Keys were attached to each copy of the game sent out. The games were online only, meaning it was easy enough. Just saying it was for copies of games and that was all.
How farther could that be from the truth.
Alyssa was fired after her firewalls, and their little 'mascots' were seen coming to life. She had tried hiding them from the company and tried hiding what a deal they had on their hands.
She had tried to be nice, really. Alyssa was such an old friend. Her old friend could keep her job, but she surrendered the firewalls and their mascots to the company.
Alyssa said no, and so she was fired. Placed under an indefinite NDA. Left destiute.
And she never spoke to Alyssa again. It wasn't too sad to see her go, even if she left her old friend with nothing.
The director was willing to do whatever it took to have her company succeed. She did not spend her teen years making a game so incredibly popular just to have no rogue employee try and wash it all away.
When she then acquired the firewalls, she gave them names. Chroma, Blaze, Comedy, and Tragedy. Such wonderful things they were, and far too easy to manipulate.
Some words, some threats, and they were following her orders.
It was one day when three keys caught her eye when she was reading a report. They were.. altered. All of them start with the letter A, with there being a J, N, and T to each respectively. Though the A-J one seemed.. corrupted, almost.
She looked into it, and surprise, surprise, it was a YouTuber that was on her radar for a while. SMG4 was his name, and she could tell almost immediately.
Those creations were alive. They weren't just models.
Some more poking, and she noticed him in line for pre-order to part two of their latest game, Winding Rest.
But something clicked for the director. Why shouldn't she have these little versions of her games? They were her protagonists, her world, her everything. She deserved to have them.
So she'd sent those four on a hunt. She didn't care how long it would take.
But she'd let SMG4 have some more fun with her creations. After all, it was far too amusing.
There's a soft knock on her door. A black haired, green eyed woman turns her head from the window she was looking out. She was dressed nicely, wearing a white blouse, grey work pants, white socks and black dress shoes.
An intern pops her head in. "Uhm.. it was found out why the A-J key was corrupted. Apparently, something happened to the game, and now it's pretty hard to access the world. But it's hard to tell if that's actually what happened.. since we only have that code.."
The director hums. "Keep looking then."
The intern nods and backs out, closing the door behind her.
Director Jayin leans back in her chair before she smiles. She glances at her computer, where on the screen, a box showing four folders were present.
"It's no wonder you four are also alive.. Alyssa did work on you all.." Jayin clicks her tongue. "Shame I had to let her go."
With that, she closes the window and resumes work, responding to critical emails. Another intern had poked her head somewhere she shouldn't have, and now Jayin had to 'warn' her in.. special ways.
It was mostly just to make sure the government didn't come down on her ass. Jayin did not need that. Thank you very much.
Director Jayin allows herself to smile a bit, however. She knew she couldn't have each copy of the games have protagonists as real as the ones SMG4 had. But who was to say that she couldn't take back what was her's Alyssa's, and simply.. improve?
That's all it was. She'd do whatever it took to have her company on top.
