Nolan Thatcher

Nolan Thatcher is Liza Thatcher's father and Contact. He is also revealed to actually be Earl Marche, Beth's son, who faked his death and changed his identity, leading to him becoming one of the three ringleaders

Very little is known about him personally; his appearance, personality, and much of his personal life not related to Exit/Corners is unknown, other than him being very rich.

## Background

Nolan Thatcher was formerly Earl Marche, Beth's son and the father of her granddaughter. During an earthquake where Beth was supposed to be watching her grandchildren at home, Ellen and her sons died while Earl's daughter was seriously injured and presumed dead after being crushed by the sun roof collapsing on top of her. Earl blamed Beth for their deaths and had an argument with her, causing him to commit suicide out of guilt. In reality, however, his death was merely faked, and he had changed his identity to become Nolan. His daughter, who had also survived, was renamed accordingly to become Liza Thatcher.

Nolan would eventually go on to form a company known as Thatcher Biometrics Limited, a company focusing on the development of technology and programs. At an unknown point, he was also working at Bellbridge University, where he most likely found Sean Ward and Tiana Tran to work for him and Ink Greer and Rae Nandon as targets for his most recent program, the CORNERS program.

The CORNERS program that he is developing is a program that attempts to simulate the world better than in real life. This is done by providing basic details (the general appearance, the bare minimum objects that must be present, etc.) and allowing to human brain, which is able to be searched through with Rae's RN search algorithm, to fill in the rest of the details. However, as he is unable to put his buyer through the program due to the possibility of death and the bug causing those who resist the idea that the world is reality to vomit blood, he kidnapped the four contestants, Ink, Beth, Rae, and Liza, recreated the Four Elements Hotel in the program, and inserted their consciousness into the program to create a game known as Exit/Corners. For each of the four contestants there is a Corner in the hotel, where they are intended to want to commit suicide so that they would rather die in the program than survive and escape out of it, the goal that the buyer proposed if he were to sell the program to them, where they face the possibility of dying in real life if they do in the program. In doing so, he had Tiana and Sean, the other two ringleaders of Exit/Corners, befriend Ink and Rae (while Beth and Liza already had connections to Nolan), steal Rae's RN program, and create the AI later named Aether Irving to be Ink's Corner and intended love interest.

However, as none of them were ever truly restricted from avoiding death, the plan failed due to Beth and Rae surviving longer than they were meant to. Beth and Rae were both meant to die in their Corners, but the plan failed as Beth chose not to let herself die for the sake of the other Contestants, and Rae's right arm which was stuck in a machine, preventing him from leaving and causing him the pain that made him want to commit suicide, was sliced off by Beth with a (fake) sword, allowing him to leave with one arm (neither of them being prevented from leaving). This causes Nolan to throw Sean and Tiana into Exit/Corners to get the game back on track, leading to Sean murdering Beth (although they have no opportunity to kill Rae). However, Nolan ensured that his daughter Liza would not die by getting Sean to take her place in her Corner, where poisonous gas was allegedly going to be sprayed (and where he would later escape from).

Another fallacy in his plan is that Beth recognized Liza as her granddaughter by her laugh, which she claims in her letter to Nolan that she will never forget, as it makes her family feel whole again, even if only for a moment. This consequently causes her to realize that Nolan must be Earl if he is her father, and also to realize that she is likely going to die during the game due to her relationship with Earl. This is most likely what motivates her to try and help the other Contestants survive, as they have a better chance of doing so than her.

## Story

Nolan is first mentioned by Liza as her father. This shocks Rae, who recognizes her as the daughter of the founder of Thatcher Biometrics Limited, and sees it as an explanation for why she is so spoiled. Liza proceeds to text her father constantly on her Gemini instead of helping with puzzles, as she is miraculously no longer blind (although it is really due to the CORNERS program). She later finds out that, with her blindness gone, she is officially confirmed as the heiress of Thatcher Biometrics Limited, much to her delight. However, she then finds out that her father is planning on liquidating the company, causing Liza to angrily dispose of her Gemini.

Eventually, the truth behind the CORNERS program is revealed to Ink, Aether and possibly Rae and Liza if they trust Ink enough to follow him when Aether is captured by Sean and Tiana. Meanwhile, Beth already knew who had set up the Exit/Corners game as she recognized her granddaughter Liza's laugh, and had written two letters, one for Liza and one for Nolan, concealed in an envelope. If Beth trusts Ink enough to give him the envelope, he reads it into the negative space for Nolan before escaping from Sean.