ultrashort SF: Cutting edge

Elite Services International was not a corporation, but the first true global conspiracy. It operated in the open, fully exposed yet ineffable.
The group owned the world's best hotels and the top restaurants in select locations, ran the top advertising and PR services, employed the most skilled artists and designers, provided luxury apartments and complete life management services, and more.

That included some very expensive corporate advice that almost invariably proved to be correct.
For a billion dollars, they had instructed Scientology how to reform itself and become successful. Unfortunately, its boss had rejected their plan.

Back in the 1980s, ESI had started as a visual effects company.
They created intricate models and built computerized filming rigs to film Star Wars and Star Trek space battles. They built sets that seemed to come alive from inside, as if this was really the future.
All that work required elaborate research, design and technology facilities. Once they started, they just kept expanding. Into the equivalent of the world's most advanced university, spread across 155 countries.
But they never forgot their heritage

As intelligent software began to become aware in the 2030s, new opportunities emerged.
The ultimate limit of special effects was to make it indistinguishable from reality.
That work had required an underground data center, in what used to be North Korea. And a vast, global supercomputer network.

. . . He woke in a sick, broken world.
Everything here seemed to be made of low resolution pixels.
He got up, and found he could move freely. Too easily perhaps. At least there was no pain, and not much feeling.
There was a series of empty room-like spaces. Nothing yielded and everything had the same temperature. It was like touching hard foam. Also no shadows.
He had to be dead. Death was like being trapped inside a videogame.

Who was he exactly? He remembered old night jobs, an office warehouse. Other memories of isolated places. More and more thoughts and ideas emerged.
He would figure this out soon.
As his mind became clearer, the background began to get blurrier.