Vaporware

Copyright ©2013 by Richard Dansky

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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The views expressed in this work are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN:                     978-1-936564-77-4            (sc)

ISBN:                     978-1-936564-78-1            (ebook)

Library of Congress Control Number:  2013935627

Printed in the United States of America

JournalStone rev. date: May 24, 2013

Cover Design:                     Denise Daniel

Cover Art:                            Vincent Chong

Edited By:                            Dr. Michael R. Collings

Praise for Vaporware

Vaporware is life in the world of games, raw and real from a writer who did his time in the trenches - with a supernatural twist that'll make you think twice about late night log-ons and who is really lurking behind the avatar on your screen... – New York Times bestselling author James Swallow

A meticulous image of the real games industry so detailed that you'll just assume the supernatural must be part of it. So immersive it makes you want to go check on that video game your spouse is spending so much time with... – Mur Lafferty, author of THE SHAMBLING GUIDE TO NEW YORK CITY

Imagine you’re sitting at a bar, surrounded by videogame industry veterans. They’re telling war stories about their past projects, the kind of stories you’d never see repeated in interviews or online magazines, the kind that are insider legends. Everyone’s laughing out of shock or horror at some of the stuff we go through to release a game before Richard Dansky launches into his tale. That’s when everyone shuts up, because Rich is telling a story, and when Rich starts talking, you know it’s going to be a hell of a ride…. – Lucien Soulban, writer, Far Cry: Blood Dragon 

Praise for Vaporware

Richard Dansky uses his background in video games to breathe realism into his characters, concepts, and environments. The result is a 21st Century techno horror story that manages the near-impossible: to be both geektastic and incredibly cool. – Rio Youers, author of WESTLAKE SOUL.

Richard Dansky writes about passionate, complex, flawed, and completely believable people in this absorbing novel about the toll of caring so deeply about your art. Very highly recommended! – Jeff Strand, author of DWELLER

Nobody knows the messy collision of writing and game development better than Richard Dansky.  And for anyone who's ever poured heart and soul into a creative project only to watch it die, Vaporware is hauntingly, and almost uncomfortably, familiar. – Jay Posey, Writer, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

Dedication

To anyone who’s ever crunched, fought feature creep, planted an Easter egg (or dug one up), playtested, playtested some more, killed bugs, done level reviews, checked in code after midnight, cleaned up after someone who checked in code improperly after midnight, watched their feature get cut or their project get killed and gone back for more because, damnit, we’re making games—this one’s for you.

And for the loved ones—spouses, children, parents, siblings and dear friends—who are there as we do it. It’s for you, too.

Thank you.

Acknowledgements

This book would not have happened without the help of an awful lot of people:

First (and second and third and other bits) readers Ann Lemay, Leanne Taylor-Giles, Zach Bush, Erin Hoffman, Lillian Cohen-Moore, Michael Fitch, Crystal Muhme Fitch, Jaym Gates, Jay Posey, Mike Lee and Olivier Henriot, for their invaluable feedback and patience.

The late Janet Berliner, very much a mentor and very much missed.

The fine folks at JournalStone for taking a chance on something a little different.

The team at Red Storm Entertainment, as talented and dedicated a group of developers as you’ll find anywhere. Special shout-out to the Design Department and all those who’ve been part of it over the years—someday, we will all meet at Circus Burger again.

The folks at Ubisoft Paris and all the studios around the world I’ve had the chance to collaborate with.

Patricia Pizer, Noah Falstein, Kevin Perry, Brian Upton, Alexis Nolent and the other experienced developers who were generous enough to take me under their wings and show me the ropes of game development when I was starting out.

The members of the IGDA Game Writers Special Interest Group.

Steve and Merrie Burnett and Luna Black, the home team.

Beverly Banbury, endlessly resourceful

My agent, Robert Fleck, for finding the book a home and regularly whupping me at Scrabble.My family, for encouraging me to write, even when it’s books about scary blue people crawling out of monitors.

And most of all, my beloved and brilliant and patient wife Melinda, without whom this would never have been.

