Lucy brightens when I see her at an outside table and head for her. We greet with a tender hold and a Kiss, and it’s everything I could want from a reaction from a girlfriend. She pulls out a seat for me which I appreciate, but then I move my chair so that I can sit next to her.
“The table is too small for you to sit on the same side as me so I guess we can’t be too awkward.” She smirks and chuckles.
“Do you want me to not eat with my hand on your leg?” I pause, wondering if she actually doesn’t want me this close.
“It’s not that, it’s that we should probably talk business before we relax and treat this like a date.”
I smile. “Sure, what’s on the agenda?”
“You’re joking right?”
“No?”
“Jessie invited me, because she said . . . you don’t know that she invited me do you?”
I chuckle, “No hon, she just told me that I had an appointment with you.”
“My assistant apparently made an appointment to remind me to make time for you. I’ll have to remember to buy her something nice for her birthday. I bet Ophelia is seething that you got on my lunch schedule first. Even worse, I think that Sabs has me tomorrow and Ophie is going to have to wait another day.”
“I can’t tell if you’re pumping yourself up or you’re serious.” The look in her eyes worries me, did something I said give her the sqiuick?
“Mostly goofing. Sorry. I feel ridiculous sometimes having to meet people like her. I’m just a gamer and a part-time model.”
“As long as you remember people like Sabs and Mikkael would give a kidney to have your exposure.”
I slump at the comment—I definitely put my foot in my mouth.
“I’m sorry Lucy, I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful or that I’m owed people’s time.”
She nods and stares at the menu for a while, making me sit in my self-created discomfort. When the waitress comes, I order some egg rolls and Lucy gets an Ahi salad. I’m mostly not hungry now, but I didn’t want to make the situation worse by sitting here without food.
“It’s less about what you said, than the way you said it. Several people think about you all day, as part of their job, and it doesn’t sound as though you realize how much work your image takes. I hired an assistant, but she and I do all of the work that a team does for you, Selena. That team that makes ten times more money for you than your gaming hobby.”
Oh. This has been brewing then, because there’s no way she would casually dismiss gaming if she wasn’t capital ‘A’ Angry.
I sigh in disappointment. I’d like a reset of this encounter, but we both said things we can’t take back it seems.
“That’s some spit on my face. I got this job, the modeling job, because I was good enough at gaming to get on an Orion team. They picked me for the implant program because of gaming. I work hard to be as good at what, five games?, as I am and that’s what got me here. Work. A sick part of me thinks that in the beginning, I got the modeling gig because I can literally never leave Orion’s worlds alive and they wanted to throw work and money at me so I don’t go public with my situation.
“So forgive me, Lucy, if I prize the job I worked hard to get over the pity job that feels like hush money.” Her eyes widen a smidge, but I can tell her teeth are clenched with a restrained comment.
We get our food before she talks again.
“What do you mean you can’t ever leave? You’re working on your dissonance like the rest of us, right?” She’s quiet, and moving her food around her plate without meeting my eyes.
“I hover around 50% basically all of the time. Something in the ATC or Alaris feels too out of place, and I lose some integration. Eventually I might even out higher, but for reasons I don’t fully understand yet, the doctor in charge of the program is telling me that if I were to go back into the real after integrating enough for me to be stable enough to transfer back, I would suffer the same backlash as when I entered. They said that with current technology, it has a 70% chance of killing me outright, and a greater than 90% chance of significant brain damage. Orion backed me at the beginning because they basically had to.”
I take a moment to breath and realize I didn’t address the thrust of her distaste with my talk about Ophelia and meetings.
“You’re right that I should acknowledge and appreciate that other people’s work benefits me. That’s something I need to work on.”
The quiet that follows is dense. After a few more minutes, I’m regretting everything about showing up here. I pay for our meal on the restaurant’s online billing and stand to leave.
“I’m sorry I marginalized your work. I don’t see that side, and I’ve been so consumed with drama over our running shoot, coordinating other media with Jessie, etcetera, that I neglected to consider your goals.” She pauses, I turn and wait for her to continue. She doesn’t but I sit because she raised another thing I didn’t know about.
“We can talk about my goals, your goals, both, or the running shoot drama.” I do want to talk, slightly more than I want to storm off in frustration.
She looks up and quirks her head, as though she expected me to leave.
“Sabrina was barely in the spot Elitas picked up. Athena picked up some snippets for a sports compilation advertisement, but no one was biting on a long-term deal. Somehow she heard about your side contract with Elitas, and she . . . did not react well.”
“Nooo, I don’t want to fight with Sabrina. I don’t want to fight with you either, Lucy.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
She shakes her head. “I shouldn’t have brought my frustration with work to lunch with me, but I’m glad you understand my concern. For your deal, no one knows what it was about and the speculation is killing her. Or that’s what she keeps texting me about.”
I sigh, “they wanted me to not to wear the competition’s clothing in my socials. We told them that Omega-Lime has an ath-leisure line, so I can’t agree to that. But, I would agree to wear their gear when I appear in your socials in exchange for half the pay they would normally give for the advertising go to you. Which ends up being more money that what they originally offered me not to sign athletic clothes deals.”
“I was wondering about the extra money. Did you want me to send you the overage?”
“What? No! I just didn’t want there to be a conflict if I felt like running with you. Limiting the ways I can spend time with you sounded terrible.”
For the first time since we greeted each other, she smiled. Thank the Goddess.
“So, I spent most of our lunch either being angry or sulking. Can I come over later? You can tell me about your games, and I can tell you about the changes at work for me.”
Yeah! She’s still interested in an ‘US’! I mentally pump a fist in triumph. “Can we snuggle and chat?”
Another smile, this one a little brighter. “I think I can manage that.”
