Lovers of history are well familiar with the fact that humanity has come together to create grand architectural masterpieces of breathtaking magnitude and technological achievement. In the ancient world, they were called Wonders: the Gardens of Babylon, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Great Wall of China, Chichén Itzá, Machu Picchu, Petra, the Colosseum, Taj Mahal, the Great Pyramid of Giza, for example.

Those were impressive, true. But surpassing them all in modern times, the pinnacles of human innovation, the vastest and most important buildings in the world have been created: shipping warehouses.

The Amaz-Ex shipping center surrounding Hadiin was larger than an aircraft hanger. You could line up multiple soccer fields in here. Standing on one end, you could barely see the other side of the building. One entire wall was filled with nothing but dozens of trucking bays. Row upon row of bright, white lights hung from the ceiling, bathing the interior in harsh, unnatural rays. And above that stretched a seemingly infinite web of bare, steel girders and a ceiling sprayed with ugly, gray insulation.

Every square meter of the shipping center had explicitly been designed to maximize the storage of products from all over the world, all processed via the many sorting belts used to put thousands of shipments together every day. Not a scrap of floor space had been wasted on rest areas or kitchens or anything that might encourage a decline in productivity. It was a marvel of engineering, the epitome of commercialized consumption innovation.

Hadiin’s feet ached from standing in one place all day, filling purple boxes on a gray, steel conveyor belt. “Would it have killed them to put a single window in this place? Just one window with some natural light.”

Across from him on the next belt, also packing boxes, a middle-aged latino man named Pedro rolled his eyes. “You know, you say this every single day, right?”

“And what? You don’t like repetition?” he mocked as they did the exact same thing over and over and over again all day, every day.

Yacy, a young woman three meters down the belt that Hadiin worked on coughed. “Ugh. I’d better not be getting sick. Would it kill them to introduce some basic virus protections in here? I mean, it’s bad enough with the cold and regular flu constantly making the rounds in here, but it feels like every week a new covid variant sweeps through. And we’re not even allowed to wear masks? Or take time off to get new booster shots?” She coughed again.

Hadiin pulled out his smartphone to check the time because there were no clocks anywhere to be seen either. Management didn’t want you slowing down before breaks or the end of the day. “Two and a half hours to go.”

“When are you gonna get a new phone, man?” Pedro teased.

“When they’re no longer over a thousand dollars,” he grumbled, “I can’t afford that.”

“You should ask for a raise,” Yacy joked.

“Or bug the union to fight for higher wages,” Pedro laughed.

It was funny because it was actually not amusing. Because they did not have a union. Amaz-Ex was severely anti-union and did everything they could to stop them from forming one, despite being one of the biggest employers in the country. But then, if there were unions, they wouldn’t be able to pay people like Hadiin and his coworkers peanuts.

Feeling annoyed at his job, he ignored the task at hand and scrolled through a news app. One story made him pause and he clicked on the picture of a big ship. He snorted in contempt.

“What’s up?” Yacy asked, casting a worried glance to see if any of the eagle-eyed supervisors were around. Slacking was severely frowned upon.

“Listen to this,” he told them, reading the story. “Amaz-Ex’s founder commissioned a custom-built superyacht. It’s over 125 meters long, has three decks and three masts. The tech on it is so new and so expensive that that guy is the one person in the world who could afford to have this ship built. The cost? $500 million.” He flipped the phone around so that the others could see. “Look at this thing.”

Pedro leaned forward. “Black hull, black sails? It looks like a pirate ship.”

“Kinda fitting, when you think about it,” Yacy mocked.

“Not just that,” Hadiin continued in a fake news voice as he read the article, “one ship apparently isn’t enough for him. He’s also commissioned a so-called shadow vessel. It’s a boat about half the size whose entire job is just to float along behind it.”

“Why?” Yacy wondered, curious.

“Because the superyacht apparently doesn’t have enough room when he has dozens of guests. The shadow also has space for a helipad, storage for water toys like diving equipment and jets skis, water slides, wind sails. And—oh wow. Both ships have compartments housing speedboats to take people to port and back.”

“So that’s, like, another $300 to 400 million?” Pedro pondered, shoving another cardboard box into the bin he was working on.

“It gets better. It’s being built in Europe and the only way to get the ship to sea is to dismantle some really old, historic bridge. Which he’s apparently paying for.”

Yacy sighed. “Guy can afford all that. But I can’t even afford a used car.”

“My credit card has been maxed out for two years,” Pedro added. “Half of it to keep the kids in diapers.”

