The nursing home smelled like antiseptic and regret.
Ethan stood in the parking lot of Shady Pines for ten minutes before forcing himself inside. Three years. He'd avoided this building for three years, telling himself his mother was fine, that the professionals were handling it, that his career was too demanding for regular visits.
The lies felt transparent now.
[Time Until First Assignment: 52:14:33]
The system interface had become a constant presence in the corner of his vision, counting down like a ticking bomb. He'd barely slept. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the transgression list—fifty-nine names of people he'd damaged without a second thought.
"Can I help you?" The receptionist looked up from her computer, tired eyes behind thick glasses.
"I'm here to see Margaret Monroe. Room 247. I'm her son."
Something flickered across the woman's face. Judgment, maybe. Or pity. "Sign in here. Visiting hours end at eight."
The hallway stretched endlessly. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead. An elderly man in a wheelchair stared at nothing. A TV blared a game show no one was watching. The building was clean but soulless—a warehouse for people whose families had filed them away.
People like him.
Room 247's door was half-open. Ethan knocked anyway.
"Mom?"
The woman in the bed looked smaller than he remembered. Margaret Monroe had once been a force—a single mother who'd worked two jobs to put him through private school, who'd never missed a soccer game, who'd believed he could be anything.
Now she was seventy-three and frail, her hair white, her hands trembling with early-stage Parkinson's.
"Ethan?" She squinted at him, confused. "Is it really you?"
The guilt hit like a physical blow. "Yeah, Mom. It's me."
"I thought..." Her voice wavered. "I thought you'd forgotten about me."
"I didn't forget." The lie tasted bitter. He had forgotten. Not entirely—she existed in the back of his mind, a problem he'd solved with money and paperwork. But he'd stopped seeing her as a person. Just another task checked off a list.
He pulled up a chair beside her bed. The room was sparse—a few photographs on the dresser, a potted plant wilting by the window. One photo caught his attention: him at graduation, arm around his mother, both of them beaming.
He remembered that day. She'd cried with pride. Told him he was going to change the world.
"The home is closing," Margaret said softly. "They're moving us to different facilities. I'm scared, Ethan. I don't want to start over somewhere new. I finally know people here. Susan down the hall, and Robert who plays chess in the common room..."
"I know. That's why I'm here. We'll figure this out together."
She blinked, surprised. "Together? You have time?"
The question stabbed deeper than she intended. "I'll make time."
They sat in silence. Outside the window, rain began to fall again.
"Why now?" Margaret asked finally. "Three years, Ethan. Why visit now?"
He could lie. Make excuses. But something about the system—the countdown ticking in his peripheral vision, the mark on his wrist—made dishonesty feel impossible.
"Because I was selfish," he said quietly. "Because putting you here was easier than dealing with my guilt. Because I convinced myself you were fine without me, when really I just didn't want to face what I'd done."
Margaret's eyes glistened. "You were busy. Important job. I understood—"
"No." Ethan shook his head. "Don't make excuses for me. I was a coward. You deserved better."
A tear rolled down her cheek. Then another. "I missed you so much."
Ethan moved to the bed and held her hand—carefully, afraid she might break. "I'm sorry, Mom. I'm so sorry."
They stayed like that for a long time. When visiting hours ended, Ethan promised to return tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that.
Margaret smiled—a real smile, the first he'd seen in years. "I'd like that."
Walking to his car, Ethan's phone buzzed.
[OPTIONAL PREPARATION TASK COMPLETED]
Visiting Margaret Monroe: +25 Readiness Points
Emotional Authenticity Bonus: +15 Points
Current Readiness: 50/100
Note: You are beginning to understand. Continue.
The system was watching. Learning. Measuring his sincerity somehow. The thought should have terrified him. Instead, it felt oddly... fair.
Back at his apartment, Ethan opened his laptop and searched for Jamie Rodriguez.
Her social media painted a picture he'd never bothered to notice. Berkeley CS graduate with honors. Multiple scholarship awards. A GitHub full of impressive projects. She'd been overqualified for the internship—massively so.
He dug deeper and found a blog she'd written six months ago, right when she'd started at Meridian Tech:
"Took an 'internship' today because my student loans are crushing me and I need health insurance. $15/hour to get coffee for people who make six figures. My degree is worth more than this, but capitalism says otherwise. Maybe if I smile enough and take enough abuse, they'll notice I can code circles around half their dev team. Maybe.
Probably not."
Posted the same day he'd hired her. He'd never asked about her skills. Never looked at her resume beyond confirming she had a degree. She was cheap labor. That's all he'd needed to know.
