It seemed Jonathan was in the clear, having avoided immediate arrest — cardiac or otherwise.

  He put the wreath back on during the van ride back to his apartment. Jonathan noted another major change in the gentleman's appearance. His hair was slicked back and he was wearing a business suit with shoulder pads that Jonathan imagined would have had him declared "King of Stocks" on 1980s Wall Street.

  The gentleman was wearing a desperate and hungry look — like the last door-to-door encyclopedia salesman, or any technical recruiter ever.

  Jonathan knew he was about to hear a pitch.

  It was when his thumbs instinctively moved to "end call" that he remembered he didn't have his phone. He was still a literal captive audience.

  "That was GREAT! You're a natural! Jonathan, I have to say, we're both extremely impressed. After some consideration something occurred to me. Do you believe in fate? Serendipity? Ooh, I know — how about fatendipity?"

  A small table appeared between Jonathan and the businessman, with the sole purpose of being the butt-end of a visual metaphor, as he pulled out a deck of cards, fanned them out, and slammed them down.

  "I believe you should know what that means. The truth is that it's highly unlikely that this little statue was the mummified love-child of a sentimental emperor on the other side of the galaxy."

  "It's far more likely that some wealthy asshole probably just wants it as a conversation starter for their pretentious dinner parties, so they can show off their 'taste' in ancient relics from a dead world. It's not even really the oldest or best example of a fertility idol — probably just one they picked at random, or was even picked for them. But that doesn't matter to us. We're just the people hired to go and get stuff like that."

  Something about this conversation caused Jonathan to pay very close attention.

  The first thing he noticed was that if this was a conversation with an alien being translated in real-time, then it was impeccable to a shocking degree — even the turns of phrase were extremely natural.

  Almost shocking enough to overlook the second thing he noticed, which was the choice of words.

  "I-I'm sorry, dead world?"

  He really wanted to believe the gentleman misspoke, but was pretty sure by now that wasn't the case.

  The man wore a bittersweet smile. "You're quick!"

  "I must warn you that this next part is going to be distressing. The following is something called a fire and light situation… I guess you probably know it better as 'good news, bad news.' First, let me show you the fire."

  The van dissolved before his eyes, and he was suddenly sitting in space.

  His animal brain nearly tore the headset off in a fit of self-preservation, until rationality knocked and kindly explained that what he was experiencing was just a visualization.

  Jonathan saw what he presumed was Earth. It was far enough in the distance that if it was in his current reach, it'd be about the size of a baseball. He had seen pictures before, but never of views where the land was turned away, so it looked almost entirely blue.

  Underneath the Earth, in blinking bright red block letters, were the words "FUTURE SIMULATION."

  Jonathan stared for a moment, then began to marvel at the vastness of space around him. He could quickly tell it was a faithful recreation by some of the constellations he recognized from the years he spent as a different kind of nerd. He craned his head all around to see if space was rendered all the way around him, or just for his initial view.

  He was pleased to see that everywhere he looked he could see stars and galaxies — except for one dark area behind him.

  It's important to note that the spot was dark, not blank. He could sort of see some sort of texture to it. After staring at it for a moment, he realized this blank spot was actually more of a cloud. One that was moving closer, and doing so at… well, astronomical speed.

  As it got close, Jonathan's animal brain took over again and dodged out of the way.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  The vision re-oriented itself so he was viewing from a side angle. He watched as the blue baseball was engulfed by a grey cloud somewhere between the size of a basketball and a sedan. The view zoomed in close enough to see the moment of impact — wherever the cloud touched, the atmosphere of the planet was sheared away like a sandcastle in a tidal wave.

  The view zoomed in further still, showing a city pocked with smoke from what Jonathan assumed were either last-minute riots or the aftermath of a slightly-above-averagely violent Black Friday sale. The mid-day sun was blotted out as buildings, land, and sea alike were scoured away in moments.

  Jonathan momentarily forgot how to breathe. It felt so real.

  As the van re-asserted itself, Jonathan found that he was dumbstruck.

