Chat, My Friend is a Literal God. What Do I Do?

Professor Geoffrey Dachs sat down at his desk in his den and made himself comfortable.

Martha, his wife, came in to check on him before kissing him on the cheek and leaving. She was taking the grandkids, Jenny and Chloe, to the mall for the afternoon.

Dachs himself had wanted to go along, but the central desk couldn’t swap his shift with anyone else on this particular day. Apparently, everyone had something else to do.

It wasn’t that the retired professor was in need of extra money. He had plenty. Enough to live a comfortable life throughout his remaining days in retirement and still leave a substantial sum for his son and the grandchildren. Thus, the money he earned from doing this part-time job was sent straight to Jenny and Chloe as allowances.

It was the sense of adventure that had attracted him to the job. At the age of 72, he had had enough of journals and charts and tables. But getting paid to watch a cartoon girl scream obscene words for hours? Well, to be fair, even monkeys could do that, but when the job requirement specifically asked for verifiable expertise in global finance? That had piqued his interest, and before he knew it, he had passed the interview.

Dachs put on a headset and opened Chrome. He found Rippa’s YouTube channel from the bookmarks and clicked on it. Today’s live-stream was still twenty minutes away, but there were already many people in chat, waiting.

“Afternoon, Geoffrey,” said Ngo’s voice. It came from Google Meet, opened in another Chrome window.

“Good afternoon, Henry,” Professor Dachs greeted back.

Ngo was his shift partner. Not an academic as Dachs was, but a retired analyst who had seen Japan freeze and fought his way out of the ‘97 meltdown. Ngo had survived the dot-com bubble pop and successfully exploited the ‘08 crash. The guy was a survivor and, more importantly, someone who could smell wood burning before anyone else.

Dachs and Ngo. The duo was the primary firewatcher team earmarked for the weekly Buttons Special. Of course, the central desk had another team that alternated with Dachs’, but when it came to seniority, Dachs and Ngo were the top guys of the org. Regular streams, on the other hand, were handled by younger and cheaper guys, who were more knowledgeable in dealing with AIs and feeding VOD transcripts into LLMs.

“Hang on, I gotta go to the bathroom,” said Ngo.

Professor Dachs waited for Ngo to return and the stream to start. He wasn’t very fond of using a headset and preferred open speakers. A headset made his ears hurt from being pressed for hours, but Ngo’s age didn’t allow him to type fast, so the voice chat was a better option. Thankfully, the weekly Buttons Special did not last more than three hours. Rippa was very mindful and tried not to exhaust the kid, which Dachs found quite endearing.

He wondered if there would be another Rippcoin disaster today. ‘Likely not.’ He shook his head. It had been weeks since the momentous day, but the kid had since refrained from doing anything similar. The VTuber girl Rippin’ Rippa had also played a crucial role in keeping Buttons in check, and she had done a fantastic job so far, apart from that near slip-up involving Nvidia. To be honest, Dachs had no clue why Rippa hated Nvidia.

Overall, the job was easy. He and Ngo would just watch two kids playing some games and talking nonsensical things about all imaginable things. From time to time, however, Buttons would say something positive about some ice cream Rippa had bought her, or a TV show she watched. In such cases, either Ngo or Dachs would quickly send an alert to the central desk, which would then be distributed to clients.

‘Topic: Tried and liked Ahmad Tea, Earl Grey. / Potential impact: Positive. Raised brand awareness. Uptick in sales. / Affected parties: Ahmad+, Walmart+, Costco+, Amazon+, Twinings-, Tetley- / Note: Buttons scolded for endorsing.’

Such an alert, of course, was junior-level stuff that didn’t really require the expertise of someone like Dachs or Ngo. However, that didn’t mean the two would ignore it just because they were too high level.

Most of the time, though, the two kids really didn’t do anything impactful, and the grandfather duo would just sit there and watch, often just casually chatting among themselves. Needless to say, Dachs and Ngo had become very good friends.

“I don’t understand this,” Dachs confessed, watching the stream. “What’s a boat got to do with it?”

“Hang on,” said Henry. He could be heard talking to someone in a jumble of Vietnamese and English. “OK, my grandson says it traps the black guy.”

“How?”

“If you place the boat in front of the black guy, he gets in the boat and can’t get out, apparently.”

And on the screen, Rippa was doing just that. Buttons flanked around the shadowy figure and bonked it with her wooden sword.

