Sky leaned back in her chair, the ergonomic mesh groaning softly. Her fingers tapped a silent, restless rhythm on the keyboard's beveled edge. Around her, the converted warehouse space of Obsidian Works buzzed with a post-lunch cadence of clacking keys, murmured debate, and the occasional burst of laughter from the direction of the retro arcade cabinets. The air smelled of stale coffee and overheated electronics. At his command center near the Ms. Pac-Man machine, Harry Osborn was holding court, his voice slicing through the ambient noise with demands about asset pipelines. Two developers were huddled at a monitor, arguing over the frame-perfect timing of a punch animation. Sky observed it all from her corner desk—not as a junior coder, but through the lens of her real assignment. She was a SHIELD agent, embedded and assessing, and the view was growing increasingly complicated.
Across the small alcove they'd claimed for administrative work, Natasha Romanoff sat with perfect, unassuming posture. Disguised as an efficient secretary, her dark hair was in a severe bun, glasses perched low on her nose. Her eyes scanned a tablet that outwardly displayed spreadsheets, but Sky knew better. The subtle tension in Natasha's shoulders, the minute furrow of her brow as she absorbed the encrypted data—it was a tell.
Sky: I feel like you're making it more stressful than it usually is.
Her voice was low, calibrated to blend into the office hum. Natasha looked up, her green eyes sharp and assessing. She set the tablet down with a definitive, soft click.
Natasha: Stressful? Sky, we're in the middle of building a counter-faction inside SHIELD to root out Hydra. If that's not stressful, I don't know what is. We've already uncovered leads on three mid-level agents funneling resources to unknown ops. That's progress, but progress paints targets on our backs.
Sky nodded, uncrossing her arms to lean forward on the desk, her voice dropping further.
Sky: I get that. Believe me, after what happened with my last assignment, I'm all in on this. But Peter's just a kid running a game company. We came here because of his parents' old ties to SHIELD—Richard and Mary Parker were assets, deep cover. We scouted him for leverage, for intel on lingering connections. But now? It's like every weird element in the city is converging on this place.
Natasha sighed, a controlled exhalation as she rubbed her temple. Her gaze drifted toward Peter's office door, left slightly ajar. The faint, rapid sound of typing, like digital rainfall, filtered through the gap.
Natasha: The X-Men taking interest changes the calculus. Xavier showing up here, writing a check for millions to fund a mutant awareness game? That's not a coincidence. Then Matt Murdock joins the legal team—the same vigilante we've flagged as Daredevil. His radar sense can pick up a liar's heartbeat from across the room. He's not here for contract law. With Fisk expanding his operations, Emma Frost pulling strings from the Hellfire Club, and now mutants and street-level heroes mixing in this one warehouse? It's a powder keg waiting for a spark.
A soft, involuntary chuckle escaped Sky. She picked up a stray pen, rolling it deftly between her fingers.
Sky: Peter attracts the strangest crowd. One day he's coding candy puzzles, the next he's brokering deals with telepaths and blind acrobats. I started this thinking it'd be straightforward—play the addicted gamer girl, slip in as a junior dev, monitor the books and his contacts. But Harry's funneling Osborn money, my cover's coding skills are actually getting used for real work, and now we're knee-deep in mutant politics.
Natasha leaned back, the gesture deceptively casual. She crossed one leg over the other, the toe of her sensible pump tapping a faint, thoughtful rhythm against the desk leg.
Natasha: It's more than politics. Peter is sharp—unnervingly so for seventeen. His parents were SHIELD, and they vanished under circumstances we still don't fully understand. Now he's building a tech empire out of a glorified garage. We need to know if he's inherited more than just intelligence. If Hydra has infested SHIELD, they likely have eyes on him, too. Murdock's presence is a wildcard. Our files paint him as a solo operator, a kingpin hunter in Hell's Kitchen. So why join a tech startup's legal team unless Peter is actively pulling him in to counter someone like Fisk?
Sky set the pen down, her eyes drifting to the large whiteboard across the room. It was a chaotic mosaic of Peter's mind: hurried sketches of character models, flowcharts for game mechanics, equations that blurred the line between code and theoretical physics.
