Ross Melos lay asleep in his neuro-sense dive unit. The TME office he was in, was a multi-room space, and at the moment he was completing the finishing touches on a room designed to monitor the Loop Elimination Event. He had finished most of the room last night. The room was mostly a curved single walled room, with an entryway flattened at one end. The curved wall, all three hundred degrees of it, were designated as a viewing screen partitioned to monitor the contestants. Just starting up on one part of the screen was Isaccs beginning his morning speech to the 15,000 and something competitors racing against the Loop. Ross was not really interested in what Isaccs had to say, nor did he care about any, bar one of the competitors.

Instead, he only had concerns for one person, the only surviving individual with sufficient psychological fortitude to still remain coherent and capable of interacting with others from back in the dark days of the Digital Dive Reality's (DDR) neuro-mapping program. Unlike the other two science colleagues, those bastards of no moral fibre. Ross chose to stick around and shoulder the burden DDR's choices caused.

Ross did not see his actions as that of a martyr. Instead, it was just him trying to do the best for people he felt he had an obligation to try and assist as part of the duty of care that the company undertook with its contracts. Clients, who had paid 10-million dollars, for the service. Of course, he was hamstrung, from the moment DDR went into receivership. Knowledge of its failings made it a corporate anathema, significantly limiting his influence in supporting both the clients and experimental volunteers. The company that purchased the technology DDR developed, absolutely, unequivocally, refused to take on the client contract responsibilities.

Further, no one else wanted that responsibility either, nor to even touch the company. So the co-owner became an employee in the takeover and did the best he could with what he earned to maintain several thousand TME systems. It was not nearly enough, and so the clients and experimental volunteers sanity gradually degraded due to isolation madness. Accept that girl, the relentless Carly Berkstead. That is how Ross thought of her in her frozen in time, always young and lithe form. Despite all the odds, somehow that girl's mind was unmoved. She seemed to have an incredible capacity to accept her reality and continue on no matter the circumstance. It was beyond his ability to comprehend let alone explain. How could she do it? He was always asking that question to himself. She was an extreme outlier. With the others all fallen degraded minds too fragmented to help, Ross dedicated his time and resources toward Carly, getting her into the MDP and assisting her in any way he could.

The fruits of his efforts had paid off, and here she was five weeks out from PURG's new world launch date. Competing for additional rewards in the final event any of the beta and MDP personnel were to be participants until it goes live. He knew how capable she was and so found it easy to place his belief in her, without question that girl would succeed.

Ross played the awkward genius and corporate kicked dog flunky around Isaccs and his cronies. However, over the years he developed a loyalty base of his own and behind the scenes managed to manipulate his people into a team deeply embedded in the corporation.

So it was, that Ross was contacted by Mark Derver, head of one of the primary development teams, and fortuitously in charge of the Loop event. The team had been working round the clock for the last several weeks finalising the testing of a tool developed specifically for the event. These were requested by Isaccs to appease and provide deeper numeric and graphic representation during the event and data produced within each competitor's meta. This information would then be presented to the international delegates and oversight personnel to aid in their viewing pleasure of the event. Apparently, the transparency of the system demanded by the governments of the world to be provided by PURG, along with the tool suite was a wonderful distraction for whatever swiftly, Isaccs was pulling off in the background. With everyone distracted now would be a perfect time and Ross was sure he was up to no good and knew he probably had no way of finding out what it was. Isaccs was the best when it came to corporate secrets. Ross spent a lot of time studying his personality, and it was one aspect he had tried to learn for himself and instill in his group of like-minded individuals.

A secure chat connection began requesting his acceptance. With a mental acknowledgment, the groups own private protocols in use, was being offered to Ross by Mark. He accepted the text systems activation request.

: TXT COMMS Protocol 2X2ghg6CzQ09-19V4Lpkp77-FnwS83A

: ESTABLISHING Link

: WAITING

: WAITING

: LINK...Established

: VERIFYING SECURITY KEY

: CONFIRMING...14%

: CONFIRMING...87%

: SECURITY KEY CONFIRMED

: COMMS Enabled

Mark: Ross, I am so tired, I just pulled an all-nighter, thank you so much for that by the way.

Mark: The AI's finished testing the meta-tools an hour ago.

Mark: I get to sit here and listen to Isaccs talk himself up for however long until his speech is over. I feel like getting inspired right now. Woooo. Woooooooooo!!!

Mark: Ross, Ross ross ross ross... where RU?

Ross: Mark, I appreciate the efforts, so you have what I need?

Mark: Yes, I have built the tool to operate for all the delegates and oversight people using their individual encryption keys, but the tool uses a generic key that accesses all the raw meta for processing on everyone's behalf. You can ride the generic key, with the amount of data being passed, you will essentially be invisible, especially when factoring in all your stealth and random routing protocols.

Ross: Thank you Mark, and the other idea?

