Virtually Irresistible - [Hackers Win!]

[Galactic Druid]

The last 5 years were about to come to fruition.All those long hours, all those sleepless nights were finally going to pay off. (Player number) Pods were lined up in the alpha testing room, all ready for players to ‘plug’ themselves in. They had chosen (let’s do a poll for what the VR world should be) for their test. They had already secured investors from the DrallTech Entertainment corporation. Assuming everything worked correctly, payday was just around the corner.

All that was left was for the engineers to decide who would be in charge of Protocol, and log in to their game.

Remember to include ThatRPGuy and Saffron in all game related conversations!



Players
Aadreal
Beguile's Mistress
Breathless Intent
Gavlois
James Moriarty
KingBear
Kyrsa
Kythia
Kokaine
Luna
Mcsc
Mr Bigglesworth
Niferbelle
Peripherie
persephone325
Remiel
Ryven
Sarena
Sasha
Sex Bobomb
Starlequin
SunshineSparkle
That Girl Analise
The Last Standing
Trieste
Valerian
yugi006

Roles
Engineers x2-4
IP Tracer
Firewall
White Hat
System Restore
Nostalgic
NPC
AI
Hackers x0-2
Neuro-System Specialist
Worm
The Girl

Rundown
RL 1 - Trieste is elected Protocol.
VR 1 - Mr Bigglesworth, an engineer, is disabled in his pod.
RL 2 - The Last Standing, an engineer, is fired from the project.
VR 2 - Nothing.
RL 3 - Yugi006, an engineer, is fired from the project.
VR 3 - That Girl Analise, the System Restore, is disabled in her pod.
RL 4 - Niferbelle, the Worm, is fired from the project.
VR 4 - Remiel, the Firewall, is disabled in his pod.
RL 5 - persephone325, an engineer, is fired from the project.
VR 5 - Sarena, the IP Tracer, is disabled in her pod.
RL 6 - KingBear, an engineer, is taken out by Sasha, the White Hat.
Kythia, an eningeer, is fired from the project.
VR 6 - Gavlois, an engineer, is disabled in his pod.
RL 7 - MCsc, an engineer, is fired from the project.
VR 7 - Peripherie, an engineer, is disabled in her pod.
RL 8 - Aadreal, a hacker, is fired from the project.
Kokaine, an engineer, is removed for inactivity.
VR 8 - Sasha, the White Hat, is disabled in her pod.
RL 9 - Luna, an engineer, is fired from the project.
VR 9 - Ryven, an engineer, is disabled in his pod.
RL 10 - Starlequin, the Neuro-System Specialist, is fired from the project and infects an Engineer to win the game.

[Autumn Sativus]

One last reminder before we get started here, editing your posts, for any reason (even typos!), is against the game rules.

We can all figure out what your typo means, and if we can't you can post a correction after the post. No post should ever be edited in these games, for any reason.

Thanks!

Now, vote for your Protocol!! ;D

[Trieste]

KingBear.

[Aadreal]

Peripherie (aka the Blushing Beauty *grins*)

[Kythia]

Kythia looked up from her WoW raid for long enough to say "Well, I don't know any of you that well.  But Aadreal is head of the approved network users lists and I figure that's as good a reason as any and perhaps better than some."

[Gavlois]

Trieste.

[yugi006]

James Moriarty would be a good choice. Seems like he would be perfect for the job.

[Autumn Sativus]

Remember to bold your votes in future, people. ;)

[Ryven]

Her Imperial Lubemajesty, Trieste

[persephone325]

Valerian

[Missy]

MC finishes yet another match of Starcraft II looking up and around through the cybernetic eyes he built himself. "I don't know about the rest of you, but Triest always seemed like the wicked sort to me"

[Galactic Druid]

Lovely posting, Kythia! You too McSc! I'm so excited to see everyone getting into it!

[Autumn Sativus]

Votes
Trieste - 4
Aadreal - 2
James - 2
KingBear - 1
Peripherie - 1
Remiel - 1
Sasha - 1
Val - 1

Yet to Vote
Beguile's Mistress, Breathless Intent, James Moriarty, KingBear, Kyrsa, Luna, Mr Bigglesworth, Peripherie, Remiel, Sarena, Sasha, SunshineSparkle, That Girl Analise, The Last Standing

[Sex Bobomb]

He looks around, eyes narrowed as he examines his options... "Mmm, I think I'm gonna get in Aadreal's ring."

