Vaporware (12 page)

Eventually,
I wound down. Leon looked at Michelle, eyebrows raised with an unspoken
question. She spoke it. “Is that it?”

I
nodded. “Yup. Doable, but a bastard, I think. There’s going to have to be some
crunch.”

She
nodded distractedly. “It would be a lot easier if we didn’t have to touch every
single object.”

“But
you do. And the schmucks at BlackStone’s main studio never document their code,
so my guys are going to be flying blind once they get in there.” Leon sounded
like he was in the process of crapping out a sea urchin, one of the really big
ones. He looked up at me. “Any chance of getting a couple of their engineers
out here to help us?”

“You’ll
have to ask Eric.” I shrugged. “I’d hope so, but you never know. Don’t count on
it so you can be pleasantly surprised?”

“Heh.”
He scooped up his notepad and riffed through it, then stood up. “If that’s all,
I’m gonna go break the bad news to the engineering team. You kids play nice,
you hear me?”

Michelle
grabbed a dry-erase marker from the board behind her and whipped it at his
head. He ducked, and the marker hit the wall cap-first, sending shards of
splintered plastic everywhere. “We lose more markers that way,” Leon said in a
mock-mournful voice, then ducked out.

Michelle
stood as the door swung closed behind Leon. It hit the frame with a solid
thump, followed by the click of the latch dropping into place.

Michelle
frowned. “That was weird.”

“What
was?” I found myself looking back and forth between her and the door, and
mostly seeing a lot of the space in between. “Leon making a joke? I mean, OK,
it was kind of funny, which is unusual for him, but—”

She
threw another marker, but more softly. It hit my arm and cartwheeled off to the
floor. “Ow,” I said. “What was that for?”

“To
shut you up,” she said. “Not that it’s doing any good.” She walked around to
stand by the doorway, thankfully out of reach of any more felt-tipped
ammunition. “Leon didn’t close the door.”

I
rubbed my arm and rolled my eyes, more or less simultaneously. “Is that it?
Come on, it was air pressure or something. Someone opens the front door and
half the doors in this place slam, the ones that aren’t blocked by someone’s
action-figure collection.”

Michelle
gave me a long, slow look of the sort that used to mean that I’d forgotten a
dinner date and which now meant that she was glad I was someone else’s problem.
“That’s something you’re going to have to work on if we’re going to make it
through this project in one piece.”

“What,
my understanding of the laws of physics?” I gave her my best smile.

She
wasn’t impressed. “No. Your having an answer for everything. If we’re going to
make this work, Ryan, then you’re going to have to get better at listening.

I
bent down to pick up the fallen marker, as much to hide my annoyance as to buy
time to think of a response. It had rolled away, and only the sight of the blue
cap sticking out from under my chair gave the slightest hint as to where it
was. “It’ll be fine, Michelle,” I said, in between grunts as I fumbled for it.
“Most of the hard decisions will be made for us by the hardware or BS. The real
thing I’m worried about is the time this is going to take.”

“Idiot,”
she said, with only a vague hint of affection, and walked around my chair. She
knelt down in front of me, grabbed the marker, and placed it in my hand.
“You’re really worried about all those long nights we’re going to be spending
in the office and how Sarah’s going to take it.”

I
shook my head, even as my fingers closed around what she’d given me. “Sarah and
I have other things to talk about right now.”

“Arguing
over rings?” she asked, then saw my face. “Oh. Oh, I’m sorry, Ryan. What’s
wrong.”

“Nothing,”
I muttered. “She’s not real thrilled with my decision to stay on.”

“Ah.”
There was a pause, and then, “Is that it?”

“She
offered to support me if I wanted to just stay home and write, or carve duck
decoys, or whatever.” The words came out unaccountably bitter.

“And
you said no.” Shelly’s voice sounded odd now, slightly fuzzy, as if she were
congested or sniffling.

I
nodded. “Because I wanted to feel like I was pulling my weight. Because I
didn’t want to let everyone down by quitting. Because….”

“Because
you love what you do.” There was a ring of finality there, and a ring of truth.
“And because you believe in what you did.”

