I’m psyched. No, beyond psyched. There’s not a good enough word to describe what I’m feeling right now.
My internship at Eden Enterprises starts today. I got permission to leave after lunch to their headquarters in the Flatiron District. NYC is no Silicon Valley, and there’s not enough sprawling land to build a mega corporate office on, but Eden Enterprises’s office is seriously dope.
Located in a 50 floor building, spanning all of 5 floors, the interior of their office is amazing. Decorated with intricately painted scenes from World of Eden, each floor has memorabilia from the game. The office looks like a museum for fantasy art.
I am in awe.
I pause for a second after I enter their main office, located on the 18th floor. The receptionist, an Asian mid-20s woman wearing tortoise-shell Prada glasses, looks up as I stop by her desk.
“Hey, I’m Buffy Jang, I’m here for Bruce Schwab? I’m starting my internship today.”
The receptionist dials a number on her phone and speaks into it.
“Mr. Schwab, Buffy Jang to see you on the 18th.”
She hands me my key card. I look at it and wince. Not a good choice of a photo, which I sent HR last minute because I was too busy trying to level up before embarking on my mission for Gabriela. Back when I had bangs, which I do not look good in by the way.
Oh well. Who’s going to look at my key card anyway? It’s not like there are bouncers at Eden trying to assess my actual age so I can score alcohol at a club. I don’t even go to clubs, and I can just steal some beer from Xander at his loaded mansion.
I pocket the card and sit on one of the lounge chairs while I wait for Bruce. He’s my manager for this gig. I checked him out on Linkedin prior to coming in, apparently he worked at all the top tech companies. Google, Amazon, Meta. He’s only 34 years old and is already the director of VR development at Eden.
I’ve got bigger plans for myself though. My dad used to say I was too ambitious, just like my mom. I’m a Capricorn just like her, and growing up, my classmates made fun of me for being a perfectionistic overachiever. I try too hard on everything, they said.
Who cares? Ambitious overachievers make it to the top.
Life’s a rat race, and I fully intend to win.
Come at me, bros.
Anyway, I see a tall brunette man walking my way. He’s carrying a Macbook tucked underneath his arm.
I stand up, shrugging my bookbag across the other shoulder.
Bruce stops in front of me. He holds out his hand and I shake it cordially.
“Welcome to Eden, Buffy. Unique name by the way.”
I grin and shrug,
“What can I say? Huge vampire slayer nerd.”
“Now progressed to demon slayer status, as I saw from your application. WOE veteran of 6 years, and racked up a bunch of other accomplishments. When did you start coding, I’ve seen you’ve won a bunch of competitive programming competitions?”
“Around six years old, I had nothing better to do aside from playing with Legos and the monkey bars.”
Bruce raises an eyebrow.
“Impressive.”
He motions me to walk with him. We stroll down an empty hallway, lined with conference rooms and whiteboards.
“Today I’m going to introduce you to your other team members in the VR unit. Max is going to fill you in on the code base and pretty soon you’ll be expected to push out your first ticket. We have a lot of expectations for you Buffy.”
He slides open a door to a large office decorated with cubicles.
“This is our office.”
He hands me the folder.
“Here are your login credentials and other orientation materials to get you filled in on our project and workflow processes. By the way, need any coffee?”
“Yes please.”
He walks me over to the espresso machine. My jaw almost drops at how expensive it looks. Custom made, imported from Italia, I can only presume.
I’ve only ever been to Italy in my dreams and maybe one summer when I had a fling with this hot bambino who worked part time at a local pizzeria.
Just kidding. I’ve never been to Italy.
Speaking of must have experiences, I’ve never used an espresso machine before either. My mom thinks coffee is terrible for the development of a developing teenager’s brain even when I try to convince her that puberty ended for me years ago and I’m an old soul with a computer for a brain. My ploy wasn’t successful, so coffee for me usually consisted of a Starbucks latte every morning (none of those premium grade coffee for me, boys)
So it’s cool that I’m officially adulting now.
I pop in the coffee pod into the machine and wait for my coffee. Bruce keeps on talking at me while the machine does its magic. I’ve always been amazed by the engineering of fancy contraptions such as this espresso machine. I wonder which magician had the foresight to invent such a beautiful monster. And most importantly, how much coffee did he have to consume before inventing this machine, and did he die of coffee poisoning soon after.
