THE MOMENT
"Congratulations," the feminine voice surprised Dexter. It was 3 a.m., and he had just made a world-changing discovery in his home lab. He spun around to see a woman with straight white hair and orange eyes wearing a black blazer and a pencil skirt. He'd developed a method to reliably open a portal within the last 10 minutes, and her appearance was more than likely related. He was smart enough to put that together and he managed to keep his calm.
"Who are you and why are you congratulating me?" he asked. Asking how she got in seemed like a waste of a question; she was already inside.
"My name is Minuette, and I represent Void Holdings," she said. "I'm congratulating you because you succeeded. Your team won the game," she added. "As a reward, Void Holdings would like to welcome your Earth into our trade network. However...," she stepped forward carefully as if afraid to startle him again, and offered him a clear glass card. "...I wanted to be sure to hand you a reward personally. Things are about to get busy for your people, and I don't want your contribution to get overlooked."
"I ... this is way above me...," Dexter accepted the card out of habit, but shook his head. "I just turn in my work to the team leader. I don't know anything about your company...," he said.
"All the more reason to give you that node," Minuette smiled. "As of your discovery, your world has all the resources it needs to win. Unfortunately, the game isn't over until they do, or the Apocalypse is unleashed in eight months. Yet, the more hands that touch the solution, the less effective it'll become. You can escape this Earth when the time comes, should your leadership fail to enact a winning strategy."
"What?" Dexter was quiet and liked to keep to himself. He was smart enough for a higher position, but he did not have the interpersonal skills necessary to be in charge of anyone. He knew the basics about Void Holdings and the game they challenged humanity with.
Humanity was given two years to find a way to survive an apocalypse. After some early debates about what kinds of ways their world might end, Dexter himself realized that Void Holdings didn't seem to be from their Earth. That kicked off the search for alternate universes, and again, Dexter was the smart one who figured it out.
"What do you mean if my leadership fails? This means we're going to win, right? I wasn't there, but I got the impression that we didn't actually need to enact a strategy to win. I thought the point was just finding a solution." It was infeasible to migrate an entire Earth's population to anywhere within two years, much less find a suitable home first. The entire deal was portrayed as a game, despite the very real stakes. But, they only lost everything if they lost.
"You are correct in that," Minuette nodded. "But, we've played this game quite a few times. We've never had a winner," she said.
"I'm the first one who solved it?" Dexter asked. It felt misleading to claim he solved multiversal travel when Void Holdings obviously operated on a different level. But, it was a conversation with an ascended being as far as he could guess, and not another colleague.
"Not at all," she giggled. "That's why I gave you the node. I realized I should acknowledge the true winner early on. You might not believe me, but, my goodness. There's a surprising number of people out there who'll be happy to let the world burn if they're not going to get any credit for saving it."