CHAPTER TEN

Hiss...

The door unlocked as the match ended.

Without Wass forcibly unplugging the pod, it was impossible for Jason to leave the game until he won or was defeated.

Normal players had the option of leaving in the middle of a match, but not One Star Bosses. Having them leave a match all of a sudden would break the in-game immersion.

Jason had even heard of previous safety complaints at other gaming facilities - issues like a fire breaking out in a player's house. Nobody had ever died before, but Jason knew of several close calls.

The other One Star Bosses in the complex had whispered worriedly when they heard the horror stories.

Fortunately, Wass generally ran a tight ship. He'd snuff out any issues like fires long before anyone was in danger.

He probably expected Jason and the other One Star Bosses to be thankful.

However, Jason thought that not letting your employees die in a deadly fire was simply a basic of the job. It would be like if Jason suddenly started killing the NPC minions on Towering Crag for no reason.

Speaking of Wass...

Jason pushed open the pod, expecting to get yelled at, but he heard nothing at all.

He looked around his room, then blinked in surprise.

Wass wasn't there anymore.

He'd left without a word.

Wass's disappearance wasn't the only strange thing.

Jason's room was now completely empty.

There wasn't even a single trace that Jason had there before. The place looked like it'd never been lived in.

Jason's bed sheets and pillows were all stripped from the company issue bed. There was nothing there but a mattress.

The various posters Jason had decorated his wall with - references to his favorite games or movies - had been cleanly peeled off the wall. There wasn't even a speck of tape or glue left over.

His chair was gone too, as were all the notebooks and pens at his desk.

Even smaller pieces of miscellaneous furniture like his black wastebaskets had vanished.

For a brief moment, Jason felt like he was going insane.

It was almost like he'd traveled back in time to the day he'd first gotten hired as a One Star Boss.

His room had been completely empty back then, with nothing but an empty bed, a couple of standard-issue wardrobes, and the gaming pod in the center of the room.

It was only after Jason pulled open the wardrobe to find nothing inside that he realized what had happened.

He'd been fired immediately, with no debate at all.

Wass had simply cleaned all of Jason's possessions out of the house without even warning him.

Jason could even smell a faint hint of disinfectant.

Everything had been cleaned in the last hour during Jason's match, and he hadn't heard a thing over the sound effects of the virtual reality pod.

A dim part of Jason wondered what would have happened had he lost like he was ordered to.

Would Wass have just hurriedly put everything back?

Would he have classified this as some sort of prank meant to scare him straight?

Jason frowned.

Was this still a prank?

What was going on?

The situation was totally and utterly bizarre.

All of his possessions had been removed, and Wass wasn't even bothering to talk to him.

Jason had expected to get yelled at, but instead, they were acting like he wasn't even a person.

A strange feeling flickered through Jason's heart and stomach, but he couldn't quite describe what it was.

In theory, Jason had known there was a chance he'd be fired, but now that the actual event was staring him right in the face, he'd realized that he hadn't actually wrapped his head around the idea.

A few minutes ago, Jason had a job that paid him to play Overdrive full time.

Now, he didn't.

Jason had angered the wrong whale, and now his career as a One Star Boss was over.

The strange feeling intensified, and Jason grimaced. He didn't like this new emotion - it was strange and sour.

Jason stepped completely out of the Overdrive pod, then pushed against the door of his room.

To his relief, the knob turned, and the door immediately opened.

It was only after feeling that strange spurt of relief that Jason realized part of him had expected Wass to lock him inside.

Of course, that would have been totally illogical.

If Jason was fired, Wass would have wanted him out of the room as soon as possible.

Wass was crude and cruel, but he prioritized making money over everything else.

The Overdrive pods were exceedingly expensive, and locking a fired Discreet Player Killer inside the room would have encouraged them to begin destroying their surroundings.

In fact, the door swung shut automatically behind Jason as soon as he walked outside.

The loud click as it returned to its frame informed Jason that the door was locked shut. He reached for the knob, but it was completely stiff.

He'd been locked out of his room as soon as he'd stepped out.

It was yet another reminder that the Overdrive Corporation didn't see Jason as a person anymore.

On top of that, all of Jason's stuff was lying outside in a pile of neatly wrapped white garbage bags.

Jason wasn't surprised to see that his items had been handled with care.

Even all the posters had been put into cheap wooden frames that kept them from crumpling.

Wass's bullying behavior might have been downright ludicrous while Jason was under contract, but now that Jason had been expeditiously fired, he didn't want Jason to come back crying about damaged valuables.

Everything was unfeeling and logical.

