Chapter 5

  Developments

  Several months had passed since Sarah's tense meeting with Trace, months filled with cautious maneuvering, sleepless nights, and an ever-present sense of looming danger. She had played her role well—offering just enough information to keep Trace from questioning her loyalty while working tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure that Dr. Kami's work, and more importantly, her brother’s existence, remained intact.

  The pressure had been suffocating, but she had endured it. Now, standing in her office once more, she felt the weight of another revelation pressing down on her.

  A knock at the door pulled her from her spiraling thoughts. She exhaled sharply, composing herself before calling out, "Come in."

  Tim Gallagher entered, his usual easy-going demeanor muted by something far heavier. His normally unkempt hair was pushed back, and his expression was one of hesitation. That alone sent alarms blaring in Sarah’s mind. Tim was rarely serious unless something was truly wrong.

  "You look like hell," she muttered, half in jest, half in genuine concern.

  "Thanks," Tim said, rubbing the back of his neck. He hesitated before stepping further into the room. "Look, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important. I need to talk to you about William."

  Sarah stiffened, her grip tightening on her arms. "What about him?" Her voice was even, but her pulse was anything but steady.

  Tim shifted uncomfortably. "It’s about his integration into Eterna. There’s been… an unexpected development."

  She narrowed her eyes. "Tim. Just say it."

  He sighed, running a hand over his face. "He’s not William anymore, Sarah. The system—Eterna—processed his transition differently than we anticipated. When he woke up inside the virtual world, he wasn’t just a version of himself. He—she—reconstructed herself into something entirely new. She’s calling herself Enigma now."

  For a long moment, Sarah just stared at him. "What the hell are you talking about?" she finally whispered.

  Tim stepped closer, lowering his voice as if the walls had ears. "The brain scan, the upload—it didn’t just capture William as he was. It also gave him the ability to reshape himself into the person he always saw himself as. The system didn’t lock him into his past self. It allowed him to become something new. And now, we have a completely different body inside Eterna. Honestly it’s groundbreaking, imagine what this could do for the trans community."

  Sarah’s breath caught in her throat. Her brother had always been private about his struggles, about who he was deep inside. But this? This was something beyond anything she could have prepared for.

  "Does he… does she remember everything?" Sarah asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

  Tim nodded. "Yeah. She remembers being William. But she’s Enigma now, and that’s who she wants to be. She doesn’t see this as a loss—she sees it as a rebirth."

  Sarah ran a hand through her hair, trying to process it all. "Have you spoken to her?"

  "Briefly. She’s still in the tutorial zone and she’ll be stuck there for awhile until we get the game world finished, but she’s… different. More confident. More alive than I’ve ever seen William be," Tim admitted, a faint smile tugging at his lips despite the gravity of the situation. “Though that could just be that I never saw William before, not much life in a quadriplegic.”

  Sarah pressed a hand to her chest, trying to steady her breathing. This was her brother—no, her sister—finding something she had never been able to find in the real world.

  "Does anyone else know?" she asked suddenly, dread settling into her stomach.

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  Tim’s expression darkened. "Not yet, but they will. Kinda hard to hide the fact that our sole inhabitant has suddenly become a woman.”

  “Wow,” Sarah braced her head in her hands, resting on the desk. “My brother was Trans.”

  Tim nodded slowly, “She was a Marine right? Makes sense why they hid it.”

  Sarah steadied her breath one last time, her mind working quickly picking up on something Tim said, “We can spin this. Market it as a solution for the Trans community like you said. I think that gets Trace on board with this, he’s nothing if not pragmatic about business. I know the big selling point to the board was that they were sending in a marine to test out the system, and some of the board are still hung up on that a marine should be a man.”

  “My thoughts as well, oh are we implementing the Title system yet?” Tim asked.

  Sarah shook her head, “The Title system. No, it’s buggy as hell. Infinite feedback loops, game breaking glitches, it’s not even remotely ready for implementation.”