“Yeah,”
I said, and stood. “I guess I do. Or did. Blue Lightning really felt special,
like something had reached down and given me just that little bit of
inspiration that makes a game magic. Like I’d finally done what I was meant to
be doing, what all those years and other projects had led up to. That I’d, I
dunno, I’d found my calling.”

Abruptly,
the ridiculousness of what I’d said hit me, and the air went out of me all at
once. “Or whatever. Thanks for listening, Shelly. Though honestly, I have no
idea why I’m talking to you, of all people about this. Still, I appreciate it.”

I
turned my chair around to face her, and to finish thanking her.

She
smiled, put her finger to her lips, and walked out the door.

Chapter 10

My first reaction was to call
Sarah and ask her what the hell she thought she was doing, trying to leverage
Eric like that. The decision, when I made it, was mine, and I had no idea what
she thought she’d accomplish by trying to apply pressure. It wasn’t going to
provoke Eric to fire me, though it might nudge him toward treating me a little
“better” and thus make it even less likely that I would walk. None of it made
any sense, and Sarah not making sense didn’t make any sense.

It added up to
“don’t call”. Instead, I decided to take a walk outside to see if I could work
off some steam before I blew up at someone who didn’t deserve it.

Slipping out
the back door, I stepped into what was jokingly called “the smokers’ lounge.”
Smoking was prohibited inside the building, of course, and Eric strongly discouraged
it out front where guests, visitors, prospective hires or anyone else might see
it. That left the area outside the back door from the lunchroom, which opened
up onto a tiny, vaguely paved chunk of parking lot that only got used for
desperation overflow. Small cells of smokers were scattered here and there,
some on the sidewalk under the vague overhang that provided a little protection
from the elements, some scattered more widely on the asphalt itself.

Everyone
looked up when the door opened, sized up who was coming out, and then went back
to their conversations. A small knot in one of the parking spaces edged a few
steps further back, as if to keep themselves from being overheard. I recognized
Terry as one of them.

“Hey, Terry.”
I wandered over in his direction. He didn’t look thrilled to see me, but he
didn’t turn his back on me entirely, either.

“Hey,” he
said. The others with him—a couple of artists whose names I couldn’t remember,
a networking engineer named Larry, and one of the QA temps—kept their heads
down or nodded. None of them looked at me or said anything.

There was a
moment of awkward silence, and then another one, and a third before Terry
shuffled his feet and reached into his pocket for a pack of American Spirits.
“You smoking now, Ryan?” 

“Naah,” I
replied. “But the air out here is cleaner than it is in there, if you know what
I mean.”

That got a
chuckle from a couple of them, and Larry started grinning. “Bullshit’s too
thick for you, man?”

I nodded.
“Something like that, yeah. Thick enough to spread like peanut butter.” That
got another laugh, and a half-smile from Terry. “So what are you guys doing out
here?”

Terry waved a
half-smoked cigarette. “Smoking. And talking. And waiting.”

“For something
to compile?”

He shook his
head no. “Waiting for a few things and a few people to come around, if you know
what I mean.”

“I’m not sure
I do.”

The group
started to break up then, people looking at each other and then at me and
muttering darkly the whole time. “I told you this was bullshit,” Larry said,
and one of the artists agreed with him, and then it was just me and Terry. He
looked at me, took a drag on his cigarette, and then deliberately spat right
between my feet. “She said you’d come around, sooner or later,” he said. “Looks
like it’s later.”

“She said? Who
said? Sarah? Shelly? Come on, Terry. Work with me for a minute, OK?” But he
just looked at me and shook his head, then shuffled off like the smoke had
knotted his lips to silence.

I thought
about going after him, but by this point half the smokers out there were
watching our little tableau, and I didn’t want to run the risk of having things
escalate in front of a couple of dozen of witnesses, any number of whom were no
doubt holding phones with 4+ Megapixel camera capability.

Instead, I
squared my shoulders and stomped off around the building widdershins, hoping
that anyone I ran into would at least make a little goddamned sense.

