Penny typed a quickly as she could, a bead of sweat dripping down. She wiped it away hurriedly before it could get in her eyes and kept entering data. After what she had seen today, she needed to do something. A gutsy, stupid something that could get her fired or worse. She had heard rumors and talk of some of the less than ethical things WSG had done to expand their market and increase profits, but to have it discussed so openly and flippantly set her off in a way she couldn't describe. It felt like a betrayal after she had joined the company ten years ago and thought that she could start making a difference for people like her brother.
She had been grabbing a file for her division chief when she had heard Lance Sterling speaking with someone not visible in a nearby office. She wouldn't have paid any attention usually, but a loud bang as Lance punched either the wall or his desk startled her.
"I'm tired of waiting for the old man to come around! He's a genius, but he's also an idiot if he wants to open source this. This would be huge for OO, and WSG needs this to happen. We would dominate the market and our competitors would be light-years from catching up to us." Lance said.
"He says the money doesn't matter to him. He says he has more than he could ever spend from his other patents and inventions. Why shouldn't he give it all away? He also made it seem that he knew we would use the tech for, let us say, less than above board purposes."
Lance's voice grew cold and hard, "If money is not his thing, we'll find what is. What is his family situation like?"
"He's got a wife and a kid, still lives at home, though he's in his twenties I guess. "
"Some lazy, failure to launch-type millennial, I'm guessing?"
"To see them they get along just fine. Roark believes in letting the kid find his path. Says his dad never forced him to do anything and it allowed him to find his passion." the unseen man replied.
"That's just what I wanted to hear! Ok, here's what you're going to do. I'll contact my people to handle the other parts of the plan. It's irritating to have to call in some of my markers, but the look on his face when he finally hands it all over will be worth it."
From there Lance described how he would engineer a car accident, and place Mr. Roark's son in an induced coma. Then infuse him with nanobots and put him in the game as a means of 'recovery.' The nanobots could be manipulated in certain circumstances to keep the boy alive and even help him recover. They also could drag on his recovery, injecting sedatives and influencing hormones and the body's recovery processes.
Penny knew that if the boy died in-game, the nanobots could take control of his vitals and cognitive function. Due to safeguards placed by manufacturers, the nanobots were only susceptible to hacking during a respawn event. During which, individual attributes and penalties had to calibrate, locations reassigned in the game, and the cognitive link refreshed that allowed a patient's brain to interface with the game engine and the sensory centers that synced with the program.
Penny had been gone too long. As much as she wanted to hear more, she knew they would miss her if she stayed much longer, and this could be an inconvenient coincidence if she got caught and they put two and two together. It probably wouldn’t have hit her as hard if the intended victim was a stranger, but Penny knew the target: Mr. Roark's son Jim. She didn't know Jim personally but had done a summer internship in college with Mr. Roark when he was a professor there. She was one of the last classes to work with him before his research took up more and more of his time and he chose not to teach anymore and focus solely on his work.
He had formed Nanodyne with his own money and had been producing new iterations of technology and AI that were so modular and adaptable that more and more things were becoming automated and 'smart.' Sometimes Jim would come in and keep himself occupied in the lab while his father worked. Penny was impressed by how well that the kid could entertain himself. He seemed to pick a task for the day, and he doggedly worked at it until he finished. One time it was a 1000-piece puzzle, another time a Rubik's cube. Never with any video games though, which was odd for kids his age. She guessed it was because his dad wanted Jim to be mentally active.
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Penny made her way to the elevator as quickly and quietly as possible. The meeting was of average length, but it felt like it dragged on forever. She began to think about what she would do, the details of the meeting lost as she formed a plan.
After her meeting, Penny hurriedly squirreled herself away in one of the old access ports she had used in her early days with the company. She was writing code that she could insert as a drop for a specific player. She set the drop for Jim Roark, hoping the system wouldn’t assign him a random name. If that happened, her job would be complicated exponentially, trying to find a single character in the myriad of player-selected names.
She designed a specialized item that would allow her to communicate directly with Jim among its other properties. Finishing quickly, she electronically hid the drop so that she could access it quickly when she had more information. She left the room and headed to the cafeteria, feeling like everyone was watching her and that somehow they were all plotting to make her disappear. She didn't know who she could trust, and her inherent paranoid made her flushed even though she was currently doing nothing wrong.
"Penny..." a voice came from behind, and an arm touched her on the shoulder. She yelped and spun around, assured that some burly men in suits were there to take her to someone that wanted to speak with her.
Jack, the office mail guy, stood there, still sorting a couple of items. He looked up and said, "Sorry, didn't mean to startle you. I have some of your mail. Did you want it now or should I leave it in your cubby?"
"I'll take it now, thanks Jack," she said with a slightly shaky voice. Grabbing the small bundle of letters and a manilla envelope she hurried to lunch. Her stomach was uneasy; she did not feel hungry at all but decided to go anyways to keep up appearances.
As she stood in the line, nothing looked appealing. Her queasy stomach roiled against some of the smells that never bothered her before. She was always so easily flustered. It was going to be a long night though, so she had to grab something. Settling on a wrapped ham sandwich and a Squirt, she would at least have something for later. Finally, she had started to cool down and relax as she stood in the checkout lane.
No one had accosted her or accused her of anything, so maybe things were going to be alright. Her skin felt slightly clammy and gross, and the back of her blouse stuck uncomfortably against her skin. She decided to go outside and see if some fresh air would finish clearing her head.
Hacking the internal servers was not difficult for her, but she had always been a rule follower her whole life. Her programming prowess had been why she had been first hired at World Serpent Games, and her skills with her team led her to promotions into other capacities. She liked order and structure and could organize people to get tasks done. It was easy for her to see things holistically and then assign the individual tasks to be completed. It was partially responsible for her elegant, concise coding skills as well.
Penny's parents had passed away when she was in her twenties, leaving her to care for her younger brother Sammy. He hated to be called Sammy by anyone else besides family. To them it was Samuel. He was fiercely independent, despite his condition and had become quite involved in his teaching career. Sammy had a genetic disease and paraplegia since birth. Through some of the breakthroughs using brain mapping and VR training, WSE had made huge leaps from their game technologies to influence real-life recovery and brain remapping to acquire new real-life skills. It would take time to develop, but there was hope, and she knew Sammy would be one of those willing to do the work with physical therapy. She hoped that as a high-ranking employee, he would have access to preliminary trials.
Guided transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation to stimulate the muscles as the character moved in the game was already a function of the game for those who had a capsule. What was happening virtually in the game, triggered the player's real muscles to move to provide a more immersive experience, as well as replacing monotonous exercise routines. A player could get stronger in the real world by playing video games. It was the best of both worlds for a lot of people.
Therapeutic co-therapies were another lucrative line of development for WSE, but the company wanted to have the process perfected before release. It would allow them to expand their already significant medical therapy division, growing an already impressive slice of market-share.
Despite the hope it brought, Penny was disheartened to learn that her company had a darker side than she ever imagined. She knew most corporations were focused primarily on profits and realized it was naive to think they would be as altruistic as she expected them to be. She hoped that this was only Lance’s influence and not the company’s unspoken goal as a whole by the decision makers. Either way, she could not let this happen. She wouldn’t allow it happen.