14:28 GMT. Vilnius, Lithuania.
Solar Cell Chief of Operations Dan Wambli walked to the large glass double doors etched with ‘Solar Cell | Verena Davis | CEO.’ He pulled the right door open. Khurshid, the autonomous assistant, looked up to see who was disturbing its crossword puzzle.
“Oh, it’s you. You can go in, but she’s upset that she had to make time for you.”
Dan waved. He didn’t like that virtual assistant, even though he had helped develop it. It was something in the personality that grated on him. Maybe the voice. He had always wanted Khurshid to have a different voice.
Verena spoke into a speakerphone as he walked in. Even though she spoke animatedly, he couldn’t hear her. She probably had silencing technology that prevented the sound from going past her desk. He took a chair and waited.
After a few minutes of waiting, Dan looked at his watch. He understood that his time would be limited to fifteen minutes, and this phone call was eating into that.
Finally, after another few minutes passed, Verena waved away the call and looked at him. “So, Dan, what’s so important that I have to modify my schedule for the afternoon?”
“It’s the Puzzle Locked playtest. We have a ‘trapped in an isekai situation’.”
“How many?”
“Nine.”
“Anyone important?”
“No one of consequence.”
“For how long?”
“The estimate is twelve to twenty-four hours.”
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“What are the options?”
“Pause, reset, restart, give boons, play it out, augment the automatons, and finally, extract the players.” Dan hated the word ‘extract.’ It wasn’t an extraction, it was an extermination.
Verena said, “What’s your call?”
“I’m pushing the team to update the automatons, per the standard operating methods. I’m opposed to extraction since the players, even though there are only nine of them. They are in pretty disparate locations. We don’t have teams in all those locations and it would likely take too long to get teams there.” It was often a death sentence - the teams would forcibly remove the players from their VR headsets and haptics, and sometimes the players wouldn’t survive the removal. It also cost a ton of money, and the Chief of Finance wouldn’t go for it. Unless directed by Verena. And then he’d still balk.
“International? Let’s get those teams heading that way, anyway. Some of the board is still busting my balls over the bad press we had when we released the HSE freemium update. I can only imagine they’ll flip if we accidentally kill some players.”
Dan considered her statement and then realized she had obtusely asked a question. “Yes, international. Oddly enough, the most challenging extraction might be Laos since they banned video games and the elderly lady must be multihopping through a VPN.”
“She Laotian?”
“No, Vietnamese. Somewhat elderly, also.”
“Get over it. Alright. Ask Jeeves.”
“Jeeves, the attorney?”
“Yes. He needs to be aware of the situation. Tell Khurshid to schedule a meeting for you.”
“Is there anything else you recommend?”
“No, not yet. How long are you waiting?”
“The automatons should be installed in less than thirty minutes. Assuming they don’t go murderbot, we’ll give them a couple of hours.”
“Fine. I need to warn the board and spin up PR. Send in Khurshid. What else?”
“That’s it. Wait. The other HSE servers are all updated.”
“Great. What else?”
“Um… nothing else for now.”
“Perfect. What else?”
Dan felt the awkwardness of the question. It was a distraction. “I’m going. I’ll send updates through Khurshid.” He looked back as he left. Verena was already on the speakerphone again, if he guessed talking to one or another board member. After telling Khurshid to send for Jeeves, Dan considered how much he didn’t like working for Verena. Maybe he had had that thought before. But maybe the situation in the PuzzleLocked test was a way to get the board to out her. Dan knew he wouldn’t be up for Verena’s position, but he could at least likely work better with someone else who cared about people.
Fin
