He was in the Staunton Island construction site, hunting the last hidden package. The golden radar pinged erratically. He climbed the spiral staircase. At the top, there was no package.

He fired. The rocket spiraled upward, trailing gold dust. It struck the central helicopter—not the swarm. The explosion didn’t destroy it. It solidified it into a golden trophy that fell to the ground with a heavy, resonant clang .

He wanted to quit. He tried Alt+F4. The game laughed—a deep, polyphonic chuckle from the speakers. The screen flickered, and his desktop wallpaper was now a golden screenshot of Claude standing over his own tombstone.