Sarah leans over and whispers in Jake's ear, "I know you have a way to guarantee a participation slot. Let me know what it is you want so I can get one."
As she whispers, she moves her hand under the table to Jake's knee and starts inching it further up his leg.
Jake turns and leans in while he looks into her bright green eyes and removes her hand discreetly as he says, "Sorry love, not sure what you're talking about. I just gave our leader my word that the selections are locked up safe and sound. Who am I if my words can't be trusted?".
Sarah scoffs as she sits back disregarding Jake's rejection. "Everyone knows for the pre-selections you always have some type of way to manipulate a few slots. Why do you think Adam told you no fuckery this time around? Your word is as good as wind to me. Everyone knows your words are to be taken with a grain of salt, especially when there can be something in it for you."
"Ahem!" Adam clears his throat while looking over towards Jake and Sarah.
"Ms. Cuthbert, is there anything the Lore department wants to add to their report?"
Sarah lightly coughs to clear her throat and addresses her fellow board members, "The lore for Sanctuary Annihilation is coming along nicely. Due to how responsive the NPC dialogue interaction was with our beta testers; the players should have no problem having real conversations with them. It will be difficult to distinguish between Players and NPCs as the Players ascend through the different planes."
Sarah turns and smiles at Jake. "I was just expressing my gratitude to Jake over how well the NPC A.I. turned out for this FIVR game. Normally the discussion boards are filled with memes and complaints of how useless quest dialogue and NPC interactions are."
"Very good, as I said earlier let's hold the side conversations to a minimum so we can wrap this up promptly. I don't know about you all, but I have a lunch reservation at Sanderson's that I do not want to be late for."
About thirty minutes later Adam stands and signals to everyone that the meeting is over and that they would have daily meetings discussing the operations of Sanctuary Annihilation. Everyone stands and heads back to their respective departments to check on their teams.
Down the hallway, Sarah quickly goes after Jake and chases him into his office. As she enters, she looks around and sighs.
"You really have no social life outside of computers and games, do you?"
Along the walls are posters of different games and some popular streamers. At the desk are four monitors that have neon lights glowing behind them. Littered across the desk are old cans of soda and a couple of empty containers of take-out.
The trash can is overflowing with crumpled-up pieces of paper. At the top of the pile, words can just barely be read that show "How and Who" underlined and circled.
"Sarah, you know that my life's goal is to make the most realistic FIVR game in the world and become renowned. A lady friend, dog, cat, or whatever would just slow me down and get in the way. So, tell me what you want since your little stunt in the board room was over the top even for you."
Jake sits at his desk and swipes away a few pieces of paper out of the way so he can rest his elbow on the desk and head on his hand while turning his chair to face Sarah.
Sarah walks over to the desk and lifts her knee to rest it on the edge of the desk while balancing on her one leg. She leans over and smiles at Jake.
"I do want to be selected to play Sanctuary Annihilation! Something about this game is different from anything else we've ever made. I truly can't comprehend how you made the A.I. so interactive I --"
Jake holds up his hand and interrupts her, "Sarah let me stop you right there. I wasn't the one who coded the A.I. for SAO."
Sarah pauses and blinks at him with a bewildered expression on her face. "What do you mean you weren't the one who coded the A.I.? If you weren't the one, who else could have done it? You are the world's top code writer and leading A.I. developer. That's why Firestorm hired you. You're joking with me if you say you didn't develop this. You've told me your dream of creating an interactive world like Sanctuary since I met you five years ago and you're telling me it wasn't you? What's that corny idiom you always use? 'If I were to say I'm the number two A.I. expert nobody would dream about saying they're number one!'.".
Jake laughs at Sarah mocking him. He then points to the trash pile and his notes and says, "That's exactly what I'm telling you. When we started working on Sanctuary the NPC code was already in place as well as the world design. I've been trying to deconstruct the code this entire time and I'm completely stumped. Whoever Adam is working with behind the scenes is some type of monstrous genius."
Jake stands up and crosses the room to the door and checks it shut all the way and closes the blinds.
"You know my leg rubbing was just a joke, right? We aren't going to actually do anything." Sarah says as Jake walks back to his desk.
"Always the tease, aren't you? Give me a second, hold on."
Jake comes back to the computer and opens a program and clicks his mouse. Sarah winces as she hears a ringing in her ears.