  “That’s what I thought. Just wanted to check, you need to talk to your team. Someone turned it back on in the base code. I’ve turned it back off but I'll need to do some digging into Enigma’s data to deactivate the titles. I can’t remove them but I can make it so they don’t interact with anything.”

  The conference room was bathed in cold artificial light, the polished obsidian table reflecting the stern faces of those seated around it. At the head sat Hector Zefra, hands steepled before him, expression unreadable. To his right, Dr. Kami adjusted his glasses, an air of quiet defiance about him. Across from him, Trace leaned back in his chair, fingers tapping against the armrest, his calculating gaze shifting between the two men.

  "We're behind schedule," Zefra stated flatly, his voice carrying the weight of command. "And our investors are growing impatient. We need more alpha testers, Kami. We need live data."

  Dr. Kami inhaled slowly, barely masking his irritation. "Hector, pushing forward with more alpha testers before the system is ready would be disastrous. We are already experiencing unexpected anomalies. More bodies in the system could exacerbate the instability."

  Trace scoffed. "Instability is expected in any launch phase. That's what patches are for. You keep delaying progress, but delays cost money. We need something we can sell, something we can show off to the board to justify the billions we've poured into this project."

  Kami’s fingers curled slightly into his palm. "If you overload the system too soon, you risk irreversible corruption of the framework. This isn't just a game, Trace. These are human minds. You’re asking me to gamble with lives."

  Trace’s smirk didn’t waver. "Don’t get sentimental, Doctor. You agreed to this contract. You knew what this was. If Eterna isn’t profitable, it doesn’t exist."

  Zefra leaned forward. "Dr. Kami, you’re protecting something. I can see it in your hesitation. What is it?"

  Kami hesitated for only a moment. He knew the truth couldn’t be revealed—not yet. Not until he understood it himself. "We are close to an unprecedented breakthrough in cognitive adaptation. The system is evolving in ways we couldn’t have predicted. Enigma is proof of that. Rushing forward now, before I can refine the underlying architecture, would be reckless."

  Trace raised an eyebrow. "Enigma? That’s the marine we uploaded, right? The one who decided to… change?"

  Kami’s gaze sharpened. "She didn’t ‘decide’ to change. The system allowed her to express who she truly is. That alone is a remarkable outcome. Do you not see the potential here?"

  Trace waved a dismissive hand. "It’s a PR angle at best. A marketing gimmick we can exploit. But that doesn’t solve our core issue—we need proof of scalability. One test subject a MMO does not make, this isn’t a single player game."

  Zefra exhaled slowly, weighing the arguments before him. "Kami, how much more time do you need? Give me something concrete."

  Kami resisted the urge to sigh in relief. "Two months."

  Trace shook his head. "Ridiculous. Thirty days, tops and even then, the board will be wanting to pull the plug. The board won’t allow more than that."

  Zefra nodded. "Then thirty days it is. But, Dr. Kami, if I don’t see results by then, we move forward with or without your approval."

  Kami’s jaw tightened, but he gave a small nod. "Understood, Hector."

  Trace smirked. "Glad we could come to an agreement. Now, let’s talk monetization strategies-"

  Zefra interjected before Trace could continue. "Let’s be clear…profitability is key, but not at the cost of stability. If we lose control of the system, we lose everything. Trace, what options do we have to maintain investor confidence while giving Kami his thirty days?"

  Trace leaned forward, considering. "We leak carefully curated progress reports, emphasizing the groundbreaking aspects. We frame Enigma’s transformation as a selling point—complete self-reinvention in a digital afterlife. That’ll turn heads. If we secure a few high-profile test cases, people with influence, we can spin this into a revolution."

  Kami’s stomach twisted at the thought. "You mean turn real people into walking advertisements."

  Trace shrugged. "You say that like it's a bad thing. We need buy-in from the public and the investors. We make this a cultural movement, not just a product."

  Zefra considered it, nodding slowly. "This could work. But no risks—we do this carefully. Dr. Kami, you will have your time. Trace, you will get your marketable story. Now, let’s discuss how to present this to the board."