Chapter 4

After relieving himself, and washing his face with cold water from the faucet, Otis returned from the restroom into his bedroom.

"Okay, let's see what we can find about you, mister Nathan Deron," Otis said, jokingly pointing at the image of the current CEO, that was sitting on his wall, watching him through inanimate eyes. Otis sat on his bed and pulled his laptop from his bag. He opened it up, wiping a piece of thread from the touchpad. Pressing the power button, Otis found that the laptop was out of battery.

"Great, now I have to find an outlet," Otis muttered as he placed the laptop on his bed and stood up again. He walked over to the desk and kneeled down. Sure enough, there was an outlet. After retrieving his laptop and charger from his bed and his bag respectively, he plugged in the laptop and sat down on the chair in front of the desk. Once the laptop powered on, he connected to the internet, typing in the password he had been given by E.

"Now, let's do some investigating," Otis said to himself as he pulled open tor, and navigated to duckduckgo. He searched for 'Nathan Deron' and was greeted by a long list of results. The first of which was an article named 'A small glimpse into the life of the elusive CEO of the world's largest company.' Clicking on it, Otis found a series of images of a man, who looked to be about fifty years old. He was slightly bent over as he walked, and had tubes protruding from his nose, and a tube in his wrist, all of which lead to an IV drip he was wheeling beside him. Exiting out of that page, Otis visited the Wikipedia page. This page presented quite normally, and Otis skimmed the info on the left side of the page, stopping on a piece of info that made him sit up straight.

'Born May 14th - Age 32."

"Age 32?" Otis said to himself a little bit too loudly. Quickly going back to the article he had been reading before, Otis made the obvious observation that Nathan Deron was not well.

"I wonder who will succeed hi-" Before Otis could ask himself this, there was a knock on his door. Otis closed tor and shut his computer, before yelling "Come in!" A few moments later, the door swung open and E walked in.

"Have you settled in?" He asked, eyeing Otis's laptop suspiciously.

"Um, yeah, just, uh, playing minesweeper," Otis said as nonchalantly as he could.

"Well the tech department picked up some tor activity on your computer, and it took some effort on my part for them not to send a squad down here to violate your non-existent human rights. You might want to refrain from doing things you wouldn't want others to know about."

Otis sat there, face red, and stunned. When he finally choked out a message, it was brief. "S-sorry."

E burst out laughing. "Wait, you were actually using tor? Jesus, you're an idiot, I was joking."

"You're such a dick, E!" Otis's red face turned from one of humiliation to one of anger. Otis was about to start yelling when E spoke.

"Alright, I deserve that. Anyway, it's almost midnight and I was told to make you go to sleep. They're going to be doing a sleep test on you tomorrow, so you need to be well rested." With this, E turned his back and shut the door again. Otis groaned and sat up. He walked to his bed and lay down, taking off the sandals he had been issued. It wasn't long before Otis had been claimed by sleep.

When he awoke, it was because of E's voice, resonating through the room.

"Rise and shine! It's a new day, with new opportunities, like getting changed into the clothes on the bottom of your bed!" Otis sat up and found that there was a pile of clothes on the end of his bed identical to the ones he was wearing.

After pulling them on, Otis stood and was about to sit at his desk when he remembered what E had told him.

"Hey room, get me E," Otis said, looking up at the ceiling. Almost immediately after he said this sentence, he heard a loud beep, followed by E's voice.

"Alright, I'll be down there in a second." Otis raised his eyebrows and grunted in surprise. A few seconds later, E came back.

"Hey, are you ready now?" E looked up and down Otis's body, before continuing to talk, before Otis could answer his question. "Good, come with me, you have a blood test in ten minutes."

"A blood test?" Otis asked, surprised.

"Yes Otis, a blood test, do you know what those are?" E replied dryly. "Now hurry up, we have to be there soon."

Five minutes later, E and Otis were standing in a small white room with a chair in one corner, and a set of drawers in the other. A doctor joined them in the room after about a minute. The doctor was tall and wore a white coat. She had long brown hair, which was tied behind her back, and she wore a wristwatch.

"Otis, please sit down." The doctor said sternly but with a sweet voice. Otis did as we told, sitting down on the chair in the corner and crossing his arms. The doctor walked to the drawer in the opposite corner of the room and produced a key from her pocket. After retrieving a small syringe from one of the drawers, she returned to Otis, and staring down at him, said, "Please present your arm."

"Will it hurt?" Otis asked, still wary of needles from when he was a child.

"No, it won't hurt a bit." The doctor said, grabbing Otis's arm, and thrusting the needle into the crease of his elbow. Otis squealed and had to calm himself quickly so as not to move around on the needle. A few moments later, the doctor withdrew the needle, the syringe now filled with blood.

"Was that so bad?" The doctor asked rhetorically, as she placed a plaster on Otis's arm. Otis turned and saw E standing next to Otis, pale-faced, and trembling.

"I hate blood." Said E softly, still staring in disgust at the syringe full of Otis's blood.

"Oh come on E, it's not that bad," said the doctor, walking over to E, and to Otis's surprise, kissed him.

"So, are you two a think, or..." Otis asked, staring at the two, who had their arms wrapped around each other's waists, facing each other, and smiling.

"Yeah, we are, brilliant observation Otis," E said, separating from the doctor and running his fingers through his hair. "This is Erin, we've been seeing each other for a few months now."

"And the company is alright with this?"

"Yeah, Delta Productions is pretty relaxed with this kind of thing. Perks of working for the biggest company on earth I guess."

"What exactly are you going to be using this blood for?" Otis asked Emily.

"Various things, making sure you don't have any major diseases you haven't told us about, figuring out your blood type, and things like that."

