He met Nakala at their usual lunch spot. It was a greasy hole-in-the-wall burger joint that was about a block away from the office. He never saw anyone else from Monsoon there, despite its proximity to the office. The place was tucked into an alleyway, nearly invisible from the street. And in a city like Seattle, that was near to impossible. It was a city where hole-in-the-wall restaurants were celebrated. Everyone had their favorite, and everyone seemed to know everywhere.

The air outside was brisk, but the skies were mostly clear. Just that typical Seattle gloom where the sky looked like the world's dirtiest cotton pad. It likely wouldn't rain in any significant way, but the air smelled like dampness and late fall. Another few months, and it would be prime time for skiing.

There was a sign on the wall outside the lunch spot - just a small burger constructed out of neon tubes. Dylan could see that Nakala was already waiting inside, so he entered and joined her. Opening the front door meant he was assaulted by two things: the overwhelmingly delicious scents of the place, and 90s hair metal playing on the jukebox at a volume that might have been dangerous to his eardrums.

"Didn't think you were going to make it," Nakala said with a smile. "Roxanne still putting on the red light?"

"More like the dragon guarding the door."

"Ugh. That woman needs to either get some, or get a cat."

Dylan snorted and shook his head. Because they were frequent visitors of this place, they were seated quickly and not given menus.

It was a struggle to play it cool. Dylan knew that the stakeholder meeting was just starting. He could open his phone and watch any number of streams about it, but Nakala had something she wanted to talk to him about. If he just started grilling her about the project, it was likely that she would dance around the topic and tease him, and then make him feel like shit later for not helping her.

But she was uncharacteristically quiet. She sat in the booth and stared at her hands, as if they would give her some sort of confidence boost.

He gritted his teeth, and waiting for the server to come around so they could order. In typical fashion, Nakala got a double cheeseburger, and Dylan got a chili burger. Both with seasoned waffle fries. It was like half of the reason they came here.

Once the server was gone, Dylan stared Nakala down. "Alright. If you aren't avoiding me, let's talk. What the hell is going on?"

"Huh? Oh... yeah. It's... it's nothing."

"Didn't sound like nothing."

"I mean, okay. It's something. Fine, you caught me. But it's not... important. I'll just... uh... figure it out."

Dylan furrowed his brow. "Nakala. Spill it. What's going on?"

"Did you see the 8.2 patch notes?"

It was like she had slapped him; the topic change was so sudden and out of left field. "Nakala."

"I heard there's a big aggro rework."

"There is, and you know for a damn fact that I could spent the next hour talking about that instead of whatever's going on. But then I'm an asshole, and a bad friend. So how about we stop doing this dance before one of us gets hurt, and actually talk about what's wrong. Is it Pete? Are you guys okay?"

Nakala laughed, a short chuckle that meant she was caught off guard. "Pete's fine, but... okay." She took a deep breath and rubbed at her eyes. "Alright. I've been trying to think of a way to ask for your help without being a bitch, but I got nothing."

"You know I'll help you out with whatever you need."

"Don't agree until you know what it is." Her tone was firm and almost sharp. "I can't just up and tell you what I need, either. It wouldn't make any sense, and you wouldn't be able to make an informed decision. I need to explain what's going on, and for that, you need to know about Project Rundan."

"Rundan?" Dylan's heart skipped several beats. "You need help with Project Rundan?"

"In a way, yeah. I mean... okay, this thing? I know you haven't heard much, but it's the biggest, most ambitious thing Monsoon has ever developed. Possibly the most ambitious launch any game company has ever attempted. I can't share details. Don't ask. But I can tell you that it's a huge, persistent game world. On par with some of the crazy shit talked about at cons. Immersive VR-compatible. Top-shelf NPC AI. A single server the size of a city bus. And, on top of it all, Monsoon is going to launch a proprietary streaming service alongside it."

Dylan stared at her. He didn't know what else to do.

Sure, she wasn't really sharing much with him. Just some high-level stuff. But it was enough. VR-compatible MMOs had become a bit of a craze lately, growing more and more elaborate with every release. A lot of people hadn't made the jump from traditional MMOs just because the systems weren't very good. The fact that Monsoon was jumping into the pool with a big splash wasn't really any surprise.

But a proprietary streaming service? That was a step too far, even for Monsoon.

"That's impossible. Insane, even."

"Was it impossible and insane when Spigot announced their own distribution platform? Sure. But now Faucet is on every gamer's PC." Nakala shook her head. "But that's not important. The streaming service is just the marketing campaign for right now. Project Rundan is going to have a soft beta launch. Big event. Well, huge in terms of marketing and publicity. Participation will be extremely limited, and just in small waves. Invite only, and there's a trial to get in."