Sky: Maybe he's building his own network. Think about it—X-Men for mutant-scale backup, Daredevil for ground-level intel. If he's pieced together even a fraction of his parents' past, he could be playing a long game we haven't even mapped. But stressing over every new connection? That's what I mean. We're making tangible progress on Hydra. Those leads we dug up last week, the encrypted comms from Sitwell? That's actionable intelligence. We can't let this cover gig turn into a paranoia fest.
Natasha's lips quirked, a ghost of a smile that didn't soften the professional caution in her eyes.
Natasha: Paranoia is what keeps us alive, Sky. I learned that lesson in the Red Room, and it was written in blood. But your point is taken. We focus on the primary mission: scout Peter, build our faction, expose Hydra. The game project is a cover, but it's attracting variables we didn't anticipate. So, tell me more about it. What's he got the team working on now?
Sky straightened up, a genuine spark of enthusiasm cutting through the agent's veneer. She recalled the morning's team briefing, Peter's passionate exposition holding the entire room in thrall.
Sky: Okay, so his vision is wild. It's not some simple puzzle app for awareness. He's talking about an immersive, open-world experience where players create a mutant character and navigate a society that fears and hates them. The government is hunting you down, rival factions want to recruit or kill you. Multiple endings based on your choices—align with Xavier's dream of peace, or embrace Magneto's path of rebellion. He's built in moral gray areas everywhere. And the tool he's creating to build it… he calls it the Genesis Engine. It's supposed to cut dev time dramatically, automate assets, use AI to generate story branches. The team's already prototyping levels: urban hideouts, government raid sequences, moments of power manifestation.
Natasha listened, her fingers now still on the tablet. Her mind, trained to analyze subtext and potential threat vectors, began dissecting the information.
Natasha: A game that simulates mutant persecution, with the X-Men's implicit endorsement. That edges beyond entertainment into the realm of sophisticated propaganda. If it achieves even a fraction of Candy Smash's reach, it could shift public perception in a significant way. But this Genesis Engine… that's the critical piece. If it's as powerful as you suggest—a tool that can generate coherent worlds from parameters—it becomes a high-value target. Hydra could repurpose it for combat simulations, psychological operations, even espionage training. We need access. Have you managed to poke around his core files yet?
Sky shook her head, a frown of frustration touching her features.
Sky: Not deeply. His security is… elegant. It's not just firewalls; it's like the system learns. But I'm integrated as a dev. I can volunteer for more Engine testing, push for beta access. And with Murdock here, maybe there's an angle. If his focus is dismantling Fisk, and Hydra is potentially connected to that kind of organized crime…
Natasha considered this, her gaze turning inward as she calculated risks and potential alliances.
Natasha: Be careful with Murdock. He's fiercely independent and has no love for large, shadowy organizations. But if Peter trusts him, it creates an opening. Your priority is to continue building rapport. Harry is voluble; use that. On the Hydra front, our next data drop is confirmed. The list I received from my contact at the diner has yielded two more verified names. Pierce remains the ultimate objective, but we build the case meticulously, brick by brick.
Sky nodded, feeling the familiar, draining weight of her dual identity—the eager developer versus the watchful agent. The conflict was more acute now, as she found herself actually caring about the game's narrative and the team's progress.
Sky: Understood. I'll dig into the Engine without raising flags. But Natasha… if Peter is clean. Just a brilliant kid with a tragic family history and a talent for attracting chaos… what's the play? Do we eventually pull him in? Or do we keep him as an unwitting asset?
Natasha was silent for a long moment. Her eyes tracked a figure moving past Peter's office—Harry, waving his arms as he explained something to an animator. When she spoke, her tone was measured, devoid of sentiment but not of a certain reluctant respect.
Natasha: We watch. If he has SHIELD in his blood, he may become an unintentional key to consolidating our faction. But until we have absolute clarity, trust must be conditional. Trust no one fully. Not even the kid with the pizza fund.
