, like a marionette with its strings cut, blood blooming on his grey sweatshirt.
The security guard behind Noah had fired. Missed Noah. Hit the jogger.
Noah stopped running. The world narrowed to the man on the ground, twitching, his breath a wet, bubbling sound. The bag of medicine in Noah's jacket felt like a lead weight. The security guards caught up, guns now drawn on him.
"Drop it! On the ground! NOW!"
Noah wasn't looking at their guns. He was looking at the jogger. He let the toy gun clatter to the pavement. "I didn't… I didn't shoot him!," he shouted.
"On your knees! Hands behind your head!"
Noah turned toward the dying man, taking a step. "He needs help—"
The world exploded in white light, then went black.
---
Consciousness returned in pieces. First, the smell: antiseptic and old dust. Then, the ache. It was a deep, throbbing pain at the back of his skull. He was sitting on a cold metal chair, his right wrist handcuffed to a thick pipe running floor to ceiling. The room was small, windowless, with a single dented table.
This wasn't a police station. It was too empty, too quiet.
The door opened. Two men walked in. They weren't cops. They wore dark, expensive-looking suits, no ties. They looked calm, like they'd just finished a boring meeting. One carried a sleek metal briefcase. The other carried three cups of coffee in a cardboard tray. The rich, bitter smell filled the room.
The man with the coffee set a cup in front of Noah, then took one for himself and his partner. They sat down across from him, saying nothing, sipping their coffee. Noah stared at the cup. His throat was desert-dry. Slowly, he took it with his left hand. It was hot, real, and better than any coffee he'd ever tasted. He drank greedily.
The two men exchanged a glance. Small, cold smiles.
The taller one finally spoke. His voice was pleasant, conversational. "Noah Slater. Eighteen. High school senior. Solid B student. No juvenile record. Not even a detention for fighting." He took a sip. "Why didn't you ever play Mindstreamer Online, Noah?"
The question was so absurd, so out of place, that Noah just blinked. "What?"
"Mindstreamer. The game. Every kid your age plays. Why didn't you?"
Noah's mind was foggy. "I'm… not into games. I have to work. I take care of my mom."
"Right. Stage four hepatocellular carcinoma. Nasty. Your sister's at state university. Scholarships, but not enough. You're the man of the house." The man said it all like he was reading a grocery list. No pity. Just facts.
The other man, silent until now, opened the briefcase. He turned a laptop around to face Noah. On the screen was a video. It was clean, high-definition, from a security camera angle Noah hadn't seen. It showed him, hood up, mask on, raising the gun. It showed the muzzle flash, a detail added in post-production. It showed the jogger spinning and falling.
It was perfect. And it was a lie.
"That's not what happened!" Noah's voice was raw. "The security guard shot him! I had a fake gun!"
"We know," the tall man said, his tone unchanged.
"The gun at the scene has your prints on it," the quiet man added. "The real gun. The one that killed Arthur Bell, fifty-two, father of three. A CPA. His morning run route never changed."
Noah felt the walls closing in. "The fake gun… the woman at the counter, she'll tell you—"
"Marlene Davies has been relocated. With a generous severance package. She remembers a violent young man with a real firearm." The tall man leaned forward slightly. "The narrative is set, Noah. The footage has already been provided to two major news outlets. They're running with 'Desperate Robbery Turns Deadly' at six."
The truth was a brick in his gut. It didn't matter what happened. They had already decided what happened.
"What do you want?" Noah whispered.
The tall man leaned back. "You have two choices. One: you go to trial for felony murder. You will be convicted. You will die in a supermax prison, and your mother will die alone, in debt, probably within the year."
Noah's breath hitched.
"Choice two: you sign a contract for government service. Your mother is moved to a top-tier treatment facility today. All debts are cleared. A trust is established for her care and your sister's education."
"What service?" Noah asked, the words barely audible.
The quiet man tapped a key on the laptop. The fake footage vanished, replaced by the iconic, swirling logo of Mindstreamer Online.
Noah recoiled. "No. No way. That thing… it kills people. It pulls them in. I saw a kid on the train, he was just… empty."
"Precisely," the tall man said. "It's an international security threat. We contain its physical manifestations—the 'realm gates.' We need assets on the inside. You will enter Mindstreamer. You will be given an identity. You will locate and eliminate certain high-value targets... faction leaders who use the chaos to murder for sport and viewership. And if the opportunity arises… you will help us find a way to destroy the core anomaly. The Virus."
"I can't do that!" Noah's laugh was hollow, desperate. "I've never played a game like that in my life! I'll die in five minutes!"
The tall man didn't argue. He nodded to his partner, who tapped another key. The screen changed to a live video feed. It showed a hospital room. His mother. She was asleep, an IV in her arm, looking smaller than he'd ever seen her. The monitor beside her beeped a slow, steady rhythm.
"Her prognosis is eight weeks with standard care," the tall man said, his voice dropping to a soft, horrible calm. "We can make it quicker."
The air left the room. Noah stared at the screen, at his mother's fragile form. The threat wasn't shouted. It was just… stated. A simple fact of their power.
The quiet man slid a single sheet of paper and a pen across the table. The contract. The words were a blur of legal jargon. At the bottom was a blank line.
Silence stretched, thick and suffocating. The hum of the laptop fan was the loudest sound in the world. Noah looked at the live feed, then at the contract. He thought of the frozen boy on the train, a puppet with its strings cut. He was about to become the same thing.
His hand trembled as he picked up the pen. It felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. He hesitated, the tip hovering over the line. This was it. The last choice he'd ever really make.
He signed his name.
The tall man took the paper, examined the signature, and nodded. "Welcome to the Agency, Noah."
The logo on the screen flickered as if it accepted.
Noah said nothing. There was no triumph. No resolve. Only a deep, cold survival, and the crushing knowledge that he had just traded one prison for another.
The game hadn't even started, and he'd already lost.