The White Room (Super Hero/Cyberpunk/Horror Quest)

You clean yourself up as best you can with one hand. Then you fall back into your bed nook for a proper sleep. Your dreams are twisted and fragmented. You find yourself in the white void, but there is ash covered the ground. Through the doorway you see the arcologies of Utopia, but as you watch the buildings twist and fall. They are pushed away by some enormous bulk. You hear the tapping of enormous legs and see a claw snap an arcology in half. It is blue. The blue of the deep ocean.

You snap awake. The apartment is dark and you grope for your phone. 7:02 glows into your face. You should get up for work. Maybe five more minutes. 7:08, oh right you don't have work. 7:12, 7:20, 7:23 you can't sleep. Giving in to reality you crawl out of bed and perform your morning ablutions. You sit at your computer and stare at the black interface. You're normally on the train by this point. You aren't sure what to do.

The minutes creep by and you decide to browse the news. You find the fight between the Sunbreaker and Crimson Crusader easily enough. Apparently she was able to apprehend him. You suppose that's good. You wish she had been faster, but you can't begrudge her the time when the Sunbreaker has the power of a star. You find a line about the arcology destroyed buried deep in the articles. Nothing about the companies inside. None of them were big enough to be worth a mention.

Deciding to bite the bullet you pull up the government site. There are provisions for this. It takes five clicks and you're on the unemployment rolls. You won't starve at least.

You nervously scroll through news articles full of doom, gloom, and ads. The light outside strengthens as the sun burns away a few of the morning clouds, then fades as the factories retaliate with dark clouds of smog. There is a chime from your door. Your friend is here. You get up and have a few brief moments of struggle as you realize your right hand is still in a cast. You can't type in your security code to unlock the door with it. And without muscle memory it takes a few tries to get it open with your left.

Finally you get the door open and your friend strides in like she owns the place. You've seen her do the same thing in fast food joints and ritzy corporate lobbies. That's just who Irene is, bold, confident, and ambitious. She knows what she wants and how to get it. And right now she wants to get you patched up. Before you know it she's got you sitting on your bed while and she whips out a medkit. One of the high end corporate jobs with a shiny case and built in AI guidance.

She plugs the ports into your casts and you feel the last of the aches and tensions drain away as the corporate grade nanites clear out the government ones. Irene stares at the readout intensely for a few minutes and then gives it another poke. "Your stress levels are too high for just broken bones. What's bothering you."

You tell her about the fact that you lost your job. That you've got debts that need paying. Oh right, and you nearly died! Your voice rises at the end, but Irene is unruffled. She just gives you a pat on your good shoulder, "But you didn't. So now you have to move forward. You need a job. Well I can put in a good word at my company. I know you can handle it."

You grimace, Irene works for Khoas Industries, one of the leading megacorps that specializes in pharmacutecals and bioware. They pay well, but their working conditions are notoriously bad. You'd have to work long hours, and they get raided by enhanciles all the time.

Irene has already brought out a pad and is looking through it. You're sure there are hundreds of job openings on it. She ticks through them instantly dropping offers you'd probably spend hours mulling over. "Okay here, network IT at a Paragon Industries branch office. You'd have to commute a long way, but it's Paragon."

Paragon is widely considered the best company to work for because they're headed by Paragon himself. The world's leading hero he ensures all of his employees are well cared for. The pay isn't the best, but the benefits are. Of course sometimes his enemies target the company specifically to get at him.

Irene is still swiping through the pad, "Or if you want to look for yourself you could apply for the Victim Relief Program." She sees your uncomprehending look, "It's a fund the Crimson Crusader set up with the government to help people impacted by collateral damage from her fights. You've got to jump through a bunch of hoops and fill out forms, but I've got you covered."

Your own computer beeps as you receive a software package from Irene's pad. She shares a few more offers, but none of them sound as good as the first three. Then after checking that the nanites are doing their job the two of you spend the rest of the night chatting and playing card games. At one point Irene comments on your apartment's fresh new look, and you consider. Do you want to tell her about the door?