“Right?” Yacy agreed. “Hospital bills, school bills, putting them in soccer. I can’t even drive my oldest boy to games because I can’t afford a vehicle, not to mention the gas and the insurance.”

Bitterness soured Hadiin’s voice. “How is it that we all work more than forty hours a week and live in near poverty, but he has enough money to build himself two private superyachts? And for what? How many days a year will he even use them? Two, three weekends, tops? For three-quarters of a billion dollars?

Pedro was good with math but he still pulled out his own smartphone to do the calculations. “You could give every employee in the company $500 for that. Man, $500 doesn’t go very far, but I sure could use it. And when you think that you’re giving that much to one and half a million people? That’s insane.”

“Look at this.” Hadiin was onto another article. “His official income alone is something like $1.6 million per year. But if you take his rising net worth from his stock into account, which has ballooned during the pandemic, he makes nine billion dollars—a month. That’s $3700 per second.”

Yacy scoffed, stupified. “So he makes more in a second than I make in a month?”

“Yup.” Hadiin nodded. “Average American makes just under $1000 per week. Average employee in this company? Just over $500 per week. He makes $2.25 billion per week. I guess that’s like three superyachts, and attendant shadow yachts—per week!” He was aghast at these numbers. They were so big that it was hard to properly grasp them.

Pedro’s fingers flicked over his calculator. “Let’s see. $500 per week times 1.5 million employees. That’s…$750 million. So, he makes three times more than the entire company—all together—makes, every week. That’s insane!” He looked gobsmacked. “One and a half million people is a decent city. He makes as much money as an entire city does!”

Hadiin gave a mocking bow. “Welcome to the capitalist dream. Slave your life away and make other people rich.”

Yacy barked a laugh. “And people think slavery is a thing of the past. Nope! Just a different form of it.”

Pedro was still crunching numbers. “Even if you just calculated his official salary of $1.6 million, that’s $32,000 per week, assuming 50 weeks a year.”

Yacy looked ready to angrily throw up. “Gee, how fair.”

“And that’s probably just his petty cash fund,” Pedro grouched. “What he spends on gold-flaked toilet paper every month. What I wouldn’t give for that kind of money. Or even a tiny portion of it. Well, bigger than the tiny portion I have now.”

Hadiin stared down at the purple bin in front of him, half filled with brown, cardboard boxes, each box filled with junk that other people had money to buy while he lived paycheck to paycheck, barely affording the necessities. Why couldn’t he have nicer things in his life? He was a good person. He worked hard. He followed the rules. Didn’t he deserve the luxuries so many of these rich jerks took for granted? Something in him snapped. “I am so sick of this job,” he said in a flat voice.

The others looked at him in surprise. Complaining about the company was standard work talk. But they didn’t usually get so worked up about it. After all, that was just how life was. You couldn’t do anything about it. Getting too emotionally involved would only lead to being even more miserable.

But Hadiin had cracked. He practically trembled at the unfairness of the poverty he lived in, at the strict job that he hated because of the menial working conditions and the lousy pay. He snarled. “I’m so sick of this culture. This society. I’m so sick of being poor and struggling all the time. Some lucky jerk was born into a nice family with money in a nice society, got super lucky, the right timing, whatever, and he’s got more money than any king ever did. Me? I was born in a poor country to poor parents and even though they moved here to give me a better life, I’m just some guy’s tool, a disposable animal that makes him money.”

“Did you know that,” Pedro joked, probably to lighten the mood, “in the world of cowboys and ranching and stuff, there are cattle and horses that are literally more valuable than we are?”

“Human cattle,” Yacy placed another box in her bin, not looking up. “Yup. That’s what we are.”

He continued to stare at the bin and mumbled without thinking. “I quit.”

Both of their heads swivelled to face him in surprise.

“What?” Pedro asked.

It was suddenly so clear to him. He spoke with more assurance. “I quit. I can’t take this anymore.”

“You can’t quit,” Yacy protested. “What will you do for money?”

He shrugged, somehow just no longer caring, despite the fact that worrying about how he was going to pay his bills seemed to be his biggest constant in life. But now, having decided he was done participating in this farce, he felt nothing but emptiness inside. It was probably shock. “I don’t know. Money money money. Why is life all about money? And why don’t I have any? I abide by the rules, follow the law, work my butt off. So why is it that I struggle to survive and the founding twit lives like a god?”

Pedro nodded but also seeminged worried or fearful at the way Hadiin was acting. Still, he was sympathetic. “Guys like him, the founder, the only person they look out for is themselves. What they donate to charity is just a tax write-off. They don’t actually care about people like us, the ones on the front lines making their company run.”