Peter's first person view
I leaned against the edge of my desk, the laminate cool through the thin cotton of my shirt. The stack of printed scripts felt substantial in my hands, a tangible weight of possibility and risk. I shuffled them one last time, the soft shfft of paper the only sound in the quiet office. Down the hall, the faint, rhythmic ping of an email notification broke the silence every thirty seconds. Harry stood across from me, arms crossed, sporting that familiar skeptical look the one that meant he was already three steps ahead, calculating the downsides. He'd shown up unannounced, again, but I didn't mind. Ever since he'd backed Obsidian Works with that two-million dollar deposit and a battalion of Osborn lawyers to handle the incorporation, his unannounced visits were part of the new normal. He kept me grounded. Sometimes, I needed that.
Harry: Are you sure this is a good idea?
His voice cut clean through the quiet, his eyes on the scripts like they were a suspicious package. I paused, setting the stack down for a second. The title page stared up at me: PROJECT: CHIMERA – Treatment Draft.
Peter: You mean the whole mutants stuff?
He nodded, uncrossing his arms to run a hand through his perfectly messy hair. A nervous habit he'd had since we were kids.
Harry: Yeah, I mean, I'm not anti-mutant or anything, but I guess… it's a shift. We're just getting our feet under us with Candy Smash, and now we're diving into this heavy territory. Collaborating with Xavier's people? It's bold, Pete.
It's necessary, I thought, but didn't say. The world wasn't just fun apps and candy puzzles. Not anymore. Not for me. I picked the scripts back up, starting to slide them into a plain black folder for the team meeting.
Peter: Yeah, I know. We're just starting out, and next thing you know, we're walking with mutants. But think about it—it's an opportunity. The investment's solid, and if we pull it off, it could put us on the map for something more than just fun apps.
He watched me, his gaze sharp. Then he stepped closer, his eyes catching on the top page I'd left exposed—a snippet of dialogue between an alter and a government agent.
Harry: You wrote all this?
I nodded, sliding the last few sheets in. My handwriting was all over the margins, notes in blue pen spiraling around the typed lines.
Peter: Yeah, all of it. Dialogue, plot outlines, the works. Late nights.
He raised an eyebrow, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. He reached out.
Harry: Why don't you let me check it out?
I handed the folder over without hesitation. If anyone would give it to me straight, it was Harry. He took it, flipping it open to the first section. He leaned against the desk beside me, his shoulder almost touching mine, and began to read. I watched his face, trying to read the micro-reactions. This wasn't just a pitch. This was a piece of the world I saw every night from a different angle—the fear, the prejudice, the desperate choices. Channeling it into a game felt like the only way to scream without making a sound.
Harry's expression shifted from casual scan to deep focus, his brow furrowing. He turned a page.
Harry: Okay, so it starts with the character creation—age, name, background. That ties into how the story unfolds?
Peter: Exactly. It's all a cascade. Every choice from minute one matters. The game takes place in Night City—a sprawling, gritty metropolis where everything's for sale, corruption's the norm, and survival's a daily grind. Your character starts with a normal life. Maybe a family, a dull job. Then, an armed robbery goes sideways. In the panic, their powers manifest. But in this universe, they're not called mutants. They're alters. Genetically, they're 99% human, but that one percent? It's a special gene that unlocks superhuman abilities. It shatters their entire life in an instant.
Harry looked up, intrigued. I could see him turning the concept over in his head, looking for the market angle, the hook.
Harry: Alters, huh. Smart. Less comic-book, more… plausible deniability. So instead of heroes in capes, it's just people trying to scrape by in a world that suddenly hates them?
Peter: Yeah. Once the powers show, everything unravels. Systemic discrimination kicks in—looked down on, hunted by government agencies, treated like freaks or walking weapons. Factions emerge everywhere: pro-alter activist groups pushing for rights, alter gangs carving out turf through sheer force, hidden sanctuaries in the city's underbelly. Your decisions steer everything. Who you ally with, the jobs you take, the lines you're willing to cross. Join a gang? You might rise in power but lose everyone you ever cared about. Go undercover for the government? Betrayal arcs open up. It shapes every relationship—friends can turn into enemies, romances fizzle or ignite based on the path you walk.