This was just like Wass's decision to lock Jason out of the room as soon as possible. Although it probably would have satisfied Wass to dump everything in the trash, the ex-security guard clearly didn't want to encourage some sort of lawsuit.

Jason was no longer an employee, which meant he no longer had his desperation to keep a job working with the Overdrive Corporation hanging over his head.

On top of the pile of Jason's possessions was a ripped-up contract. A bright red stamp had been pressed across both the top and bottom of the two halves of paper.

BREACH OF CONTRACT

Angry red lines underscored a few loose sentences of microscopic print.

Jason craned his head and narrowed his eyes to read the few sentences.

"Represent the Overdrive Corporation in an economically beneficial manner."

"Promote the Overdrive Corporation's business interests."

"Failure to follow these guidelines will result in immediate termination."

The text was exceedingly vague.

Jason had remembered reading the contract before signing, and he'd had no idea what those words had meant at the time.

The fact that those lines had come back to haunt him was deeply frustrating.

Before signing his contract, Jason had been well aware of the countless dishonest contracts in the Overdrive industry.

Eager Overdrive fans had been scammed countless times. Everyone wanted a job playing their favorite game, and plenty of players had signed onto fake organizations with no salaries or unscrupulous tournaments that didn't pay prize money. Some of them had even locked into predatory contracts for the long term.

Jason had been careful to avoid the same.

He'd read and re-read every line of microscopic print before signing, but at the end of the day, he'd gotten ripped off all the same.

When Jason had first signed his contract, he'd envisioned steadily moving up through the company's ranks, proving his skills and advancing from a One Star Boss to a famed Fortress Master.

Two years later, he had nothing to show for it but wasted time.

The fact that Wass had unceremoniously kicked Jason out of the house just hammered home how disposable Jason's job had been.

Jason had poured his heart and soul into winning games. He'd looked for new paths every time Wass closed one off.

In reality, his job had been to play as a professional loser.

Jason scowled.

How pointless.

His earlier trepidation and worry vanished.

It was immediately replaced by an angry determination. It felt weird to describe his anger as righteous, but Jason felt like that description was accurate.

He'd been taken advantage of and then tossed by the wayside. It was rightful for him to be angry.

He grabbed the bags and hefted them over his back.

After a bit of struggle, he started moving out of the apartments and down the hall. To his dismay, Jason realized that he'd gotten far weaker over the last two years.

Working ridiculous hours all day had completely eroded his muscles. Moving all his stuff in had been a total breeze.

As he walked by the closed doors, Jason heard plenty of whispers and murmurs.

"Did you hear? Jason is gone now."

"Winning too much - how could that possibly happen?"

"Why would you bother trying so hard?"

"Just calm down and play, man."

"Gonna miss him, but he always took this way too seriously."

"He must have been too dumb to get what Mr. Wass was saying."

From the sounds of it, Wass had sent a mass email to every single player in the building. Even though Jason had gotten fired, he still could serve a useful purpose to the Overdrive Corporation as a warning for other overambitious One Star Bosses.

Although Jason had been on amicable terms with everyone else in the building, he knew that nobody was going to stand up for him.

Jason groaned as he stepped outside the apartment building.

Once again, the door locked loudly behind him.

Jason's biggest life skill had always been playing video games.

He had a very hard time focusing on anything else.

He'd had pretty good grades in high school, but he hadn't managed to keep focusing through college.

After locking in academically for ten years, he just couldn't get over the finish line of concentrating for four more.

It eventually got to the point where information from textbooks just started falling right out of his head. Trying to study for a test was like climbing up a slippery and crumbling mountain - every time Jason learned something new, he immediately forgot the fact he'd just learned before it.

After his second year, he'd dropped out after an Overdrive Corporation representative he'd battled online offered him the One Star Boss position.

Now he was starting over again from square one.

A car stopped by right beside him.

A furious man in an expensive suit screamed endlessly at the driver inside, abruptly jerking Jason out of his thoughts.

"You made me late! Why didn't you run that light! You made me late! Moron! Moron!"

The driver was an older Chinese man who clearly didn't speak English very well. He just said sorry a bunch of times before the red-faced man eventually stormed off.

Jason grimaced.

People took crap at their jobs all the time.

You couldn't always win at work - you just had to keep your head down and stay out of trouble. That Uber driver would have gotten fired if he yelled back at the abusive customer.

Jason beating and humiliating the AngryBoardMember was much worse than that. It was more like punching out a customer who yelled at you.

It'd felt satisfying at the time, but his firing was only a natural consequence.

Well.

Jason hefted his bag of possessions higher over his shoulder, making sure it wouldn't touch the dirty sidewalk.

His life as a One Star Boss was definitively over.

What the hell was he going to do next?