Positions Swapped

Sachiko had barely told us about herself before we got stuck in each other's bodies. We didn't expect her to be the author of the script for the game we were developing, and her relationship with her fiancé only made it harder for me to understand her. Now, it was revealed that she was also the producer. She hadn't given any clues about it and it didn't make sense. Where did she get the money to finance a game? If she had enough money for that, why was she still living in a cramped apartment?

"Katō," called Mr. Yutaka, sitting at the other side of the desk in front of me. "Are you alright?"

"Ah, yes. I'm sorry, I wasn't able to have my morning coffee today."

I used that as an excuse, but I had no idea if Sachiko's morning routine included coffee.

Mr. Yutaka smiled. "Got you."

Hm?

He stood up, approached the drawer beside his desk, and grabbed a cup to put it in the coffee machine. A few blips came out of the machine when he pressed some buttons, then the revolving noise became constant and a little louder.

Mr. Yutaka stared down at the machine and hummed while the coffee was being prepared. He tapped the wooden drawer with the fingers of one hand and his other hand rested on his waist.

"I also can't function without my daily dose of caffeine," he said.

Not knowing what to reply, I merely smiled at him and then looked away. I still couldn't read the situation. I only knew that Sachiko had known Mr. Yutaka and Mr. Yoshihiko for a few months and she contacted them first.

A bell chimed in the coffee machine. Mr. Yutaka grabbed the cup by its handle and returned to his desk. He put the smoking coffee in front of me before sitting down and taking a sip of his own coffee.

"As I was saying," he said after putting the cup back on the desk. "You're the producer, so please let me tell you about the situation we're currently in. Before that, I must remind you that you can't tell anyone about it."

"My lips are sealed."

"Thank you. We've emailed publishers of all sizes to inquire if they were interested in Starworld Chaos. Several of them were. However, we couldn't say no to the publisher we ended up making an agreement with; Atamco."

"Are you kidding me?!"

Mr. Yutaka's mouth and eyes remained wide open as he stared at me.

I cleared my throat. "Sorry, I just didn't expect such an influential company to be our publisher."

His smile returned. "We couldn't believe it either, but this decision might backfire."

"What do you mean?"

"We've already told everyone their strict deadline, which was even tighter before we begged to have more time. They are in the position to be strict, after all."

That was true. They had been in the industry for almost fifty years, practically since the beginning of video games. They developed dozens of classics before becoming a publishing company only. After that, they hadn't made the best decisions, but their legendary status remained.

Mr. Yutaka continued, "So, our current situation is that we need to finish a releasable version of the game within the next twelve months. Atamco will then take care of distributing it online and making the physical copies."

Aside from the impossible deadline, everything else seemed fine, though being stuck in another person's body wasn't going to help.

"There's also another thing we didn't mention in the last meeting," added Mr. Yutaka. "Atamco representatives will come every three months to check on the development progress and make suggestions."

Oh, no.

"Can they change stuff in the game whenever they want?" I asked.

"Yes and no. Since they are a global company, we have to adhere to their standards, mostly for age-rating reasons. Regarding content like animations, models, code, or any assets, they can make suggestions, but it's up to us to make the changes or not. Obviously, we would listen to them since they are the experts."

"Makes sense."

"Totally. We didn't say anything about this in the meeting because we don't know if it'll be beneficial for the team to know about it, but you can tell them if you see it necessary. Whether you tell them or not, please work with them to aim for these scheduled checks."

"Will do," I replied.

"Thank you. That's everything we wanted to tell you. Any questions?"

"Yes. Is there an estimated date for the game to be announced publicly?"

Mr. Yutaka's mouth opened then closed again to smile.

"There is, but do you want to know? It'd be a nice surprise for the entire team, and you'll have to keep it a secret from them if I tell you now."

I didn't know what Sachiko would've preferred, but I knew what I wanted.

"I'd like to know now," I said.

"Alright. Atamco told us that all of the games they're publishing will be shown at the Great Games Global Expo this year."

My jaw dropped.

Our game will be shown at G3…?

"Holy…." I was barely able to articulate words. "That's… a dream come true."

"I said the same," said Mr. Yoshihiko, sitting at his desk.

Mr. Yutaka continued, "This wasn't a requirement in the agreement, but we definitely should aim to have something to show at the expo, which will take place in seven months. Maybe a short gameplay video, a teaser, or even a trailer, though we don't know how much time our spot will have yet."

I was still dumbfounded.

"Yes, that's a good plan," I replied.

"Perfect. Remember to keep this a secret," he said and winked. "That's everything. We'll let you work now."

I stood up and turned around to walk to the door, but Mr. Yutaka called me when I grabbed the knob.

"Katō, I know Yoshihiko and I have said this a dozen times already, but it'll never be enough. Thank you for everything you've done for the company. None of us would be here without your help."

My mouth stayed open as I didn't know what to say. Mr. Yoshihiko also smiled at me. I would've never expected them to have such high regard for Sachiko.

I was only able to nod before stepping out and closing the door. Opposite what I had expected before entering the room, I came out looking forward to the future of the company and our game.