Mark: Is why I pulled an all-nighter. What, you didn't think I did that for the tool testing did you?

Mark: The AI can do that stuff on their own just fine Ross, no need for human monitoring, zero, zip, zilch, human involvement required.

Ross: OK Mark I get it. You're tired...

Mark: Not that TIRED, but yeah I'm tired. Very FUCKING tired.

Ross: Really Mark? I understand the workload and appreciate the effort. Less drama please my friend, these are the sacrifices we chose to make.

Mark: Yeah, yeah!!

Ross: So, is the stand-alone race creation tool functional, running, tested, what?

Mark: So demanding, Isaccs jumped at the extra entertainment factor. My team and I have been so busy with all this stuff it's why I have been out of touch. It's currently in development. The code is all there but significant adjustments needed to pull the live version out of the world system and converted for full functionality inside a TME.

Ross: How long is it going to take?

Mark: With luck, another 6 hours then the AI will have to run testing for it, another 6 hours. Bug fixes, up to 12 hours, another AI test, 4 hours. Hopefully, a hotfix or two will finish it off from there. Time will tell Ross. You know how these things can go.

Ross: That's longer than I hoped.

Mark: Sorry, priority was the meta-tool.

Ross: I understand, you needed to appease Isaccs. Still, the sooner, the better. Our girl deserves a leg up.

Mark: The racial tool will be finished well before the event ends. My team is doing its best. You can get it as soon as it is done, the same as us, the same as the dignitaries and oversight. I can do no more.

Ross: Yes Mark, understood. So why are you at the speech again and not coding?

Mark: FUCK YOU!

: COMMS Disconnected

Sorry, Mark. I was just joking. I guess the pressure is really getting to him.

* * *

Mark sat on the stage waiting while Isaccs continued spouting rhetoric with his speech, stewing on Ross and his comments. That bullshit is totally uncalled for, especially when he had been busting his ass for the past eight weeks to get the Loop and additional tools prepared. He could be a bit more reasonable and understanding, he knew the workload we were given. Just because we found some shortcuts that worked out was our good fortune and testament to the teams excellent coding skills he thought with a smile. You're going to get the shock of your life shortly buddy, enjoy.

After the speech finally finished and the competitors were teleported into their individual Loop instances, Mark had to continue liaising with the international dignitaries for a while. Rubbing shoulders with politicians was surely not Mark's thing, they were all myopic, egotists, and he felt dirty after associating with them. Not that Mark did for long, a bit under an hour later managing to get away having performed his duty sufficiently in his opinion. He logged out of his dive unit, going to the bathroom, having a shower, and getting a decent meal into him. Taking a moment for himself was important.

He didn't muck around though, logging back in this time to the teams TME office rather than the Hub. Firstly, he entered the landing pad; a room specifically set aside for safe arrival into the TME. It was a clean white rectangular room with a portal that was currently coloured red, due to his proximity to it. Walking forward he entered a typical workspace you would expect from way back in the early 21 st century. The team had made it for the classic feel and a bit of a gag if anyone visited. Two rows of desks down, at the end of the row he stepped through a poster pinned on the wall advertising an FPS game, GunBlaze Space Cowboy, another of PURG's big hit titles. The poster, a hidden passageway, using an identification program written by the team. If anyone not in the team tried to step through it would feel like the just walked into a wall with a poster on it. The passageway was one of several which the team used for theme styled workspace.

As Mark entered the passageway, it only went a meter before taking a left turn, eight meters along and the passage did a 180 degree turn back the other way. It switchbacked once more until turning right for a meter and exiting into the themed workspace, perfectly in line with the 1-meter entry passage. It was a convoluted path for a very sneaky reason, time, time to run additional confirmations that the workspace was not being infiltrated. Security was important when you're enjoying your work, and never let the upper management see a fun work environment or a smile on your face for that matter. 'It's us verse them and if you're not with us then your most likely with them, and if you're with them, your not welcome with us.' Was basically how the team worked, they were individually picked then vetted by Ross and Mark over many years, the very best quality coders, whom after being shown some truths about PURG, did not feel obliged to be the obsequious sycophants to Isaccs and the company. Their moral integrity was at stake after all, and these few had enough of it that they chose to help Mark and Ross.

Mark stepped through the same poster on the inside of the passageway this time, when he emerged it was to white sand, crystal clear waters of a lagoon with a cove behind opening out onto the ocean. Over the lagoon, an open palm thatch-roofed cabana spanned out on wooden posts with a glass floor raised a meter above the water line. The land just past the beach was surrounded by tropical flora, expanding further back into the forest, where the vocal calls of birds gently lilted towards the lagoon. Scattered about here and there were sets of screens programmed and using the new meta-tool to rank various competitors across numerous genres. These genres were based upon their choices available from the Loop event, broken down by weapon choices, skills, and spells available from the extant upgrade store.

