Aarav had two phones now.
One was his beat-up Earth device, duct-taped near the charging port, screen smudged beyond redemption. The other he got during his first trip to a local Codora vendor hub—a sleek stall run by a vendor who didn't ask questions. It cost him a story trade: one of his adapted Earth comics in exchange for a basic fluid-net handset.
The Codora phone was slimmer, transparent along the edges, and synced to the grid through some sort of fluid network connection he still didn't understand. It only worked on this side—but it lit up like a charm.
He kept both in his pocket like they were parts of him. Two worlds. Two wallets. Two sets of lies.
The first week in Codora was a blur.
He made a daily routine of leaving early from his unit in J-42 Tier 2, walking the outer lanes of the city sector. At first it was to memorize the map—know where the trams stopped, where kiosks buzzed to life, which alleys stayed empty at odd hours. But soon it became more. A practice. A grounding force. Earth was slow, repetitive. Codora was new every day. The air shimmered differently in the mornings. People moved in sync with schedules displayed on gliding panels above the sidewalks. Light filtered through the trees and buildings in predictable waves, controlled by invisible regulators.
Reva dropped by once a day, sometimes to bring news, sometimes just to make sure he hadn't evaporated.
"You're too quiet," she told him once. "People who go quiet are either about to vanish or blow up a public library."
He laughed. "No explosions. Just adjusting."
Aarav spent most of his hours mapping, cataloging anything that stood out—visual motifs, material patterns, how people greeted each other. Some called it obsessive. He called it homework.
He still hadn't brought anything physical from Earth. The portal was steady, but he was paranoid. What if the shimmer flickered mid-cross? What if someone saw him and followed? So instead, he explored Codora through mimicry.
Then he saw the comics.
It was a minor display on a wall kiosk outside a vendor hub—simple illustrations in Codora's style, bright palettes and poetic formatting. But they weren't funny. Not by Earth standards. They were beautiful, abstract, and a little pretentious. Stories that flowed sideways. Emotions drawn like geometric spirals. Good, but not gripping.
That night, Aarav returned to Earth. Quietly. The shimmer buzzed underfoot like an unspoken invitation. He stepped into the storage room and blinked into his flat's gloom.
He didn't even sit.
He dug through a dusty hard drive from college, found a folder of old indie webcomics he'd helped translate years ago. One stood out—a slice-of-life about a man who finds a glove that gives him compliments. Pure fluff. Wholesome. Emotionally genuine.
He spent four hours re-lettering it into Codora's text format, stripping away cultural specifics but keeping the tone. He replaced the glove with a voice-echo bracelet, changed the setting from Mumbai streets to a floating tier in a vertical cityscape. He redrew faces. Simplified expressions.
Then he translated the tone into what he thought Reva would call "emotionally authentic." Kind. Clever. Slightly weird.
He slept for two hours and returned before dawn.
He submitted it the next morning through a civic kiosk. These sleek public terminals were everywhere—outside tram stations, inside communal hubs, even nestled in quiet alleys. Designed like floating tablets mounted to fluid-metal stems, civic kiosks let you submit creative work, apply for basic permits, or request public services. Everything was touchless, layered in augmented text, and unnervingly polite. It was bureaucracy dressed in elegance.
He watched the upload bar crawl forward. Then it blinked green. Accepted.
He didn't expect anything.
Three hours later, he got a ping: Value Index increased. Contribution Level raised to Tier 2.
He read it twice.
Then again.
He had done it.
He was in.
He rushed to a quiet tram station and watched as the city buzzed past—silent, clean, almost too perfect. And in that perfection, he felt his first real win.
That night, he ate his first paid meal in Codora. It came from a layered cube that unwrapped into a steaming tray of something like rice and root vegetables soaked in golden broth. It tasted halfway between curry and sweet lime.
He didn't care what it was.
It was warm.
It was his.
That night, with the taste still on his tongue, Aarav walked back to his unit more slowly than usual. The overhead lights blinked on with every step, casting thin blue shadows around him. No one else was out.
He pulled out his Codora phone and opened the metrics screen. His contribution score had a pulsing edge now, outlined in gold. He tapped it, curious.
A short message blinked up:
Tier 2 established. Weekly renewal required. 1 of 3 submissions complete.
That stopped him.
A game. It was a game.
He chuckled, but it wasn't humor. It was recognition. Codora didn't hand out rewards for free. Every tier came with strings, deadlines, requirements.
But he didn't mind. Not really.
For the first time in years, someone needed him to show up.
He pocketed the phone and kept walking, heart beating fast in the quiet city.
And now, the game could really begin.
But Earth hadn't gone away.
The next time he returned, he opened his phone to a string of messages. One from his landlord: "Rent overdue. Last notice." Another from his boss: "We've updated our roster. You're off it."
He stared at the texts for a long time, fingers cold despite the warm air. He hadn't paid rent. He hadn't officially quit. He'd just… vanished.
He thought about texting back. Making excuses. But the moment passed. His boss wouldn't care. Rao, his landlord, would probably change the locks.
He took a deep breath and looked around his dingy apartment. Cracked wall paint, water-stained ceiling, the sour smell of damp newspapers.
He walked to his bedroom, grabbed an old duffle bag, and started packing—only the essentials: a few clothes, a notebook, the charging cable. And a backup drive, just in case.
No goodbyes. No regrets.
Just a quiet exit from the life he'd barely managed to survive.
Aarav stood in the middle of the room for a final second, then whispered, "Not my problem anymore."
And he stepped back into Codora.