## 2018:05:19:08:20 - Real Life: Coffee Shop, Saratov, Russia

"The report you requested." Dasomov handed over a slick folder to a young executive.

"I knew I could rely on you. The steadiest man in the business," said the executive with a smile. "Though it looks like today you have some dark rings under your eyes. I'm sure our clients would like to hear you're working night and day on their stuff, but don't stress yourself too much."

Dasomov squinted, put his hands up to his face, and rubbed his eye lids with his finger tips. "Anything to get the job done, right."

"Excellent. Well if it's too much trouble, I'll hold off on putting the next job in front of you until tomorrow after you've gotten some shut eye."

"Thanks."

The executive got up to leave.

"Hang on a second," Dasomov called out.

"Yeah?"

"Have a seat for a quick sec. I had a question for you."

The executive sat down with a slightly puzzled but cheery look on his face. Something good perhaps? Or a salary raise request? He would be delighted to approve of one. Dasomov wasn't someone he ever wanted to lose.

"You wouldn't have happened to have shared my name with anyone... recently?"

The executive's smile turned into befuddlement and back to a smile. "Recently? How recent are we talking? We usually don't advertise for you, no offense."

"Within the past two weeks."

"Definitely not. You want me to drop your name to someone? Not that - pardon my selfishness - I'd ever want someone to steal you."

"Yeah, that's what I figured. Just that, recently I had an unusual visitor asking for a special job," said Dasomov, emphasizing the word "special".

The executive shook as head softly, indicating he didn't understand and was waiting for more info. "Special? Like, in what way?"

Dasomov rolled his eyes halfway. Surely this executive could not have been in the business for a year and not seen black money. Or maybe he just wasn't catching the very subtle euphemism.

"The kind of job that would get certain people into serious trouble in their life and career."

The executive nodded. "Ah," he said in recognition. "No, we're not interested in losing you. I'd happily toss those side jobs to people looking for them. There's plenty of legitimate business these days for us not to concern ourselves with stuff for bottom feeders."

"Thanks. My thoughts exactly."

"But in regards to this individual..." began the executive. "We'll perhaps I shouldn't ask." The executive got up to leave. "Have a good rest of your day." He pointed at Dasomov, "And get some sleep. Bright and early tomorrow, this city will be rocking, and there will be plenty to do."

Dasomov nodded, and the executive walked away.

## 2018:05:19:19:13 - Real Life: Pavel's Room

Boogieing to something off the KAGE - Pavel and his roomie's favorite illegal internet radio channel - Pavel punched away at his keyboard hoping inspiration would flow from his fingertips automagically. Suitable music always put Pavel in a creative mood, conjuring up in his mind visions of grand mythical beasts with sharp edged blood red scales and husky axemen wearing glimmering breastplates with ancient runes engraved on their rims proclaiming spells of protection. From the beams of light gracefully flowing through treetops there would come fairies of various shapes and sizes, clothed in heavenly or elven garb decorated with golden spirals, wool scarves, and snake skin tassels.

Alas, nothing he envisioned quite aligned itself with the theme and components of The World, and consequently, he often resorted to random imagery yanked from the recesses of his mind or meaningless queries to his most utilized internet search engine. The results were a disgusting hodge-podge that the other members had always found detestable, but Pavel believed their complaints were only due to the originality of his ideas. Gamers never seemed to like anything that differed even slightly from the "official version", and they would raise a ruckus at anything that hinted at deviation.

The stage was set for conflict. Pavel's tongue protruded out of the left side of his mouth as he concentrated on his action scene worthy of anathema.

"Perfect!" he grinned. "Now to share it and receive my due praise."

He loaded up the chat window. The chat room was relatively calm this evening with the exception of a few komrads discussing trivial interests unrelated to the game.

Xil-Sta: "What's up everybody! I just wrote awesomeness!"

Kellei: "I'd hardly call a greeting awesomeness, unless, perhaps, it were awesome."

Brofin: "Any good greeting could be considered awesome."

Xil-Sta: "I'm not talking about the greeting, but yes, my greetings are awesome."

Kellei: "My greetings are awesome too. WHAZZUPGANG?! Hoozahunkabro!"

Brofin: "Hehe, agreed. I liked the one you gave me the day before yesterday."

Kellei: "The one: Me lads of yonder seas, harr be sailin'."

Jyos: "You've become quite a character, Kellei."

Kellei: "Thanks!"

Xil-Sta: "Jyos, you're on! Good. I have stuff to talk to you about."

Brofin: "Agreed."

Jyos: "What on?"

Kellei: "Whatcha been up to Xil-Sta?"

Brofin: "With Jyos, I mean."

Xil-Sta: "I haven't been working with Jyos."

Kellei: "Duh."

Jyos: "?"

Brofin: "See above."

Xil-Sta: "Oops. Wrong poster."

Jyos: "What do you want to chat about?"

Kellei: "My question first."

Brofin: "Both."

Xil-Sta: "Both."

Xil-Sta: "I said it first. *sigh* Lag."

Kellei: "Is this important?"

Xil-Sta: "Anyways. I have some awesomeness for everyone."

Kellei: "Woohoo!"

There was a pause.

Xil-Sta: "I've written a new part of the story!"

Jyos: "I figured."

Xil-Sta: "Jyos, I'd like you to read it."

Kellei: "No more figure skaters."

Jyos: "K."

Xil-Sta: "Zontna has to have someone!"

Brofin: "Are you still doing that? Honestly!"

Jyos: "Can it."