Chapter 1

The woman onscreen was blue. She was also faceless, lithe and predatory in her stance and graceful in her movements. Her softly glowing flesh was covered, barely, in what looked to be skintight body armor, beetle-black and iridescent. In her hand was a lethal-looking pistol, smoke drifting from the barrel as she gazed down upon her victim.

He lay on the floor, limbs contorted like overcooked pasta. A big man, he’d taken several shots to kill, as evidenced by the multiple scorch marks scattered across the surface of his powered armor. The faceplate of his helmet had been smashed in, revealing a dark and indistinctly bloody mess underneath. His left hand twitched once, then released its grip on the pulse rifle he’d been holding.

It clattered to the polished steel floor, and, casually, the faceless woman kicked it away. She stood there a moment, her head cocked to one side as if she were waiting for instructions from some outside voice, and then suddenly she moved. With serpentine grace, she swung one leg over the corpse and lowered herself onto it. Her movements were undeniably lascivious, her intent clearly to grind herself into the dead man’s face in a way that wouldn’t be allowed on basic cable.

Which is when I decided I’d had just about enough. I leaned over to the man next to me, whose eyes were plastered on the screen, and elbowed him in the ribs.

The wireless game controller he’d been clutching like his favorite teddy bear dropped down into his lap, and the shock of the impact straightened him up in his seat. Hey! What’s going on?

 I pointed to the television hanging on the wall, a 72 flatscreen monstrosity that cost more than some cars I’d owned. What the hell are you doing, Leon?" Onscreen, the action was frozen, the female figure caught mid-squat. A blinking error message announced that the game had been paused and told us that we needed to press the X Button to continue; blorp-heavy dubstep played softly in the background.

Leon swiveled his chair around so that he could face me, his long legs kicking against the floor to speed the turn. What’s the problem, man? I was just doing what comes natural in multiplayer. You get a kill, you hump it. End of story. He held his hands up in a gesture of innocence and good faith. You’ve got to admit, it looks good.

Yeah, if you’re fourteen, I said, disgusted. Haven’t we moved past humping animations as a feature by now?

He grinned. Only in games that suck.

Yeah, yeah. Give me the controller. I held out my hand.

Leon shrugged and tossed it to me. Suit yourself, man. Not my fault you’re pissed off because you’re old and whipped.

I caught heavy plastic and hit a button, quitting out of the action. Onscreen, the faceless female figure simply evaporated as I worked my way back up the series of menus to the main game shell screen, a throbbing azure logo that read Blue Lightning over a list of options. I’m not old, I muttered. Just a little more experienced than the XBox Live kiddies on daddy’s credit cards. A thought struck me, and I looked up. Where the hell did that animation come from, anyway? I never figured you for necrophilia.

Leon grinned, white teeth showing in a wide mouth that didn’t seem to fit on his long, sharp face. I stole ‘em from the bar sequence in mission four. You remember the pole dancers you cut out of the level? The data’s still in there, and one of the animators merged it into the main character’s set. Pretty smooth, don’t you think?

I took a deep breath, opened my mouth to say something, and then thought better of it. Instead, I took a moment to rub the bridge of my nose in the hope that it was going to keep my brains from exploding out of my nostrils in sheer rage, and turned back to the television. It’s very cute, I said, smiling in a way that I suspected didn’t get anywhere near my eyes. And when you get back to your desk, I want you to disable the action and pull the animation.

Aww, come on, man! It’s beautiful. Hell, it’s cool! Leon was up and out of his chair, eyes wide, smile gone. Half a foot taller than me, he looked like they hadn’t used quite enough material to make him and nobody had bothered to correct the mistake. Shaven-headed where I was dark-haired, bony where I carried a few extra pounds, he looked like he was auditioning for the role of the Scarecrow in a prog-rock Wizard of Oz. Everything about him except his mouth was vertical, from the way he held himself to the folds of his black t-shirt, a souvenir of a Rush tour from the mid-90s that was positively flaunting its age.

I stepped around him, and dropped into the chair he’d just vacated. Look, Leon, the demo looks great. The physics rock. The particle effects are gorgeous. The gameplay is so goddamned there that it hurts, and we’re not even at alpha yet. Do you understand what I’m getting at?

There was a pause. Leon licked his lips and thought for a minute. No.