Hadiin snorted. He could feel envy in his heart like a cancer. “Maybe that should be me. Apparently, if you wanna be successful in the modern world, then focus on money and yourself. That’s the lesson we should be learning? Nothing matters in this world except how much money you make?”

Yacy turned away. “Dark,” she muttered. But she didn’t disagree.

Pedro paused and looked at him with concern. “You don’t sound ok.”

Hadiin frowned and backed away from his spot on the line. He sincerely hated being poor. He wanted an end to it. “Am I wrong? I should go out and start my own company or something.”

“Ha. With what money?” Yacy mocked.

“Takes money to make money,” Pedro stated. “And they have all the money.”

That just made Hadiin all the more bitter. He balled a fist. “So what hope is there for people like us?”

Pedro looked sad. “Hope died with socialism and equality. This is America, where individualism and the all-mighty dollar rule.”

“And gun violence,” Yacy pointed out. “Did you hear? Yet another mass school shooting this morning.”

Pedro’s brows rose. “Holy cow.” He shook his head while he worked. “While guys like the founder are ultra-rich and building superyachts, the rest of us are living in a war-torn, third-world country. I left rural Mexico because I thought it was bad there. Who’d have thought America would turn into the same hellhole? It’s like the wild west again here.”

Hadiin’s helplessness reasserted itself and he felt some of his anger fade. “I wish my parents had emigrated elsewhere. We should have gone to Canada. Or New Zealand or something.” He turned and started walking away.

An overweight supervisor came waddling over, huffing and puffing and cheeks turning pink. “Where are you going?” she worriedly called after him. “It’s not break time!”

Hadiin shouted back over his shoulder. “I quit. I’m done with this place. There’s no future here. Just wage slavery and misery. I don’t want this life anymore. It’s not me.” He pumped his fist into the air as he walked, not looking back, reminiscent of a certain iconic ‘80s movie.

💰

Hadiin trudged into his tiny apartment. It was old and worn but kept meticulously clean, a lesson that his mother had drummed into him from an early age and one of the few things that he was grateful to her for. Kicking his shoes off, he sank onto the threadbare couch and stared at the black screen of his TV. He didn’t bother to turn it on. In fact, he rarely watched it at all. Cable was outrageously expensive and the new streaming giants weren’t much better. Their own prices kept rising and you had to get two or four or more different services just to watch a decent variety of shows.

And he didn’t have the money for that. His phone and internet bill every month were about all that he could afford. This is why he had a free library card and spent most of his little off-time reading books. Good thing that books were awesome.

He was still in shock about his decision to leave Amaz-Ex. His mind was blank and refused to ponder the future or serious things like how he was going to pay for food. Unable to think properly, he sought distraction. Pulling out a cheap, old laptop, he booted up the fantasy MMO that he’d been playing for a couple of years, on and off, when he could splurge on the monthly fee.

When his character appeared in the fantasy city, surrounded by medieval architecture and other players in colourful gear and everyone’s crazy mounts, he began to honestly relax. For about five minutes he just sat there, staring at the screen. Then a childish impulse caught hold of him.

His character turned to the manicured tree standing next to him and began violently hacking at it, over and over without stopping for another five minutes. It drew considerable attention and mockery from the other players hanging out in the city’s main square. Then Hadiin typed every swear word that he could think of into the main chat, along with Amaz-Ex’s name, and repeated it a dozen times.

Needless to say, the other players were howling with laughter. A good few chimed in with supportive comments against Amaz-Ex. Who didn’t love bashing a giant, greedy super-corporation?

Then the rage melted out of him and Hadiin sat there, staring again, doing nothing. Most of the other players quickly lost interest and went back to their own games.

A female avatar of a glowing, blue woman in a white bikini and heels wandered over to his avatar. She was an elemental, a very rare species in the game, something that you had to win in an event lottery in order to achieve. A white and gold, hoodless cape hung in the air around her shoulders and her fingers sparkled with magical rings. She waved at him, her expression concerned, and a message box came up. [Voice chat?]

Embarrassment over his behaviour crept in and he was inclined to refuse. Then he shrugged. Why not? His day couldn’t get any worse. He clicked Accept. As he did, it occurred to him that he hadn’t realized that avatars could look concerned. Had they programmed a new emotion recently?

A cheerful and young female voice came over his speakers. “Hi! Are you ok?”

He snorted with amusement and, surprising himself, answered honestly. “No.”