He flipped ahead, skimming a section I'd titled Endstate Variants. His eyes widened slightly.
Harry: And the outcomes… man, you've got variety. Bad endings like all-out war breaking the city, full extinction of alters, or them all getting rounded up by the feds. Pyrrhic victories where you 'win' but lose everything that mattered. And the good ones—rare, hard-earned. Maybe brokering some uneasy peace that feels fragile as glass.
He opened his mouth, closed it, and delved deeper. His finger traced a dense sidebar I'd written on the fictional history of the A-12 gene.
Harry: This… this has lore. Deep, coded lore—the history of the gene, how it emerged, government cover-ups. It's not just a game; it's a whole world built in here.
You have no idea, I thought. The lore was the easy part. It was just research, filtered through a lens of fiction. The harder part was the feeling—the visceral panic of being hunted, the ache of hiding a fundamental part of yourself. That came from a different place entirely. But he'd seen the bones of it, and that was enough.
Peter: Yeah. The darker side of what alters and by extension, people who are different really deal with. The stuff the public doesn't see: the constant fear, the isolation, the impossible choices. If we make a game that lets players live it, really see through an alter's eyes for forty hours, it could shift perspectives. Promote empathy. Or at the very least, get people thinking twice about discrimination.
Harry let out a low whistle, a sound of pure appraisal. He closed the folder but held onto it, his knuckles white against the black cardstock.
Harry: You crazy bastard. This could be huge—or blow up in our faces spectacularly if it hits too close to home for certain people. But the software you mentioned in the meeting… the Genesis Engine. How does that fit into all this narrative heavy-lifting?
I pushed off the desk, a restless energy making me pace the short length of my office. This part was pure passion, the engineer in me lighting up.
Peter: The Genesis Engine is the canvas. It won't paint the masterpiece—that's on our artists, our writers, our devs. But it primes the canvas, stretches it, lays down the foundational textures. It handles the brutal, repetitive heavy lifting: procedural generation for city layouts, AI for dynamic dialogue trees that don't feel repetitive, balancing complex game mechanics on the fly. We feed it the core elements—faction logic, power sets, major story branch points—and it generates frameworks, possibilities. We then refine, sculpt, humanize. It keeps development costs from spiraling into the stratosphere and speeds up iteration without sacrificing depth.
He finally handed the scripts back, shaking his head with a kind of impressed disbelief.
Harry: A canvas, huh. It's smart. Really smart. But tying it directly to mutants—calling them 'alters,' getting Xavier's crew to voice characters… you're playing with live wires, Pete. What if it stirs up real-world heat? Protests, boycotts, bad press from conservative outlets?
I stopped pacing and met his gaze. This was the core of it.
Peter: That's the point, Harry. If it doesn't stir something, we're not doing it right. We're just making another shooter. But we're careful. The narrative is balanced. Players get to see all sides: humans terrified of powers they can't understand or control, alters so brutalized they lash out with equal cruelty. There are no clear-cut heroes or villains. Just people, flawed and scared, trying to survive another day in a system rigged against them.
He absorbed that, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. The businessman in him was warring with the friend who knew me.
Harry: Alright. Walk me through a sample path. From the top. Say I pick a young character, just a kid fresh out of school in Night City.
I grabbed the folder, flipping to a flowchart in the middle. This was the fun part.
Peter: Okay. Young alter—eighteen, maybe. Awakens during that opening robbery. Powers could be anything we've designed: enhanced strength for a brawler path, cyber-hacking boosts for corporate espionage, or something subtler like emotional manipulation or short-range teleportation for stealth. The start is pure survival: evade the cops after the chaos, find somewhere to hide that isn't home because home isn't safe anymore. Factions reach out fast. A pro-alter activist might slip you a burner phone with a contact for a sanctuary. Meanwhile, a gang scout sees your potential and offers 'protection.' Choose the sanctuary? You build alliances, uncover deeper government conspiracies, maybe even find a romance with a fellow alter hiding there. But ignore certain warnings, trust the wrong person… and it ends with a betrayal that triggers extinction-level raids.