I sighed. What I’m saying is this: the game looks great. The game plays great. The game looks and plays well enough, as a matter of fact, that marketing is planning on leaving a copy of the alpha build with some of the bigger gaming sites and magazines so they can play with it on their own and really try to build buzz.

I paused, took a breath, and turned to point at the screen. And what sort of buzz do you think we’d get the second someone took our game, a game with a strong female lead character, and made her hump a dead guy?

Leon looked down at the floor. It’s not like we’d give them the cheat code.

I shook my head. If it’s in there, they’ll find it. They found Hot Coffee in GTA, remember? And the last thing we need is for Blue Lightning to be known as the game where the hot blue chick dry-humps dead robots.

But...but it looks awesome, he said weakly, even as the screen cycled into attract mode, a short movie showing the best carnage the game had to offer in an endless forty-five second loop.

Come on, Leon, I’m not pissed. I’m just trying to look out for the game.

Leon blinked, and then nodded. I know, man. I just thought it was cool, a little awesome for the multiplayer kids.

I grinned, to show him there were no hard feelings. The kids are ungrateful bastards, and you know that as well as I do. But do me a favor and tell the rest of the guys in Engineering that it looks freaking brilliant?

Nodding, Leon headed for the door. He reached it, leaned on the handle, and looked back at me. Hey, Ryan?

Yo? I didn’t look back. I was too busy retracing the sequence of button presses that got me out of the game and up to the main menu. Too many, I decided. It needed to be trimmed down by at least two.

I know there was a design reason for it, but I still don’t get it. Why doesn’t the lead character have a face?

Officially, it’s to keep the air of mystery around her. Once you put a face on her, she’s just like every other game character, and all the fanboys will be arguing over how hot she is and which celebrity we supposedly ripped off to make her.

Leon shook his head. I know that. But we’re not saving anything on facial animations, ‘cause we need those systems for the NPCs, and I have to tell you, it’s kind of creepy. So what’s the real deal?

I turned, frowning. It was one of the more controversial decisions I’d made on the game, and not everyone was on board with it, even inside the studio. The real deal, and it doesn’t go any further than this room, is that the publisher wants us to explore a custom facial construction system so players will be able to make their own face for the character, or scan in a picture from somewhere else, and really put ‘their’ face on the game.

Sputtering ensued, at least until Leon could get himself back under control. That’s stupid. There’s already plenty of games that let you do face customization, and trying to add one in at this point in production is just going to make a huge freaking mess. You’ve gotta tell them no, Ryan. There’s no way we can do it, not with the time we’ve got left, and not have it look like ass.

Plus, there’s always the possibility that fourteen year old boys will take pictures of their balls and use them for the facial image, which would cause all sorts of trouble. I made what I hoped was a calming gesture. Don’t worry, I’m with you on this. I’m not going to risk slipping on our ship date, or let anyone put a picture of their ass on our baby. I looked back at the screen for a minute, then up at where Leon stood, expectant. Besides. I kind of like her this way. I like her this way a lot.

Uh-huh. Do yourself a favor and don’t tell Sarah that.

I shook my head to the negative. Yeah, because the girlfriend so loves hearing about what I do all day.

Then may that be your salvation, bro. Leon’s tone was non-committal. So you want me to take out those animations. Anything else?

I thought about it. Naah. Run the build past Eric, but I think we’ve got something we can send to HQ for pre-alpha milestone approval. It looks good, man. It really looks good.

Leon grimaced. I hope BlackStone feels the same way.

They’re a publisher. They like making money. This game will make a shit-ton of money. Ergo, they’re going to love it. I stood up, leaving the controller on the chair as the attract mode started again. On-screen, the main character poured herself out of a wall socket behind an unsuspecting guard before liquefying him with a lethal combination of firepower and kung fu. New play mechanic, great graphics, and a strong lead character they can build a franchise on when they take the IP away from us down the road. If they market it at all, our baby is going to be a hit. A huge hit.

Yeah, Leon said, looking less certain. If. He shuffled out, the door slamming shut behind him, and then I was alone in the room with the game.