I might die of coffee poisoning too if I had 24/7 access to this baby.
Not that I’m going to stay at this office overnight.
But I do think I spotted some tents situated outside the printer room.
Maybe I’ll try that, but only if I get paid overtime.
My coffee finishes and I carefully hold the mug as I walk with Bruce to my new desk. Like all tech giants, EE has an open office policy, meaning, full transparency, my desk is located in a transparent glass “cube” (not cubicle) along with a bunch of other desks connected to mine. The walls can be written on as well, and as I enter the cube, I see complicated diagrams and pseudo code written in erasable marker all over the walls.
Puts a whole new definition to graffiti art.
Like graph art about graphs because graphs are –
Never mind.
We stop by my desk and I place the coffee on the elevated surface. Did I mention that my desk is standing? Literally, on four legs?
I’m naming my new pet desk Undie. Because it would be a privilege to put my legs underneath it.
I almost laugh at the intended pun but then I remember Bruce is still talking and expects me to be attentive. I cough instead and lower the desk, hopping into my chair. Typing is way easier when you’re sitting down, which is why it’s such a privilege.
All right, I’m trying too hard now.
Bruce says, “There’s a thirty minute orientation video that you’re going to have to sit through, just a bunch of introductions to the company and our culture and what not. After that we have team stand ups in the atrium and then you’re going to get your first ticket. I’ll leave you to it.”
He walks away and I flip through the folder. I find my credentials, open the Macbook on my table, and log in. I locate the orientation materials and click open the first video in the series.
A tall handsome Asian man appears on the screen. He’s wearing a tuxedo vest on top of cuffed button down, with his black hair styled as if he was a Ralph Lauren model.
But he’s not a model. I could recognize his face anywhere. He’s Sai Tanaka, the founder and CEO of Eden Enterprises. A legend in the gaming and tech world. A billionaire 10 times over with a billion patents to his name.
I have his poster taped to my bedroom wall. Before I go to sleep at night, I gaze at his handsome head and vow to myself that I will one day be like him.
Before he starts talking, I quietly murmur a thanks to the Lord for blessing me with Sai Tanaka’s presence.
Sai Tanaka smiles at me, and begins his spiel.
“Welcome to Eden Enterprises. I first created World of Eden when I was a broke college student eating ramen out of the cup. Programming games was the only skill I really had back then, and I decided to take the risk, pooling all of my savings into building this game. I’ve always been fascinated by the stories of the Bible, having grown up Christian, and I had a hunch that using my knowledge of my faith and tailoring it to fit modern lifestyle would find a market in this digital age. I had no idea World of Eden would blow up to what it is today, having a record of 10.5 billion players worldwide. It has grown beyond my wildest dreams, engendering books, movies, merchandise. But I’m not here to brag, to extol the virtues of my game. I’m here to induct you into the company and inform you on what it means to be part of an empire.”
Empire huh? I always wondered why Japan never conquered China and made its own empire.
Not to be racist though. I’m 100% American, despite my Korean roots. This is not the age of racial discrimination anyway, pretty much all of that has been left in the dust of the civil rights movement of the 2020s.
As I listen to the rest of the presentation, I silently marvel at how elitist Eden Enterprises was. Sai Tanaka manages to name drop every single big tech company there is in the world as he talks about the tech he has built and his company infrastructure. But I’m impressed by how, despite being extremely elitist, meritocratic the company is. Promotions are rewarded based on individual contribution and innovation. Perfection or close to perfection is encouraged, which explains the elitist feel of the company.
I’ll fit right in. You’re looking at the most perfectionist workaholic there ever was.
I smirk as I finish the last video in the folder. Right on time. Need to meet my teammates and do some stand ups.
I push my chair out and stand up, stretching my arms and back. Taking my ID card and swinging it over my head, I grab a notebook and pen and head out into the atrium.
I see a group of tall men wearing Eden’s custom designed T-shirt (I need to get one of those) and head their way. Two of them are East Asian, 1 is South Asian, and another is Eurasian. Oh, and then there’s Bruce.
I walk to Bruce’s side and talk to him,
“Hey Bruce. I finished the videos you’ve given me.”
