January, 2008

New York

Knock on the door

Olivia quickened her footsteps as she went to answer the bell. Her husband was here. It was 6 p.m. in the evening, and it had been snowing since morning. She hurriedly opened the door, let her husband in, took off his overcoat, placed it on the coat stand, and kept the umbrella to the side.

"How was the day, honey?"

"It was perfect, my love. Well, almost perfect if not for the snow. The number of idiots I come across during the snowy season blows my mind," Mason, Olivia's husband, said.

"Hahaha… Hasn't that been the story for the last decade or so?"

"Don't remind me... Ugh..."

Olivia and Mason were a happy, typical white couple living in New York, and both of their parents were from New York as well. Mason was the owner of two garages, which he had built himself, and he was now managing both. The garages were doing well, as the Google reviews for both were above 4 stars, keeping his business on the right track.

Meanwhile, Olivia was a housewife. The economy wasn't bad, so she could pursue her hobby of painting and drawing. She often sold her paintings online. Even though it was 2007, the internet was quite advanced, and online shopping was slowly gaining popularity.

It was her son, Liam, who had encouraged her to showcase her paintings online on social media and even post small time-lapse videos of her work. Though she wasn't a gorgeous beauty, her mature and kind appearance garnered attention. Her social media fame even led to an invitation to display one of her paintings at an art gallery.

It wasn't a grand hit or anything, but the exposure certainly helped. Mason and Olivia spent a bit more time talking about his workplace while Olivia shared some uplifting comments she'd come across online. It was just everyday stuff from their ordinary lives.

"Liam, come down for dinner."

The family lived in a duplex, a gift Mason's father had given him when he married Olivia. Having a home in Queens instead of a dingy apartment was already a huge achievement.

"Coming..."

Soon, the three sat at the table. Liam was their only child.

"Liam, thank you for your advice on retrofitting the exhaust with a high-flow catalytic converter. You were right; it did reduce the back pressure. The customer even came back today and thanked me. Of course, he didn't return out of courtesy—he'd rear-ended a car while driving in the snow early this morning," Mason said with a mix of complaint and humor. Liam could tell his father was pleased, knowing it was these "idiots" who kept his business thriving.

"Uh… Thanks, Dad. I'll join you tomorrow after school," Liam replied sheepishly. He didn't say more and focused on his food.

Liam was a high schooler, about to turn 16 that year. He often visited the garage to help out, a habit that had started half a year ago when he decided to tinker around one day.

The garage employees had given him a warm welcome, as he was the boss's son. Initially, they treated him with respect but kept a safe distance. Liam found it difficult at first, sensing their unease, but over time, they accepted him as one of their own and even let him work on some cars brought in for maintenance and repair.

Liam mostly worked on car engines, as they were his main interest. Over the past few months, he had earned the employees' trust, and even his father admitted Liam was a prodigy when it came to cars. Mason was proud of his son and made sure Liam knew it.

The rest of dinner went as usual, and Liam soon returned to his room.

"Our son has become so introverted. I miss the old days when Liam was bubbly and outgoing," Olivia said nostalgically. She had noticed how much her son had changed in the past year.

"Leave him alone, Olivia. He's a teenager now. You can't expect him to always be happy. There's nothing wrong with him. We just need to avoid pressuring him," Mason replied.

"Of course, you'd say that. He's following the same path as you—spending his time in the garage, tinkering with machines that don't have emotions," Olivia retorted.

"Hey, c'mon, don't hurt me like that. Those machines talk to me," Mason joked.

"Yeah? Then why didn't you marry those machines if they talk to you?" Olivia snapped.

"Hahaha… Don't be jealous, my love. I may love those machines, but there are people who love cars even more than I do. One guy visits every two months just to do a routine check on his old 1962 Chevrolet Corvette. He even named it Lola. You think I'm crazy? You should see him."

"No, thank you."

Liam was back in his room. It had been more than a year since he was transmigrated into this healthy body. Yes, a perfectly fine and healthy body had replaced Shawn's from Earth. In his previous life, Shawn had been a nerd. When he first realized the general setup of this world, he almost fainted in shock.

The MCU.

For the first few months, he lived in terror, thinking the TVA would come after him. But thankfully, they didn't. Then he feared his presence might cause a butterfly effect, altering the MCU as he knew it.

It was a debate between Murphy's Law and the Butterfly Effect.