***
“Your tester cost us twelve million pounds.” The COO of Orion London, “And I have tickets and flags that require the board of directors for all of Orion Galactic to resolve. What are you doing to fix this.” He stares down the Testing and Experience Director.
The man mumbles unintelligibly for a moment before he grabs my arm and looks at me in panic. That’s a cry for help if I ever heard one.
“I talked with Chance, my assistant, and I believe I identified the server demand issue with the construction and real estate modules, and with the live simulation process in general. If you’ve looked at the temporary fixes,” the COO nods, “I asked the ATC to run a simulation on future demand with my proposed changes and it reduced by 97%. That said, the live sim fix should also address that the aborted program left the entire apartment complex in place, built. That should stay flagged because failure conditions and results can’t be changed by us unless it’s an immediate safety issue or an expense greater than a million."
The man looks at my boss, then the rest of the gathered before glaring at me. “Your complex mishap will have to be removed.”
“Sure thing. I’ll send the thirty day eviction notice to the residents as soon as I get an offer on the property.”
“I don’t have time for your games miss Campbell. Get rid of it. Our sponsor’s housing is suffering and they’re threatening to pull out.”
“Sir, nothing nearby was flagged for testing, so I bought land that was available. The ATC wouldn’t let me correct some errors in the built structure unless I paid the construction lean, so I did that. I would recommend that each property should be enabled with a ‘sandbox’ mode, so that an error or a slip in control aren’t permanent and any conflicts can be resolved before they’re built.
“Also, access permissions should default to a proprietor or a builder to prevent motivated squatters tying up a property by taking residence.” I look down to the nervous man, who is actually a very good manager of files and things, but not so much on aggressive executives. I thump his arm.
“I r-ran some scenarios and numbers and found Campbell’s recommendations to be near optimal from Orion’s perspective. I also talked with legal, and with the live state of the ATC any service that is required to be paid real money for is a contractual transaction. Despite the testing nature of her job, she is not required to vet payment requirements through our department to continue testing. It makes little sense, but this is an exceptionally productive edge case, that has projected to save Orion near a hundred million pounds in saved server load and lost time.”
I sit back down, relieved that he could bring his mind to spout job related stuff when it matters. I don’t appreciate the way that the Arthur is still glaring at me, but he finally decides to sit down.
“I’ll be talking with legal after to see our options. Real estate purchases were not intended at this time. Moving to other matters, there are areas that need testing in Haptic Alaris Eturnum that require you to be level twenty. In six real months before the open beta starts.”
Some mental math with switching between ATC and Alaris, maybe fourteen to eighteen months total? “I still have a large chunk of time to advance. I’ve discovered that crafting can be a viable way to level, I will be exploring other territories soon, so we will see how exploration fares in leveling also.”
“Is there a reason you aren’t treating leveling as your main goal?” Arthur asks.
“Several, actually. First, Alaris is my home. I live there according to my home of record and all of the legal paperwork. I do people things, and interact with my town as though I intend to continue living there. Second, my dissonance is fragile. If I treat any of my experiences as a game or not real, I get debilitating migraines and lose integration percentage immediately. And third, I’m a tester at heart and I know that other beta testers are going to level their brains out to get stronger.”
“You think that we pay you to take your time? You have deadlines to meet.”
I scoff at him, which is likely a mistake, “Alternate life and crafting approaches should be valid. Also, I haven’t missed a deadline yet, so I’m really just confused about where you’re going with this.”
“Investors and the Board are worried that your gaming style in Alaris is not marketable. We are telling you to change your approach.”
Responding to board pressures is one thing, but ignoring my rights is another. “I decline.”
“It’s in your contract.”
“It is, but I refuse to taint my life because someone wants results faster than is needed.”
I can see the COO’s face change to Anger as soon as I refused him.
“Arthur, dear. It is not in our interest to force this. She makes us a decent amount of money and a fair bit of exposure for the construct.”
“If she can’t follow, she can lead alone. You’re fired, Campbell. Get out, return your things, you have thirty days to vacate the condo you reside in.”
For someone that signs stuff, he clearly doesn’t remember it all. I file a complaint that the COO violated my quality of life contracts by kicking me out of the tower. I file another grievance against a contract break on my work in Alaris. After that, I stand, give a mock salute from my forehead and walk out. I immediately access the apartment complex interface, claim the larger garden suite and file for a transfer of assets from my condo to another hoping it clears before the paperwork is finished on my firing.
I expect legal to be bogged down for at least an hour before they un-tangle the mess that was started with this meeting. I wonder if how Ophelia and Sabs are just nice to me because they get something from this. I apparently cause a lot of hassle for people. I thought I had reached an understanding with Arthur, but I have Chance test some things that end up being a major deal and suddenly he’s got an axe to grind.
I should chat Ophelia and apologize.
/I’m sorry if I ruined everything. I don’t see how I did anything wrong, save maybe stand my ground a bit strongly./
\Yes, some tact and political awareness would have been better. You are still on the hook with me. You should keep an eye on your sponsorships in the next few days, however.\
Ugh, why am I this way?!
I trudge my way to my Condo to find that my full transfer has gone through and I’m staring at an empty residence. I’m going to miss living so close to work—it was nice to wander downstairs for a game session. Blaaaarg. I call up a set of gaming gear to the closet and a duffel bag for the clothes I’m wearing.
With a duffel and a carry case with my mouse and keyboard, I’m ready to game. I still have access to the lab, and though I’m almost two hours early for our four ‘o’ clock start, Hamster is there, plugging away at . . . Gigavibe. Damn, I’ve been slacking. I see that he’s in a game, so I hit practice mode and tune up my hands for ten minutes before I get a lobby invite.