[Valerian]

Val looked up from her terminal, adjusting her glasses as she glanced around.  "How about Remiel?  I'm sure he can keep things moving along smoothly."  Turning back to her work, she immediately forgot all about the voting, double-checking everything for at least the twelfth time.

[Niferbelle]

Niferbelle stared at the lines of code on her screen as if they would change if she wished hard enough and nibbled on a spicy pepperoni sub Hot Pocket, only slowly becoming aware that Protocol was being discussed.

"Hmmm?" she grunted softly, looking up and straightening her glasses, speaking the name of the first one her blue eyes fell upon. "Oh, put me down for him...what's his name, James."

With that she went back to snack and frowning at her screen.

[Starlequin]

The soft, constant glow of the monitor bank blanketed the dark office with a flickering carpet of light. Soda cans and empty PizzaPocket wrappers littered the tables, the debris of desperate nights spent in coding frenzy deposited amidst program manuals, altspec memos and reams of documentation. The dingy carpet fared no better, the few patches viewable through the stacks of texts and Chinese takeout cartons showing the first signs of prolific (and one day, possibly sentient) mold growth. At the desk, slumped over a coffee stained keyboard with a drained Mountain Dew bottle for a pillow, sat Starlequin. A long string of drool trailed from his jaw to a puddle that threatened to spill into is lap, and he mumbled softly in between each reedy snore.

"Zzz...stock options...zzz...IPO...snrkt!...Asian girlfriend..."

*BEEP-BI-DEEP!*

"Aghh!"

*CRASH!*

"...ow..."

Star shuffled aside a portion of the clutter on the floor and pushed himself up to his knees, straightened his narrow lenses and grimaced at the blaring alarm which had startled him out if his chair and back into reality. He tapped out a quick shortcut on one of the keyboards and silenced the racket. A glance at the clock, however, told I'm he had no time to enjoy the returning silence.

"Oh shit, the meeting! WhatamI, whatamI, gonna...ah-ha!"

Star dug a mostly clean black t-shirt with a striped tie graphic on the chest out of a desk cabinet and quickly changed, ran his fingers through greasy hair and wiped away the spittle on his chin and raced out the door. His hiking boots slapped the hallway floor in time wirh his beating heart, and he reached the conference room panting for breath, but at least not embarassingly late. In fact, he was just in time to cast his vote for the new Protocol.

"I *pant* think that *wheeze!* Sasha should *cough* take the job," he sputtered, his hands firmly on his knees as he gasped for air, flashbacks of grade school P.E. nightmares momentarily flooding his brain. But soon, they would all be obscenely, absurdly rich, and Starlequin would never have to run anywhere again. He'd be able to outsource that kind of shit.

[Kokaine]

Something urges Koka to tear her eyes away from the silly yet distracting (and addicting) word game on her screen. Blinking slowly it becomes apparent that something is being discussed so she reaches up to pull on ear bud from her ear, turning down the volume of her music as well for just long enough to determine the topic of conversation. Immediately she realizes her input is required and she takes a second to glance about knowing full well she knows little to nothing about most in the group.

Dropping her eyes back to her screen in an attempt to salvage the round that is rapidly getting out of hand she replaces her ear bud and simply shrugs, throwing out a name, "Trieste."

[James Moriarty]

Even though he is in the room with the others, he is not in the room with the others.  His eyes stare off into a faraway place and his lips move quietly without making any sound.  His hair is black and his skin is pale.  His jacket is black and one silver ring adorns each finger of both hands.  The discussion around him is far away and only when he is touched on the shoulder do his eyes focus.  He looks down at his hands and then back up at the person who was walking by, following her form with casual interest.

He is the only person in the room who appears to have forgotten his computer.

Nodding distractedly, he mutters, "If it is to be anyone, I say it should be Trieste."  Opening his mouth as if to offer further commentary, he seems to take a cue from somewhere to stop talking, and abruptly does.

[Autumn Sativus]

Votes
Trieste - 6
Aadreal - 2
James - 2
Beguile's Mistress - 1
Gavlois - 1
KingBear - 1
Niferbelle - 1
Peripherie - 1
Remiel - 1
Sasha - 1
Val - 1

Yet to Vote
Beguile's Mistress, Breathless Intent, Kyrsa, Mr Bigglesworth, Sarena, Sasha, SunshineSparkle, That Girl Analise, The Last Standing

[Remiel]

"X.class.terminal, Subroutine iteration loop one through ten," Remiel murmured to himself, his fingers clacking away at the keyboard at breakneck speed.  He kept one eye on the clock; the deadline was looming in his very near future, and he still had seven header files still to write.  He reached over, grabbing a can of Red Bull, popped it open, and chugged its entire contents in one go.  He burped, and started typing again.  "X.class.haven, subroutine iteration sixteen through eighteen," he muttered.

