February 22nd 2019 03:07
Ash balanced on the windowsill caught between two equally unappealing - and fatal - choices. He could step forward, shirking responsibility and guilt, or he could step backwards into his office, find Gideon, and rescue thousands of lives.
The concrete sprawled beneath him, silent and distant. It looked peaceful, like diving into still water. In the distance, the rolling hills of the Brecon Beacons were like waves bathed in the silvery glow of a cloud-covered night.
To take a step forward would be easy. Quick. A moment of free fall and then splattered oblivion. Patrick, one of the many children who suffered alongside him at 168 Muggeridge Street, had been dead for nearly twenty years, yet Ash could feel his spindly arms holding him in place. At least, he imagined it was him. He swayed like a crane in a high wind. “Come on,” he urged in a frustrated whisper.
As he inched forward, he imagined the aftermath. Thousands of people would be logging into the virtual world of Neuratar in a matter of hours and the crushing truth would slowly settle in, spreading like a dense fog – they were trapped, with no way back.
It was too late to stop it, which made headbutting concrete at 9 metres per second seem most appealing. But he knew Neuratar inside out, he designed it. If he logged in with them, he might help the players find a way out. Either way, it was suicide. "For fucks sake," he sighed.
He cautiously stepped backwards, finding the floor with his toes before getting off the windowsill. The office was mostly dark, with only a small area lit by computer screens.
On the wall, pictures and magazine covers charted a ten-year journey. A young, wiry man, his mentor and a growing company. Time, as it always does, transformed Ash. He now appeared polished and presentable, the embodiment of a company's image. On the flip side, Gideon seemed to wilt over the years, slowly vanishing from the frames.
Ash plunged into his chair with a weighty sigh. A breeze from the open window played with the papers strewn across his desk. He extended his hand towards the mouse and gave it a gentle shake and the screens came to life.
On one of the screens was the Neuratar control panel, the tools developers used to make changes to the game. They had been encrypted months ago, and now Ash, nor his employees, could access them.
Every day since the tools had been encrypted, he tried a frustrating guessing game, for which the probability of him succeeding was impossible. Regardless, he pressed keys at random, growing increasingly frustrated as he did so. Even if he had a supercomputer or hired experts, it would be futile – it would take years.
If he had learned about Gideon's actions sooner, perhaps in the months he was missing, there might have been enough time. However, he only discovered the truth hours ago, and he had just a few hours left. There was nothing anyone could do.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Gideon's message replayed in his mind, triggering another splitting headache that throbbed in his forehead and behind his eyes. He glanced at the window, briefly considering jumping again, but then he turned back to his desk. He rummaged through a drawer, eventually finding some ibuprofen and co-codamol. He swallowed two of each with a gulp of cold coffee. It wouldn't provide instant relief like leaping out of the window might, but it would work eventually. He wondered if you could get headaches in Neuratar - he should probably know that.
With time running out, he had just one viable course of action: send a warning to the world, even though he doubted it would be heeded until it was too late. Trolls and competitors had persistently tried to sabotage Neuratar's beta launch, making his efforts feel like trying to empty the sea with a pint glass to save a person drowning, Or, more accurately, five thousand people. It was a futile endeavour, but he couldn't deny that attempting it was better than doing nothing.
He would find out soon enough whether his message would be heeded with the gravity it deserved. Either the players would log in to the world of Neuratar and be trapped with him, or they wouldn’t.
His fingers instinctively found his phone, and he entered a work-related group chat with Seth and Hiroshi, both senior developers and associate directors at Cereludum, the company he co-founded with Gideon. While initially intended for professional discussions, it had taken on an informal tone with occasional GIFs and memes, mostly from Seth.
With a flurry of thumb movements, he composed the most ominous message he'd ever send, likely to be the worst they would ever receive. He granted them carte blanche and complete authority to handle the crisis that would unfold outside of Neuratar and conferred the title of Chief Executive Officer upon them both.
Ash opened the Neuratar app on his phone, revealing the home screen with a countdown timer showing just under 4 hours until the beta launch. After entering his login credentials, he encountered a notification sent to all beta users:
'Congratulations, you have been successfully chosen as a tester for Neuratar's beta launch. Some of the game's features will be restricted, but you should still be able to have an authentic experience. Please make sure you are in a comfortable position, and someone is aware that you are logged in. Once you choose to launch the game, the neuro-chip technology will transport your mind to the virtual world of Neuratar, and you will no longer have control or awareness of your physical body until you choose to log back out. Please remember to eat, drink, and use the bathroom at reasonable intervals. Time works the same in Neuratar as it does on Earth. Good luck, have fun.'
Ash scoffed bitterly, muttering, "Well, that won't be happening." He dismissed the notification with a click on the top right-hand corner. His gaze shifted around the cluttered office, realising that it would be the last sight people would have of him—a dishevelled space filled with the odour of despair and cold coffee. "Lock the door, give me privacy," he commanded in an authoritative tone, eliciting a response from a robotic female voice, "Certainly, locking the door and obscuring."
The door clicked shut, and the transparent glass walls began to blur into a hazy blue-grey as if frost were rapidly encroaching across the panels.
Colleagues would soon arrive at the office, and Ash expected at first they wouldn't disturb him due to his personal office set up for privacy. He wondered how long they would wait before they broke the door down. Perhaps after the first few reported deaths.
Once they found him and realised he too was trapped, it was certain that they, likely billions, would observe both him and the five thousand players struggling for survival in the world he had created. He had essentially dug his own grave, leapt in, and sealed the coffin from the inside. However, he was not completely without hope. There was a pin-hole-sized beam of light: his superior understanding of Neuratar.
He waited, watching the timer countdown.