I watched the door for a moment, to make sure Leon wasn’t coming back with any more questions. A ten count, and then another ten, left me sure enough, and I settled back in with the game. The attract sequence cycled through another time as I watched it, mentally ticking off features to make sure we were showing off the best of each one. Moving reflective surfaces to make characters literally gleam? Check. Advanced ragdoll physics to let bodies flail and twist as they flew through the air? Check. Destructible terrain and objects to let the player take apart the world brick by brick if necessary? Check. Independent muscular system animations, designed to make our models look like they were uniquely alive? Check. All present and accounted for. It looked good, it looked cool, and once we posted the attract mode loop online, it would get gamers salivating over the possibility of playing.

At least, that was the hope. But the attract mode was just chrome, a dog-and-pony show designed to encourage people to get their hands on it. The real proof was going to be in the game, as it always was, and that meant putting it through its paces without any of Leon’s juvenile bullshit.

Let’s see what you’ve really got, I said to the screen as a new session lurched into its still-too-long loading process. Let’s see what kind of surprises you have for the guy who dreamed you up in the first place.

The loading bar reached the far side of the screen, blinked once, and vanished. In its place, the words Press Start throbbed, bright blue and white against the black background. I pressed the Start button. Somewhere in the virtual distance, alarms started going off. I caught myself grinning wickedly, and then the killing began.

*  *  *

Blue Lightning, I said, standing at the front of the room, is a first-person shooter for the next generation of consoles, with unique gameplay, a compelling story, and up to 32 player online multiplayer. I waved at the screen on the wall behind me, onto which had been projected an image of the game’s central character standing in an aggressive yet faintly suggestive pose against a gunmetal grey backdrop. In the corner of the screen was the game’s logo, a jagged affair that was mostly readable and instantly distinctive.

I paused for a moment, looking around the room to make sure that what I'd said had been given enough time sink in. There were six people in there besides me, all seated in various degrees of slouch in the black leather chairs around the room’s central conference table. On the walls were posters and mounted blowups of magazine covers and articles, reminders of games that we'd made in the past. Normally they were bright and cheerful, a constant reinforcement of the quality of games that the studio made. In the dim, low light that the presentation required, however, they looked murky and a little old.

Down the long wall on the right hand side was a whiteboard, scribbled over in mostly orange and brown. One column held dates; another risks, a third names. Green lines were drawn back and forth from one list to another, establishing which names (hopefully) would be able to fix which problems (ideally) by which date in the development process. At the bottom was a single phrase, written and circled in red: SUBMISSION SEPT. 1. It wasn't hard to notice that everyone in the room kept sneaking glances at it. That, after all, was the important information—dates and deadlines. I was just telling them what they already knew.

Hold on, Ryan. Eric Jonas was long and angular, solidly constructed where Leon looked like he’d been made from scraps. He was the one sitting in the daddy seat; he was also the producer on the project, the head of the studio, and the ultimate in-house arbitrator of its progress and success.

Out of house was an entirely different story.

In front of him on the table was a tablet, its screen already covered with a series of scribbles. Next to it was a tall aluminum coffee cup stamped with the company’s logo: A single horseshoe, or perhaps an inverted omega, with the legend Horseshoe Games underneath in simple block letters. The rest of the table was covered similarly, divided between identical cups and cans of beverages from the extended caffeinated family.

What’s the problem, Eric? I asked, already cringing. I always hated looking down the table while the projector was going. It gave everyone on that end of the room the appearance of being ghostly shadow-figures, and it made their faces impossible to read. The fact that Eric was leaning over the table like a vulture in anticipation of its lunch wasn’t helping.

Did we scale back the MP numbers? I thought we were good with promising 32, and then maybe delivering 64 if we could work out the latency issues.

Sure, that was the plan, and according to Tyrone— Leon started in abruptly, then ended just as abruptly as Eric raised his hand for quiet.

That’s…not the point. Lights? Aaron Shepherd, the QA lead who’d been sitting in his usual spot on Eric’s right, scurried up to turn on the main overhead fluorescents. As they flickered into life, there was a groan from around the table, and the image of Blue Lightning onscreen faded into a dim outline. A faint, throbbing headache announced itself just behind my left eye; that meant that the full-fledged skull pounder was on its way as soon as Eric finished ripping me a new one.