Walking was
supposed to work off some of my burn, so of course I got the exact opposite
effect instead. As I trudged past the just-planted holly bushes and
artistically spread mulch that lined the parking lot, I could feel myself
getting steadily more steamed. What the hell had Sarah been thinking? What was
Michelle pulling with her disappearing act? Why was Terry going all spooky, and
why wouldn’t any of these people leave me the hell alone to do my job? Speaking
of which, why hadn’t Eric—

“Hey.”

I stopped and
looked up. Leon stood there, a little winded, small half-moons of sweat under
his pits. He’d had to run to catch up with me, or so it seemed. He was
breathing hard, and his hair was a mess.

“Hey Leon,” I
said, and started walking again. He stood still for a moment, startled, and
then scurried to catch up.

“I’m glad I
caught you, man. Shelly says she heard you’re quitting. WTF?” A car with a
handful of junior designers in it zipped past on its way out to something
lunch-like, the occupants waving.  I waved back.

“Not true,” I
said and sped up a little. Leon rolled his eyes, and panted a little harder catching
up. “Let me guess—Shelly heard it from Sarah?”

He blinked, or
maybe that was just a way of getting sweat out of his eyes. “How’d you know?”

“Because Sarah
has apparently been telling everyone that I’m quitting, God knows why, and the
fact that she’s now calling my ex-girlfriends to tell them is really chapping
my ass.”

“So you’re not
quitting?” Leon’s voice was suddenly hopeful. I stopped, turned, and stared at
him.

“I don’t know,
OK? Maybe I am and maybe I’m not, but right now, all I do know is that my
girlfriend informing everyone that I am quitting is making me want to stay more
than ever, because I’ll be damned if I let her paint me into a corner by
telling everyone in the world what I’m supposed to be doing. All right? You
happy? You got your answer? I don’t goddamned know!”

He took a
couple of steps back, and put up his hands like he was trying to talk down a
jumper from a high window. “Easy there, Captain Caveman. Just chill out, OK?
And maybe once you stop shooting blood out your eyeballs, you can call Sarah
and, I dunno, maybe ask her to cut it out? Instead of going apeshit all over
me, you know? Geez.”

I took a deep
breath. “I’m sorry, man. I’m just a little freaked out.”

He looked at
me for a moment, then shook his head. “It’s OK. Just think decaf thoughts for a
while or something, you know? I don’t need you wigging out on me, and you don’t
want to be freaking when you talk to Sarah.”

Somehow, I
found myself staring at my shoes. “You’re right. I should call her. She
wouldn’t do something like this.”

“Now you’re
getting it.” He started to shuffle off. “I’ll be out front,” he said. “Lemme
know if you need to talk after, OK?”

“Will do.
Thanks, Leon.”

“No worries. I
just don’t want to have to break in a new CD. Took three years just to get you
housebroken.” We both laughed, then he headed off and I pulled my phone out of
my pocket. There was a long moment of staring at the screen before I punched in
Sarah’s number.

It rang twice
before Sarah picked it up. “Ryan?” she said. She didn’t sound happy.

“Sarah? What’s
wrong?”

“I don’t know.
Why don’t you tell me? After all, you’re the one who just called to say you and
Michelle would have to be working late tonight.”

I caught
myself gawping and yanked my jaw shut through sheer force of will. “What?
That’s impossible. I didn’t call you. I’ve been in meetings all day!”

“You called,”
she insisted. “And if that’s what you’ve got to do, Ryan, fine, I understand,
but that’s really kind of a crappy thing to pull on me today, and—”

“I didn’t
call!” It came out louder than I expected, and harsher. “I swear, honey, I
didn’t. I was actually calling now because Eric said you called him—”

“Eric? Why
would I call Eric?” There was shock in her voice now, and suspicion.

Deep breath
in, deep breath out. “Eric said that you called him and that the two of you
talked about your offer to me. Later on, Shelly told Leon that you’d called
her….” I waited for the explosion, and when none came, I continued. “And that
you’d told her I was quitting.”

“That’s
ridiculous!” Some more choice invective followed, and I had to pull the phone
away from my ear until the volume finally tailed off.