Bruce takes a swig of his coffee.
“Great. I’ll introduce you to the team. Here’s Parvi, Chen, Sam, and Tom.”
They nod their heads at me and I smile at them, pushing my hand in my jean pocket.
“Hey, I’m Buffy.”
One of them (Sam?) laughs and says,
“Like the TV show?”
“Yup. Huge fan.”
“Too vintage for me. But appreciate the pun.”
“Doesn’t any programmer?”
They all laugh and I internally grin. I’m going to enjoy this.
Bruce starts the stand up meeting.
“We’re going to start with Parvi and go around clockwise. Everyone tell us what you’ve done yesterday, what your blockers are, and what you’re going to work on today. At the end, I’ll debrief on some announcements and then we’re good to go.”
I listen in as Pavi starts and everyone gives their work updates. I’m pretty impressed by how technically proficient and knowledgeable they were about their work, managing to condense their technical work in a few sentences. Usually software engineers don’t have good soft skills but this group excels at it. Not a surprise, a lot of the employees here are from the Ivy League.”
Elitist, do I have to mention again?
I’m the last to go, but I have nothing to say as I haven’t worked on anything yet so Bruce adds,
“Buffy has been assigned a few bug tickets to work on for the remainder of the day, hopefully she’ll be able to push out her first pull request by EOD. You ready, Buffy?”
I give a thumbs up and the group disperses.
I walk back to my desk with Bruce, listening as he walks me through my bug tickets. I know the drill: go over requirements, check out specs, do some preliminary research, ask questions to clarify if there are any holes in understanding, and… then code. Most interns apparently take a long ass time to get through understanding and pushing out their first ticket, or so Bruce presumes as he makes assumptions of my talent, but it’s not a big deal, there’s a relatively low bar for high school students who just won second place in a major league competition that only college students can enter.
I don’t get the irony, but I live to be underestimated.
I type in my login credentials for Eden’s project management board, Con, and open my first ticket.
My eyes wrinkle in glee as I grin. There’s no way I won’t be able to…
Not chug this out in an hour. Tops.
I take a sip out of my fancy La Croix and then crack my knuckles in anticipation.
Oops, I almost forgot. I take out my headphones from my backpack and slide them over my ears. I open up my music app and click on my favorite playlist.
Whenever I code, I like to listen to music. Wearing headphones while working is just part of my identity. Like most software engineers, I am addicted to lofi. It’s the perfect music to tune out the world and tune in my work. I can churn out thousands of lines of code in thirty minutes to the beat of my keyboard.
Right now, I need something more upbeat than lofi, so I scroll through my playlists and pick my rap gym workout playlist. Because I’m in the hood now, baby.
Right. My MIA mother would probably tell me I need to cool the tomboy down.
My response?
I’m too Tom for you.
(Tom, my alter ego, that I put on when I need to get into my software engineering mood).
Never been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, but possibly ADHD.
Whatever. I’m too high on caffeine and Adderall right now to care about what you’ll think of me.
Anyway.
I skim through the ticket’s description and immediately git the gist of it (get it?). I have to go into the database and add a new feature to the users model. Apparently need to add a row in the database column called “virtue”.
The ticket doesn’t go into what virtue means and what it represents, but like wow, how virtuous of them to be so discreet, right?
I log in all my permissions and download the code to my computer. I go through all the files and find the database model.
I quickly scroll to the user and enter a field for “virtue.”
Done.
Did that take less than a minute, or was that just me?
Yeah, it was me. Rocking the first day of my internship.
I push my code to their system and await code reviews. I ping Bruce that I finished my first ticket.
Then I go on to the next ticket. I don’t have that many as it is my first day. I’ll probably have extra time later to explore the building.
The work isn’t that hard, I breeze through all of the tickets assigned to me in less than an hour. Which is pretty insane and going better than expected. But what do you know, I’m Buffy Jang, and I’m a brilliant programmer.
Barf. I literally can’t stand myself when I self aggrandize.
Anyway, it’s lunch time now, and I don’t have any intention of eating the microwavable food I brought with me (you know, just in case the prices at the cafeteria were too exorbitant to be possible). I head down to the cafeteria, alone.