Shawn didn't know what his presence might bring to this new universe. Part of him was eager to find out, but a bigger part was scared. He felt lonely. Thankfully, he hadn't arrived empty-handed.

He came with a Goldfinger—or at least that's what it was called. At first, he was excited to have something that would help him rise to the top of the world, but once he got the hang of it, he wanted to crawl under a bed and pray to return to his old life.

Because this system was pure torture.

[Do you wish to travel to the world?]

"Yes."

[Good luck.]

Liam found himself in an futuristic room built with metal plates and various holographic around with only a pistol in his hand. He held a shiny, round, hockey puck-like instrument, which resembled Tony Stark's arc reactor. Liam didn't waste a second and made a run for it. As he was running, a call came in from CDR. Sarah Briggs.

[Cooper, your Titan is standing by. Call when you are ready. Stand by for Titanfall.]

There was a loud thud from the upper atmosphere, and after a second, a huge mecha fell to the ground, causing a small earthquake-like wave around it. Liam didn't seem amazed or scared that a huge mecha had just fallen in front of him. He seemed to be expecting it as he proceeded to place the shiny arc reactor instrument into the small circular hole in the face of the mecha.

If it wasn't clear before, let me make it clear now. The Goldfinger was a half-intelligent system. It allowed Liam to cross into the game worlds of his previous life. Yup, games that one could play in his previous life. It wasn't something like world-hopping, where Liam would become a random NPC and just travel between worlds.

Nothing like that. What it allowed was for Liam to take on the role of the protagonist in the game and play as the main character. Now, this might sound very easy since most games were, well, easy. But it wasn't for Liam.

Titanfall 2 was his first world, and he had been playing its four-hour single-player campaign for the last year, struggling to finish it. Why? Because the game was set to extreme hard difficulty, and the NPCs, who were easy to kill in the original, were now intelligent and could think for themselves. Not only was the game extremely hard, but the intelligence of the NPCs made his life a living hell for the past year.

Every 24 hours, he was allowed to enter the game world once. He could stay there non-stop because time in the MCU froze for him. There were two ways to return to the MCU: either finish the whole campaign or just die.

Yup. For the past year, that's what he had been doing every day. Dying. Every. Single. Day. For most people, it would have been mentally wrecking and would've landed them in a hospital. But the Goldfinger came with a clinch. It erased the mental stress, PTSD and other problems he might face due to constantly being in war and also sometimes his disorientation of time.

Thus, for the past year, after dinner—which had become almost a ritual for him—he would travel to the world of Titanfall 2, accompanying the mecha named BT-7742, or BT for short. Since time froze for Liam in the MCU, he had been in perpetual training.

Training that made death his greatest teacher. Because of this, he had progressed far when it came to using guns, maneuvering through battlefields filled with flying bullets, mastering stealth, and all kinds of military tactics.

A one-man army. Of course, this was all possible thanks to BT, which provided him with the most optimal ways to deal with situations, courtesy of its built-in AI. But AI, at the end of the day, was just a tool. Liam had to learn everything from scratch. At first, he died repeatedly because he couldn't aim straight, and his body was always sore.

So, he began learning how to use guns and properly handle his gear, and also strengthen his weak body. It took him a long time to get the hang of it and actually have the strength to be in a battlefield, but eventually, he became capable of launching attacks. He practiced during the moments he was given to recharge while being transferred from one mission to another. Thankfully, there were no time restrictions.

Liam had played the single-player campaign before, so he vaguely remembered the missions and knew his way around. Naturally, this also meant he got to experience piloting BT and using the mecha.

He had never been a huge fan of mechas, which was odd considering he was a nerd. But after piloting a Titan, he finally understood the appeal. Driving and fighting with a Titan was exhilarating, and when he achieved his first victory, he couldn't help but beam with joy.

Thus, even though the past year had been grueling, with death as his constant companion, he progressed like a madman. He even managed to learn how to repair cars from BT. Since BT's AI stored vast amounts of information, and many vehicles were damaged in the game world, Liam learned a lot about car mechanics as he completed missions day by day. Eventually, he was able to apply that knowledge in the real world.

He was in 2008 already and this year would be a test if this world followed Murphy's Law or just a bad case of butterfly effect. Actually, Liam also feared that one day Ancient One will show up after he got himself the Goldfinger. But thankfully he didn't get any visit from the bald headed old woman. 

Thus he wanted to finish the game as the system had said that depending upon his completion and success rate, he would be awarded. Now Liam didn't know what he would be awarded but he was looking forward to it.