Assignment Day

by Randy Brown

In 2080, senior year comes with one huge assignment: rebuild a dead person’s life from every digital trace they left behind, then upload them into VX, the virtual world every living person visits daily.

Corb Thomas wanted an exciting assignment, maybe someone famous, maybe someone who could help him win the ultimate prize: cash, cars, or an unlimited VX wallet.

Instead, he gets Ben Theige, a painfully ordinary rocket scientist who died decades ago. Or at least, that’s what the records say.

The deeper Corb digs, the stranger Ben’s life becomes. Missing data. Corrupted coordinates. A death certificate that doesn’t make sense. A mysterious student following him through VX. And an AI assistant who may know more than it’s telling.

Kindle Edition

Published July 31, 2026

About the author

Randy Brown writes stories in multiple genres, including the binge-worthy SF survival contest series THE DROP; the near-future virtual reality adventure ASSIGNMENT DAY; and FIRST STEP, the follow-up to the award-winning novel FIRST and rated as a must-read by Reedsy Discovery. He's authored NEXT TIME, a winner of multiple awards in the time-travel romance genre, and the Desert Sun Series of thrillers (SUNSET, SUNDOWN, and SUNBURST). He'd love it if you'd leave a review.

NEXT TIME is the winner of the Literary Titan Gold Book Award for Fiction, 1st Place in the 8th Annual PenCraft Book Awards for Romance-Fantasy/Sci-Fi, and a Must-Read Book of 2024 as selected by Independent Book Review, saying "Of the many time-travel novels I’ve read, this is undeniably among my favorites."

FIRST is the Winner of the 18th Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, 1st Place in the 8th Annual PenCraft Book Awards for Science Fiction, as well as the 2023-24 Reader Views Literary Awards Silver Medal Winner for Best Science Fiction novel and Gold Medal Winner for Best Book set in the US Mountain West Region.