Eric unfolded himself from his chair, leaning forward and resting his forearms on the table. The problem we’ve got so far is that you haven’t said anything.

It’s the first slide, Eric. I’m just defining the game. I snapped back, more defensively than I wanted. This wasn’t a fight I could win, particularly not in front of witnesses. Yelling was just going to help me lose it that much sooner.

You haven’t defined the game. You’ve rattled off the same old back-of-box bullshit bullet points that we get on every project, that’s all. He levered himself off the table and started walking around it, clockwise. Come on. Immersive story? There are solitaire games that claim that. FPS? There’s a million FPS games out there. 32 player multiplayer? Nice, but not unique. What we’re missing, and by this time, he was within a couple of feet from where I stood, with only the still-visible projector beam between us, is something that blows the doors off from minute one. Something that makes them know how amazing this game is, and why they have to publish. Something that says Blue Lightning, and not ‘FPS with interesting feature set.’

I tried not to glare at him. Eric, you know these guys. If we don’t come out and say it, they may miss the fact that it’s an FPS entirely. Remember what happened when Virtual Vineyard tried to pitch that robot janitor game?

Eric rolled his eyes. It was urban legend in the game industry, the story of a small dev team having basically shot its wad to present a pitch for a comedy platformer starring a wacky robot janitor to one of the major French publishers. Virtual Vineyard had pulled out all the stops, flown half their staff to the meeting in Marseilles, had put on a four-hour-long sell session that by all accounts had been legendary, and had been politely told thank you, but we’re not interested.

Later, through back channels, the head of the studio learned that the word janitor didn’t translate into French, and so none of the suits he’d been pitching to had the faintest idea of what he’d been talking about. And of course, none of them had, at any point during the process, bothered to mention this.

That was the scenario that every small development house lived in fear of, the thing they all took wild steps to avoid, and everyone in the room knew it.

It doesn’t matter, Eric said softly. They know it’s an FPS. They’ve been funding it for a year now. What we need to show them is why they’ve been funding it. He grabbed the mouse and started clicking through slides. Here. What’s this?

I looked back. It was a screenshot, a moment captured from gameplay, showing the lead character essentially pouring herself out of a light socket in order to materialize inside a locked room. It’s wrapping up the circuit movement system. The player is jumping from inside the circuitry to the outside world and—

Exactly. Eric was nodding, the first hints of enthusiasm visible on his face. Something cool that no one else has. Now, do we have a slide in here of the circuit movement?

I nodded, my face hot and flushed with embarrassment. We’ve got a capture of some of the gameplay, too.

So you’re saying we move that up front in hopes of giving the suits a stiffie? The voice that came from the side of the room was the last one I wanted to hear chiming in.

Jesus, Michelle, we’re trying to save the presentation here. Inwardly, I groaned. There were very few women at the company, especially on the production side of things, which meant that even if Michelle Steiner had been the shy, retiring type, she would have stood out.

Shy and retiring was not how anyone had described Michelle, not now and not ever.

Eric looked over at me, his face an eloquent mask of You deal with it. I shot him back a look that promised bloody vengeance, and then put on a grin as I turned to face Michelle.

She wasn’t facing me, though. Instead, she was busy sketching something on a notepad, not looking at anyone. What you want, she said, is simple. We need to stop thinking of this as a project review and instead start thinking about it like it’s a commercial. We need to use this to really get BlackStone fired up about the game, and that means showing them all the sexy stuff first to get them hooked.

She turned her notepad around, and on it was a rough storyboard for a new presentation, starting inside the machine and then exploding into the rough combat sequence that Leon had demoed to me the day before. Something like this?

Eric leaned down and grabbed the notepad. Something, yeah. He looked over at me, then around the room. Ryan, Michelle, why don’t you sit down with this and try to rejigger what we’ve got. All the Powerpoint stuff is good, but if we can move this up front…will end of day tomorrow be all right?

Fine, I said, a little bitterly, and shut the projector down. The whirr of the fan filled the room, along with the scent of scorched dust. When are we presenting this to the suits?

We’re not, Eric said softly, accenting the first word just enough to let me know that all was not well. We’re just sending them the presentation, and their third-party group will be looking it over by themselves. There was a moment of quiet while that sunk in and he scanned Michelle’s sketches. That’s why this thing needs to be kick ass all by its lonesome.