Look for Work
[ ] Khoas Industries
Pros: Significantly Less Debt, Work with Irene
Cons: More Stress, Possible Enhancile Raid

[ ] Paragon Industries
Pros: Less Debt, good benefits
Cons: Some Stress, Possible Major Enhancile Raids

[ ] Apply for Victim Relief Funds
Pros: No Stress, Not a target
Cons: Debt doesn't change

Tell Irene about the Door
[ ] Yes
[ ] No

Back to the Void​

In the end you decide not to tell Irene about the door. You think she is smart enough to suspect that something is up. You are not the type of person to spontaneously redecorate after all, but it's unlikely she realizes you have an anomaly in your apartment. And for now you'll keep it that way. You do get her help to update your resume and send it around to a few companies. The one you're really considering is Paragon Industries though. It seems like the safer less stressful choice.

A few days later just as your taking the wraps off your ribs you hear a beep as your computer alerts you to a message from Paragon's HR department. Their AI has analyzed your resume, history, and personality profile and approved your hiring. You think it's a little suspicious that it alerted your right after you fully healed. The companies aren't supposed to have access to your medical records, but they are suspiciously timed every now and then.

Still the next day you are on the train to Paragon's branch office in the Yellow 213 sector. It's a long commute so you get to stare out the windows at the passing city for a few hours. One towering arcology is pretty much like the other though so your mind wanders. You spend most of the time alternating between pondering the white void and stressing over the possibility of another enhancile attack. However once you get to the office it all fades into the background as fall back into the groove of doing mundane IT work. The job is basically like your old one, though you note the health benefits look a lot more generous.

Debt: Treading Water
Stress: Mundane Reality

With your financial needs taken care of you turn your attention back to the void beyond the doorway. You've laid down enough carpets by now that you actually have more safe space here than you do in your actual apartment, though that was a low bar to clear. You've tapped around with a broom and haven't found any holes so far, but it is still extremely disconcerting so you stick to your little carpeted area for now.

The question though is what exactly you want to do here. There's room here and light. You can breath here and the temperature is comfortable. But there's nothing else. You ran an extension cord in for power. You can't close the door while its there, but honestly you're a little scared of what might happen if you close the door while you're inside so that's actually a plus. Once that was working you ran a cable in for network so now you can get online inside the void. But still how does that help you exactly. You already have space for a computer in your apartment.

You've got a few ideas though. You've got space, light, and apparently temperature control. That means you could set up a server farm if you wanted. You wouldn't be able to compete with a corporate data center, at least at first, but you could sell time on the servers for gig jobs. That would be your first choice, but again you'd be competing with the big data centers. So you're not sure how viable it would be.

Alternatively you could try to produce some kind of physical product. There's obviously plenty of space to build a workshop here. The problem there would be that your apartment is literally a bottleneck. You can only fit so much stuff through the door and through your apartment. So you'd have to do something that is small, but high value. You see two options here.

First electronics repair. Especially robotics repair. The upper middle class, which you are not part of, adore their pet bots and are willing to drop serious cash to make sure they stay fixed. You aren't sure if you can actually break into that market, but if you set up a few fabrication benches you could do a sort of junker version and sell robots to the lower middle class on the cheap.

Alternatively you could fulfill those farming game fantasies of your spread some dirt around to grow crops. You'd have to sell it on the grey market since you wouldn't have a license. But fresh fruit and vegetables in the middle of the city would be wildly profitable. Of course you get the feeling that actually growing things in real life is harder than the games make it out to be.

Or possibly you could try to experiment more with the void itself. You aren't sure how exactly you would start. But it would certainly be nice to have a better understanding of things before you embark on some expensive capital investment project.

What to Try Next
[ ] Set up Server Farm
Pros: What you do for a living, easy to scale
Cons: Competing in saturated market, may need have power problems later

[ ] Set up a Real Farm
Pros: Very profitable, better personal food
Cons: Involves physical labor, messy

[ ] Set up Bot Repair Shop
Pros: Not too far from current skills, fairly profitable
Cons: Market uncertainty, may get criminal jobs

[ ] Try Another Business
-[ ] Write in some other thing you want to do.

[ ] Experiment with the White Room
-[ ] Write in your method of experimentation

You aren't sure how to actually go about starting a bot repair shop. How do you even get customers or pick prices? You think about it for a while and decide to start somewhat more hands off. You make the trip down to the grey market and look for a cheap robot. Something useful, but clearly damaged. You manage to find a little cleaning bot that has several broken sensors. The seller says it has a tendency to go in circles so they'll part with it for cheap. Just what you're looking for.

