12:57 GMT. Near Vilnius. {Still in Lithuania}

  Sung watched Mica rush into the room, however looking impeccable. Fifteen minutes after being informed of a problem, she was there to take control of that problem and find solutions. Mica was usually kind in her resolutions, also. That was the sort of leadership that kept Sung in game development, despite the hours.

  Devin and Brett also sat at the table. Sung had called in the rest of the team, but only expected slow responses from them. Paco walked in looking worse for wear as Mica logged into her account on the screen. Sung glanced at her group chat: Hákon hadn’t even seen the message. Liliya had left her on read. George was probably still sleeping at the bar.

  Mica’s desktop background came into focus, and Mica clicked a couple of icons which pulled up an analysis of the data that Sung had sent her. A live dashboard displayed a normal curve with the projected completion rate against the expected completion rate. The data didn’t seem to shift, but Sung expected it was likely updating slowly. The status of the other seven servers was listed in a small menu. The playtest on server one rolled over to complete since Sung had looked at it last. The delta percentage was listed next to it. The expected list of server facts was running down the side, and a ribbon showed upload and download speeds, server temperature, ambient room temperature, luminosity, server patch data, and some other numbers Sung was disappointed she didn’t recognize. There was a bunch of white space on the board. Mica would likely draw the rest of the display with the small group present.

  Mica said, “Thirteen hundred. Thanks, Sung, for bringing this to my attention. I recognize that several staff members are absent, but we shall proceed without them due to the pressing nature of this meeting. Sung, please ping your team and let them dial in if they can.”

  “Sure thing,” said Sung.

  “Now, our concern. Test server eight for the PuzzleLocked alpha test is behind the expected completion curve. This, itself, would not be an issue, except the completion rate is expected to last over twelve hours. You all know that exceeds the ten-hour threshold recommended by our medical advisors as advised by the legal team. To disclose, I have not yet tied in either of those teams to this concern, and will not do so until we have finished this closed-door session. Brett, please discuss the server status.”

  Brett seemed to hiss at the suggestion. He pointed at the screen, then gave a - ‘What else do you want’ - shrug.

  “Well said. No issues with the servers. Thank you, Brett. Next, Devin, do you have anything to add?”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Devin snorted. Since her whole attention had been on Mica, Sung wasn’t certain if the snort was inattention or illness. But, despite the snort, Devin jumped in with both feet as he normally did. “So, server 8 is a last-minute rollover. With about a third of the recommended test load of players, I expect them to take three times as long to complete the scenarios. However, even though the players seem behind in the scenario and threshold, the automated control systems will engage and adjust the test difficulty lower. So, I don’t know why we’re even in this meeting.”

  Sung watched Mica weigh every word that Devin said. If this meeting wasn’t a stressful situation for her, Sung realized she would love to just observe Mica.

  “How much of that did you deduce, and how much did you verify?” Mica asked Devin.

  Devin considered a moment before admitting, “The rollover part and timeline are deduced from what is on screen. The rest is from the alpha test manual.”

  “So, you wouldn’t claim that you knew anything about server 8 beyond what is displayed?”

  Devin shook his head.

  “Well, since I wasn’t expecting to be a part of this alpha test, I did not read your alpha test manual. So, please elaborate on the difficulty meter.”

  As the team lead, Sung wished Mica had asked her, instead. But perhaps Devin was the longer-standing member or had worked with Mica in the past. But still, it seemed like Devin scrambled to sort the information in his head. “Well, the alpha test intends to test a variety of circumstances in a live environment. The individual pieces work in isolation, but we’re observing if the pieces break each other in aggregate. And to observe various levels of gameplay difficulty so that we can accurately gauge the desired difficulty for our target demographic. We’ve set arbitrary limits of thirty-two players per server. Each player is divided into one of the two starting classes: Brawler or Scribe. At the first level. They retain the gender they picked in HSE {Holst’s Solar Explorer} but get arbitrarily assigned one of eight character builds because we didn’t want to test the character creation process, even though we need to check if the builds affected performance. Um, what else for the alpha? Starting locations were spread throughout the map. But only players electing for a signup bonus should be assigned to the keep or tower based on the inherent starting difficulty. I think that might be it. Unless you want me to go get a copy and double check…”

  “Thank you, Devin. It’s important to get a viewpoint that isn’t jaded by the truth. Now, Sung, do we have anyone else online yet?”

  “Liliya is online. Hákon said he’d be online in a minute or two. No word from George.”

  Mica tapped her figures, making a decision. “Sung, I was going to ask your analysis next, but I’ll delay that. I don’t think I have expressed my concern about this crisis. WE, and by we, I mean YOU, have NINE people trapped in a video game. Solar Cell has liability for each one of those individuals. Eight hours is the medically designated fatigue state for our game, and although players may choose to ignore that eight-hour mark, they also assume the physical risk of doing so, relieving us of our burden at that point. HOWEVER, these individuals do NOT have the option of exiting the game, and therefore their physical risk BECOMES our fiscal risk.” Sung didn’t know how, but she recognized the difference in those pronunciations.