“Look, honey,
I’m sorry. I have no idea what happened here. I just wanted to call you to make
sure that it hadn’t been you. You know, just to be a hundred percent.”

There was a
sharp intake of breath. “So you’re not working late with Michelle?”

“No, honey.
We’re on the same project, but nobody’s working late tonight, I promise.”

“Then who
called?”

“I don’t know.
I was hoping you did.” I looked up, looked around. There was no one else on
that side of the lot. Leon had already vanished back toward the building. It
was just me and the phone out in the middle of the asphalt pancake, but even
so, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this private conversation was somehow on
display, that someone was listening in and judging what was said.

But there was
no one, and I put the phone back to my ear.

“Maybe we
should talk about this when we get home,” I offered.

“No, Ryan. I
want to know what’s going on here, and I want to figure it out before any other
mysterious phone calls get made.” Sarah’s voice was resolute, her tone dropping
rapidly from heated anger to frosty suspicion.

I sighed. “I
don’t know. Eric told me you called him. Leon said Shelly said you called her.
Both of them told me you’d said things that, well, that I wasn’t too happy
about. And—”

“Why would I
call either of those two?” There was a muffled thump, and then, more quietly
“No, I’m fine. Just some personal stuff. I’ll be in the board room in a minute.”
There was another second’s pause, and then she was back, swearing softly under
her breath.

“Sarah?
Listen, if you’ve got to go….”

“I’ve got a
meeting in about two minutes, Ryan, but let me make this clear. I did not call
Eric, and I most certainly did not call Shelly. He’s responsible for your
insane work schedule, and she hurt the man I love. I’ve got no love and little
respect for either of them, and I most definitely would not discuss our future
with either of them. The fact that you even thought I might do something like
that hurts me, Ryan. You know me better than that.”

A jolt of pain
startled me, along with an unpleasant taste in my mouth, and I realized I’d
been biting my lip hard enough to draw blood. There were two things I could do
here.   I could apologize. Sarah was right; the woman I knew and loved was most
certainly not the sort to pull that sort of junior high trick, and to have
thought that she might was unworthy. 

The other was
what I said next. “You’re right, honey. And by the same token, don’t you think
I deserve a little benefit of the doubt here? Why would I call you to tell you
I’d be working late tonight or working with Michelle? We’re just getting
started. You know that. There’s no need to stay late.”

There was
wordless silence on the line, intercut with the sound of too-ragged breathing.
“You deserve…some of the benefit of the doubt, Ryan. You’ve made calls like
that too many times before.”

“Not this
time,” I said. “And I don’t want to keep making them.”

“That’s good
to hear.” She let out a long, shuddery breath. “I’m sorry too, Ryan. It’s like
that’s what I was afraid I was going hear when I picked up the call, and it
sounded like you….”

“Maybe an old
voicemail stuck in the system. I don’t know, honey. And I don’t know who could
have called, pretending to be you. But I’ll find out.”

“If you can.
If not, well, just go set everyone straight, okay?” She was all the way back
now, 100% in control. There was steel in her voice, and a little edge of anger
on top of this. “If they’re trying to get rid of you, fine. But they don’t get
to drag my name into this. Not for a second. And they don’t get to do this to
us.”

“I know,” I
said. “I know.” And then, “I love you.”

“I love you,
too. Have a nice day not quitting.” Then she cut the call, and there was
silence.

I stared at
the phone for a second, then flipped through my “Dialed Calls” menu. And there
it was, the evidence in its LCD glory, a record of a five-minute phone call to
Sarah’s work line. No doubt her phone would have displayed the incoming number;
no doubt she would have taken it as evidence the call was genuine. And I had no
doubt, now, that Shelly and Eric’s phones would show perfectly legit calls from
a number that could be traced back to Sarah.

All of which
meant that someone had somehow cracked our phones and was spoofing from them,
sending calls and attaching our numbers. They’d chosen those calls to make, and
they’d known just what to say to set both of us off. I thought back to that
sensation of being watched during the phone call and wondered if instead it had
been a sense of being listened to.