“Aw. What’s wrong?” From her tone, it actually seemed as if she cared.

“Life.”

“Ah. That’s sort of general. Anything specific?”

For some reason, he found himself answering openly. Perhaps it was because she was a stranger. “I have no hopes. No dreams. Or I might as well have none. Because none of them are possible here. The American dream was a lie. I’m stuck in a crappy life and I hate it. I hate the company I quit today. I hate this society. This world.”

“Hmm. That’s tough.”

“Yeah. Too bad the fantasy world we’re playing in is just a game. I’d probably be a lot happier there.”

She seemed surprised. “Even though you were beating up that poor tree that did nothing to you?”

He chuckled, rueful and even more embarrassed at his loss of composure. “Ha. Yeah. I should apologize. I’m sorry, tree.” He made his avatar bow.

She seemed genuinely curious and her face became bemused. “So you’d like a fantasy world better? I mean, it doesn’t have the technology your world has. Planes and cell phones and games and tv and such.”

That made him think. “True. We have a lot of advancements. I suppose I shouldn’t complain. At least we have clean drinking water and sewers. They didn’t always have that five hundred years ago. Assuming all fantasy worlds are set in the middle ages, which they seem to be.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “and having toilet paper is nice too, isn’t it?”

He laughed a bit more this time. For some reason, this conversation was mellowing him out. “It is!” Then he got more serious again. “Still, for all the good things, it feels like a lot of other people are getting ahead and I’m being left behind. Other people are fat and rich and happy and I’m scrapping together pennies just to survive. I mean, how do you make a decent future for yourself here? How do you find a way to be happy? Seems like only the rich are happy here.” Even he heard the bitterness return to his voice.

“What would you do if you could go to another world?” she asked, her voice innocent, as if it was even possible to do such a thing.

He sat back and imagined. “A world like the game one? Without mega-corporations? Then maybe I could decide my own life, my own future.” It sounded good. Just impossible.

“You’d go be an adventurer?”

A smile split his lips. “Yeah. Something like that. Someplace where, when I work hard, I get the benefits, not someone else.”

“Hmm. Really, really?” She sounded doubtful. “This is what you truly want? To go to a fantasy world and leave everything in this world behind, never to come back?”

He shrugged. “I have nothing to come back to. So, yeah. Too bad it’s not possible.”

“Is,” she flatly corrected him. Her avatar did a sexy little dance on the screen.

He blinked. “Huh?”

“Is. I can take you there.” The way she said it, it sounded like fact. There wasn’t a hint of joke or mockery in her tone. Her sexy dancing turned into Irish tap dancing.

He frowned, sure she was making fun of him. “What are you talking about?”

“Do you want to leave this world and go to another? Final answer? Can’t take it back?” She still sounded hesitant, as if not fully believing he’d want to leave this place. And…were her lips moving in time to her voice? The avatar shouldn’t be able to do that.

He might have given her question more serious thought at a different time. But at that moment, he was well and truly sick of America and all of its problems. He was tired of not looking forward to his future, sick of feeling helpless and miserable. But most of all, he was sick of other people having so much money while he had none. Going someplace where he had a chance of making a better living sounded wonderful. “Sure. I’d leave. Final answer.”

A bright, golden light spun into being in the apartment and he looked over to face it, eyes going wide, then narrowing because of the brightness.

A young woman appeared. In fact, it was the exact same woman from the game! She was even glowing and blue, just like the avatar. Actually—the avatar was gone from the game! She smiled brightly at him, as beautiful as any model. “Hi!”

He struggled to form coherent words in the face of what should have been scientifically impossible. “Who are you?”

She took a curious look around the little two-room apartment, speaking as she did, which made him glad that he kept it so spartan and neat. “I’m Meg. I’m what humans call a goddess. But more like the deities you worshipped back in ancient times. Not the ridiculous, all-powerful, all-knowing mono-god from your later religions.” She looked at him as if explaining something that should have been obvious to a child. “Those aren’t real, by the way. Well, the ancient gods are. Not the mono-gods. That’s just collective self-delusion.”

He shook himself and rubbed his eyes, but she was still there. “What are you talking about? How did you get in here?”

“Goddess, remember?” She gave him a kind smile. “We’ve got superpowers. So,” she clapped her hands, “ready to go? Can’t take anything with you. Do you need to say goodbye to anyone before you leave? Want to write a note?” She was acting as if she was about to spirit him away to the airport or something, a secretary hurrying a client off.

