"Yeah, I’m Van," he said as he leaned up against the desk and looked over at the journal that Cindy had been writing in. It turned out that she had been sketching a picture of a cat biting down on a bunch of flowers.
"Well, it's nice to meet you. Honestly, it's nice to meet anyone who isn't some kind of emotionless freak," Cindy said as she went back to doodling.
"What's the deal with that?" Van asked. "Everyone here's so lifeless. I had one girl tell me that she was gonna be my wife and there wasn't a hint of emotion in her voice."
"It's those tubes," Cindy replied. "You get stuffed into those things and you come out a little less than you. They run a simulation that's designed to teach you how to be like them, I guess. Reduces your ability to emote, express desires or whatever. It's interesting stuff."
"Why are you so different?" Van asked.
Cindy shrugged. "I'm a PR gal. We're tasked with helping new recruits figure stuff out and also with handling any non-Draco members who end up in this facility. We get the occasional reporter or snoop in here. I'm in charge of smoothing things over so Draco doesn't have to kill them. Dead bodies usually lead to larger investigations."
"Oh," Van said. "So you're pretty sold-out for Draco, aren't you?"
"Apparently," she said with a sigh as she worked on her drawing. "Five years ago, it was a big deal to me, but now I'm getting impatient. We all just found out the entire plan has been changed. The collective has decided that humanity will not get their comeuppance. So now what? You know what I mean? I've been waiting for a long time and the rules completely change on me. It's stupid."
"Right…" Van said. He had no idea how to communicate with a woman who was dead-set on the utter destruction of mankind. She seemed nice, but really, how nice could someone who wanted mankind dead be? "So, what am I supposed to be doing here?"
"I guess I'll give you the tour," she said as she stood from her desk and walked over to a large steel door on the righthand side of the room. "This is the entryway to the compound. You're allowed to leave and wander around the desert for 1 hour every 14 days. This is because Draco recognizes that some humans claim they need natural sunlight, and so they have allowed for one hour per two weeks, if you so choose.”
"Okay," Van said.
"So once you're done running around or whatever, you come back in here and you press your hand against the door. It will read your DNA and recognize you. Only Draco members are allowed in here – if it doesn't recognize your DNA, it will burn your fingers."
"Good to know," Van said as he watched Cindy place her hand against the door. It made a chittering noise and slid open, allowing them to enter.
Cindy led him down the hallway and into a large room that was full of haptic pods. There were hundreds of them. Van whistled as he walked up to one of the pods. This one was far more complex than any he had ever seen before. They were slick silver pods with no visible buttons on the outside. He couldn't even see the seam where the pod sealed itself shut.
Cindy waved a hand over the pod and it beeped at her loudly. Displays appeared on the pod itself, as if the pod were a screen made for viewing the vitals and statistics of the person on the inside. Van glanced at one of the vitals and gasped.
"It's saying the current session is 7 weeks long. Has this player been in there that long?"
Cindy nodded. "Indeed. You've been using consumer pods, so you're used to having to leave in order to get food and water every few days. These things are entirely self-contained. A Draco Vitals Sustenance Pod is designed to allow unlimited time inside of the pods. You will be living there. Of course, we only give these to the very best players, the ones who are at the top of the hierarchy. You are very important, and thus you qualify for one."
"Yeah, I'm very important," Van joked back to her. She didn't seem amused by his words.
"Let me be honest with you, Van," Cindy said. "I know why you're here. You're here because Draco decided to change the rules on us. It's a little out of character, I must admit. For the longest time, we’ve had one singular goal, and with less than an hour from the event… everything changes."
"Life's crazy that way," Van replied. He could see there was real tension in Cindy's voice. Her dissatisfaction did make some level of sense, too – after all, Draco had promised that they would be kings and rulers. Now she was stuck doing the same thing until further notice. This was a real crack in the Emperor's armor here, Van realized. Cindy couldn't be the only one feeling this frustrated, right? But then again, the brainwashing that took place might strip away the individuality from all of the players, meaning that they wouldn't much care what Draco decided.
"Anyway, so here's where you're going to be living for the rest of your life," Cindy said. "You can leave your pod every 14 days or so, if you choose. Most of the players here don't want to leave, so you aren't required to. There's a mess hall in the room to the left, but why bother? Nothing you eat here is anything close to what you can eat in the game."
"Good point," Van said. "So, let me ask… who's in charge of security here? Who makes sure that everyone's doing what they're supposed to?"
"Oh, yeah," Cindy said as she waved him after her. "Follow me." She led Van to another room, this one with a gigantic screen and a computer console which a young man was sitting at. The man was asleep, his head nestled atop the large computer instrument. He was snoring loudly.
"This thing over here," Cindy said as she waved to the blank screen, "is how Draco communicates to us. They send instructions here and this operator then gives the information to the team in charge of handling it. The security team takes their orders directly from this machine."
"Fascinating," Van said. There was a bright flash on the screen and words and numbers began to appear. Van couldn't understand the language, but the operator quickly woke up and began to type back.
"Right now, we're getting a scout order," Cindy said. "Draco wants the security team to check the perimeter for any evidence of CIA surveillance."
The man grabbed a phone hanging off the side of the computer and began to speak orders into it.
"This is how Draco tells us everything," Cindy continued. "We get all of our orders here. You gotta realize, Van, the mere presence of you being in this facility means that Draco trusts you enough to know you won't try anything funny. Besides, what can you do here? It's just a bunch of players. No one's going to be riding you, and you're free to leave whenever you want. The problem is that no one here will ever want to leave."
"So am I allowed to go into town?"
Cindy shook her head. "Well, technically you can, but we're in the middle of a desert and you have no map or phone. You won't survive out there. Draco isn't interested in enabling people to leave. Everything that you need is here."
"Great, great," Van said. He was honestly surprised at how lax security in the compound was. It appeared that Draco had built their strategy around only putting the most fanatical and strongest converts into their organization. This would ensure that they wouldn't have to babysit their people. However, this also meant that Van would have a little more freedom than he'd anticipated. All he had to do was get out of his pod and try to figure out how to plug the USB drive that Sang had given him into the pod. The drive, which Van had painfully and carefully hidden from Draco, was designed to steal all of the information hidden inside of the pod. Van wasn't sure how it worked, but Sang had been adamant that it would work. All he'd need to do was make sure the security team wasn't watching him, and he'd be golden.
"Well, there's your tour of the facility. You have a room somewhere here, but you won't use it. No one comes out of these things," Cindy said. "There's no reason to. When sleep time activates, you're transferred from the game to a private simulation of your choosing. That simulation is where you will be able to rest and sleep. When you get in the pod, it'll ask for your preferences."