— The sun still rises over the same rolling hills and manicured lawns, but for the residents of Santa County, the world feels distinctly different this morning. The long-anticipated "Version 0.9" update—the final major patch before the projected 1.0 launch—has gone live, fundamentally altering the rhythm of daily life in this once-sleepy enclave.

“It’s not a bug,” said the only person Mags trusted: an exiled tech coder named Leo, who’d washed up in Santa County three years ago after a nervous breakdown. Leo now ran the video rental store (which, in Version 09, only stocked Elf and Die Hard on endless loop). He had the hollow eyes of a man who’d seen source code.