Xil-Sta: "It's gone already, geez."

Xil-Sta: "Deleted it a long time ago."

Kellei: "Behold, the final phase of the cursed wave: Russian figure skaters!"

Brofin: "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

Jyos: "LOLOLOLO XD"

A resounding silent laughter made its way across Pavel's computer screen. Who could resist smiling at such a clever joke? After having a good chuckle aloud - and explaining to his roommate the cause of his suddenly jovial attitude - Pavel paused for a moment and reflected on the significance of the statement. It was the first truly inside joke told among the hackers. There had been funny lines before but nothing so uncommon that ordinary Russians wouldn't understand. Here was a truly unique joke that only these hackers would understand. In a way, it symbolized a stage in the unifying of the ragtag coalition.

Just then, the party was broken up by the bosses of the repository who hadn't checked in on time to witness the fun.

Fusota-ri: "Hello, everyone! Attention!"

Kellei: "Hey!"

Xil-Sta: "Yo!"

Brofin: "Listening."

Fusota-ri: "I have been doing some serious code digging and made some interesting discoveries which you all should know about."

Jyos: "Lay it on us."

Fusota-ri: "But first, Kreigbrot has something to tell us."

Kreigbrot: "Thank you."

Kellei: "You're... welcome?"

Kreigbrot: "Fusota-ri. You had correct my username."

Fusota-ri: "Ah, good. I practiced spelling it, so..."

Kreigbrot: "Ok, so... the Harold Hoerwick code was complex but it was many wrappers. Mostly not code his own. Except some places."

A wrapper was code that merely acted as a front end for other code to make it compatible with code of different interfaces. In essence, what Kreigbrot's statement suggested was that the code for The World was built on top of many other software projects, projects that may - the hackers hoped - be documented somewhere.

Kellei: "If it's not original code, then maybe there's documentation, I wonder?"

Fusota-ri: "Could be. I don't know."

Jyos: "Zontna already told us about Russian code in the core files."

Fusota-ri: "He did. But we didn't realize the breadth of usage of third party software throughout the project."

Kellei: "So basically, Hoerwick's a thief."

Xil-Sta: "Must have some Russian blood."

Jyos: "Oh shutup."

Xil-Sta: "Hey, that's what the Americans would say."

Jyos: "We're not American! There's no American representation here."

Fusota-ri: "Reminds me, Zontna wasn't going to be online tonight."

Jyos: "Why does that remind you?"

Kellei: "Why?"

Kellei: "Dang lag. I spoke first. *wink*"

Fusota-ri: "Said he was tired from looking at pictures of California."

Everyone began to talking at once. The chatroom quickly became a gossip festival with some members joking while others tauting the end of Russian independence and other such nonsense.

Fusota-ri: "EVERYONE STOP TALKING."

Fusota-ri had to repeatedly post pleas for silence before anyone noticed his cries and the storm finally subsided.

Fusota-ri: "There is more. Let me speak."

Fusota-ri: "The code Kreigbrot and I explored wrapped systems concerning artificial intelligence but also integration into The World. We know that everything in The World is connected. You could infuse a grunty with immense knowledge about The World or just connect it to what I call The World Stream: the information flow system comprised of PNAK-6731 and PNAK-6734, among other things. But the really difficult part was figuring out how it worked and how to hack into it. That's more than we could do in three days, obviously. But that may not be necessary."

Kellei: "Necessary? For what? Aren't we trying to hack the game."

Fusota-ri: "Yes. Hold on and let me explain."

Fusota-ri: "There are various 'hints' - I'll call them - that there exists some unification of control over the system itself within the game."

Jyos: "Within? Why would Hoerwick do that?"

That's really stupid, Pavel thought. Every good computer scientist knew that your system was much more easily hackable when you made the keys accessible from inside the system. Pavel chuckled and shook his head. That's it! he thought. I'll make Hoerwick look like a mad genius who really is mad, as in, insane! That'll be authentic game story!

Jyos: "What are these 'hints'?"

Fusota-ri: "It's complicated. Basically, the code introduces control vulnerabilities into entities but in such a way that it isn't possible to hack it so much from the outside as from the inside."

There was a pause. Everyone was really confused.

Fusota-ri: "It's hard to explain. But to put it simply, you're game character could be 'hacked' or controlled by external forces having nothing to do with your game controls or game physics."

Instantly, everyone in the audience thought of one thing: Mobashem.

Pavel leaned back in his chair. He nodded with a soft grin and thought of how fantastic such a scary monster would make a game, but then little by little, goosebumps rose and dotted the fleshy landscape of his back as the reality hit him. Mikmik. It had been over a month since the incident. What had happened to him? What would happen to them? If what Fusota-ri was suggesting was true, then administrative power could be easily obtained by simply playing the game itself, but at the same time, it was like running a gauntlet. With Mobashem on the loose, it could easily turn into a game of cat and mouse, resulting in the hackers all being captured like Mikmik. It would be safer to hack from the outside, but as Pavel considered this, Fusota-ri was ruling this option out.

The chatroom was filled with various questions and suggestions for cracking. It had become a game of verbal pong: a dozen hackers against two, primarily Fusota-ri since Kreigbrot couldn't comprehend the volley at the current rate. Outnumbered, Fusota-ri was still winning but not for the best. Again and again, he kept saying that cracking from the outside did not appear feasible without several months of study. By then, interest in the game would die, and possibly along with it, the user behind Mikmik.

What choice did they have? What would Doslad say? Just when things were looking better, a storm was brewing on the horizon.