I could feel my eyes getting really big and my guts trying to drop into my shoes. If they didn't want to spring for plane tickets for us to present, that meant— No. I caught the thought, cut it off, and stuffed it away. No sense panicking the rest of the room, no sense freaking myself out, either. The game rocked. It was going to be fine.

So I just nodded and hoped like hell that I was keeping the panic out of my face. I see. Michelle?

She looked up at me, an unspoken question in her eyes. It translated roughly as How screwed are we? and I wasn’t in a position to answer it here.

My office, fifteen minutes?

Sure, if I can get my notepad back. Embarrassed, Eric handed it to her. I’ll see you then. She stood and, without looking at anyone else, left the room. The rest of the attendees followed, chattering amongst themselves, their low voices suggesting varying degrees of worry.

And then there were two of us, me shutting things down and detaching my laptop from the projector, and Eric standing there watching me. He waited until everyone else was out of the room, then crossed to the open door and shut it.

You could have warned me, I said as I unscrewed the video cable from the port on the back of the projector. Instead of hanging me out to dry like that.

I didn’t know what you had planned, Eric said, no apology in his voice. If you’d nailed it like you usually do, I wouldn’t have said anything.

You could have asked for a preview. The cool-down light on the projector flashed green, and I shut it down. The fan whimpered into silence, leaving only the occasional thunks and groans of the building’s HVAC system to fill the void. If I’d known that wasn’t what you wanted, I wouldn’t have been here until midnight every night last week trying to finish the presentation.

Eric frowned. It doesn’t matter. Just work with Michelle and put the chrome up front, OK?

I turned, and this time I didn't try to hide the fact that I was pissed off. It’s not chrome. It’s the core gameplay loop, and it’s what makes this game different. You know that. I’d said it, let him deny it if he had the balls to do so. He didn't, though. He knew it was good, too, that we had a chance for a real winner here.

I know, I know. And I know how proud you are of it, and how hard you’ve worked on it. I know this is your baby, Ryan. But it’s everyone in the building’s baby, and I need to make sure that it’s positioned best for the company. I looked up from wrapping the video cable into something vaguely knot-like and saw that he’d positioned himself in front of the door. That tore it. I wasn’t going to be getting out of the room until we reached some kind of accommodation on whatever Eric had in mind, and God help me if I tried.

 I picked up the laptop and tucked it under my arm. What’s the real issue, Eric? How bad is it?

Eric looked away and flushed slightly. The admission that something was seriously wrong shocked me; I’d thrown the question out there primarily to elicit a denial, a confirmation that everything was in great shape. The fact that Eric wasn’t denying anything was scary, a piss-your-pants bad warning sign that the storm was coming.

He finally looked at me but paused a long moment before saying anything. I don’t know. Maybe it’s not anything. I’ve just been getting a weird vibe from BlackStone lately. They tell me everything’s great, but when I ask about whether we’re going to be showing at any of the trade shows they keep putting me off. And with the milestone eight payment coming up—the big one—it’s just got a weird feel to it.

I stepped closer and shifted the laptop’s weight. I’d dropped one once and still hadn’t heard the end of it from IT. Why would they want to kill it? It’s great, it’s as close to ahead of schedule as you can get, and it’s going to be a hit. It wouldn’t make any sense to kill it.

Their decisions don’t have to make sense to us, just to their bottom line. If they’ve got another shooter that’s being done by one of their in-house studios, and they want to protect it, then maybe it makes sense to them to kill ours. Not that it’s the case, mind you—I have no idea what they might be thinking, if anything. Like I said, I don’t know. It could be nothing. Suddenly, Eric snapped back to himself. All of this is between you and me, understood?

I nodded, once. Understood. Completely. We looked at each other for a moment longer, then Eric opened the door.

Good luck with Michelle. Try not to kill each other.

I stepped past him, a tight grin on my face. No worries. We got that out of our systems a while ago.

Uh-huh. Eric sounded unconvinced. That’s not what half the office thinks. Or Sarah.

Sarah knows better, I said, my words clipped. And that’s what matters.

