By the time Danika finished her shift and logged in through her VR-medi pod, Aishin was gone. She finished the Week of Hearts under the round pink moon alone.
She did note that her solo quests were less bloody than his had been. She wondered if that was because her character, while more capable of causing damage than it had been, still didn't have nearly as much direct combat capability as Aishin, or if it was based on the game's interpretation of personality differences. On her own, her quests reverted to mostly flowers and other material acquisitions again.
She was also surprised to find that her chain of quests returned her to the same region in the dwarven mountains that they'd been in when the event started, by the time she was ready to sleep. They were still seeking the king that the snow leopard pelt belonged to, so it was very convenient. This subtle display of the dynamic quest system impressed her a lot.
--
In the morning Danika ate the last of her perishable foods for breakfast, even though it made an odd mix of flavors, and made sure to lock up. She'd already notified the building's caretaker of her upcoming absence in case there were any problems. She departed for the airport with plenty of time to make it onto her flight.
Starcraft Technologies was being both generous and stingy with the requisite training weeks. They were paying for the flight, local transportation, and a place for her to stay while she was there, but she wouldn't get paid for attending the training itself. Fortunately her finances were currently stable enough that she didn't have to worry about not being able to keep her tiny place paid up while she was gone.
Several exhausting hours later Danika exited the restricted area into the waiting crowds and tried to make her way to the outer edge of the vast room. Signs overhead pointed to where the pick up zone was. Some people edged around her warily, others bumped into her carelessly, focused entirely on their own concerns.
When she finally made it out through the wide automatic doors, she sighed with relief as she caught sight of the van plastered in Starcraft Technologies logos. It took her another couple of minutes to navigate through the people and piles of luggage scattered across the pavement, and when she rapped on the door of the van, nothing happened.
After a minute she tried again. Finally she tried the handle of the old fashioned unpowered side door, and struggled to shove it open far enough to call through the gap, "Hello?"
The driver turned and snapped, "This vehicle is reserved for…" his sentence ground to a halt as he took in her appearance. A moment later he was out the door and standing beside her. "Danika Belova?" he questioned. She nodded and he said, "I'm sorry, I expected someone with a lot of equipment, not… um.. Sorry."
Danika gave him a wry smile and said, "It's ok."
The man loaded her single bag into the van first.
--
Fortunately the room they had reserved for her didn't require any changes and was only a couple of blocks away from the towering building where her training was scheduled.
Danika arrived at the Starcraft Technologies building, tired but on time, for the introductory session that evening. There were only a handful of other trainees present. That evening they mostly only completed the mundane tasks of getting their IDs and collecting their schedules for the next couple of weeks.
When the session finished, Danika waited while her fellow trainees exited first and then followed them out. A man with messy hair was waiting beside the doors and examining each trainee as they passed.
One of the women turned back and asked Danika uncertainly, "Do you want to join us in going out for drinks?"
Danika smiled and replied, "I don't drink alcohol, but thank you."
The woman, whose tag read "Sara Thomas", replied with relief, "Oh, ok, have a good evening."
Danika's smile soured a little, but she simply nodded and watched the woman hurry away.
The man with messy hair was still standing there and now he was staring at Danika with an utterly shocked expression. Danika looked up at him quizzically. He took a deep breath, and asked, "ZipZing?"
Danika blinked and examined him more closely. "Lin Hao!?" she exclaimed. His messy appearance was different, but his face was the same.
He ran his hand through his hair and said sheepishly, "Yeah. Um, I knew you were arriving for training tonight, and figured I'd come say hi, since I was still working."
"Wow, thanks, and hi!" Danika replied a little incredulously.
Lin Hao gestured helplessly toward her chair and said worriedly, "I was totally not expecting… um, are you going to be ok? Do you need assistance with anything? How are you going to get into the VR system?"
Danika blinked and asked, "Is that going to be a problem? I told them that I use a VR-medi pod at home, and they said I'll be able to use one here."
"Oh, oh, of course you would," Lin Hao replied with embarrassment.
A brief silence fell between them. After a moment Danika answered his other questions, "I'll be ok. The room I was given seems fine." Then she asked, "Are you going to be involved in the training?"
Lin Hao was still staring at her chair. After a moment he shook his head and replied, "No, the seventh department is a programming division, and you're training for tech support, right? You'll be in the third division."
Danika gaped at him and asked, "You're not in tech support, but you keep replying to bug reports?"
Lin Hao finally shifted his gaze to her face and he grinned at her. "What do you think happens to a bug report that gets verified? It gets kicked downhill."
"What are the fourth, fifth, and sixth departments then?" Danika asked.
"Uh," he thought for a moment, "Accounting, Human Resources, and Design?"
"Actually, they told me that after the training is complete I may be able to choose between tech support or design integration?" she volunteered. "Any suggestions?"
Lin Hao regarded her with surprise. "Seriously?"
"Yes?" Danika replied questioningly.
"It's weird that they're offering to let you into design integration right now. We're halfway through the first world expansion and usually nobody messes with the teams mid project," Lin Hao said doubtfully.
"Expansion?" Danika questioned. "Already? The game has only been released for a few months?"
Lin Hao rolled his eyes. With his messy hair it made for a rather deranged expression and Danika tried not to giggle.
He waved his hand at her and said, "C'mon, I'll show you the cafeteria so I can eat before I go back to work."
"You're going back to work at this hour?" she questioned.
"Yeah, I don't have a set shift and I'm in the middle of something," he explained. He started walking and glanced back to see if she was following. When he saw her easily moving along he turned forward again and then resumed talking. "The expansion isn't even into the Alpha testing phase yet."
Danika would have scooted up beside him, but she felt like they'd have taken up too much room in the corridor and they were meeting other people more frequently as she followed him to the cafeteria he had mentioned.
Lin Hao explained, "Living Jade Empire isn't like those little games that can run on a few normal computers. It's enormous, and we only have the one satellite system dedicated to the game. Everything has to run on the same system, although we can partition it to some extent. We can test pieces on local systems of course, but that only goes so far."