The Offices of War Never Changes
Debbie's fingers hovered anxiously over her keyboard as if afraid touching it might bring everything crashing down. Her gaze darted between the codebase of WNC and her other monitor that was somehow playing a stable version of their game. It didn't make sense.
The warnings, errors and merges glared back at her mockingly. She didn't even know where to start fixing things. Every time she touched the code it seemed to twist and contort in impossible ways. Strange characters appeared on her screen with each click, mocking her inability to grasp their meaning. They weren't Unicode, she didn't know what they were.
Debbie didn't even recognize half of the file types anymore, and she knew that something sinister was behind all this chaos. The white cursor on the black screen blinked ominously in front of her, impatient for her next move. Debbie sunk into her chair, clutching her trusty rubber duckie that had been her companion through the worst of times.
"Yes Mr.Quackers," she said lovingly to plastic bath toy, "I tried going over the comments, but they read more like a Lovecraftian riddle than an explanation of the code. No Mr.Quackers I have no idea what a .rcn file is. No Mr. Quackers, I refuse to accept that our existence is nothing more than a blip in some cosmic game of pinball where we're simply thrown around into obstacles, accumulating meaningless points, only to fall into oblivion. Please stop asking me that.”"
Debbie squeezed all the the air out of Mr.Quackers as she stared at Inglebert's office door, feeling a cold chill emanating from the doors wooden surface. She wasnt sure if she heard cackling laughter echoing from inside or if that was just her imagination. Plastic blinds falling back into place caught her eye, something had just been watching her. Twice Yesterday she'd seen a beady red eye peering out from the shadows inside his office. One after her coffee break, and again in a nightmare later that night.
Inglebert seemed to be ever-watching, always meddling and scheming. His clammy fingers were wrapped around this place and all of its secrets. It had to be him behind it all. Debbie knew one thing for sure: Steele had unleashed a monster.
Debbie had invested her heart and soul into WNC, in the four years of high school she had played. It was why she got into game design and programming. She'd never been happier than the day she landed her dream job here at the company as a junior developer -- now WNC was being taken away from her, corrupted by that monster.
Before she even knew what she was doing, Debbie slammed her fist against Inglebert's door, seething with rage. She wasn't going to let him get away with it anymore, he would explain himself.
Debbie pounded on the door, her clenched white knuckles reddening as she shouted for Inglebert. The door trembled and shook on its hinges. Debbie knew she'd have bruises tomorrow, but that was a tomorrow Debbie problem, today Debbie had more important problems.
Nothing stirred from within, but she knew he was in there, he always was. Mustering up all of her rage, Debbie lunged forward and kicked the door open with a loud screech. She stepped inside the dark room, her eyes slowly adjusting to the dimness.
The room was still and silent, except for the rhythmic thumping of Debbie's heart. She spun around at a sharp shuffling sound in the corner of the room. "Please, show yourself in," Inglebert said calmly, sitting at his desk. Debbie slowly turned back toward the desk, her stomach dropping in dread; he hadn't been there moments ago.
A cold shiver ran up Debbie's spine as the figure before her slowly shifted its posture. He raised his head towards her, the the dim lighting hinting at an unsettling wriggling beneath his clothing. His sunken eyes bore into her very soul. Inglebert was the kind of man who inspired whispers and rumors - some claiming he wasn't even human. Fear seemed to grip at Debbie's heart, but it couldn't stop her from wondering if she should be the one to start some of those rumors.
Inglebert asked "To what do I owe the pleasure, Miss Debbie?" but his tone betrayed his displeasure.
Her strength slowly drained away. Today Debbie's problems had grown too much for her. Some primal part of her brain wanted to throw a the cup full of pencils at Inglebert and then run out of the room. Most of her wanted to do that if she was being honest, but she needed to say this.
She started out shouting, but quickly devolved into a manic ramble, her words tumbling over themselves in their haste. "We can't launch the raid like this—we need to power down the servers and fix whatever is causing all these .rcn files! What even is a .rcn files? Are they a thing or am I losing my mind—they're just one long string of symbols and computer gibberish. Not to mention, there isn't any coffee left in the breakroom! How can anyone expect me to do my job without caffeine?! I've been counting... It's been 23 hours and 34 minutes since my last cup."
Inglebert watched Debbie’s rant come to an end. His voice was smooth and sly when he said, "You know what Debbie? You're absolutely right, and I can see how this had weighed on you. Please, let me take care of everything, you deserve a break. In fact, you should take the rest of the day off. We'll call you if we need anything else." He flashed her a cunning smile before waving her towards the door, a clear dismissal.
Debbie crept back to her desk, adamant about doing anything but taking the day off.
Debbie's heart raced as she read the flashing notification on her monitor. It was Devin from Sales and Merchandise. He'd sent her another urgent message. She didn't even remember their first meeting a few months earlier like he claimed, yet here he was offering her answers to the changes that had been rippling through the company.
She clicked the link with trepidation. Her blood ran cold when she started to read down the list of hotfixes, balances, and just chaos.
Her four years as a junior developer had never prepared her for the catastrophic bug that scoured the WNC system, leaving major NPCs, bosses, and even characters locked-out from respawning. WNC was irreparably broken.
Debbie finally knew what to do. She whipped up an email, forwarded Steele the link, and then decided Inglebert was right. She did deserve a day off.