I was in an unknown old Spanish city. Javier Cañada invited me to his new headquarters. The entrance was a trap door on a cobble stone street of the "casco histórico" of the city. There was a tower nearby, I knew the tower was part of his building. I opened the trapdoor and climbed down a ladder into a luxurious space.
The place had the appearance of a cross between a mad scientist lab and a baroque church, giving luxury steampunk vibes. There were high vaulted ceilings supported by richly decorated columns, everything glittered with golden hues accented by royal blue and purple. The ample spaces were populated with victorian furniture and racks of strange devices.
Javier greeted me warmly and indicated where I would sleep. He pointed to a humble mattress on the floor, next to a cozy fireplace. I was happy with this arrangement and put myself to bed with a single blanket. However, I couldn't sleep because I bedbugs biting me at night. I got myself out of bed and found a plastic bag where I put the blanket. I was debating wether to throw the mattress into the fireplace when Javier came into the space and asked me what was wrong.
I told him that I was trying to get rid of everything because it was infested with bedbugs. He shrugged it off and told me to follow him. We went through a door, to an elevator, and up to the tower into a busy office where many people were going to and fro. Javier took me to the boss who happened to be his daughter. He instructed her to assign me to an important project. His daughter protested: this man has no credentials, no working permit, and no qualifications. Javier answered "I don't care, I want him on the project, end of story". Javier's daughter sighed and got busy signing me up on the computer.
Héctor called me. He was my assistant. He told me a design conference committee had been reaching out so that I could be a speaker. I knew this was connected to Javier in some way. I appeared next to Hector. He said that--since I was away and I couldn't be contacted, and the committee needed a paper in advance, he had produced something about my games with the help of ChatGPT and Midjourney. It was a beautiful tabloid sized multi-page print full of graphs and beautiful typography, but it was all nonsensical bullshit. I pointed this out to Hector who smiled: exactly, and the paper was accepted, this meant I could speak about anything I wanted. I was impressed by his dark cleverness.
I appeared at the conference. Another speaker was on stage, it was a huge event, the kind only multi-national companies produce, with multiple projections, stage illumination and such. I worried that what I had in mind for my talk was much simpler. But then I realized: I have a working product. All that presentation eye candy is nothing when you walk on stage and use your product. Then I became focused and calm.