Mark enjoyed the view of the new theme for a minute thinking of how great a team he had, able to throw a scene as great as this together in an hour. A minute into the contemplation, Tai came jogging up the slight sandy incline. “Finally arrived here boss, you sure must have had fun at the speech and after mingle,” he said with a cheeky grin and knowing the truth.

“Yeah, I had a blast,” Mark responded deadpan as he started walking toward the cabana where the rest of the team was sitting. “How's the girl going?”

Tai put his hand out flat and wobbled it back and forth a couple of time. “Not too bad, though honestly, I am really not that impressed with her so far boss. There are plenty of others doing interesting and smarter things, to be honest, you sure she is as great as Melos talks her up?”

“I have no idea, just like the rest of the team I don't get access to Hub data. I can only hope Ross is accurate with his belief in her and not biased because of their history.”

Mark checked his internal clock for a moment and did a quick calculation. The event has been running for just over an hour and seventeen minutes now. "What has she been doing so far?"

“She bought an enzyme resist potion to use at the start and has now raised her enzyme resistance stat. She pulls the cores out real quick before the slimes can react and stomps them till they break,” Tai answered.

“Anything she has picked up at the store other than the resist?” Mark asked.

“She has been looking through the store very thoroughly, but she has only bought the personal status screen so far.”

“Interesting,” Mark pondered as he walked across the decking stepping onto the glass flooring above the water. Looking down several tropical fish species were swimming in the lagoon.

“Welcome back boss, Ross,” the call went out. “Did you have fun, have a good time, and how was it's?” went out to him as well.

Mark grimaced at the lot of them. “It was fantastic, next time your all going too,” he said with a cheesy grin.

Groans immediately sounded out along with choking and people with their hands around their throats, so on and so forth. They knew if he could ring them into something like that, they would have been there today. Fortunately, they were small fry, and their presence was not required when dignitaries were requiring entertainment.

Walking over to the big screen in the cabana, BT0724, Selen Crip the corner label watermarked on the screen. “Who the hell is this?” Mark asked as he watched the girl drop her shield on the slime then jump on it, rocking away for a few seconds before it died.

“One of the beta testers, her slime surfing technique is a bit more interesting than what most are doing,” Chaya Moore offered.

Mark called up Carly's ID, MT17347. The video switched to a new female, with long brown hair flowing behind her as she jogged to the next slime. She was decent of feature, though no beauty and she seemed to be paying little attention to her current actions.

Adding her loop data and a map showing her position to the screen beside it, Mark then switched the view to what Carly was looking at. With his developer access, he then included visuals to all her open screens. The loop vision disappeared under a plethora of screens. After a moment to look at the top one Mark started relocating Carly's open screens.

Flicking them to the side of her loop visual, Ross began to rearrange them into order for easy viewing. The main screen cleared once more, Mark switched view into passenger mode seeing with Carly's eyes.

"I do hope someone has been monitoring her," Mark asked.

"Yes," Peter stated. "I have been keeping an eye on her, she has been slowly trolling through the store this whole time."

Mark took a look at her loop data screen before looking at Tai. "She has high lap position and high boundary position while playing it safe and checking her options in the store."

Tai just shrugged. "It's not like she isn't going to run into trouble with the next mob, high physical resists across the board, how do you think she is going to go then."

"She will go great, with a little assist. How is that communication tool, is it working now?"

"It works," Chaya answered.

"Good, since she hasn't wasted her minutes, it looks as though we can negotiate with her, make an agreement for her to be contracted to us once we all arrive at Expanse."

"Are you sure you want to risk this? The consequences are severe if she talks," stated Victor with his Russian accent.

"Don't you guys worry, firstly if anything happens then I have full culpability, and the digital signature will only come back to me if anyone can break the protocols in time, and that is unlikely. Secondly, if she talks, even if she rejects the offer, she is in the MDP program under shaky circumstances. She knows that saying anything to anyone about her origins will create substantial issues for herself and Ross. Thirdly, no one in here is going to talk either, since you will be missing out on a potential boost in the new world. Further, because I have dossiers on each of you, if someone betrays our team, then that person is fucked right along with me.

I trust you all, but I am not foolish enough to think something won't happen. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. Let's be realistic here, Isaccs would throw away each one of us in a heartbeat if it helped him get ahead. We all know it, so getting us a leg up on the competition might be important to us all, right?"

The group agreed, none of them felt as though any member of the group would betray Mark or the team. His words spoke true and smart, and they had all agreed to this course of action long ago.

Mark and the team sat back and watched Carly Berkstead, MT17347 continue along the loop efficiently killing slimes. In his opinion, she was doing quite admirably, especially when compared to the median statistics of her competitors.

While he was waiting, he grabbed a data pad and loaded the communication tool his team finished while he was out. He was soon going to need to have a little chat with Miss Berkstead. Hopefully, she would agree to his terms.