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My heart rate quickens, and I turn to grab Kain’s arm, pulling him forward. “This is Kain. He’s my friend. He’s the best programmer.”

Kain dismisses the compliment with a wave. “Reef exaggerates.”

“No, I don’t.” I frown up at him. “You’re the best programmer I know.”

Kain doesn’t argue, but his ears go pink.

Julian’s attention shifts to Kain. His eyes sweep over him, and his smile deepens, crinkling the corners of his eyes.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kain,” Julian says, his voice dropping half an octave. “That’s quite the endorsement coming from ZeroSignal.”

One corner of Kain’s lips lifts. “He’s loyal to a fault.”

“I can see that.” Julian leans forward, his hand smoothing over the tablecloth. “We’re hiring for the DLC support team. I’d be very interested in seeing your resume. Personally.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a business card, offering it to Kain between two fingers. “My direct line. Skip the application portal.”

When Kain doesn’t take the card right away, like the treasure it is, I snatch it from Julian’s hand and shove it into Kain’s pocket before turning back to my hero.

“Does the DLC address the missed-meal continuity error from the original ending?” I ask. “Chapter Twelve, when the Sentinel skips the barracks debrief because the Oracle quote-unquote ‘wore him out’ the night before? The game never establishes whether they actually shared a meal, leaving a logic gap in the barracks dialogue where the lieutenant references a meal that might not have happened.”

Julian’s head turns back to me. “Do you want to see the patch notes?”

I leap with excitement, and only Kain’s grip on the back of my sweatshirt stops me from climbing right over the table. He redirects me around the table instead.

Best. Day. Ever.

5

“—and he knew who I was,” I say in a rush as I trail Kain through the front door. “The Sentinel pathing bug. The eastern alley. He actually read my reports.”

I stumble over the threshold, still in my BunnyGlitch costume, the headphones dangling from my fingers and my competition sweatshirt damp with the sweat of a full day under stage lights. “Kain, he remembered.”

Kain drops his bag near the entryway with a heavy thud. “I heard you the first six times, Bunny.”

“I’m ZeroSignal to him. Not BunnyGlitch. ZeroSignal.” I bounce on my toes behind him as he kneels. “That’s my Dusk Protocol handle. The one I used on the forums. Julian Vey. The guy who co-built the entire game. He knew.”

Kain’s shoulders shift as he digs through his bag.

“He’s going to fix everything. The continuity errors. The meal debrief. I’ve been pointing out those bugs for years, and he fixed every single one. He said⁠—”

Kain turns, and my sentence stops.

He holds a purple-and-green can between his fingers, condensation beading on the aluminum. ZeroSignal. The limited-edition Dusk Protocol energy drink, its label the exact purple-green colorway of the game’s UI, the font as familiar to me as my own handwriting.

“You found one!” I drop the headphones and snatch it from his hand.

Yanking down my mask to sit below my chin, I pop the tab, and the fizzy purple liquid hits my tongue with metallic grape-lime.

One corner of Kain’s mouth lifts as he picks up my headphones and sets them on the docking station. “Does it make you happy to have your second favorite flavor now?”

I puff my cheeks at him, lips parting on a retort. But then my thumb traces the label, the raised texture of the ZeroSignal logo, the pixelated background pattern, and I’m pulled back into the spiral.

“Julian Vey is so cool, isn’t he?” I trail Kain into the smaller ground floor office. “He was still in university when he started working on Dusk Protocol.”

“Yes. Super cool.” Kain unloads his bag onto the side desk. “The competition organizer wired your prize money. Forty-two thousand.”

I take a long drink, the cold burning my throat. “Let the accountant handle it.”