When he was prompted to weigh in on the protocol assignment, he sighed, irritated.  "Niferbelle. Sure, why not?"  Then he turned the volume on his headset down to zero so he couldn't be bugged with such trivialities again.

[KingBear]

The talk of the protocol sparks up and Bear slowly stands and moves around the room. He glances over shoulders, checking to see how the programming is going, and just trying to be nosy in general. "Trieste, I do appreciate the vote for Protocol and if I could decline, I would. However, I cant think of anyone better for the position than yourself." He smiles and gives her a nod.

"I vote Trieste for Protocol." Bear quickly grabs a can of Monster from his spot in the room and pops it open, taking a long drink from it, entirely satisfied by the disgusting yet awesome flavor.

[Teo Torriatte]

Luna had been up for the last three nights straight with no sleep, but she didn't care. This was the day! So many hours of toil, a labor of love, really, and just as many hours of lost sleep would come down to this test! Everything just HAD to work. Downing yet another energy drink, the soft glow of the screen illuminated her pale skin, her crystal blue eyes alight with excitement. She could feel it, she knew the others could, as well, all they needed to settle on, now, was who would be in charge of Protocol.

She bit her lip, she supposed at this point it was just a matter of picking someone so they could get really get things started. Beguile's Mistress would do just as well as anyone else, she figured, before bringing up a few sub routines to inspect her code one last time, making sure everything was perfect for the launch.

[Peripherie]

She read the missive carefully and then (making sure to talk loud enough so others could hear her around the DrallTech bull pen), she mused. "Vote for who is going to be in charge of Protocol? Oh.. I'm sure anyone would do a great job." But deep down, Peripherie knew that wasn't true. This was such an important project with so many technological advancements set to be put to the test. And so much of her own personal interests at stake as well. It should be her! Truely, no one was more committed to seeing this (her) plan through. The rest of her co-workers tried their best but who were they fooling? Certainly not her and she felt - knew - that her time to show her true brilliance was close at hand.

Drumming her fingertips on her neat and overly organized (and obsessed about) terminal, she carefully crafted and fired off the email that would hopefully do herself the most good (beyond voting for the most capable - herself!). "Truly I know that the best person for the job will be chosen. But in my humble little opinion, I believe that Gavlois has shown the intelligence, wherewithal, and moral fortitude to hold such a position."

She went back to diligently double-checking all the manuals and procedures that would be soon set into motion. A grin graced her lips as she came upon the miniscule but (to her mind) very important edits she had herself made. Really, what would they do without her?

[Breathless Intent]

Rapid-fire keyboard strokes and the low whirr of fans combined to create a steady hum of efficiency in the conference room. Most people seemed to have dragged their computers along with them for the mandatory meeting and Bre was no different. Surrounded by colleagues whose work had inspired and challenged her over the last couple of years, she could barely contain her excitement at finally getting to the testing phase. Leaning back in a black office chair, she let out a burst of a sigh after kicking off a test. Reaching up, she tugged her dark hair free of the messy knot she had kept in place with a chopstick and worked her fingers through it just enough to get some of the tangles smoothed before winding the knot back up and jamming the chopstick through it. Clasping a hot mug of tea in her hands, she decided to take a breather and hit up a few webcomics while she waited for the test to complete.

About thirty minutes later, the voting began and she had to cut off a laugh that had already managed to bubble half way free. Not having put much thought into who should be Protocol, she made the decision to just go with the majority to avoid revealing her lack of thoughtful consideration. She was just about ready to cast her vote for Trieste when Starlequin ran into the room. Her eyes widened at the sight of him huffing and puffing, obviously having scrambled to get to the meeting in time for the vote. If he ran all the way here just to vote for Sasha, he must have a lot of faith in her. Not having much of an opinion on her own, she was swayed by his passion and called out her own vote, "I vote for Sasha too." She flashed smiles to both Sasha and Starlequin before dropping her eyes back down to the screen of her laptop. Now, what were the results of that test...