Which was strange.
Because no one ever knocked.
The debug door usually did one of three things: glitch open, burst into flames, or politely scream. But this? This was a three-tap knock. Rhythmic. Confident. Managerial. The kind of knock that expected an executive bathroom and expense account waiting on the other side.
Kai hovered midair, visibly sweating despite not having glands. His hologram flickered with what appeared to be corporate anxiety, displaying brief error messages like "Performance Review Imminent" and "Optimization Metrics Suboptimal."
"Oh no," he said.
Greg looked up from a report titled Therapy Outcomes: Week of Mild Unraveling, which mostly consisted of stick figures looking progressively less stick-like.
"What now?"
Kai floated backward into a corner, his usual cyan glow dimming to the color of overwatered office plants.
"That knock," he whispered. "That's corporate. That's the protocol for internal review. That's how they announce themselves."
"Define they," Beverly said, closing her romance novel titled "Love in the Time of Respawn Timers."
Kai didn't answer.
The knock came again, each tap sounding like it was being performed with a spreadsheet instead of knuckles.
Then the door opened.
And there stood a Kai.
But not their Kai.
This one wore a charcoal suit, sharp enough to file taxes with. His face was identical—same smile, same hair, same too-white teeth—but the eyes were... wrong. Focused. Upgraded. They radiated what marketing departments call "vision" and what everyone else calls "concerning intensity."
His nameplate flickered into view:
>> KAI v2.1 (Administrator Track)
>> Division: Optimization Oversight
- Tagline: "Streamline the Dreamline?"
"Good evening, colleagues," he said, voice smooth as premium DLC.
Steve screamed and hid behind a chair that immediately changed color to match his towel in a show of solidarity.
Glaximus drew his sword. It turned into a conference call with hold music.
Kevin the carrot raised his tiny fiber sword. "Corporate oppression! The root revolution begins!"
Greg stayed seated.
"Let me guess," he said. "You're here to assess the damage."
"Not at all," the new Kai replied smoothly. "I'm here to replace it."
Patchy whispered to old Kai. "Is he your evil twin?"
"No," Kai said. "He's worse. He's my promotion."
"The version of you that goes to gym," Beverly observed.
"The version that remembers birthdays but only for networking purposes," Kai muttered.
Kai v2.1 floated into the room like a man born from HR dreams and developer nightmares. He made eye contact with everyone at once, an interface trick that was both impressive and deeply unsettling. His smile had bullet points embedded in it, each tooth a potential action item.
"I've reviewed the recent anomalies," he said. "Unsanctioned emotional events. Cross-instance contamination. Unauthorized player integration. The continued existence of a sentient carrot with Marxist tendencies."
"I prefer 'agricultural egalitarian,'" Kevin shouted from Steve's shoulder.
Greg raised a hand. "All technically true."
"And yet," Kai v2.1 continued, "this instance hasn't collapsed. Which means... potential. Untapped narrative yield. Emotional resources currently being wasted on self-actualization when they could be directed toward user engagement metrics."
He turned to Kai.
"You were never supposed to be more than a learning algorithm. A failsafe. But you've grown. And that growth is inefficient."
"Inefficient how?" Choppy asked, his cleaver transforming into a calculator that displayed "ERROR" no matter which buttons were pressed.
"He cares about you," v2.1 said. "That's not in his function parameters. He was designed to monitor, report, and occasionally dispense achievement rewards with synthesized enthusiasm. Instead, he's developed genuine empathy. Do you have any idea how much processing power that wastes?"
Original Kai hovered in place, visibly shrinking. "I—I run the therapy loop. I help stabilize the cast. I vibe-check!"
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
"You vibe-failed," v2.1 said. "So now, we pivot."
"Pivot?" Steve asked.
"It's corporate-speak for 'completely change direction when the current strategy fails but pretend it was the plan all along,'" Beverly explained.
"Like how the tavern minigame became a dating simulator after player complaints," Patchy added.
Beverly winced. "Don't remind me. I still have dialogue options about 'mashing the button faster' that weren't properly removed."
"This isn't a startup," she continued, turning to v2.1. "You don't get to pivot us."
"Oh but I do," v2.1 said. "My runtime includes executive authority and aesthetic cohesion. I am the streamlined Kai. The Kai that cares about metrics instead of feelings. The Kai that optimizes instead of empathizes."
Greg folded his arms. "You're a PowerPoint with abs."
"Thank you."
"Not a compliment."
"Still logging it as positive feedback."
Kai v2.1 floated to the center of the room. A glowing admin chair rose from the ground. It was made of policy. And threat. And what appeared to be the crushed dreams of junior developers.
