The rest of the day seemed interminable. Spreadsheet after spreadsheet, interspersed with trips to Readthis to check for any further updates. He hoped for a more substantial leak, but no such luck. There were three different threads that exploded about the streaming service, each one flooded with people asking about the future of Itch and YouCylinder in the wake of Monsoon entering the arena. Each time, it devolved into little tribal arguments. Some people pointed to the wild success of Behemoth: Heroes of Colossus in the face of much more popular and established trading card style games. Others pointed to the bungled launch of Torrential Legends and how it failed to break into the entrenched MOBA market. There was a lot of surprisingly insightful discussion, even if it was from armchair market researchers and not industry experts.

Regardless, there were no useful details to be found. It was more controversy and complaint than even speculation, let alone real leaks. But that was the Readthis dilemma: he kept refreshing the page hoping for one thing, and then lost fifteen minutes digging through the comments of something else entirely. Dylan just had to remind himself that he was going to be one of the first people into Project Rundan. He had an invite. No matter what he couldn’t find out now, he was going to learn before almost everyone else.

It almost didn’t seem real when he realized it was already ten to five. He logged out of his workstation and stared around his desk. He supposed he could bring his messenger bag with him, but he was unlikely to need it for whatever the supposed test had in store. All he had in there was a couple of books and a day planner, along with a handful of junk trinkets he hadn’t bothered to take out of the bag since he was in college. He made sure to grab a spare pen off his desk before he left for the elevator, and he brought the small sticky note where he had written the office number. Otherwise, he was near empty-handed as he got into the elevator, with only what was in his pockets.

A part of him deep down railed at himself that he might need something else. What if this was like a litRPG story, and he would have to survive in the wilds after being magically transported to a game world? Wouldn’t he want the weird multi-tool he’d gotten from his dad that rattled in the bottom of his bag, untouched for years? Maybe the planner would be vital to his survival, giving him paper he could use to start campfires. Or maybe the act of being transported would turn the fiction books into powerful spellbooks, giving him a head-start on progression.

Those thoughts were ridiculous, though, and he dismissed them easily. Even if the end result was being completely thrown into a fantasy world, he was being sent there figuratively, through VR. He wasn’t going to be physically transported there - much less magically so.

The elevator ascended to the floor where he anticipated the testing to take place. The office number he’d written down was 1307 - the seventh office on the 13th floor. The numbering system wasn’t perfect, since he didn’t know where the seventh office would be, but they were usually clearly labelled, with a directory near the elevator bank.

The elevator opened and Dylan stepped out into something out of a linear corridor shooter. Instead of a lobby or a branching hallway, the elevator opened into a small room, maybe fifteen feet on a side. It looked like someone’s office, except for the bank of elevators against the wall behind him. There was a standing desk on one side of the room with a man behind it, and a door just off to his right on the far wall. Dylan blinked, confused, and looked down at the sticky note attached to his hand along his index finger.

“Um,” he said, his default way of getting someone’s attention when he didn’t know their name. “Is this office 1307?”

The man gestured Dylan over without looking up from his computer. “Project Rundan?” he asked.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Yeah,” Dylan said, “is this the right place?” He looked around. There was another door against the right wall that had a glowing green exit sign - probably a mandatory guidance to the fire stairs - but otherwise this was just an office. There was a shelf behind the desk with a bunch of ledgers lined up, and a filing cabinet within easy reach.

“Yup, this is the place.” He looked up at Dylan, and the accountant got the impression that he was being judged somehow by that look. “Do you have an invite?”

“Um. Yeah. Did I need it?”

“I need the QR code from the bottom corner of it.” He glanced down at the sticky note on Dylan’s hand. “If you don’t have it, you’re going to have to go and fetch it.”

Dylan wasn’t about to return to his desk and wrestle with the printer again, so he pulled up the Groups app on his phone. “Hold on. I have to re-download it.” He laughed nervously. “You know how Groups can be, right?” It took a long time to download - for some reason, his phone was using data instead of the company wi-fi, and his reception was crap. But he told himself he was in too deep now to try and figure out the problem. “Just another minute. Sorry. I didn’t know I would need it.”

The man didn’t roll his eyes, but Dylan could feel the mild aggravation as he finally pulled up the invite image, and scrolled the screen of his phone to the bottom corner, where there was a QR code. The man took Dylan’s phone and held the code up to a device attached to his computer.

"You don't look like a Nakala."

Dylan grimaced. "She's a friend of mine. On the development team? I'm... I'm an accountant here. She gave me her invite."

The man watched him for a long moment. Dylan knew he could see Groups in the background, and Nakala's name and picture in the corner. Did he think he was trying to pull one over on them? Sneak in? Eventually, the man at the desk clicked his tonuge against the roof of his mouth.

“Alright. Head right in,” the man said, handing Dylan back his phone.

Dylan’s anxiety spiked as he walked past the man to the door behind the desk. Was this a trick? Was security about to jump out and yell “Gotcha!” because he was using Nakala’s invite? Or was she in trouble herself from telling him too much?

Or - the most likely scenario - he was overthinking everything because he just stepped into what seemed on its face a life changing opportunity.

The room beyond the door was something of a presentation room. There were about two dozen chairs lined up around the room before a little raised platform with a projector screen on the side wall. The only difference from similar presentation rooms in the building was the mirror against the back wall, making him anxious about who was on the other side of it, observing.

Two people were already in the room, and while they both looked up when he came in they went right back to playing on their phones when it was apparent that he was one of them - another participant - and not an authority figure here with additional instructions. Dylan supposed he just had to join them in sitting down and keeping busy until the first phase of this testing got underway. He took a seat near the front, as it was slightly more convenient.

Unlike the others already present, instead of opening a mobile game, he instead plugged his earbuds into his phone and started up his audiobook app. He was grateful that he’d downloaded the whole book instead of streaming it, since in this room his phone was even more ill-behaved than in the office outside; he didn’t even have reception here. It occurred to him that this room - and perhaps the entire floor - was shielded from cell reception and wi-fi signal to secure any proprietary information that might be presented here.

The audiobook let him stay alert and aware of his surroundings as he passed the time. As he listened to a pleasant female voice describe a paralyzed woman navigating a survival game world run by a megalomaniacal AI, he took note of the unfolding events around him. People filed in one at a time, the pace picking up around five after five. A few people started quiet conversations, but in this modern world, most people just pulled out their phones and tried to keep busy.

He was, unfortunately, just starting to get into the book - the voice actor doing the read was fantastic - when a man mounted the raised area of the room and clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention.

“Alright everyone, I’m Aaron Stevenson, production director for Project Rundan,” he announced as Dylan tucked his earbuds back into his pocket. “And if you're here, it’s because you’re about to participate in a historic event in Monsoon’s path to the future.”