"Alright, so, if I'm understanding correctly, this is a state of the art virtual reality game—"
"Experience," William interrupted Jeremy before taking a sip of his tea. "Virtual reality experience."
Jeremy paused for a brief second. "Right, my apologies, Mr. Afton. The purpose of said virtual reality experience is to dispel rumors and restore the good name of Afton robotics, correct?"
"Precisely correct. I hear that with my contributions it's quite close to being finished?"
Jeremy nodded. "Beta testing should begin either today or tomorrow. After that it's only a couple months until it's done!"
"Wonderful to hear! I hear that the two of you are the primary beta testers?"
Jeremy took a sip of his coffee and nodded again. "We are indeed. That's actually why we were hired for the job."
"Is it really? How intriguing."
Nessa had a strong suspicion that William already knew that fact quite well, but chose not to comment on it. She simply sipped on her own cup of tea. It was certainly a surprise the office had her favorite green tea in the break room, but she figured she wouldn't question it. Jeremy and William had been talking for the past ten or so minutes and she had managed to get away with not saying anything.
William tilted his head. "I saw that the hardware I sent in was nearly all scanned in."
Nessa nearly spat out her tea. "That was from you?" An exclamation of shock and surprise without a second thought. She really had to get better at controlling her words. She had been told the hardware was from the client, but she hadn't yet made the connection of it being from William Afton.
William sipped his tea with a slight smirk. "Yes, of course. Inventions of my own to speed along the process as well as cut costs all around. Rather proud of those things if I do say so myself."
Nessa furrowed her brow. On one hand, no way there was no sort of ulterior motive behind that scrap metal. On the other, why motive could he have for wanting to interfere with something he was spending money on to make himself look good? Maybe it was just because he didn't want to unlikely.
She'd have to be careful. Not that she wouldn't already be careful in the present circumstances, but extra careful. Maybe she could find a way to examine some of that hardware by herself.
"Vanessa? Are you quite finished staring off into space?" William asked with a slight hint of impatience.
"I am indeed. Do you have any questions for me?" Calm, collected, professional and as though she had never met him before today. Perfect.
"Well, I don't have any further questions about the actual development of the game, given how helpful Jeremy has been, however I am very curious as to what you know about the game."
Taking a deep breath was supposed to help people stay calm, Nessa had been taught that, but taking a deep breath was also a noticeable action that might make her look weak.
"Not much. Mostly just what's been said during this meeting. Silver Parasol has been very secretive about it." In hindsight, the secrecy should've been a glaringly red flag, but Nessa had just figured all companies were that secretive about large projects.
"How odd! I would've thought they would be less secretive with employees. I suppose they don't trust you not to blab to everyone you see about the game. Although you've never been a social person. Nevertheless, this new technology is revolutionary! I am quite certain both of you will very much enjoy beta testing it."
Jeremy again nodded politely. "I'm sure it'll be a pleasure, right Nessa?"
"Hm?" Nessa had zoned out again, blankly staring at the beige wall in front of her as she took a moment to process what had been said. "Oh. Right. Yeah." Mentally, she slammed her head into the wall.
Why was she even still here? Not just at this meeting, but working for this company. She could leave right now, couldn't she? She could walk away. Why shouldn't she? It wouldn't mean she was weak, it would be the smart decision. Perhaps it would be a tad unfair to Jeremy, but really, what good would her presence do? She'd probably only make things worse. After all, if whatever scheme William had in mind involved her, than surely leaving would make things better. Then again maybe it was some form of reverse psychology showing up, to make her decide to quit. Or reverse reverse psychology to make her stay. We'll know she just had a headache.
"... but the real highlights of game are the brand new headset and the AI! Now, the AI doesn't come up too often, but when it does it's rather impressive."
It seemed she'd missed William rambling about the stupid game. How sad.
William glanced at his watch. "Oh dear! I'm so very sorry to have to cut this meeting short, but you know how it is. Places to go, things to do, people to see! Goodbye for now."
And just like that, he was gone again. Nessa slouched into the chair. "That was terrible and I'm never doing any favors for you again," she grumbled without a second thought.
Jeremy gave her a somewhat sympathetic smirk. "I tried to tell you it was fine, that you didn't have to come. You're the one who insisted on it."
Nessa simply sighed before glancing at the clock. "Looks like it's about time for us to head home ourselves."
——————————————————————
The next day passed quietly and calmly with no further visits from William, which Nessa was deeply grateful for. Today beta testing would start.
There was a headset and a manual on how to operate it on her desk when she came in, the office chair having been removed. There was also a small message in the suspiciously fine print saying to take a break if she felt any nausea, dizziness, or headaches so that was comforting.
After a moments of reading, and rereading, the instruction manual and messing with the headset, she'd managed to set up the game. "Okay... let's see what horrors wait in store," she mumbled to herself. It was a game to make William's stupid company look better to the public, how bad could it be?
"Welcome to the Circus Baby Virtual Experience!" An annoying voice greeted her as she pressed play. Off to a terrible start, but it could be worse.
"Afton Robotics is excited to the digital age..." Nessa ended up zoning out for the better portion of the intro, vaguely looking for any sort of bugs that may have been missed by the development team.
A fake contract at the end of the intro, cute gimmick but it wouldn't mean anything in a courtroom so there was no need to scan it too closely.
"... you acknowledge that Afton Robotics is not responsible for accidental digital consciousness transfers, real world manifestations of digital characters, nightmares, night terrors..."
Haha. What a wonderful joke and not at all unnerving. They were taking the whole 'prove how absurd these rumors are by getting the audience to laugh at them' thing a little too seriously, or maybe not seriously enough.
Still, while it did cause her a bit of anxiety about thinking of what was to come, it wasn't exactly enough to send her running for the door yet.