The cafeteria’s huge. I could fit a whole whale inside this joint, and I’m not even a fisherman. If I had to fish for a living though, I would definitely use Docker to contain this.
Don’t know what Docker is?
Look. It. Up.
Anyway, I spy some gourmet sushi in the refrigerated section and automatically walk towards it.
Dragon roll, here I come. Or phoenix. Depending on my mood.
I spy some erect shrimp tempura on my way to the dragon and almost change my mind.
As if.
I grab the dragon roll and head my way to the cashier. Checking my pockets for extra cash, I notice that my wallet’s gone.
How the hell did this happen?
I have no idea. I must have left it at my desk. Along with my pithy self.
Pathetic, much?
Ugh, stop, Buffy, stop, stop with the self flagellation already.
This is a red flag. Everything was going so well until I forgot my wallet.
I debate what to do. Should I go back to my desk and get my wallet or should I look around to see if there’s some free food around the office?
The second option. Definitely.
Bye, dragon. Your nonerectness pisses me off, shrimp’s too good for you.
Anyway, I need to go hunting.
I’m trying to use my intuition to find where the free food is, but I forgot to tell you that my intuition’s sorely lacking after all the coding I’ve been doing. Like my lack of financial support from my mother, I need to figure how to not only find free food, but also to get a free scholarship to college.
Full ride, baby.
Full ride.
I hitch up my jeans (they were getting a bit loose) and stalk the cafeteria workers. Maybe they will lead me to some free food.
I’m just kidding. I know where the free food is.
Bruce mentioned earlier that there’s a seminar on cryptocurrency on the third floor during lunch time. He didn’t mention if I was invited, but since I’m already here under false pretenses (they don’t know I’m not in college, I’m more illegal than a Mexican illegal immigrant in Texas), I might as well score some free food.
If I can first find my way through this building.
I wish I could just use my Boosted board in this building. This building’s huge. The walls are all decorated with post feminist post abstract era modernist art that makes no sense to me. I want to paint all over the walls with my skater wit and convert all of you to my style of art.
Which is, literally, meaning, I want to shit watery shit all over these walls. Because they’re pissing me off.
I’m just hangry right now. Nothing a good chicken burger can’t fix.
I head to the elevator. I press the button for the third floor and wait. I am alone in the spacious elevator, and for once, during this day filled with anxiety, trepidation, and excitement, I feel at peace.
Which is hard for me. I’m always striving, on the go, pushing myself to go farther. But how far can I go before I break down?
Time only knows.
The elevator opens, and I step out. I head to the conference room where the seminar is taking place. I glance at my watch. I’m late but hopefully they’ll still welcome me.
The automatic doors to the conference room open. Bruce wasn’t kidding when he said that the office was spacious. The conference room is the size of a lecture hall, and then some. Good news is that there are a ton of seats left so I can grab a seat without anyone noticing that I was late.
Bad news, all of the food is gone. All I see is a pile of empty pizza boxes and unopened boxes of La Croix.
I silently groan. I can’t subsist on a diet of sparkling water, people. Whatever.
I swipe a can of La Croix and plop myself into a seat in the back. I take a sip.
Ugh. It tastes like carbonated cranberries. I check the label.
Cranberry Cock.
Nice.
I resist the urge to roll my eyes, and instead, I pay attention to the speaker up front. He looks vaguely familiar.
Oh shit. It’s him.
I sink lower in my seat, hoping Luke didn’t notice me. I don’t know why I’m embarrassed. I didn’t think I would see him this early on in my internship.
Why am I embarrassed?
I might have neglected to mention that after I found out that I won only second place at the convention, Luke stopped by to “congratulate” me. I thought he was being sarcastic at first.
“You did a great job, Buffy. You should have won by the way, your game had the most amazing visuals I’ve ever seen in a home brewed game.”
I smiled at him tightly. “Thanks. My friend did all the art, it’s because of him that I won second place.”
He patted me on the back, “Next time, Buffy, you’ll definitely win.”
I don’t know what to make of his comment at the end. What do you mean “next time” Luke?
Whatever, Skywalker. I know my game’s good, and I don’t need meaningless validation from a bunch of chauvinistic tech nerds.
