Vaporware (28 page)

I
lay there for an hour or so, doing my best not to move, to let myself waft back
asleep. That had the opposite effect of the one intended, as the strain of not
daring to move lest I wake Sarah proved to be more of an agitator than anything
else.

When
watching her failed to soothe me, either, I decided enough was enough. Slowly,
carefully, I hoisted myself out of bed. Shuffling steps took me across the
bedroom and down the hall to my office. I shut the door and disconnected the
speakers before I booted the system up, then sat down to check work email.

Maybe,
I decided, it would put me to sleep. And even if it didn’t, there was work to
be done.

*  
*   *

“You
look tired,” Sarah said over breakfast. I nodded and buttered my freezer bagel.
“Couldn’t sleep?”

“Nope,”
I said. “Watched you sleep for a while, though,” I added around a mouthful of
inauthentic bagel-shaped bread.

She
smiled at me. “That’s sweet, in a stalkerish kind of way.” With professional
precision, she pulled the bag out of her teacup at precisely five minutes, then
drained it and set it on the side of her plate. Two sips, and she looked at me
again. “I had some weird dreams last night. Did you?”

I
shook my head. “I don’t even remember when I fell asleep.” There was an
expectant pause, and I realized I was supposed to ask her what she’d dreamed
about. “What were your dreams like?”

“I
don’t know,” she said pensively, fiddling with her cup without drinking anything.
“I guess that story you told me about that thing you thought you saw the other
night. You know, with Terry,”—she parsed the words precisely, making sure she
didn’t add any credence to what I’d said or seen—“got in my head a little bit.
I dreamed about your ghost.”

“You
did?” I felt myself shifting, sitting more upright. “What was the dream like?”

She
shook her head, as if she were trying to shake the memory loose, or out. “There
was just this woman…ghost…thing. I was in bed, and you weren’t there, but there
was a dent in the blanket where you were supposed to be. She was sitting at the
foot of the bed, and we just…talked.”

“Talked?”
I felt a dozen questions rise up in my throat and choked them all down. “That’s
way up there on the weird-meter.”

“I
guess.” Another sip of tea, and she made a face before dumping a spoonful of
Splenda in it. “She seemed very, I don’t know, serious. And possessive. About
you.” Abruptly, she reached across the table and grabbed my hand. “But it was
just a dream, and I shouldn’t worry about it.”

I
detached my hand long enough to put the half-eaten bagel on the plate, then
wove my fingers through hers. It was entirely sensible, after all, for her to
dream about things we’d talked about. Blue Lightning had shown no real ability
to do anything like appear outside the office, to manifest in dreams, to do
anything other than sashay around the office and muck about with the
electronics.

No.
It was just a dream. “Just a dream,” I repeated out loud, as much for my
benefit as for Sarah’s. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Sarah
smiled at me. “I know. I’m not worried. It was just strange to dream about
that.”

“I
can imagine.” I gripped her fingers tighter, and she squeezed back. Then,
hating myself, I asked, “Do you remember anything you talked about with her?”

She
scrunched her face up cutely and thought about it for a second. “All I
remember,” she finally said, “was one sentence. I think she said, ‘We’re not
finished with each other.’”

“Weird,”
I said, and nodded, and didn’t say anything else for the rest of breakfast.

*  
*   *

I
checked my appointment calendar before heading to work. The morning was clear
of meetings; the first one wasn’t up until one. I’d be meeting with Michelle
and some of the level artists to talk about concepts for original multiplayer
maps that we’d potentially be adding. BlackStone had politely sent a request to
Eric that we investigate producing content unique to the versions of the game
we were doing. This polite request was being treated as the strict marching order
everyone knew it was. The meeting, then, was to allow us to walk through the
proposed content to see which maps could be done within time, budget, manpower
constraints, and the vagaries of good gameplay.

Until
then, my time was my own to try to catch up on stuff that had started to slide
yesterday. There were a dozen docs to update, a presentation to BlackStone to
start working on, and a massive spreadsheet of proposed text strings for the
game that I needed to double-check to make sure they were in actual English. I
decided to start with the spreadsheet when I got in and to work from there. It
seemed the best use of my time.

