Vol.1, Ch.1 - Act 4

"What's this about, Johnson?" Marc, Head of Operations barked, leaning forward in his leather swivel chair that was pulled up to the glossed mahogany conference table. He was a tall, built man in his mid-forties, nearly 6"5', with black dreads wrapped in a wide, rolling bun atop his head, and brown eyes that demanded order. "Calling us out here so suddenly. How are we supposed to manage our staff like this on such short notice?"

"I agree …" came the docile voice of Shan, their Chief Engineer. A heavy-set, pear-shaped woman in her early-sixties with shoulder length salt and pepper hair that usually framed her face in mild waves. Her blue eyes were gentle, apologetic almost in their gaze. "We're already falling behind on deadlines. We can't afford to just come out like this …"

"As of this morning, all ongoing projects have been put on hold until further notice," Tanya announced as she sat in her seat at the head of the table.

"On hold?" gawked Cory, the Biochem Lead as he jerked forward in his seat. He was a man with a small frame – a youngster among the group in early-thirties with fair ginger hair and chaotic blue eyes. "Because the media is upset? We can't just –"

"Cory," Tanya rumbled, her tone crisp and her gaze pained. There was a long pause in the room, the atmosphere growing dense.

"What's going on, Tanya?" Eden, Head of Content Programming spoke up, her expression plagued with worry. She was larger woman in her early-fifties with weathered brown hair and brown eyes that were sought after for their attention to detail, hidden behind a pair of round glasses. "Talk to us. Is there something wrong with the software? What do we need to do to fix it?"

The room went silent, waiting for the CEO's reply, to which she sighed and said, "We've troubleshot this every way we know how. We've made a lot of changes to our programming over the past year, so we assumed that the problem was coming from within," Tanya slowly went on to explain, the room immediately growing tenser at the implication of the statement.

"Do you mean …" Rosa, the Editor in Chief warily mumbled. She was small, eccentric woman in her early-thirties with wavy black hair which was usually styled with a flower pin in a high bun, and green eyes that yearned for an adventure.

"Ian, what is she saying?" Marc demanded, the creeping dread had been filling the room beginning to seep in.

"It's been determined that the crashes are being caused by a foreign entity," Ian, Head of Security grimly answered. He was a tall, angular man with short, crisply styled black hair and brown, slightly slanted brown eyes that assumed authority.

Again, the room went silent, letting the gravity of what he had just said sink in.

"Foreign … entity?" Shan gasped.

"How is that possible? Our servers are impenetrable," Marc boomed, looking from Tanya to Ian. "Dammit, Ian, aren't they?!"

"Calm down, Marc," Liz, Head of Human Resources urged. She was a small, though large portioned woman in her mid-thirties with blonde hair, usually neatly pulled into a ponytail, green eyes, and a high-pitched, childlike voice that, when mixed with her frequent expletives, made for an interesting time.

"At this time, we still haven't been able to figure out how they're getting into the system," Ian, grimaced.

"What are they trying to do? Are they stealing information? Are our employees safe? Are we?"

"As of this morning, no personal or corporate information appears to have leaked," Ian assured.

"Then what are they after? Do we know who's trying to get in?" Rosa pushed, her Hispanic accent reaching a peak in her worked up state.

"… What if it's the software itself?" the Cory suddenly spoke up, making the room fall silent in dread once more. Hands clutching at the surface of the glossed table, he seemed to radiate his tension to the rest of the room. "Tanya … if someone is trying to replicate our software, we don't just need to stop projects, we need to shut Sanctuary down altogether," he urged.

"Altogether?" Marc boomed in protest. "What the hell are you saying? Shutting down Sanctuary would mean shutting down Dream Co.! Are you that eager to be unemployed?"

"Maybe not shut it down forever, but until we can figure out who is trying to do what, it's too dangerous. Think about it! If someone with the wrong intentions gets their hands on our D0ME software, it could be a disaster! Especially if they do so before we realize it and we haven't already stopped players from using it."

"He's right …" Shan agreed. "If the wrong person got their hands on that, especially from within our system where they could potentially corrupt it, we could be dealing with a mass murder, just like the media said."

"Not to mention our AI software. We've already seen the disasters that have come about when so-called specialists – or even just robo-loving enthusiasts try to abuse the technology. It's under some of the high restrictions in the world, and we're already pushing our luck. They're overlooking is now because it's restricted to the game, but what if someone finds a way to apply it here? In the real world?" Eden pressed.

Tanya's face grew darker with each hypothesis, each mapping a possibility worst than the last. She'd thought of maybe a quarter of what had been mentioned, and Ian another quarter, but with each new and unforeseen terror, she felt a chill seep deeper into her bones.

"Tanya, it's too dangerous to keep Sanctuary online," Cory repeated, looking to her, waiting for her to make the call, but she was quiet, deep in thought.

She knew that shutting down Sanctuary, even if it was just for the time being, would be the end of Dream Co. They would lose the public's trust in any and all future endeavors, and everything they had been working towards would have been for nothing. Her hands clenched around each other as she pressed them against her chin, her head shaking as she racked her brain.

"No," she finally spoke, catching the room off guard and causing a stir among the board.

"What?"

"Tanya, think about this."

"If we keep Sanctuary running and we're right –"

"Marc is right. Shutting down Sanctuary would mean the end of Dream Co.. Even if it were temporary, we would be admitting defeat – that we're a threat. That would we do is a threat. Our company would be blacklisted from all of the technological advancements we've been working towards. I won't let that happen. Not after everything we've accomplished."

"And, if I may add …" Ian chimed in. "Even if we were to temporarily shut Sanctuary down, that wouldn't stop whoever's hacking the system from doing so. They've already made it in, and unless we can definitively stop them from doing so, everything will still be in jeopardy. Perhaps not the lives of our players, but international security, yes."

Shoulders slumped across the board as the reality dawned on them. They would still have the task of trying to flush the assailant out before any damage could be done – and by that point, they'd be doing so on finite researches and funding without Sanctuary up and running. And handing the task over to the government would only hasten their damnation of them. They'd be labeled a terrorist organization and banned from working in their fields for the remainder of their lives.

"… So, what do we do?" Cory asked, the rest of the room looking to Tanya for guidance, whose eyes were narrowed with determination and strength.

"We win."

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