Dylan nodded. It sounded fairly typical for a Monsoon Entertainment product launch. "Okay, what's the problem then? You can't get in?"

"I have an invite," Nakala said, but her tone was haunted.

"I'm... not following."

"I have an invite," she repeated, "and that's the problem." Dylan said nothing, and after a moment Nakala rubbed at her eyes. "If I go in, I don't know what going to happen to me. At Halloween last year, someone joked that devs who got in would get torpedoed just to keep us from being a liability. Leaking internal mechanics, exploiting loopholes, you know. That kind of stuff. Just a little joke." She shook her head. "But Lynden turned white as a sheet and he's refused to talk about it since."

Dylan tried to imagine Lynden not talking about anything. He was a jovial guy, and loved to gossip. He couldn't keep a secret or tell a lie to save his life.

If that was his reaction, it meant something was up for sure.

"So, obviously, things went from joke to rumor. And with the launch imminent, it's halfway to conspiracy theory." Nakala looked around and leaned forward. "I was involved with the economics systems. What if what I designed will make me a target for whatever set Lynden off?"

"I'd say the obvious answer is 'don't go in,' but you're you. I'm guessing that, instead, you have a plan?"

"The way the systems work," Nakala said, ignoring his question, "there are only a few ways they could really hose me. My guess is I'm going to spend a lot of time staring at the death timer. They'll tune up my encounters to make fights more challenging, and they can tank my drop rates so that I would have to farm for hours for things people get off of one or two mobs. Basically kill any chance I have at getting in on the streaming system." She winced, almost in afterthought. "I just hope they aren't just going to have some big purple dragon drop out of the sky and murder me every time I respawn."

"Do you really think Monsoon'll do something like that?"

She winced again. "I don't know, and that's really the kicker, right?" Nakala picked at her meal. "Like, okay. I haven't been avoiding you. Not really. I just... I sent that message last night because I finally got up the balls to talk about things. And then... then I realized I'm being silly. I have such a great opportunity here, right? I'm getting in at the ground level of some of the greatest tech. This should be a fucking joyous moment. And instead, all I can think about is how it'll fucking ruin my life."

It was Dylan's turn to wince. He was seeing a side of his friend usually reserved for conversations about her shitty ex-boyfriend, or about her overbearing mother. You didn't get this deep over a video game.

"Whatever. Just ignore me." She finally bit into the fry she'd been playing with. "I'm obviously making some big thing about this shit. It'll be better for you to not get involved."

"I could count on one hand the number of times you've been wrong about something, especially when its this big. How about you stop being an ass and just tell me what you need."

"Jesus, Dylan. Alright. Let me tell you what I need, and then you can make a decision like a normal human, instead of trying to jump at an adventure." She laughed and then rubbed the bridge of her nose with the non-fry welding hand. "My invite can be transferred. I mean, I can't use it right away anyway. Got some work to still finish up. So I'd give it to you. You go in, get some levels, and then when I join in finally you'd be able to help level me up or save me from shitty events or whatever."

"That doesn't seem that bad. What's the catch?"

"There's a test you have to take. And that's... well, that's about all I can share. You'll be able to get some random details from the stakeholder meeting notes. But I don't know what the safe zones are, and so I don't want to get us both in trouble by telling you something else."

"Seriously, Nakala?! That's it? I don't even know the genre!"

She picked up another fry as if to throw it, but instead she balanced it between her finger and the plate. "I guess that's safe. Fantasy-ish. Not like, traditional though."

"Anything else? Races? Lore?"

"Jesus, Dylan. I'd love to tell you the whole fucking shebang but I worked on the economy, okay? I worked with some of the teams that did gear and drops, and some transportation systems. But like... I didn't talk to the writers. I have no idea. And even if I did, I'd likely put you in danger. Like, you see how I'm not telling you about the currency? I don't want you to be screwed in whatever way I was going to be."

That gave Dylan pause. "Am I... Nakala, is this dangerous?"

"I..." Nakala paused. "They'll tell you the details, so let's just revisit the 'I can't tell you anything without putting you at risk,' clause here, okay? I don't know what I can and can't share. Let's go back to the office. Listen to the call and the streams. Read the speculation. And then... let me know, okay?" She dropped the fry to her plate and wiped her hands on her pants. "I'm not hungry anymore anyway."

Dylan wanted to reach out and stop her, but she was already flagging over their server, who approached with their checks. They settled their bills, and started to head out.

"Just... just answer me this, okay? Is Rundan worth all this?"

Nakala didn't even pause or look his way. Instead, in a firm voice, she said: "Abso-fucking-lutely."