We're gonna be in fucking G3 in seven months! I can't believe it.

"Katō," someone called. "Are you busy?"

I raised my head to see the only graphic designer in the company peeking out from behind the glass wall.

"I'm not. Do you need something?" I asked.

"Yes, I have a small problem."

Curious, I followed her to her desk. She sat down and dragged a window into the center of the screen. It was a warning I had never seen before.

"I was doing my things when I was kicked out of my cloud account, and I don't know why. I can't access any platform or use any program because it says I don't have access or a license. I can't even see my files."

She showed me everything she said on the screen. It was obvious enough that she had lost access to her work account, as she explained, but I also had no idea why or how to fix it. I didn't even know Sachiko was in charge of this.

"Can you fix it?" the graphic designer asked.

"Ah…, let me check it from my PC."

"Sure, no rush."

She didn't hesitate to put earphones on and start watching a video on her phone. Doing that at work didn't look good, but what else could she do?

I returned to Sachiko's desk and sat down. I hadn't even turned the PC on, so I did that. It took no time to turn on and be responsive enough for me to be able to use it.

The desktop only had four icons, including the recycling bin. I guessed the shortcut named Management could have something to do with the account problem, so I double-clicked it.

A program opened, showing the dashboard first. It had too many buttons, numbers, and information in general. The sections in the sidebar weren't clear at all either. I headed to the Employee section but the columns were empty. Although I could've spent some time understanding it better, I didn't want the graphic designer to wait for too long.

I took Sachiko's phone out of the purse and messaged her.

"I opened the Management program but the employee section is empty."

Luckily, she replied fast.

"Why do you need to see the employees?"

"The graphic designer was kicked out of her account."

"Really? That's weird. In that case, go to the Departments section, select Graphic Design, and return to the Employees section. You should be able to see her name on the list now. Put the cursor on top of it and click the three dots on the left, then click the Security button in the dropdown. You should see another list with her current sessions. Above it, click the Revoke All button."

What the hell? Why is it so complicated?

Another message from Sachiko arrived.

There's more?!

"Next to the Revoke All button, there's another one that says New Credential. Click it and write down the token and the password it gives you on the Notepad app on my phone, for example. You should be able to sign back into her account with those on her PC."

I sighed. "Alright. Thank you."

I put the phone down on the desk and read the instructions Sachiko gave me while I followed them. Everything was exactly as she explained, except for a dialog that appeared when I clicked the Revoke All button. I quickly clicked Accept and reached the New Credentials step.

As I copied the unnecessarily long token and password into the Notepad app, someone approached me.

"Katō, an error appeared on my PC, saying my session was invalidated."

He was one of the two 3D designers.

"You too?"

The other 3D designer raised his hand from behind his desk in the next row of desks.

"Me too, actually."

He stood up and walked around the desks to approach me, followed by the graphic designer. Kyōko, Jun in my body, and Sachiko in Jun's body didn't take long to arrive as well. Except for them, the rest started explaining what they were doing before it happened. It would've been useful if their situations had something in common other than doing work-related stuff. It also didn't help that they wouldn't stop guessing what had happened and suggesting solutions.

The pressure kept growing in my head until it exploded.

"Enough!" I yelled. "I'm going to fix it, but please give me space. I'll give you your new credentials as soon as I have them."

"What are we going to do in the meantime?" one of the 3D designers asked.

"I don't know, watch some videos or take a nap."

The three of them glanced at each other before walking back to their desks. Jun patted my shoulder and smiled at me before doing the same.

"Don't worry, it's not your fault," Kyōko said.

It definitely was, yet it somehow made the heat in my chest cool down.

"Thank you," I replied.

She smiled and then walked away.

Sachiko pulled the empty chair from the desk beside hers and pulled it to sit down next to me.

"What did you do?" she asked.

"Nothing, aside from following your instructions."

"Are you sure?"

I nodded. "There was a prompt you didn't mention in your messages. It appeared when I clicked Revoke All, but I didn't read what it said because I assumed it was supposed to appear."

"Weird, I've never seen a prompt after clicking that button."

I sighed. "Doesn't matter now. I have to create new credentials for everyone."

"Yeah, it's not very fun. I'm sorry I can't help you."

"It's okay."

She stayed silent for a few seconds before standing up, putting the chair back in its place, and walking away.

I spent the following hour recreating the access credentials through several error messages, then I went person per person, signing them back into their accounts.

At the end of the workday, the graphic designer and the two 3D designers called me to their desks to show me their progress. Even though almost two hours of work had been lost due to my mistake, they still did a lot. I had barely seen their work before, so it finally hit me that they were just as excited as everyone else to be developing a game. We shared the same passion, after all.

…

Later in the day, we found out that the lost time hadn't been my fault at all. It turned out that the service we were using for employee management had uploaded a bug into their servers, causing all of their clients' sessions to be invalidated. I wasn't happy about it, to say the least.

The rest of the week was rather uneventful. Both Sachiko and I had problems working around our swapped positions, but nothing as impactful as what had happened on the first day happened again.

Now, it was time for our second appointment with the Kawahara scientists.