At
quarter of one, I was still staring at the spreadsheet. I’d looked at maybe
thirty rows of text, changed two of them, and spent the rest of the time
brooding over whether I’d infected Sarah with a particularly vicious strain of
hallucination. When someone knocked on my door, it was a relief. I nearly
knocked my coffee mug off my desk in my eagerness to get up.

“Come
in,” I called out, steadying the teetering mug with one hand.

Leon
shoved the door open, looked around, and stood there. “You sure? I thought I
heard something banging around in here.”

“Just
me being a lamer,” I said. “You know, you’re the first person down to see me today?”

“Really.”
He gave a low whistle, impressed. “Normally you gotta beat ‘em off with a stick
to get anything done.”

“I
know.” I shrugged. “Maybe it’s just my lucky day.”

“Beats
me, man. All I know is that every time one of my guys talks about coming down
here or shooting you an email, they end up talking themselves out of it. It’s
like you got bad vibes or something.”

“Or
something,” I agreed. “You want to get some lunch?”

“It’s
why I came to see you,” He looked back and forth, as if to check if anyone else
were on the hallway and might overhear him. “Besides, you kinda look like you
need to talk to somebody.”

I’d
already grabbed my keys. “Or to get talked to?”

Leon
looked down at his shoes. “Maybe that too, yeah.” A second later, he looked
back at me and his face brightened. “Burgers at Jonesy’s?”

I
had to laugh. “Burgers at Jonesy’s,” I said, and followed him out.

Chapter 23

“How’s
Sarah?” Leon asked across the table. He didn’t look up as he asked, instead
choosing to fiddle with his multiply-layered, cheese drenched, bacon-warded,
BBQ-sauce-doused burger. As I watched, he somehow managed to lard it up with
two layers of cross-hatched French fries. A spiral of ketchup from a squeeze
bottle finished it to his satisfaction, and he slammed the bun back down. “Ah,
perfection.”

“That’s
kind of gross,” I told him, picking absently at my chicken tenders. They’d been
left in the deep fryer too long and had acquired a distinctly chewy, leathery
consistency. Jonesy’s was one of the office defaults for lunch, but that was
due more to proximity and price than the quality of the cuisine. At other
tables, I could see coworkers digging in with various degrees of gusto. Terry
and his little cabal were hunched over in one corner. They’d scowled when I
waved at them, which was all the encouragement I needed to pretend they weren’t
there at all.

“Naah,
it’s great.” As if to lend weight to his words, he tucked in with a serious
two-fisted chomp. Bits of fry dangled from his mouth as he put the garnished
burger back down on his plate. “Mrrrfmm yrrrfummm dddrrrr nnnn.”

I
ripped off a strip of chicken with my teeth and winced. “I beg your pardon?”

Leon
wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then wiped the back of his hand with
his napkin. “I said, it’s European style. They like fries on their actual
burgers. In a pita, even.”

“Remind
me of that fascinating fact the next time I get the yen for a burger in Paris.”
I took another bite of chicken. “And Sarah’s fine, but I think she’s fighting
off a cold. She was sniffling and sneezing this morning.”

Leon
nodded sagely. “Everyone’s getting sick. By this time next week, the team rooms
are gonna be ghost towns. Either that, or someone’s gonna be puking in every
single one of them.”

I
threw a fry at him, which he ducked. “Nobody’s ever thrown up in the office.” 

He
caught the fry and ate it, grinning. “What about Hector back in April? He puked
pretty good.”

Shaking
my head in disbelief, I raised another French fry menacingly but thought better
of it before launch. “Hector,” I pointed out, “had been mixing energy drinks,
chocolate cake, and whisky all night. Any two of those combined would be enough
to make most humans vomit, let alone all three.”

“Hex
isn’t human. He’s a network engineer.”

“Good
point,” I said, and tapped my forehead with a couple of fingers in a salute.
“But I still blame the booze.”

Leon
tried to look indignant and failed. There was too much of a smile behind his
shocked expression for it to hold. “You’re just saying that because you made it
outside before you unloaded.”

I
pushed my plate away. “Well, I’m enjoying this lunch. How about you?”

“Sorry,
man,” he mumbled, taking another bite of burger. “Oh. That reminds me. When’s
our next leads meeting?”

