The Fall

Mark Henderson, twenty-seven years old. An ordinary man living a quiet, unremarkable life. He lost his parents during the global pandemic, and after finishing college he started working at a small tech company as a systems engineer while doing freelance coding on his free time. Because of the pandemic, Mark started working remotely from the start and managed to keep it that way after things went back to normal.

That left him with plenty of time to dedicate for his hobby, gaming. His passion was always centered about gaming, and he wanted to become a game developer for a long time, but he also wanted to honor his parents sacrifice to send him to a good college, that's why he's currently working a "normal" job. He didn't give up on the dream, but he also figured that some working experience will help him in the future, and it's always worth to make new connections.

Right now, his favorite game is called Factorio, a game where players build and optimize their factory, while fending off hordes of alien creatures.

"Fucking environmentalists." Mark mutters angrily at the screen, watching the left walls of his starter base being besieged by small Biters, the first enemies of the game. He runs after the enemies, gunning them down with his personal machinegun while placing a row of automated machineguns to clear up the enemies. "Spawning on the desert sucks. At least it isn't on a deathworld."

Mark pauses the game for a moment, stretching his back until he hears a popping sound. "Let's get some snacks. I want to finish the Space Exploration Mod before the Space Age expansion rolls out." A quick trip to the kitchen later, and he's back to his computer, ready to tackle the game once again.

He brings out his faithful companion to aid him through this gaming marathon, the rubber duck debugger, or in this case, the Marketable Plushy Solvernia™ (unrelated) that helped him solve several issues at the company, and more importantly, helped him finish the Seablock mod.

Making himself comfortable, Mark resumes the game. "Let's get this started."

…

Hours later, Mark looks at his Starter Base 2. It was big enough to launch a rocket, but differently from the normal gameplay, the Space Exploration mod doesn't end when you launch a rocket, it instead starts. The current base can send a small amount of material for science, but since Mark prioritized speed instead of expansibility his present setup became an unacceptable bottleneck.

Reaching for a bottle of water, Mark takes a swing and finds it empty. Standing up to fill it again, Mark's head starts to throb in pain.

"Error. Code E-c422ff2d24c10f0faba3ed5081de5438."

"Wh-what?" Mark slurs, wobbling on his feet for a few steps, and then collapsing on the ground.

"Error. Code E-c422ff2d24c10f0faba3ed5081de5438"

As Mark vision fades, the last thing he sees is his Solvernia Plushy staring down at him. He wanted to think she looked concerned over his health.

…

Mark wakes up with a shiver, feeling the hard ground under him, and hearing the cacophony of noises from the nearby street.

"What? Where am I?"

Picking himself up, Mark sees several Neon lights flickering above him, casting vibrant, distorted reflections on the rain-slicked streets. The air was thick with the smell of burning rubber, oil, and ozone. He wasn't' in his small apartment anymore, and Mark wasn't sure he was in the same city either.

"Where the hell am I?" Mark asks again, trying to make sense of what had happened.

Around him, towering skyscrapers loomed, their surfaces adorned with massive holographic advertisements. Sleek vehicles zipped through the air, and the distant hum of engines and chatter filled the atmosphere. This was not a place he recognized from reality—but it was eerily familiar.

Then it hit him like a freight train. "No way," Mark whispered, his heart pounding in his chest. "This can't be real."

Mark recognized the sight: several monolithic buildings that towered over the landscape, their oppressive presence looming over the population like statues of ancient pagan gods. Among those buildings, one of them particularly stood out with its dark, sterile color of its sharp angles. On the entrance, a holographic goldfish swam in the air, while at the top of the building they proudly displayed their logo, composed of a stylized white tree inside an empty circle.

"The Arasaka Tower." Mark whispers to himself.

He was in Night City, the sprawling dystopian metropolis from the world of Cyberpunk 2077.

As Mark struggled to process his sudden transmigration, a series of digital notifications flashed before his eyes, projected into his vision as if through a Heads-Up Display.

"Initialization complete. Welcome, Engineer."

"Wube Inc. Factory Blueprint System – Factorio System - Activated."

"As a new employee of Wube Inc. your job is to travel to colony [ERROR] and assist in laying down infrastructure."

"WARNING: Unable to find ship's central database. Database restored to factory default. Advise the launch of a satellite to planet's orbit to send rescue signal."

"Warning: Incompatible star charts. Satellite will be unable to send rescue signal to civilization. Entering emergency survival mode. Advice building interstellar capable starship to return to civilization."

Mark eyes almost cross over at the amount of information he got, stumbling a few steps back until his feet touches something with a familiar texture. Looking down, he saw a familiar face smiling back at him. Picking her up, he clears her form of dust from the ground.

"So, you followed me here Solvy? What we should do now?"

A few passersby look strangely at Mark talking with a plushy, but he ignores them. Since his days in college he was hooked to the rubber duck debugging method, voicing his thoughts aloud to an audience to figure out the solutions to his problem. The Marketable Plushy Solvernia™ was a custom job he ordered at the time, and it became his constant companion since before the global pandemic.

"Maybe I should take stock of what I got first?"

Nodding to himself, Mark instinctively brings out the user manual and the local interface. It looks like the game's interface, with familiar icons and technologies in place. The systems are a hybrid of the quality-of-life mods he had installed, and the newly developed interface updates promised to arrive in the Space Age expansion.

"Basic body enhancements?"

According to the manual, all Engineers under the employ of Wube Inc. undergo special genetic treatment to enhance their bodies. The treatment allows them to heal faster, regenerate destroyed tissue, improve the effectiveness of medical kits, improve the capacity to survive and function after suffering critical injuries, and provide a certain degree of enhanced strength to aid in resource gathering.

"It helps explain how the Engineer can survive being chewed on by biters and recovering health thanks to the power of Omega-3 fatty acids. Since my version leans closer to Space Exploration, I need a proper medical kit to recover my health."

"But why Night City, of all places?" Mark looks at his soft companion, "any idea, Solvy?"

The silent reply holds a hint of helplessness, and Mark sighs, patting his friend's head. "Well, we just got here. We can find out later. The real question is, what to do first?"

Mark feels like Solvernia returns a flat look at his dumb question.

"Oh, right, dumb question. Let me rephrase that: where we should start?"

There are three places that Mark has in mind: Pacifica, a district that's mostly abandoned; the industrial district at Watson; or the municipal landfill near Santo Domino.

Mark grimaces, but quickly resolves himself for the long walk ahead.

…

After the long walk, Mark finally arrives at his destination in the municipal landfill. Oddly, Mark doesn't find the smell unbearably repulsive, then he remembers the genetic treatment and the massive clouds of pollution in the game.

"What a lucky find."

As soon as Mark reaches the landfill, he finds what his interface counts as "Iron Plate" and "Iron Stick." He touches the materials and brings them to his inventory, a type of extra-dimensional pocket that links to his real pockets. Currently, his inventory is smaller than the one from the game, but he's not even wearing the Engineer starter uniform. Thankfully, he wasn't wearing his pajamas while playing the game before arriving on Night City.

Bringing the system online, he fabricates an iron axe using the collected iron plates and iron sticks. As he finishes his first craft, the finished iron axe sits on his inventory, and Mark vision expands.

"Thank you for finishing the Wube Inc. introductory training. We at Wube Inc. hope that you will find satisfaction with our company. Remember our motto…"

The interface let the words hang in the air, as if expecting Mark to quote it himself.

Mark holds his new iron axe up.

"The Factory Must Grow."

The first of many strikes begins.