Viren had his hair neatly parted on the left, and wore a formal shirt, for the first time since his graduation ceremony. He still had his shorts on, as the camera did not capture him from the waist down. He sat for the interview on his living room sofa, as his own bedroom had a considerable number of posters on the wall which would not be considered appropriate as an interview background by some organisations: Viren didn’t want to take any chances.

“Good evening, Mr. Malakar,” said Fyodor Drozdov, inevitably mispronouncing Viren’s last name. “Is it all right if we call you, Viren?”

Thank you! “Of course.” Viren responded, as he examined the four camera tabs open in front of him.

“I’ll begin by introducing myself and my colleagues. I’m Fyodor Drozdov, co-creator and Head of Operations for The Anachron.”

Viren had heard of this man from several interviews and documentaries going all the way back to 2035. He was one of the first few employees to have been hired by Dumah Interactive, and some proclaimed him to be the reason why the company still existed in the present day.

“With me today is Sonal, our Chief Coordinator for Operations in India.” The dark haired lady tagged as ‘Sonal R.’ gave a smile and a wave. “And Duke, from our Ethics and Safe Practices division.”

Viren hadn’t heard of these two people from the various bits of online content about the company. However, he was aware that Dumah Interactive was very discreet when it came to matters about the internal workings of the company. Viren recalled from several newspaper articles that the Ethics and Safe Practices division often gave statements reassuring the public that the system (The Anachron) was never compromised, unlike the individuals testing them, who were responsible for mistakes made.

Now that I think about it, why is Drozdov here? Isn’t he a little too high up on the ladder to be bothered with interviews like these?

“Let’s begin.” Drozdov continued.

But what about the fourth person? Viren looked at the camera tab that was marked, simply, ‘Frederick’. He nearly called attention to it, but no one seemed to take notice, so Viren assumed it was a secretary bot – they would usually make minutes of the meeting, compile a full record and automatically set calendar schedules if and when needed.

“Our analysis of your record confirmed that you are an acceptable candidate for our beta tester programme,” Drozdov said, looking to the side of his camera, probably analysing any red flags that may have been brought up during the checks. “We are aware of your current situation, but rest assured, we have had other testers with a status similar to yours. Your level of access will be equivalent to that of your peers. We want you to be able to progress in The Anachron with full flexibility.”

Wait, so I’m already in? Did I get the job?

“If I may, Mr. Drozdov,” Sonal began.

“Of course.” Drozdov sat back in his comfortable-looking black leather-upholstered executive chair.

“Hi Viren,” said Sonal, “Before we go ahead, I would like to confirm, in the presence of Duke from Ethics, that you understand the risks of being a beta tester?”

Paranoia. Insomnia. Questioning my sanity. I don’t even know where I stand on getting this job. If I reveal that I barely know anything about the escapism industry in general, they may withdraw my application.

“No, I actually do not,” Viren admitted.

Sonal gave a sigh of relief. “Thank you for being honest with us. You wouldn’t believe how many candidates have said yes, just because they wanted to work with our organisation.”

I can’t really blame them.

“Duke, over to you.” Sonal declared.

“Right, Viren. I’ll be going over the three principles for The Anachron.” Duke spoke with such a strong Australian accent that Viren could barely make out the words. Surprisingly, Duke seemed super enthusiastic about going over this routine. Is it possible that he hadn’t said this to the many other candidates?

“Fifteen years ago when The Anachron project began, it did so with three core aspects in mind for the inhabitants of its world. Purpose, choice and death. These fundamentals are not inherently programmed into the Artificial Intelligence (AI), but instead serve as a basis as to how we evaluate their learning and evolution.”

“Purpose refers to the objective. What to live for, what to strive for and what must be achieved. Choice is the ability and the preference to achieve the said objective. The level of obstacles on the road towards the Purpose, can always be overcome due to freedom of Choice. The ability to do so depends on the strength and conviction of the Purpose. Finally, we have Death. Simply put, this is basically a finality; a ‘Game Over’ if you prefer. When there is no sense of time towards achieving something the AI could become complacent, convictions could mellow and consequences would become irrelevant.”

“Sorry, may I interrupt.” Viren asked.

“Please.” Duke responded.

