Hell's Glitch (initial draft)

2:0 The Programmer

A young programmer stood in front of his cluttered desk splitting his attention between the scrolling stats being projected via hologram from his monitor to the two men that stood in front of him, their eyes taking in every detail. The programmer, Edwin, was not handling the attention well. He read some of the stats to the man standing directly in front of him, his boss, the director of the whole project. Edwin's forehead was glistening and thin black strands of his hair clung to his face.

"There are three-hundred and seventy three survivors currently in the Assassin's Forest. Now forty-four of the players have defeated the boss of the area, the Will of the Forest. That's thanks largely to the assistance of the players Sarem the Sanguine and Immortal Kalika, who've both put down Charity Signs so that other players could summon them for the fight."

The boss, Fulton Milner, just stood there staring at Edwin blankly. The man next to Milner with the armored jacket and hip holstered pistol just shook his head.

"I am well aware that you can read a stat screen, Mr. Wagner," Milner said dryly. "All I wanted to know was how many people were currently ready to move on from the forest."

"F-forty-four, sir."

That idiot.

"Yes, I figured that out when you told me how many players defeated the boss. I'm beginning to wonder why I even keep you around, Mr. Wagner."

Edwin winced and tried to play it off by adjusting his glasses. Edwin was not a small guy. He was much bigger than Milner in fact, but despite being a bean pole in a lab coat Milner had a deadly sort of composure to him. Like the guy had some sort of death touch prepared if you ever tried something with him.

"Sorry, sir."

"I'm just kidding, Mr. Wagner. No need to be so nervous. I'll be back later once I'm ready to begin. I'd rather oversee operations here for a little while as you all set up the changeover for the new game systems."

Edwin nodded and watched Milner and his personal guard walk out into the hall.

"Smooth, Edwin, smooth," Thomas chided.

Thomas was another programmer and Edwin's near complete opposite physically. Thomas was slim, blonde, slightly shorter than average, and was told by all the guys he knew that he had a face made for punching. He chalked that last bit up to the fact that he couldn't hide his disdain when talking to idiots.

"I'd like to see you handle those two with a straight face, TJ. I nearly—"

"Vacated your bowels? I know. I could see it in your face."

"Give me a break, man! These guys are serious."

"I kno—"

Thomas heard the footsteps approaching from behind.

"Cut the chatter, fellas. You know the drill."

The guard walked past Thomas' desk brandishing his assault rifle. Edwin gave Thomas a cursory glance before turning back to his monitors. Thomas let out a sigh and had a look around the room.

The office was dim and filled with thirty men and seventeen women hard at work with different parts of the project's code, each illuminated by their glowing computer monitors. Each man and woman's station was locked into Fulton Milner's local network. None were given access to anything with more connectivity than that. They, along with programmers in other rooms kept the code for Milner's virtual world spotless.

Thomas sat back and stretched. He was just recently back to his station after a short-lived appointed rest period. He was just getting back into the swing of things when batshit Milner suddenly popped up and started interrogating Edwin. Now that Milner was gone again, he could get back to not doing work. There wasn't much to do at the moment anyway. For now he just looked around at his captures, studying them from afar.