"I don't have any diseases." Otis assured her.

"I believe you, unfortunately my higher-ups don't, so here we are." Emily separated the tube of blood from the needle of the syringe it was attached to and placed it in a paper bag, before placing it in another drawer.

"E, are we done now?" Otis inquired.

"Yes, we are. And now, you get to meet the director."

"The director?"

"Simon Deron. Director of Integration, and the CEO's brother. Since Nathan Deron is so mysterious, Simon, or as we call him, the Director, is basically the top of the ladder. He answers only to the CEO and the board."

"And he wants to meet me?"

"Yeah, and now, so let's get going." E leaned over and whispered something to Erin, before opening the door and walking out into the hallway.

After another journey through the twisting hallways of the catacombs, E and Otis reached an elevator. E stopped and turned to Otis.

"Here it is."

"Here what is, this is an elevator E," Otis said, watching with amusement as E became obviously enraged.

"Yeah, yeah it is Otis, now you better apologise or I won't open it for you." E said, a smile creeping back onto his face as he regained the upper hand. But this advantage would not last long.

"Elevator, open," Otis said, staring at the metal sliding doors in front of him. After a few seconds, the doors slid apart, revealing the elevator inside.

"Fine, I accept defeat," E said, cutting his losses. "I can't accompany you in the elevator, but once you get up there, the Director's office will be, well, you'll be inside it." And with that, the doors slid shut again.

The elevator seemed to glide upwards, not making a single noise during its ascent. When the elevator came to a halt, the doors slid open automatically and revealed a lavish room, rugs that lined almost every inch of the deep mahogany wood that made up the floor. On the walls, a line of portraits identical to the ones in Otis's room were accompanied by what appeared to be, Otis stood still, shocked. "Is that... Is that Van Gogh?" Otis said, mostly to himself, but also unintentionally to the man standing beside him.

"That's correct. I see you are a fan of art?" Otis turned in surprise, and his eyes drifted to the man in front of him. He was blonde and had green eyes. One thing Otis noticed immediately was the intricate tattoo on his left cheek. The tattoo appeared to be a series of interlocking swirls, diamonds, and circles, that seemed to shimmer in the soft candlelight that illuminated the office.

"No sir," Otis stuttered, dropping his eyes as the director studied him. "I was taught about Van Gogh, during school."

"Huh, school." Said the director, clearly uninterested. "Otis, let's cut the bullshit. You want to know what the hell is going on. Do you not?"

"Oh, uh, yeah, I guess so." Otis stammered, surprised at the man's frankness.

"Good, then let's get to it." The man began to talk as he walked to the desk on the left side of the room. He took a seat, before motioning for Otis to join him at an extra chair set on the opposite side of the desk. "You, have been... Selected... to be the first tester of a new service that Delta Productions plans to release in the coming year. This service, as you may have heard, involves the long term, or in your and many other people’s cases, permanent integration into the world of Delta Online. Are you aware that Delta Online has been experiencing some downtime recently?"

"Sorry sir, I'm not exactly an avid gamer anymore, you see."

"Alright, I understand." The director rested his elbows on his desk and covered his mouth with his fists, studying Otis, before beginning to talk again. "Regardless, Delta Online has been experiencing a lot of downtime lately. This is because we have been slowly removing many of the existing engines, and replacing them with new ones."

"What engines?" Otis was quick to ask, intrigued to finally be given more information about the project he had given his human rights up for.

"Many of the finer statistics engines are being removed gradually. In their place, we are beginning to implement our new ultra-realism engine, which incorporates all of the experiences felt by real humans on a daily basis. These include thirst, hunger, pleasure, pain, stress-"

"Pain. You mean, when I get into the game, I'll be able to feel pain?"

"Not the game Otis, the world. The reason we are discarding so many of these statistics functions in favour of ones that add more realism is that we want this place, Delta Online, to become so much more than a game. Here at Delta Productions, we truly believe that our new project, combined with Delta Online, can become, in every sense of the word, a new universe."

"What about death sir. If I die in the game, am I gone forever?"

"I thought you might ask that. The answer is, complicated. Originally, when we began the development of the long term functionality of the game, we allowed infinite revives for all players. However, that all changed when we activated the world's evolution engine."

"Evolution engine?"

"It's the system that allows for the world to manipulate its own rules to adhere to the rules set in the game's core rulings. The four core rulings are what will sustain the world long after all the original developers are dead. Unfortunately, we cannot disclose these rules until you enter the game. Getting back to the evolution engine, when the world discovered the piece of code that allowed for revives, it found it to be in violation of the game's core rulings. So yes, If you die in the game, you are gone forever."

"But can't you just change the core rulings?" Otis asked, confused.

"The only one with the authority to do that is the CEO, and he is determined to adhere to the decisions made by the world."

"Sorry if I seem too forward, but what is happening to me. What are you going to do to me? To get me into the game that is."

"It's quite simple really. We put you in a life support pod as you enter the game. Once the world decides to accept you, your body will die."

"Alright." Otis said weakly. Despite the fact that he was still reeling from this new information, one question sprung to Otis's mind.

"Sir, I have a question," said Otis, steeling himself and looking directly into the director's eyes. "On my door, there's a plaque. it reads 'The instigator'. I was wondering what this means?"

"Leon, please escort Otis here back to his room." Otis turned and saw a burly man striding towards him. Taking Otis's arm, he led him once again through the twisting hallways of the catacombs. When they reached Otis's room, the man opened the door and pushed Otis in so hard he stumbled, catching himself on his desk. Once he had recovered, Otis turned and saw that the man had paused in the opening of Otis's room.

"I'm sorry kid."

Then the gas began to seep into the room.