Passing secrets

Gwen sat in silence for some time in the room she was given in the research center. Her work was done for the most part. Now she only needed to debug the program. She probably could've finished that work for tonight, but her mind felt too occupied today.

After meeting Lorn, her mind couldn't help but think of a variety of things regarding him. After all, the man most likely had a tremendous secret behind him.

'Ashin… huh?'

Hearing of the story Lorn told to his partner, Sybil, the other researchers only assumed he was lying. But thanks to his eldest brother, Harold, Gwen was more knowledgeable about Lorn's past. The Ashin Dynasty located deep in the Himalayan mountains, the Heavenly Kingdom of Tyvat, a hermit country ruled by their Supreme King, Sen Ashin.

Few things were known about them to the public, as they weren't the type of people to stir trouble or bring attention to themselves. However, they retaliated in extreme ways against any form of outside connection. And they also had a fairly efficient defense system. They were especially vigilant about spies.

Harold mentioned a few times the US tried to infiltrate their systems but failing each time. From what they could gather from the Russians and the Chinese, they, too, experienced something similar.

Gwen thought it was bullshit at the time. After all, how could the same people who managed to hack into the Chinese and Russian system be unable to hack into some random country in the middle of the Himalayas? At the time, Harold could only smile wryly at her remark.

'We also found something else in the Chinese database,' his brother said. 'Apparently, they tried to send an advance force to Tyvat… but all the soldiers were ambushed and killed on their way.'

There was a point in recent history when a few countries tried invading their neighbors. It was mostly due to the emergence of the One Country, which was made possible due to the One Leader's immense wealth. He basically outright bought the most of northeastern Africa.

There was only one country there which resisted the economic takeover, resorting to deliberate chaos and anarchy, leading to a brief war between the two countries. It was difficult to call it a war, as the One Leader mercilessly murdered the resistance members using drones and remote-controlled tanks.

Of course, the international community abhorred the actions of the newly found One Country, but soon enough, the big countries attempted something similar. Old enemies could finally settle their grudge, except, there were impossible to overcome power imbalances between them now.

The weaker countries had no chance. They were mostly reliant on foreign aid to help them in cases of invasions, but the countries that were supposed to help them were too busy conquering some other place in the world.

'But Tyvat managed to stay afloat, despite all this chaos,' Gwen thought with a sigh. 'And the heir of the Supreme King is working as a guinea pig for the country that started the whole trend after being sold off by Elan.'

Life truly was full of surprises.

But Gwen's problem was how to bring all this information out to Elan.

She was under house arrest herself and everything she did on the internet was monitored thoroughly. She wasn't allowed to use proxies, access the dark web, or call anyone without it having monitored.

For the time being, there was no sign of her being let go and even if she was allowed out, she expected herself to be monitored heavily. She could make something happen if she was in the same room as him, but because of her connections to him, he would be monitored heavily as well.

Sighing, she stood up and walked towards Reina's room with her laptop.

Gwen wasn't sure what Reina's deal was, but the blonde researcher was in charge of many things in the center. Gwen noticed many people coming to her, asking for permission, asking for advice, sometimes even whispering stuff to her ears.

Perhaps she was the head researcher here, but most of the time, she was locked up in the center, the same as the rest of the potential troublemakers. Gwen, of course, fell into the same category.

When she arrived and knocked on the door, she was immediately invited in.

"What is it?" Reina asked, her hands holding some sort of document.

"I've finished the program."

"Oh! This quickly? Let me see!"

Gwen gave her the laptop and Gwen sifted through the questions and possible answers one by one. Oddly, she asked very few questions. Quite a bit of the knowledge in that list went against conventional medical education. They were things Gwen found in her father's personal studies, one that he allowed to see when she mentioned her interest in neurology.

Perhaps it meant that Reina wasn't really reading through them, but that didn't feel like Reina. That could only mean she was familiar with these new changes.

'But where would she learn that?' Gwen was wondering when Reina spoke.

"This is pretty good for a one-week work," she exclaimed. "It truly is different, working with a genius."

"No, no," Gwen shook her head. "I've been working on something similar before coming here. In fact, the coding language I've written here is actually patented by my company."

"Oh? Can you show me the language?"

"Sure, here it is."

Reina glanced through the code for a bit and exclaimed.

"Wow, it really is a different language! It doesn't feel that unapproachable either."

It was a language created by Gwen's father and something she learned alongside her siblings.

"Yes. Anyhow, can I get some royalties if we end up using my program to cure the patients?"

"Oh, of course! You can just go take care of all that with Leland. Though, he should be resting now, so go bother him tomorrow."

"Thanks," Gwen smiled. "I'll go draft a contract today and meet him."

"And if your program works properly, you'll be rewarded handsomely."

Gwen nodded and went back to her room. She quickly drafted the necessary documents and printed them out. There was something special about her document though. In her company, there was something called an Authorization code necessary to make decisions.

Gwen was often away, so there came times when she needed to make big decisions from far away. For those times, she could just send her Authorization code on a document and her company would know it's something legit.

So there wasn't anything suspicious about it.

But what most others didn't know, was that Gwen had many different codes that worked as the same thing. The only difference was that all those different codes were actually secret messages only her company would know about.

4P0WD FJIP1 L4K51 PLKMN SAR12

Also known as, 'Force me to appear somewhere without raising suspicion.'

Gwen finished the document and sighed to herself. Now, two weeks later, something will happen and Gwen will be compelled to return to the outside world. The One Country was rigid and strict, but they still tolerated some things.

When outside, Gwen would try one big thing to convey the information she possessed to Elan somehow.

'If this doesn't work… then he can only wait till the game launches officially,' she thought. 'There's no way the research center can hold me here for that long.'