Harry interrupted, his eyes alight with the 'what-if' scenarios.
Harry: And if I go the gang route? From the jump?
Peter: Darker, faster path. You rise through the ranks, pull off heists, gain notoriety. But your relationships fray—your family publicly disowns you to save themselves, friends get caught in the crossfire and die. A pyrrhic victory might see you topple a rival faction boss, but the city district you fought over is in ashes. A true 'good' ending on that path is razor-thin: maybe you broker a tense truce, use your newfound power to force a seat at the table for reform.
He took the folder from me again, flipping to the relationship matrix pages.
Harry: These relationships you keep mentioning you mean like companion NPCs? With their own full arcs?
Peter: Deep ones. They're based on your choices. An ally who shares your values might become a lover if you nurture that trust. That same ally could become your most vengeful enemy if you betray their cause. Those bonds directly influence the endings. Save a friend from their own worst impulses? That might unlock a more hopeful path. Lose them to violence or despair? That loss could send you spiraling toward the all-out war ending.
Harry set the folder down on the desk with a soft thump. He was quiet for a long moment, staring at the cover.
Harry: The lore is solid. The gene history, how it mutates under stress, the shadowy government experiments… it ties into real-world mutant fears without being a direct copy. It feels… plausible.
Inside, I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. That was exactly the line I was trying to walk.
Peter: Exactly. The goal is to make the player feel it, not just be told about it. To make discrimination a gameplay mechanic, not just a backdrop.
He pushed off the desk, mirroring my earlier restlessness.
Harry: Software-wise. How's the early testing?
Peter: Promising. Sky's heading up the initial prototyping team. She's inputting basic parameters for city generation—'bleak urban sprawl, high verticality, marginalized zones'—and the Engine is spitting out coherent, navigable layouts with alleyways, towering megastructures, potential hideouts. It's a foundation. Our level designers then paint in the details, the soul.
Harry grinned.
Harry: She's a beast. I've seen her code. But back to the content… getting actual mutants to voice characters. That's a statement. A risky one.
Peter: It's the only way it feels authentic. And authenticity is what will sell it, beyond the controversy. It won't feel like exploitation; it'll feel like collaboration.
We talked for another twenty minutes, diving into the granular. Power balancing—how an alter's super-strength could crush through environmental barriers but would draw immediate police attention, whereas a subtle power like illusion-casting allowed for stealth but required more strategic play. Harry suggested tweaks: a visible 'societal tension' meter that fills based on your public actions, affecting how NPCs react to you on the street. I scribbled it down; it was a good idea.
The conversation flowed to marketing—teaser trailers that showed glimpses of discrimination, of heartbreaking choices, rather than just powers and explosions.
Harry: You have to hit the emotional beats. Make them care before they even hit 'play.'
Peter: That's the plan.
Finally, we circled back to the big risk. The elephant in every room I'd been in since Xavier's check cleared.
Harry: You're really willing to take the heat? This could get ugly.
I looked at the black folder. It wasn't just a game treatment. It was a lens, a way to process the chaos. A way to maybe, in some small way, change the conversation.
Peter: If it makes one person question their prejudice, or makes one kid who feels like a freak feel seen… then yeah. It's worth the heat.
Harry studied me, and for a second, I saw past the CEO-in-training to the guy I'd built LEGO forts with. He saw the conviction, and he nodded, conceding the point.
Harry: Alright, Parker. You've convinced me. Let's make it epic. And let's try not to get sued into oblivion.
A real smile broke through my earlier tension.
Peter: Deal.
He reached out and we bumped fists, a familiar, solid gesture. As he turned to leave, already pulling out his phone to probably call his lawyers, I looked back at the script. The weight of it was still there, but it felt different now. Shared. The secret heart of it was still mine, but the mission—to build this world, to tell this story—was now ours. And for the first time since the idea had taken root, it felt truly, terrifyingly possible.