Hauling it back to your apartment immediately reveals one of the issues you're going to have if you want to make this work. You're going to need a good cart. Or hire a delivery drone. Regardless you get the robot set up on a folding table in the void. Then you take it apart according to the manual you found online. The sensor problem just needs a replacement camera to fix, but you decide to do better.

You disassemble the robot completely and check and repair each component. You end up ordering a whole catalog of tools and specialist diagnostic equipment. You're not making that money back on this robot, but you think of it is an investment and a learning experience. It takes a few weeks but you get the robot running like its brand new. It cleans up your apartment far better than you ever did.

You take a look online at prices and wince. You're definitely not making your money back on this even if you could charge the same as a robot that's actually brand new. Fortunately the void means you don't have any ongoing rental fees and your day job pays for your daily expenses. So you can take your time getting this whole thing off the ground.

Eventually you manage to sell the robot on for a nice sum of money. More than you paid for it and more than the major parts you replaced cost. So this is viable at least. You just need to keep working at it, and maybe get more practice at repairing robots. For now you don't feel confident quitting your day job to do this full time, but you can see it in your future.

Pick One
[ ] Keep working on small repairs
Buy and repair damaged robots from the grey market. The money is reliable, but buying a robot that works at least a little is eating into the profit.

[ ] Try to source something bigger
You don't actually know where to get a completely broken down robot. Eventually you think might be able to make enough of a name for yourself that people will come to you, but right now you're just a random reseller. That means your only option is going to the dump and hoping to get lucky.

---

You are not a farmer. No one in your family is a farmer. But it can't be that hard right. It's just planting seeds in dirt. And there's lot of guides to gardening online. So you get to work. You purchase several planting boxes and a lot of dirt. Getting it all to your apartment reveals one of the issues you're going to have if you want to make this work. You're going to need a good cart. Or hire a delivery drone. But for now you manage.

Setting up the boxes you plant your seeds, just some tomatoes to start with, and give them water. They start growing fairly quickly, but over the weeks of tending them you note some abnormalities. The plants seem to have a sheen to them that you are fairly certain isn't right. They almost seem translucent.

When they finally fruit and you have your first crop you are sure of it. About a third of your tomatoes seem to actually be healthy. These are plump red spheres that you are sure will sell for a lot. Another third of them are kind of sad. Small, lumpy, and discolored tomatoes that you wouldn't buy unless you were desperate. You try a few of these and they most taste fine. Maybe a little too tart, but you suppose you can keep them for your own food.

And then there's the last third. They're big juicy spheres like the first group. If anything they're larger. But they're also an off white with a translucent skin through which you can see silvery fluid flowing through the tomatoes. You are absolutely not eating these things. And they make you reconsider eating the others. Though you dissected a few of your good batch and couldn't find any of the whiteness.

After some agonizing over the ethics you decide you want money more than you care about potential side effects. Actually selling them is a bit of a problem. You don't have the reputation to sell tomatoes online so you have to go down to the grey market and rent a spot to set up a stall. It's more expensive than you thought it would be, and even though you sold all your tomatoes pretty quick you end up losing money. You ended up with less of a crop than you expected when you calculated how many boxes you were planting.

Still you can plant more next time. And there's always the White tomatoes. You aren't sure what to do with those.

Pick One
[ ] Plant More Tomatoes
Don't worry about it. If you have to discard a third of your crop so be it. Just work on growing more tomatoes and getting them healthier so you don't have as many of the discolored ones next time.

[ ] Look into the White Fruits
You aren't a chemist, but you can get a few test kits for poison and stuff. Maybe a few little rodents to try eating the white tomatoes and see what happens.

---

You suddenly gasp. Your head hurts. You have too many memories. You remember repairing robots and planting tomatoes at the same time. You look into the White Void and you see your planter boxes and repair benches occupying the same space. You have to squeeze your eyes shut. When you open them again you only see planter boxes. Open and shut again and now you see repair benches. You are getting a migraine.

You stagger over to your computer and check your bank balance. Your bank only records one set of transactions. You are a mildly succesful robot reseller. And now you're in the hole for tomatoes. You wince. The world seems to warble between the two options. You feel that both realities are real, but not at the same time.

Clearly there is more to the White Room than you had discovered previously. But this is also an unstable situation. You can't keep both realities going with the amount of pain your head is in. You feel like maybe if you focus on one really hard it will be fixed.

Pick One
[ ] The Farm
[ ] The Repair Shop
[ ] Try to Keep Both
-Add Stress