Advancing The Plot

[Shutsuji]

I have received ARC's email about my poking through their system, but I am unsure of how to accept their proposal. I have replied to the email several times, including "I accept." and "Yes.", even just sending an unedited reply email, but I have not heard back. I fast-forwarded time all the way to 30 May 2010 and still have heard nothing from them. Have I done something wrong, or can I even participate in the plot at this point?

[mr_anonymous]

My recollection is that the email gives you very specific instructions about what it is you need to do in order to accept.

[Shutsuji]

This is the email:

Agent <my name>,
We couldn't help but notice that you have recently been poking around in some of our computer systems, presumably attempting to determine what is happening with our company at the moment. We feel we should warn you at this time that any attempt to gain unauthorised access to our systems will result in SEVER consequences.
Pleasantries aside, you may have heard that we have been hiring a number of Uplink Agents recently for a yet-to-be-announced project. Your recent activities caused us to run a background check on you, and you seem to be the kind of agent we are looking for.
If you would be interested in doing some work for us, we'd love to hear from you. Reply to this email or send one to internal@ARC.net, and we will see what we can do. We think you will find that ARC offer the best rates for freelance agents in the business.
We look forward to hearing from you.

Composing an email to that address gives me an immediate 'sender does not exist' message.

[Mas Tnega]

You respond to it the exact same way you respond to just about everything:

You click on reply, you wait 0.5 seconds, you click on send.

[Shutsuji]

... I tried that before anything else, as stated in my original post. Nothing happened. I submitted it once, waited, submitted it several more times, still nothing. I think I've just completely missed out on the plot. It's June 2010 in-game now. I tried to reply as soon as I got the email and it didn't work then, and it hasn't worked yet.

[Spheniscine]

Ah yep... you can't wait too long with the storyline, as it'll progress whether or not you participate in it. (It's also not very long; the offer expires in a week or so I believe? And the entire storyline plays out by the end of May.) If you want to try the storyline, start a new agent.

Take note that there are two paths:
- Regardless of which path you take, you have to reply to ARC as soon as you receive the first "An offer you can't refuse" mail
- ARC will send you a program. The mail will tell you that it's a virus (i.e. don't run it on your own system!), and to hack Arunmor to run it on their system.
- At this point there are two choices. Either do what you're told (ARC path), or wait for Arunmor to give you a counter-offer and accept it (Arunmor path)
- Note that the ARC path will eventually end the game for your agent, regardless of whether you succeed (in fact, especially if you succeed)