Arm’s
length was the right distance away for my food, I decided, and I made no effort
to close the gap. Instead, I sipped my Diet Coke and put on my best thoughtful
face. “I don’t know, Leon. I keep on scheduling them and Michelle keeps on
opting out because she’s got something else to do.”

“Yeah.
It’s weird.” Another two bites of burger disappeared, messily. Strings of
cheese dripped out of the bun and pooled on his plate. “Ddddumm gummmm hrrrmmm
annnummm fummm?”

“What?”
I asked, exasperated. “Oh, wait, I know. Mumm fumm yumm lumm dumm.”

He
swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down furiously. I was reminded of
nature shows where a snake caught something a little too big for it but
wouldn’t give up the meal without a fight.

“Ha
ha, very funny.” He stared at the burger remnants in his hand but thought
better of digging in again. “What he said was, did you guys have another
fight.”

“Oh.”
I sipped at my drink, which was already at the “mostly empty” stage. Crackling
noises echoed up my straw. “Why do you ask?”

“I
dunno.” He set his lunch down. The bun was no longer structurally sound.
Half-eaten French fries spilled out in all directions. “You guys haven’t talked
today, you don’t IM, and every time someone mentions your name she looks like
she’s gonna be sick. Other than that, I got nothing.”

I
looked at my empty glass, then reluctantly moved it to the edge of the table.
“OK, you’ve got me,” I sighed. “Yeah, we had a little fight. Hopefully it won’t
hurt the project too much.”

“Oh,
yeah, that’s great. The creative director and the art lead aren’t talking, and
that’s not going to hurt the project? Whatever you did, man, you gotta
apologize.”

For
an instant, I thought about saying something like, “Yeah, you’re right, I never
should have screwed her,” just to see the look on his face. Then the moment
passed, and the well-intentioned badgering didn’t rankle quite as much. I
reached for the chicken to buy time to think of what to say.

“So,
have you seen it again?” Leon asked when I was mid-chew.

I
gulped, then reflexively said, “Her.”

“Her?”
He gave me a look of frank disbelief. “I mean, it’s got boobs, but that don’t
make it a her.”

“It’s
a her,” I said. “I’ve talked to her. It’s the game.”

“It
ain’t Salvador. She don’t got a moustache.” He jabbed the air with a
grease-soggy French fry to make his point.

“Not
Salvador,” I said irritably. “Blue Lighting. It’s Blue Lightning.”

“Huh.”
He popped the fry in his mouth and chewed it contemplatively. “No shit?”

“No
shit.”

“OK,
then. What’s she want?”

I
looked at him as he pulled a few more fries up from the plate and stuffed them
into his mouth. “You’re really taking this awfully well, you know.”

“Like
you said, man, what else are we gonna do? It’s a situation. We find a solution.
Ain’t no different from trying to figure out that pathing issue we had last
week.”

“I
guess you’re right.” I tried to force down another bite of chicken strip and
couldn’t. “So. To answer your question, yes, I’ve seen her. More than once. She
talked to me, once, when there was no one else around.”

“Ah.”
He thought about it for a minute. “I’ve seen something that might be it…her. I
think. It’s hard to say.”

“I
think she’s focusing on me these days.” As the waitress swung by, I waved for
the check. She nodded and swirled back into the distance.

Leon
smirked. “Terry can’t be happy about that.”

“I
could give three shits what makes Terry happy. Is he getting his ass back on
track?”

“Honestly?”
There was some introspective chewing. “Not so much. But I live in hope.”

“Someone
has to, I guess.”  I checked the time on my phone. “We’d better start thinking
about getting back.”

Leon
didn’t bother to stop eating. “Clock on the wall says you’ve got twenty minutes
before the map concept review meeting. What’s your rush?”

Because
it’s really uncomfortable sitting across the table from the friend whose
girlfriend I just nailed, I thought but didn’t say. “I just want to make sure
I’ve got all my notes ready,” I told him instead.

“You
don’t bring notes to a meeting like that. You take notes.” He chuckled to
himself, then polished off the rest of the burger in two bites. There was a
tricky moment when it looked like he’d have to unhinge his lower jaw to get the
meal down, but it passed, and after a moment he patted his gut. “Ah.
Cheeburger, cheeburger, man. Nothing like it to fuel a man for a day of meetings.”