  "It's called The Shale — a cloud of tiny artificial organisms built by some ancient species, likely on accident. They're extremely proficient at two things: building more of themselves, and interstellar travel. Somehow or another, they were called to your world. Believe it or not, there are worse things that could have answered the call."

  Jonathan's mind was racing. There were too many thoughts to express. Just the simulation itself had felt so real, had terrified him to his core — and now he was verging on a panic attack.

  After a moment, he collected his thoughts.

  He wanted not to believe any of this and tried to find some hint that it wasn't true. Then he got angry at his own government when he remembered that night a couple of months ago — when what online communities called "The Event" occurred. A giant orange beam shooting out into space, power flickering around the entire world. The government was never honest about what happened, and it caused a huge backlash… until the news got stale and was replaced by the latest stupid bullshit.

  Jonathan didn't get involved, but like everyone else, he had suspicions.

  Wait.

  What if he convinced his new friends to take this news to the government? Maybe they could… do nothing until it was too late, just like they did with literally everything else. What even was the point — no amount of nuking could stop that. He'd probably just get killed to prevent a panic.

  He realized he was following the stages of grief in perfect order. Was realization part of acceptance?

  "How long?"

  "Most models predict about a month in local time, but the gates out of the system will close a good while before then as a precaution. We're hoping to be out of here in a week though — the last few days tend to get very dicey, and we really don't care to get involved."

  Storing away the idea of "gates" for later, Jonathan wanted to pursue more immediate concerns.

  "So in just a week or so, society is going to break down… y'know, more than usual?"

  "Based on what I've seen, this society is always a week away from breaking down. But I'm more talking about an increase in visitor activity. Some like us try to keep a low profile, but there are many others who are less careful — or worse, tourists with ulterior motives. Once a planet is 'doomed', all laws are essentially suspended for visitors, and a great deal of… advantage is taken."

  Jonathan pondered this for a moment. His head immediately went to movies like Predator, where people were hunted for sport. But the cynic in him latched onto the typical connotation of "taking advantage", which he knew was probably a lot worse.

  "That, and some of the more lucrative jobs might see a lot of competition," the avatar continued. "Some of them pay enough to attract the very powerful and the very desperate alike. There is often a great deal of collateral damage."

  As if on cue, a shockwave hit the van that nearly caused it to swerve into the median.

  Turning around, Jonathan saw that one of the taller downtown skyscrapers was lit up like a red disco, the top of which seemed to have exploded. He watched in horror as additional explosions rang out — one of which hurled something off the top hard enough to drive it straight through one of the neighboring buildings.

  "Case in point."

  Any doubts in the story were now gone. This was really going to happen, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  "We want you to come with us. Your skillset is invaluable."

  Jonathan was still focused on what was going on behind them. What skillset? The only thing they saw him do was steal something from a museum that was never robbed just because it wasn't polite.

  Before he blurted out something stupid that would end with a "you know what, you're right, never mind, have a nice apocalypse" — he thought it over.

  The physical part of his job was technically the easiest. You just had to have the courage to walk past a bunch of people pretending like you belonged. The technical part was what made him valuable — hacking, learning how to exploit vulnerabilities. That would all be useless on another planet.

  This was the first time he was ever confronted with the thought that he was lucky not to have anybody who depended on him.

  The salesman was nice enough to give Jonathan a minute to think it over.

  "How much of this is just me being in the right place at the right time?"

  "Pretty much all of it. You're clearly resourceful, and willing to adapt."

  Jonathan did think his problem-solving skills could at least help a little. But what if he ran into an indecipherable obelisk, or a planet that didn't have any technology at all?

  "You do know that most of what I do won't work on another planet or… species, right?"

  "It's a tough job for that reason. Every planet has something new to learn, and we very rarely get perfect information about how to go about a task."

  Jonathan and the salesman were apparently trying to out-convince each other as to why it was a bad idea for Jonathan to take the role.

  Jonathan got out of his own head for a minute and considered the alternative.

  "I guess I'm in."

  "Good to hear. We'll do our best to make sure you won't regret it. For now, we just need to… Actually, it'll have to wait. Can you please hand back the wreath?"

  Jonathan did as he was asked, contemplating his future.

  The thought occurred too late that he probably should have asked about salary and benefits.