Prologue

Hidden away among the skyscrapers and high rises of the Financial District, an unassuming tower held the offices of Mousion Entertainment. On the twenty third floor of that tower, in an office belonging to the Head of Research and Development for the KLEIO Project, an argument was taking place.

So far, the argument had been nothing more than an onslaught of words being volleyed from one side at the other. While the other side, like a castle under siege, simply did their best to weather the volley of arrows. The attacker was the President of Mousion Entertainment's Gaming Department. He was the image of a corporate giant in a clean gray suit.

The one under siege in this verbal duel was the owner of the office. As a recent hire and a fresh graduate from City University, the Department Head was thoroughly annoyed with how the President shouted but felt like they had no place to speak up. So instead they waited patiently until the President was finished before taking a deep breath and raising their hands in what could have been seen as a mock surrender.

Despite the vehemence that the President had led with, the Department Head used a softer tone. "As much as I would like to open up an entirely new server and allow new players to join, we cannot guarantee the stability of the program as it is."

The President snapped back, "Two years! It has been two years since the beta test ended and we launched to the public! Your predecessor left a tight schedule in place when he left Mousion. According to that schedule, we should be able to support forty thousand users so long as we add a new server."

The Department Head could have spent a hundred hours explaining the exact issue. However, they knew that those fine details would be lost on the President. "The readings coming back from the management console indicate the current pool of users vastly exceeds what my predecessor outlined. This is a programming issue, not a hardware issue. We need to find a better way to store the… data."

"If work hours are the issue, I can approve any amount of overtime. It has been a year since we added the last batch of 5,000 users. If we cannot send out another batch this year, this project will be shifted from a niche to a pipe dream. If that happens, project KLEIO will be shelved and your entire department will be looking for work in a city that knows you failed!"

When the President started shouting again, the Department Head tapped at the edge of their desk to wake the sleeping computer. As the built-in monitor came to life, the Department head pulled up a resource management application on the desk's touchscreen. Everything was operating within normal parameters. After a second of thought, they said, "If another batch of users is all that is needed, we can add another 1,000 without exacerbating the current issue. The hardware should be able to handle that load…"

"Good! We will launch the new user licenses immediately."

Before the President turned to leave, he left one last comment for the Department Head, "Just because you found your way into Mousion does not mean that you'll keep that seat. Your predecessor understood that. Find a way to double our total users before the end of the year or your review will not be favorable."

Once the President was gone, the Department Head tapped twice in the corner of his touchscreen. An artificial voice sounded through the screen's built-in speaker:

How may I be of assistance, Miss Drea?

"Call Demetrius."

Calling Demetrius.

The phone did not even ring a full tone before the call was picked up. A gruff voice spoke immediately, "I could hear the President from here. Everything okay?"

"No." The Department Head replied, "Provision 1,000 user licenses for release ASAP and then fix the database issues."

"That'll take some time."

"Overtime was approved by the President."

"Okay. What about the new-"

"I'll see if I can pick it up later."

"Fine. I'll have the licenses ready before the end of the hour. Where should I send them?"

"Just add them to the database. I'll let Marketing know to send them out."

"Okay." The call went silent for a minute. Eventually Demetrius spoke up, "Alex, is everything okay?"

The Department Head ignored the question and ended the call immediately after saying, "Let me know when the licenses are added."