“We are still talking about AI, right? Like the NPCs of a game? From what I’ve heard the NPCs (non-Player Characters) of The Anachron basically have perma-death and your choices in a play-through will affect the functions of the NPCs on a global scale.”

“Well, that is a very rudimentary way of looking at it.” Duke said with a nervous tittering laugh. “Here in the escapism industry we aim to give our clients the most satisfying experiences for their inner desires.”

“To that end our AI, or Cold Friends as we prefer to call them, exist in a world that they have full control over. Just to be clear, The Anachron is NOT our space. We are merely observers who occasionally partake in the world and in other times ‘nudge’ them into a harmonious co-existence.”

“I see.” Viren confirmed with a nod, though he still had a number of questions.

“As a beta tester, you will partake in one of the three roles: an adventurer, a survivor or an administrator. You will assimilate with a pre-existing character and control that character through a selection of safe assignments. Your progress and interactions will give us valuable data to streamline similar experiences for the general users, when we wish to launch.”

Viren could not see anything off-beat until now. Games that involved playing in the skin of a pre-existing denizen of a world was nothing new. In fact, this had been quite the norm since the turn of the century. Dumah Interactive’s unique selling point lay in its AI and how they could simulate the closest thing to real-world interactions, without suffering real-world consequences.

“One of my friends, who was commissioned by Dumah,” Viren was referring to Jakov, “had his own broadcasting deal. I thought there might be some surveillance formalities involved during my testing phase.”

“He, and others, were given a different assignment. It would be best if you don’t confuse your position with his.”

Viren nodded.

“To conclude, you must remember that this process is entirely as safe as you want it to be. You are not in any kind of danger physically, but emotional and psychological digressions are quite common and treatable. But based on your records–”

“He will be fine.” Sonal interrupted. Duke caught himself and remained quiet, as if he had said too much.

“Now do you understand?” Sonal asked Viren who was still processing this information.

“I’m sorry, now do I understand what?” Viren asked bewildered.

“Do you understand the risks of being a beta tester?”

I guess they need me to say it loud and clear. “Yes, I understand.” Actually, I didn’t. What exactly was in my records that could affect my mental state?

“Excellent!” said Sonal while typing something on her keyboard. “Now, we can proceed. Usually we don’t need to conduct these P2P (person to person) interviews, but due to recent events, which I’m sure you would have seen in the media, this has become necessary.”

From what I had seen on television, it was just a ‘You’re accepted to the program’ letter and that was all; usually received in 24 hours.

“We will be sending you the starter kit for The Anachron by post. It should arrive by tomorrow. I will send you the contact of my subordinate that you will be sending your reports to.”

The subordinate was most likely going to be a bot.

“Before we conclude do you have any questions for us, or about the assignment in general.”

I need to ask about Cassidy. But these guys may be too high up to even know who Cassidy is.

“I was wondering,” Viren blurted, “if I will be working with Cassidy, since she sent me the offer from Dumah Interactive.”

“Ah yes, Cassidy.” Drozdov answered. Viren just noticed that he hadn’t spoken since they had begun. “You won’t be working with her, unfortunately. She is handled by the Canadian branch. Maybe in the future if we acquire cross-country permissions, you may be allowed to meet within The Anachron.

Ha. I knew Jakov was just talking shit. “So even The Anachron is region locked.”

“Correct.”

It felt odd that Drozdov knew of Cassidy and even responded as if he was expecting me to ask such a question. I would have thought one of the other two would answer.

“Anything else?” Sonal repeated.

“Uh, no, I guess not.”

“Wonderful! We will be logging off now, Viren. My subordinate will be in touch, if you have any further questions.”

“Thank you,” Viren said as he watched Drozdov and Duke turn off their cameras and subsequently their tabs also closed. Sonal logged off next and the only person left was ‘Frederick’.

The secretary bot would be the last to disconnect due to recording previous personnel’s interactions.

Frederick however remained there for a few too many seconds. Watching. His icon was the default human vector image, and at his end he would have been seeing the confused expression of Viren growing more agitated.

Frederick finally disconnected leaving Viren in the silence of his living room. A silence that he hadn’t considered for a while, with his game blasting in the background, and no one there to tell him to turn it down.

Viren involuntarily ran his hand through his hair returning it to its disheveled look.

Now, I guess we just wait…