Hell's Glitch (initial draft)

2:0 The Programmer

There was a guard posted at the exit, armed of course along with two guards patrolling around the room. They had an odd choice of coloring for their uniforms. Green, white, and red weren't colors typically associated with a protection outfit, PMC, or even terrorists. The colors were most closely associated with one of the oldest churches in the world. He was amused by the thought of connecting Milner's bloodthirsty Gestapo with the ancient church. It wasn't the most far-fetched connection since Milner himself seemed to possess the same fanatical fervor as those leading the medieval inquisitions.

The guard from before turned around and took notice of Thomas staring at the others.

That's the last thing I need.

He quickly lowered his gaze and focused at the current status of the game. He saw no major changes from earlier, so he could hang back for a little while longer, at least until shit hit the fan during Milner's next big reveal. He wanted to dive deeper into the code while he still had some free time and glean more of the secrets Milner had hidden in the game. It was the whole reason he'd even signed on to work on this the project which was rumored to have a connection with a game Thomas was intimately familiar with, The Death Planes.

Thomas had spent years picking apart the code for that game during his teens. It had become an obsession for him. He took a strange sort of pride in being the first person to post one hundred percent accurate damage calculation formulas and enemy statistics. He'd also been the first to reveal all the cut content in the game. Milner's new game seemed to have used The Death Planes as a skeleton, even much of the code was remarkably similar, though updated for Milner's VR system, including the code for the battle system.

Deeper we shall go, mining for gold.

Thomas opened the browser he used to view the code for Project DH aka Dying Hope and shrank the window. Milner had only allowed each programmer to access a tiny piece of the code specifically pertaining to their role, but Thomas had long since found a way around that limitation. He could now browse the entirety of the code at his leisure. He had already seen most of it, before the testers had even been brought in. That's how he had already known about the realistic pain feature and Survival Mode before Milner had announced it to rest of the staff. He went even deeper into the code to get to the stuff that Milner wanted absolutely no one to see, the hidden programs.

There were thousands of them, all written in a language that Thomas could not recognize. None of the translation programs he used recognized it either. What Thomas found most fascinating was that many of these programs, though illegible, were nearly identical to those found in The Death Planes. The same programs that vexed Thomas to this day in that game, were found here, but with some notable alterations to them. Thomas wasn't sure what any of it meant, other than that Milner was an unrepentant code and idea thief.

******

Thomas' code browsing session was interrupted after about forty minutes by Anna K., one of Milner's hot business attired henchwomen for lack of a better term. Thomas had first noticed the click of her heels approaching him which made him look up and take notice of her perfectly sculpted legs for a little longer than he probably should have. He grew concerned when she stopped in front of his desk and stood there. In his periphery, he saw her sweep a few strands of her dark hair to the side before clearing her throat. A persistent Thomas continued to unconvincingly feign ignorance of her presence.

"Mr. Jackson—"

"Thomas is fine, Ms.?" he asked as he looked up into her baby blue eyes.

"Just Anna, Thomas. Everyone calls me Anna."

"That's because no one knows your last name. Anyways, what do I owe this visit?"

Anna smiled unexpectedly. Thomas was glad that she didn't take his directness for rudeness like most other people seemed to.