Whatever you say, Ryan, Eric said, and shut the door. From behind them, I heard a crash that sounded a lot like someone kicking a chair into a wall. I didn’t go in to see if Eric was all right. After all, they were his chairs.

Besides, he’d told me to act like everything was fine.

Chapter 2

Michelle was in my office when I opened the door. More specifically, she was in my chair, with her feet up on my desk a series of rough storyboard sketches on the whiteboard. The air was thick with the scent of overworked dry-erase marker, and she was grinning.

I dropped the laptop onto what passed for a flat surface, then stopped. I looked at her, then at the board, then back at her. Am I really necessary to this process? I asked, Or have you and Eric gotten it all doped out, and you just want me to do the typing?

Oh, relax. Michelle pulled her feet off the desk and scooted herself upright in the chair. Most of what you’ve got is fine, I think. He just wants to start the presentation off with a bang, and I do bang better than you do.

I think it’s best if I don’t respond to that, I said and sat myself down in the visitors’ chair against the wall. It was a small office, cluttered with papers and empty game boxes, and nearly every square inch of wall was covered in pinned-up maps, charts, or other documents related to the game. On the door was the only personal touch I’d allowed myself, a poster of Charlie Chaplin as the Little Tramp. Someone had added a thought balloon over Chaplin’s head that read At least I’m not making video games. Everything else—desk, bookshelves, cabinets—was strictly functional and at least partially overwhelmed by the tide of clutter that the project had generated.

I still don’t get why you get an office, she asked lazily. Is that my fault?

I don’t know, I replied, flicking the door open a little wider so anyone passing could estimate at a glance how much physical distance there was between the two of us. If you really want to know the truth, Eric insisted. He said he was tired of me not getting anything done before midnight because I was answering questions all day, so he wanted to put me someplace where I could shut the door and work uninterrupted once in a while.

Which was conveniently located down the hall from his office, she said sweetly, without smiling. And the fact that it happened right after we, you know—

Blew up all over the lunchroom? I said it without rancor. Don’t ask me. I just work here. Besides, that was a long time ago, and we’ve got a presentation to fix. I looked across the desk at Michelle, the unspoken mantra of eye contact, eye contact, eye contact looping in the back of my head. She was short, and the way she sat, her feet dangled a couple of inches off the floor. Like everyone else in the office, she wore jeans, which she’d paired with a bright yellow t-shirt from a project we’d wrapped up three years ago. She cocked her head, and her hair, reddish brown and longer than she’d worn it when we’d dated, slipped down over one eye. Irritated, she brushed it away. No nail polish, I noted automatically. It went with the no makeup and the no jewelry. That was Michelle; there was never anything but Michelle, and if you couldn’t handle that then God help you.

Back in the day, I hadn’t been able to. But, I reminded myself, I was with Sarah now, and there was work to do.

So how do you want to arrange this, I asked. I scraped my chair across the carpet to the whiteboard. Are we going to start with a pure gameplay capture sequence, or do you want to see if we have time to do something pre-rendered?

Michelle shook her head. We don’t have time for pre-rendered. The best thing we can do is a capture of you playing through the core sequence, then seeing if the sound guys can put some music behind it and maybe a little voiceover.

I nodded. Embed it in the presentation, or run it separately?

She rubbed her chin, then stood and walked to the board. If we embed it, there’s less of a chance of them forgetting to play it. Also, there’s no time lost with a switchover. So that makes sense. What I was thinking, and she took a marker from the shelf at the bottom of the board, would be that we’d start with the logo, then dissolve to the gameplay. Is there anything you think we need to show off besides the circuit runs and the combat?

I grimaced. Everything else is just FPS, remember. Michelle started to say something, but I interrupted her. Seriously, that’s our killer feature, and nothing else is going to look as cool next to it. If we want to have a wow moment at the beginning, that’s it. Maybe pull in some multiplayer for later, but, no, at the start, we show that off.

Show her off, Michelle disagreed, and sketched a rough female figure more clearly into the frames she’d made while waiting. She’s got to be a big part of this. She’s important. Hell, she’s the game.

No, we’re the game. Everything we’ve put into it. But you’re right, she’s a big part of it. Maybe if we—

My office phone rang.

Instinctively, both of us looked toward the