He stood and waved her to slow down with both hands. “Wait. This is— Say goodbye? I don’t…there’s no one.” His thoughts were a jumbled mess. What was really going on here?

She grinned. “Ok! Then here we go!” She motioned around him with a blue hand.

He began to glow like she was, then the world faded away.

The next thing he knew, he was standing on the ground outdoors, in a forest at the edge of a medieval hamlet. He whirled and looked in all directions, seeing the self-styled goddess standing next to him. “What’s going on?” he gasped.

“I transported you to another world,” she happily explained. “A fantasy-type world, just like you wanted.” She seemed quite proud.

He gaped at her. “Seriously?”

Meg nodded once. “Of course.” Then she seemed to realize what a shock this must be for him and explained in a kind voice. “Travel to other worlds actually happens a fair amount. Often via reincarnation, but sometimes like this too. Especially with worlds like yours and this one. Yours is overpopulated and on the brink of total collapse and death. No harm in taking people from there. And this one is on a low cycle right now, so bringing others here is no problem.”

“But…wouldn’t that interfere with the planet’s natural development or something?”

She shrugged, unconcerned. “So? Where do you think the pyramids came from in your world? Or legends of Arthur and dragons and elves?” She gestured to her attire, which very much flattered the heavenly figure wearing it. “You think humans invented the bikini all on their own during such a sexually repressive era?”

It was suddenly even more difficult to think. “Uh…”

“Portal stories have been around for a long time in your world. You know the whole isekai craze that came about recently?”

He looked sidelong at her. “Yes…?”

She leaned forward smirked as if confiding a secret. “A couple of gods living in Japan, writing under different pen names. Thought it would be hilarious to leak real stories of people they’d transported to other worlds into the manga and light novel industry. An insider joke for deities.” She giggled. “Actually, some are pretty funny.”

He looked around, staggered that he was in a forest instead of his apartment. “Being here is a bit difficult to believe,” he admitted.

“You’ll get used to it,” she waved his concern away. “You’ll probably find others here as well. I dropped a girl off here not too long ago.” She looked around, a finger on her lips as if she might actually see the other woman on a hike or something.

“Huh.” His brain was struggling to keep up. The air was clear and impossibly clean. It was warm, perhaps an early summer’s day. The trees seemed familiar enough. And he saw humans in the hamlet. It really might be a different world, but not so different that it was truly alien.

She pulled away and started levitating. The gold-and-white cloak billowed out a bit. “Anyway, it was fun. Nice meeting you and I hope you feel better here.” She waved goodbye. “Time for me to go.”

“Wait!” At the thought of being stranded alone here, panic grasped him and he rushed after her. “You’re just leaving me here?”

She spoke again as if to a child. “It’s what you wanted.”

“Well, yes. But…”

“I guess I could give you a few tips,” she relented, hovering with a finger on her lip again. “Um, this is the edge of a mostly human zone. There’s magic in this world. Oh!” Her face brightened with excitement. “An ancient civilization decided that raw magic was too difficult for most people and they wanted to make it more accessible to everyone. So they developed an overlay system for it. People can either choose to live freely or they can choose a class. If they choose a class, they can gain skills or spells and level up by challenging themselves. It makes using magic much easier.”

“That’s amazing!” And super convenient. Like computer programmers taking machine language and building an easy-to-use interface for regular people. Genius, really.

“Right?” Then she cautioned him. “And just to be clear, though it might feel like a game because of the ones you used to play, this is a real world. If you die here, you die for real. There’s no going back to your own world.” She looked right into his eyes to make sure he understood.

A little worry crept up between his shoulder blades. “I can’t get resurrected then?”

She shook her head. “Only if someone knows that spell.” She seemed to take pity on him. “But here. I’ll give you a special gift.” She reached out and held something for him to take.

He raised his palm up and felt something pass into his hand, then disappear. “What’s this?”

“An extra life. Don’t waste it!” She floated higher. “Ok. Bye-bye now! Enjoy your new life!” She waved and blinked out of existence, leaving only motes of golden light drifting down from where she had been.

He stood, stunned. Birds chirped. He heard voices not far off. The breeze touched his skin. As far as he could tell, he wasn’t imagining this. It was scary and exciting both, like when his parents had first immigrated. The excitement rose, leaving his fear behind.

Hadiin wondered how he was supposed to choose a class. She hadn’t explained to him how this interface worked. He tried talking out loud, wishing for it, then just concentrating. That did it.

A window appeared in his vision.

Welcome!

You have not been registered with MagicOS and no class has been detected.

Would you like to choose a class now?

He grinned and clicked [Yes].