“I’m pretty sure he’s not called the black guy,” Dachs commented. “And packing him inside a boat… that sounds dangerously racist, Henry.”

“Ahahaha! I’m an ethnic minority myself. I can’t be racist— Oh wait, OK, my grandson says the guy’s called Enderman.”

Dachs jotted down a note. “OK, I’m gonna share this with Chloe and Jenny. Boat… traps… Enderman.”

And then, something unexpected happened. Buttons and Rippa had a talk and decided to briefly open the server to viewers.

“Huy! Quick! How do I join?” Ngo was shouting to his grandson.

Hearing his colleague talking to a young teenager, Dachs cursed his unpreparedness. He did not have Minecraft installed on his PC. He didn’t even know where to get it. A quick Google search made it even more confusing.

“Microsoft Store? Java Edition? What’s the difference? What’s Xbox Game Pass?”

“I’m in! I’m in!” Ngo shouted excitedly.

There were indeed tons of characters around Rippa and Buttons now. Everyone was bouncing around.

“Hey, please don’t trample my farm!” the kid was saying.

“Where are you?” Dachs was also getting excited. He wished Rippa would turn so he could see Ngo… but then again, how would he even know who was— there he was! A character standing still near Buttons. Above his head, ‘HenryNgo.’

“I see you, Henry!”

“Yes!”

“Wait, hang on. Stand still!” Dachs quickly pulled out his phone. “Siri, how do I take a photo of my screen?”

Siri’s calm, soothing voice gave step-by-step instructions.

“OK, thanks, but I meant on a Windows PC.”

While Dachs was taking a screenshot of his friend appearing in the stream, among the fast-scrolling in-game chat, somebody asked, “Henry Ngo? HSBC?”

A character approached Ngo and stood beside him. Above the square head, ‘FeinsteinAchim.’

“Hey, Geoffrey! It’s Feinstein!” said Ngo in the voice chat. “You know him, right?”

“Deutsche Bank?”

“Yeah, him.”

It was clear Ngo and Feinstein weren’t the only Buttons-watchers in the server. Soon, the in-game chat was filled with old guards greeting and asking each other, “So, which gig are you working for?”

Rippa took notice of this and… obvious boomer lingo combined with zero movement. “OK, chat, and guys in game. Type 1 in chat if you are new to Minecraft. In-game chat, I mean.” She watched the chat window for a bit and added, “Press T first.”

There were quite a many 1s in chat.

Rippa’s viewers were as confused as her.

‘WTF?’

‘Sugar daddies here for Rippa.’

“OK…” Rippa took a deep breath. She had no idea why so many noobs were in the server. “You know what, let’s teach you guys how to play Minecraft. First, you move with WASD. W goes forward, S goes backward.” With that, she took them to the field and told them how to chop trees.

Buttons went around each player, cheering for them, “Yes, yes, left click just like that!”

“Henry! Ask Huy which Minecraft I should buy. Quick!” Dachs urged in the voice chat, but at the same time, he remained professional and paid attention. He didn’t miss the remark Buttons made.

‘Topic: Didn’t like the Minecraft movie. / Potential impact: Negative. / Affected parties: Warner Bros-, Apple TV-, Google Play-, Amazon Prime-’

By the time he sent the alert, Rippa was explaining how the crafting table worked. Soon, old boomers were running around with stone pickaxes. Some dug themselves straight down to lava, much to everyone’s amusement.

“Right, guys, night is coming. We need to build you a shelter,” said Rippa.

The stream soon evolved into a housing development project, where noobs built walls and put roofs over their heads while some dedicated themselves to fetching materials from the chests in Rippa’s villa. Some went hunting for wool needed for making beds. Buttons went around and distributed bread to those who were hungry.

‘This looks fun,’ Dachs thought. He was also a bit envious of Ngo. Rippa was personally showing Ngo and other retired bankers how the switch-door mechanism worked. ‘This Rippa girl is very nice.’

Somehow, everyone managed to build a house before nightfall. With beds and all. When it became dark, after some minutes of yelling and cursing, Rippa gave up on waiting for everyone to sleep. Armed with axes and shovels, people roamed the dark and fought off zombies, defending their newly erected village.

It would be much later that they realized. They had come for Buttons, stayed for fun, and would return for Rippa.

When Martha returned with Jenny and Chloe, she found Dachs glued to his computer long after his shift. He was talking to his old buddies and acquaintances in Google Meet. They were playing Minecraft together. Or rather… fumbling.