It sucks being female in a male-dominated sector. I don’t know why I have to suck up to all the guys just to get an honorable mention on the ending credits of the shitty simulated movie that we’re in. I have zero female friends, too many bros on my fantasy football team, and infinite ideas for programming projects I want to work on.
Anyway, I turn my focus back to Luke. He’s giving a talk about the future of AI powered dwellings. Apparently the housing sector could benefit from more cost efficient robotic vacuum cleaners.
Luke, stop saying the word “dwelling” before I swipe your pantry privileges.
That’s how hungry I am. And you don’t want to mess with hungry Buffy. Hungry Buffy holds grudges over food.
My stomach growls in agreement. I silently pat it. Get used to it, stomach. You don’t need food, you just need brain food.
Talking about brain food, this lecture is getting pretty interesting. Luke has started talking about the potential of neural networks to transform solar rooftops. Apparently roofs can be “trained” to utilize solar energy more efficiently.
You know what else can be trained?
My stomach.
I think Luke’s noticing how hungry I am because I could have sworn he winked at me when I made that joke. Can he read minds?
I wouldn’t be surprised if he could. Whoever devised this clever simulation must have enabled mind reading capabilities on us “Sims”.
Not that I’ve ever noticed though. I don’t hear voices in my mind, never have, never will.
Good bluff, Buffy.
Anyway.
I check the time and it’s almost 1. The seminar’s ending and some more food has appeared magically (at Luke’s behest? He’s the best).
I sprint to the front and pile three slices of pizza onto my plate. No pepperoni slices, but only pepper slices. Maybe I forgot to tell you, but I’m vegetarian.
I’m in mid-bite when Luke shows up suddenly by my shoulder. He smiles at me, and I almost throw up.
“Hey Buffy. Having a good first day?”
I silently devise this short love letter in my mind as I try to chew and swallow my food down before replying:
Dear Luke,
In the future, can you not:
- Talk to me when I’m eating and hungry as a wolf.
- Smile at me if only to reveal that you have twin dimples.
Thanks,
Buffy
“It’s going good. Thanks.”
I swear all the blood has gone from my brain to my gut because I can’t derive a single socially fluent response to this man.
Oh wait, I’m like this around him ALL the time.
Luke doesn’t seem to mind, or maybe he’s just hiding it, behind his socially savvy self. Remind me why I hate neuro-typical people, again.
“That’s great, I’ve been hearing some amazing things about you from Bruce. He was also one of my mentors here when I first started here as an intern, like yourself.”
“Thanks. Really enjoyed your lecture by the way, Hard not to, I’ve always been excited by the potential of solar panels in harvesting energy. Pun intended.”
Luke laughs, all crinkles and dimples.
“Pun received.”
I try not to gaggle. Maybe Luke’s not as socially adept as I thought he was, because who says “pun received”?
Actually, I would have said the same thing.
Maybe we might have a chance after all?
No way in Hell.
Which reminds me, I still have to get going on my quest for Gabriela. Maybe I can squeeze in some time after I get home, if I’m not too wiped out from coding. Still five more hours left in the day, so not hedging my bets.
I wipe my mouth with a napkin and throw my paper plate out. I wave good bye to Luke, and then silently reprimand myself for waving (no one waves, anymore, Buffy!) and jets off back to the office.
One thing I noticed: there are a ton of escalators in this building. I wouldn’t ride the elevators (too many people, too crowded), but escalators are a fun ride. Especially when you can sled down them, the way I do back in school.
Someone should invent a more efficient way of transportation though. Something akin to teleportation with the time complexity of O(n) or tesseracting, which is even (O(1)).
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, open a computer science textbook for crying out loud.
I check my phone and I notice a text from Bruce. Apparently he saw that I finished my tickets, and he’s giving me more work to do. Score. 1 Workaholic Buffy to 0 Recreational Buffy.
I don’t mind, I find fulfillment in work. Work work work. Better than being idle and thinking about random depressing things.
I reach my cubicle and plop down in my seat. Bruce wants me to log into World of Eden and do some maintenance work. Testing is a big part of the philosophy at EE, and I’m more than happy to oblige. No need to tell Bruce I hack into WOE’s system administration on a regular basis.
I grab my headset and climb into the seats specially reserved for navigating WOE. A grade up from my couch, these luxurious seats serve as both a masseuse and a gaming chair. Not bad.