“Heh.”

Our
waitress, who looked like she was about fourteen, dropped the check off at
roughly the midpoint of the table. I grabbed it, a half-second before Leon’s
hand hit the table with a meaty smack. “I’ve got this one, man,” I told him.
“You got last time.”

“No,
you got last time,” he corrected. “And the two times before that, now that I
think on it. Not that I’m complaining. But it’s cool, Ryan. You don’t have to
get it every time.”

“Let
me grab it today, and you can get it next time,” I said, feeling deeply
uncomfortable about the whole thing. “I promise.”

He
gave me a look that was mostly unreadable. “OK, man. But ease off on the
intensity pills. You’re starting to freak me out a little.”

“Sorry,”
I said, reaching for a credit card. I stuck it with the check and waved it in
what looked like the waitress’ general direction. “It’s just….”

“Just
what?” He blinked. “You’re not quitting, are you? Don’t tell me you’re
quitting, and buying me lunch is your way of saying goodbye, ‘cause you know
you won’t be around for me to get the next one. Oh, you are such an asshole!”

“I’m
not quitting,” I said wearily. The waitress swooped by and grabbed the check
and my card, warbling “I’ll be back with this in a minute!” I revised my
estimate of her age upwards to maybe seventeen and precocious and watched her
fade off into the crowd. “It’s just…there’s something about Shelly you should
know, OK?”

I
was surprised to hear the words coming out of my mouth. I had no intention of
confession, of messing up my friendship and working relationship in one blow.
Nor was the guilt I felt over the whole thing an unbearable, obsessive thing.
Instead, it scuttled around the edges of my thoughts, there when I talked to
Sarah or tried to talk to Shelly, but mostly shoved into the dark corners of my
mind with the excuse that there was nothing I could do about it.

“Shelly?”
Leon’s eyes narrowed. “I thought we were cool with all that. We are cool,
right? Right?”

I
opened my mouth to tell him that no, things were profoundly uncool, and no
words came out.

“You
okay, man? You look like you’re choking or something.”

I
realized I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go forward and confess, couldn’t go back
and pretend I hadn’t started this conversation. I was stuck, balanced in the
middle before taking the plunge into an even deeper professional and personal
nightmare than the one I was already in.

“Come
on, Ryan, what’s the deal?” Leon was half out of his seat now, busily trying to
determine whether he needed to beat the crap out of me or save my life. I waved
him back down, even as my throat squeezed any words I might have said into
voiceless rubble.

“Here’s
your check, gentlemen. Have a terrific day!” Salvation came in the form of the
waitress. She put the credit card slip and my card down on the table and slid
both across to me. “Come back and see us again!”

“We
will,” I finally croaked, and took the check. Leaving her a large tip, I
signed, flipped it over, and tucked my card back into my wallet.
Experimentally, I swallowed a couple of times to see if my throat was letting
air through for a change. It was, or at least swallowing only felt like I’d
sucked down a pocketknife instead of a Bowie.

Leon
was still looking at me, eyes narrowed. “You were saying, man?”

I
stood. “Look,” I said, and it came out a dry rasp, “I just wanted to…I don’t
know how to say it. Just be careful with Shelly, OK? She gets really passionate
about stuff, and sometimes you get caught up in it, and the next thing you know
you’re hurting, bad. OK?”

“Oh-kay.”
He looked puzzled. “You don’t need to warn me, bro. I can take care of myself.
And passionate”—he licked his lips in cartoon lasciviousness—“is just fine by
me.”

With
a sinking feeling, I nodded. I’d tried to tell him, I told myself. If he’d been
thinking about what I said, he’d have known.

Whatever.

And
as I stood there with a sick smile on my face, Leon pointed to the neon-faced
clock on the wall. “Let’s get going, man. Like you said, gotta get the notes in
order.”

“Yeah,”
I followed him out. “Got to get everything in order.”

Terry
and his crew were already in the parking lot when Leon and I left. They watched
us pull out without making a move toward Terry’s car, and they were still
watching us when we went around the corner and away.