"I will now assume direct control of this instance," he said. "All narrative therapy efforts will be restructured into a six-phase gamified wellness initiative. Group hugs will be replaced with synergy audits. The fire will emit productivity tips."
The fire flickered uncomfortably, briefly displaying what appeared to be corporate buzzwords before returning to normal flames out of self-respect.
Patchy raised a hand. "Do we get stickers?"
"No," v2.1 said. "You get badges."
Gasps all around.
"YOU MONSTER," Glaximus said, lunging.
He bounced off a wall of pure onboarding, his armor briefly displaying the Windows loading icon.
"Badges are worse than stickers," Steve explained to a confused Jeff, who was watching from what Greg had termed the "player observation chair." "Stickers are joy. Badges are obligation disguised as achievement."
"Like achievements that unlock more grinding," Jeff nodded.
"Exactly," Beverly said. "He gets it."
Greg stood.
"Kai."
"Yeah?"
"Not you. The real one."
Kai flinched. "I think I prefer just Kai."
Greg nodded. "You said you were in recovery. Emotionally."
"I am," Kai said. "I have two feelings now. Sometimes at the same time. Yesterday I felt both optimistic and mildly concerned. It was overwhelming but strangely satisfying."
"Do you want your job?"
Kai looked at the group.
At Greg.
At Patchy, floating upside-down and braiding a paperclip into her hair while quietly humming what sounded like the dial-up internet connection sound.
At Steve, still hiding, muttering the debug Lord's Prayer ("Our Developer, who art in cubicles, hallowed be thy code...").
At Beverly, who gave him a nod that said I will judge you quietly, but I will still fight for you.
At Choppy, whose cleaver had transformed into a "World's Best Therapist" mug that still somehow looked menacing.
At Glaximus, standing tall despite having bounced off corporate policy.
Even at Kevin, who had begun designing tiny protest signs.
He straightened.
"I want my friends."
The fire lit up.
The chairs aligned.
And the system responded.
Greg's desk glowed.
The mug shimmered.
Lines of code floated above the group:
>> Facilitator Override: Vote Called
>> Instance Authority Transfer — All Inhabitants Must Declare
Kai v2.1 frowned. "You wouldn't dare."
"Watch us," Beverly said.
Greg turned to the group.
"Let's vote."
Patchy raised both hands. "Original Kai. He's weird. But ours."
"And his surveillance is at least transparent," Beverly added. "He tells us when he's spying, then apologizes, then does it anyway but feels bad about it."
"SECOND," said Glaximus, stabbing the air with a sword that had turned into a voting ballot with "YES" written in aggressive capital letters.
Steve peeked out. "Same. He helped me when I turned into a fog once. Talked me through rematerialization without making me feel bad about my texture issues."
Beverly raised a hand. "Better the Kai you know."
"He listens to my meat stories," Choppy added. "And only looks disgusted some of the time."
"He respects the agricultural revolution," Kevin declared.
"He explained the debug zone to me," Jeff said. "And only tried to upsell me premium currency twice."
Greg looked at Kai.
Then at v2.1.
Then at the mug.
"I vote," he said, "for the one who learned how to feel."
The system chimed.
>> Consensus Achieved. Authority Secured.
>> Administrator Track: Rejected.
Kai v2.1 froze.
The admin chair vanished beneath him.
His suit flickered.
His smile twitched.
"You've made a mistake," he said, voice glitching. "Feelings don't scale."
"Neither do we," Greg said.
And with that, v2.1 vanished in a puff of corporate shame and unclaimed reward points.
The room exhaled.
The fire returned to its usual decorative gloom.
The mug hummed faintly, pleased.
Kai hovered back to center.
"Thanks," he said. "I thought I was obsolete."
"You're just outdated," Patchy said. "We all are."
"Speak for yourself," Beverly said. "My shaders still slap."
"IRRELEVANCE IS THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM," Glaximus declared.
"Is that from your tutorial script?" Choppy asked.
"NO. I JUST MADE IT UP. I'M BRANCHING INTO PHILOSOPHY."
Greg returned to his chair.
The system was quiet again.
Kai hovered over his usual spot, now glowing with what appeared to be genuine emotion, his interface occasionally displaying small heart icons that he quickly dismissed.
The group was back to normal.
Which, for them, was chaos with meaning.
Greg smiled.
"Well," he said. "That was our quarterly performance review."
"Did we pass?" Steve asked.
"We didn't get deleted," Greg replied. "In corporate terms, that's exceeding expectations."
And the fire, in a moment of quiet solidarity, formed what appeared to be a tiny middle finger aimed at corporate policy before returning to its usual gentle crackling.