CHAPTER ONE
The Cabinet
Craig Turner stood back and let out a breath that felt like it had been trapped in his chest for months. In the middle of his basement workshop, framed by flickering work lamps and a mess of tangled cables, stood a fully restored arcade cabinet.
Not just any cabinet—Kasumi Ninja.
Craig wiped his hands on his jeans and circled it slowly, admiring the polished woodwork, the smoked glass screen, the custom-wired Jaguar core thrumming inside. It had taken him nearly a year of scavenging, soldering, and late-night trial-and-error to make this happen. A machine that was never made as a cabinet. Until now.
He reached out, pressed the red-lit power button.
The screen buzzed to life with a low electronic hum, and the game’s familiar splash screen flickered on:
Kasumi Ninja – Press Start.
Craig grinned.
He hit the player button and scrolled through the roster. Out of nostalgia, he selected Angus MacGregor, the Scottish brute with bagpipes and a fireball under his kilt. A ridiculous character, really—but one Craig remembered clearly from playing as a kid. Iconic. Raw. Completely over-the-top.
The match began.
Angus’s pixelated form launched punches, kicks, and fiery kilt moves in sharp, stuttering animations. Craig tested the controls. Tight response. No lag. The sound chip was a little rough, but it worked.
He played a couple rounds, won a fight, and leaned back with a satisfied smirk.
It was finished.
Craig stretched, turned off the basement lights, and headed upstairs—completely forgetting to shut the cabinet down.
Behind him, in the quiet, the screen flickered.
Then pulsed.
Then held.
He grabbed a flashlight and ran, heart thudding in his chest. The basement door creaked open, and he descended the steps one at a time, expecting a blown capacitor or maybe a small electrical fire.
Instead, he saw the cabinet—ruined.
In its place, pepper-grey hair, short and ragged. His jawline was hardened, streaked with stubble and age. The kilt remained, tattered and scorched at the edges. His black leather waistcoat was scuffed but intact. Bagpipes hung across his back like a burden he didn’t remember choosing.
His arms bore tattoos that hadn’t been there before.
And yet… he recognized them.
He didn’t know where he was.
Or what he had become.
Upstairs, Craig’s eyes shot open to the sound of something crashing below.
​
At exactly 3:17 a.m., the house trembled.
Just for a second. A blink of static in the air, like a pulse from some hidden signal. The circuit board inside the cabinet surged. The game loop stuttered. Angus MacGregor froze mid-punch—his on-screen form locking up, eyes glowing faintly in a way that didn’t match the original graphics.
The pixels warped.
Then cracked.
Then bled light.
From deep inside the motherboard, something pushed upward—through code, through data, through silicon and screen. Not just an escape.
A rebirth.
The glass display shattered in a burst of orange light. Smoke billowed out. Sparks hissed across the floor. And then—
A man emerged.
He hit the concrete hard, his body convulsing from the shock of transition.
For a moment, he gasped like a drowning man dragged from the deep. Every nerve in his body screamed. Every sound—too loud. Every scent—too sharp. The air smelled like metal, like oil and electricity and rain.
He pushed himself up to his knees, panting, trembling.
His mind spun with confusion. Memories from another place—some kind of violent limbo—rattled in his skull. He felt older. He was older. The world he’d known, if it had ever truly existed, was gone.
His reflection in the cracked screen caught his eye.
The long red beard he remembered—gone.
Smoke rose from its shattered frame. The screen was gone, wires hung like torn nerves, and glowing shards of glass littered the floor.
Then something moved in the dark.
Craig froze.
From the smoke stepped a man. Bare-chested beneath a scorched waistcoat. Tartan kilt. Muscular. Scarred. Steam rising from his skin like he’d just crawled through hell. His eyes locked onto Craig’s—sharp, wild, disoriented.
Neither of them spoke.
Neither of them understood.
Craig’s throat tightened. “Wh—who are you?”
The man didn’t answer. He looked around, chest still heaving, eyes darting between the walls, the lights, the strange tools. He reached for his own shoulder, touched the bottle strapped to his upper arm—Kilt Fire Whiskey—as if checking it was still real.
Finally, his voice cracked through the silence.
“…Where am I?”
Craig stepped backward slowly, still unable to speak.
The man—Angus—took another breath.
Then turned toward the open doorway at the top of the stairs. As he moved, the muscles in his arms flexed with unnatural strength. Something in him still shimmered—something beyond human. He was part man now.
But not entirely.
Craig stared after him, unable to move.
And Angus, without looking back, stepped up the stairs into a world that had moved on without him.
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