The next blog post was from three months ago:
"My boss doesn't know my name. He's called me Jessica, Jennifer, and Julie. Today he called me 'hey you.' I wanted to correct him. Wanted to say, 'I'm Jamie. I'm a person. I exist.'
But I need this job. So I smiled and got his coffee."
Ethan felt sick.
He kept reading. Post after post detailing the small humiliations. The dismissed ideas. The times she'd tried to contribute code and been waved away. The day she'd worked through lunch to finish a critical bug fix, only to watch him present it as his own work.
Her most recent post, from this afternoon:
"Fired today. Or maybe I quit? Hard to tell when your boss tells you to 'clear out your desk' after you ask for basic respect. Either way, I'm unemployed again. Back to interviews where they'll ask why I only lasted six months.
How do you explain: 'My boss was a narcissist who treated me like furniture'?"
Ethan closed the laptop. His hands were shaking.
The system interface pulsed.
[RESEARCH TASK COMPLETED]
Understanding Jamie Rodriguez's Perspective: +20 Readiness Points
Current Readiness: 70/100
New Information Unlocked:
Jamie Rodriguez - Current Status:
- Unemployed (terminated today after confronting you)
- $47,000 in student debt
- Lost health insurance (chronic condition requires medication)
- Rent due in 12 days: $1,800
- Savings remaining: $340
Your Actions Directly Led To:
- Loss of income during economically vulnerable period
- Medical coverage gap creating health risk
- Potential eviction
- Damaged employment record affecting future opportunities
- Psychological harm from sustained mistreatment
Ethan stared at the numbers. He'd destroyed her financial stability without a thought. She was going to lose her apartment. Might not be able to afford medication. All because he'd wanted coffee and treated her like a servant.
He opened his banking app. His savings account showed $47,000—almost exactly her student debt. A sick coincidence.
No. Not a coincidence. The system was showing him something.
His finger hovered over the transfer button. He could pay off her loans right now. Fix the immediate crisis. But would that be enough? Could money erase six months of humiliation?
[SYSTEM WARNING]
Monetary compensation without genuine understanding is insufficient. Career assignment will teach you what money cannot buy: dignity, recognition, basic human respect.
You cannot buy your way out of empathy.
Ethan closed the app. The system was right. Jamie didn't need his money—she needed him to understand what he'd done. To feel it.
And in forty-eight hours, he would.
His phone rang. Unknown number again.
"Hello?"
"It's me." The voice from yesterday—the previous system user. "How's your preparation going?"
"Seventy readiness points. I visited my mom. Researched Jamie. Started understanding..."
"Good. That'll make the first career less brutal. Still going to be hell, though."
"What happens exactly? When the countdown hits zero?"
A pause. "You'll fall asleep. When you wake up, you'll be living her life. Same apartment, same debts, same daily reality. But you'll have your memories intact—you'll remember being Ethan while experiencing being Jamie. The cognitive dissonance is... intense."
"How long does it last?"
"Until you learn the lesson. For me, some careers lasted a day. Others, weeks. The system decides when you've genuinely understood."
"And if I refuse? If I just... don't cooperate?"
"Then you'll repeat it. Over and over. Each time harder. I knew someone who refused to learn from 'Homeless Person' for six months. Six months of living on the streets, experiencing cold and hunger and violence, too stubborn to admit they'd been wrong. Eventually everyone breaks. The question is how much you'll suffer first."
Ethan swallowed. "Did you... did you become a better person? After completing it?"
A long silence. "I became a different person. Whether that's better depends on who you ask. My old friends think I'm boring now. Too serious. Too concerned with things that don't affect me. But I sleep at night, Ethan. For the first time in my adult life, I actually sleep."
"I don't know if I can do this."
"You don't have a choice. None of us did. But here's the secret—by the end, you won't want to go back to who you were. The old Ethan is going to die. And you'll be grateful."
The line went dead.
Ethan walked to his window. The city stretched below, millions of people living lives he'd never considered. How many had he hurt? How many Jamies and Marcuses and Margarets existed in his wake?
His phone buzzed one final time tonight.
[BEDTIME PROTOCOL]
Readiness: 70/100 - ADEQUATE
Recommendation: Rest. Tomorrow, make final preparations. Say goodbye to your old life.
When you wake up in 47 hours, you will not be Ethan Monroe.
You will be someone he never saw as human.
This is your last night as yourself.
Ethan looked at his reflection in the window—expensive apartment, designer clothes, the trappings of success built on other people's work.
Tomorrow he'd visit his mother again. Maybe try to apologize to Marcus, even if it was too late. Prepare for whatever came next.
But tonight, he poured another whiskey and stared at Jamie's blog until the words blurred.
I'm a person. I exist.
In forty-seven hours, he'd understand exactly what that meant.