I log into WOE using one of the admin credentials that employees of Eden use when they need to test the game out. There’s a lot of privileges given to admins, and I spend a good chunk of 15 minutes testing out some of the advantages. For one, I’m able to reconstruct the landscape of a city in development mode, which brings me back to nostalgic memories of playing Age of Civilizations and other civilization building games that I was fond of in childhood.
As I am testing out some of the new features my coworkers have implemented, I notice with admiration how our large language models have evolved. As a WOE veteran, I’m well versed in the dialect that the NPCs and our character speak in. Sai Tanaka reportedly created his own language using his knowledge of linguistics to make the terrain more authentic. He explained in conferences that he wanted to allow the players to experience the world before Babel, and so, he created the language Terem, which translates to “before” in Hebrew. His reasoning is that he didn’t want to use languages already in existence.
A world without a word is worthless,
he is famous for having quoted.
What awes me is the translation from Terem to any language in the 50 countries or so that the game supports. The characters literally speak another language, but we are able to understand it as if it is our own native tongue.
That’s amazing artificial intelligence.
I browse through the terrain and the towns in the area I’m assigned to.
There’s something wrong though.
As I speak to the NPCs, I notice the words they are using have a slightly negative tone. Bordering offensive at times, melancholy at other times. An NPC even told me to go to Hell, subtly.
I’m working on that, buster.
It’s probably just an error in our model, and I resolve to write a report on this bug.
Nothing else seems unusual. All the monsters are populating at the same speed, the metrics haven’t changed, and players are still as chatty as ever.
I head to the portal to log out.
But all of a sudden, my vision goes black.
I can still hear the other players, the sounds inherent in the game. I haven’t logged out yet. But I can’t see anyone in the virtual reality.
I stay calm and press some of the command keys in the keyboard.
The world lights up, and I can see again. Well, what do you know? The blind man can see again.
Probably just a server issue. I note it in my log. If I had a bitcoin for every server issue I’ve encountered during my time playing WOE, I’ll be as rich as Zuckerberg. Minus all of the tissues he probably used up because of his rampant privacy issues.
I examine my controls to see if anything is missing or changed. There’s an extra key on my controls titled Jerk.
Lol, is the game calling me a jerk? Thanks, you too.
I debate whether or not I should press on the key. Since I’m in development mode, why not? What’s the worse thing that could happen?
I press it.
Heat surges up all throughout my body. My physical body. My brain feels buzzed, as if I’ve pounded several cans of Celsius energy drink in one sitting. Everything seems brighter, lighter, heavier, faster.
And I can’t control it. My impulses, my motions, my thoughts don’t have endings but loop tirelessly.
I start swinging my arms around. A sword appears in my hand and won’t drop no matter how many gestures I make. Frantically, I clasp and unclasp my hand.
I feel heavy. So heavy.
With one last motion, I swing and the sword plunges into the NPC in front of the portal. She screams and vanishes.
That wasn’t supposed to happen. NPCs don’t just Apparate out of thin air, this isn’t Harry Potter, fool.
Too many mistakes have happened today. Way too many.
I’m fucked.
Seriously fucked.
Frustrated, I take a leap into the portal.
Just end my misery.
And I’m back in the office.
I open my eyes, and Bruce is shaking me, hard.
“Buffy! You all right?”
Shaken, I blink furiously and swallow.
“Uh, I, um, yeah, I’m fine.”
“You’ve been flailing your arms around and screaming for the last couple of minutes.”
I smile weakly.
“Must be from all the caffeine from the espresso machine.”
Bruce laughs and hands me a bottle of water. I chug it in one go and feel relieved. The electricity through me fades a bit.
“Sorry, thanks, I need to go to the bathroom for a bit.”
Without waiting for an answer, I take off my headset and run towards the bathroom.
Shit, shit, shit, not literally, but shit.
I fucked up.
Why do I think that?
Take a guess.
I’ll give you a hint.
Starts with V.
No, not vagina.
Virus.
I implanted a virus in the game.
Standing in front of the mirror, I raise my eyes up.
Where I should see hazel, I see red.
My irises are literally turned red.
I realize a moment too late, I’m not a Jerk.
I’ve become a Berserker.
