Vaporware

by Richard Dansky

  “I love you, too.” A minute later, she was snoring gently. I curled up around her, my left arm draped over her for protection or comfort, my hand carefully placed not to cup one of her breasts. The rhythm of her breathing soothed, and I closed my eyes and wondered why the single line Blue Lightning had drawn across my cheek still burned.

  * * *

  Sarah was gone by the time I got downstairs in the morning. She’d left a note on the kitchen table, a yellow Post-it stuck to the side of the sugar bowl. “Friday Night Movie Night? Your pick. —Love, Sarah.”

  I pulled the note off the bowl, folded it carefully, and tucked it in my pocket. Friday Night Movie Night had been a staple of the early part of our relationship, right up until about the time we moved in together. One of us would pick a movie, and then we’d just cuddle up on the couch and watch it together. We’d get to the end maybe half the time before finding each other much more interesting.

  The rest of the Post-its were upstairs, so I sent her a text instead: FNMN sounds good. Will pick something you hate so we can start making out early. Love you.

  I hit send, shoved the phone back in my pocket. The last bagel in the bag had definite blotches of mold on it, so I decided to skip breakfast and just head in. With luck, I’d be safely ensconced in my office before either HR or Lucas and his crew got in, saving me from the possibility of bumping into any of them in the hallway and any unpleasant scenes that might ensue.

  Halfway to work, I realized I’d forgotten to make coffee. That meant either braving the corridors at work, or doing without.

  I compromised by pulling in at a gas station and getting a cup of something dubiously labeled espresso there, the non-dairy creamer distinctly identifiable as non-organic. I bought the stuff, paid cash, and headed back to the car after a couple of tentative sips scalded my tongue.

  When I got in, music was playing. I hadn’t turned the phone on when I’d started driving; I hadn’t plugged it in to the jack in the car when I got in earlier. But it was thundering away, loud enough that I could hear it through the windshield as I walked up.

  It wasn’t playing Blue Lightning music, which was a mild surprise. Instead, it was playing “Such Great Heights” by Iron and Wine, a song that Sarah had played for me when we first started dating. “It’s not quite our song,” she had told me, “but it’ll do for now.”

  We’d never gotten around to having an “our song,”, but “Such Great Heights” still put a smile on her face when she heard it.

  And now it was playing by itself. I froze, my hand on the door handle, listening. As if it had been waiting for proof I was in earshot, the volume swelled. The sound distorted, rattling the windows in a way I didn’t think the song was capable of. As I listened, it changed. Notes started getting skipped, long jagged tears in the fabric of the song. The singer’s voice distorted, warped, choked. The sound was horrific, as if someone were playing a record that was melting on the turntable. All the while, the volume got louder and louder, the distortion greater and greater until I thought the speakers would blow out, or the windows.

  “This isn’t helping,” I shouted, and opened the door. The sound hit me like a two-handed shove to the face, driving me back with the sheer pressure of the noise. I stumbled back, caught my footing, and staggered forward. One hand caught the phone up and pulled it loose, slamming it down on the ground. Abruptly, the music dimmed.

  “Like I said, you’re not helping yourself here!” Little sparks of blue danced around the cracks in the phone’s case, and I was seized with a cold fury. It had been a gift from Sarah, or its predecessor had, and twice now it had been touched by Blue Lightning’s hands.

  The steaming cup of coffee was still in my left hand, so I dumped it out on the iPhone. It gave a fierce, impossibly loud screech, then lay silent. Tiny popping sounds, the evidence of liquid hitting current, bubbled up for a minute, then subsided into silence.

  I nodded, mostly satisfied, then I got in my car and drove over it five or six times. When I was finished, I parked, picked up the pieces, and threw them in four different trash bins. Some of the other customers stared at me; none of them said a word.

  “We’ll talk later,” I said into the last trash can, the one that got the remains of the earbuds and a piece of screen. “Later.”

  Then I went in to get another cup of coffee. The time on the receipt said “9:24.” It didn’t look as if I would be beating anyone in after all.

  * * *

  Lucas was putting boxes into his car as I pulled up. I pretended not to see him as I got out and headed inside, but I could feel his eyes on my back with every step. Eric was at the front desk and nodded fractionally as I passed.

  “Morning,” he said.

  “Morning. It’s done?”

  He jerked a thumb toward HR. “The last one’s in there now. Everyone should be packed up and gone by lunch. Oh, and Terry was looking for you.”

  “Of course he was,” I answered. “Tell him I’ll be waiting for him at my desk.”

  “I should do that, should I?” Eric said, his voice incredulous, but he said it my back, as I was already gone.

  * * *

  It wasn’t five minutes later before Terry was knocking at my door. I didn’t have time to tell him to come in before he’d already shoved it open, his face red, his hands shaking.

  “You prick!” he shouted. “You absolute prick! You sold us out!”

  “No,” I corrected him, gesturing to the empty chair. “I sold Lucas and the other guys out. You still have a job, and there never was an us.”

  He crossed to the chair and kicked it. It bounced against the wall, hit the underside of my whiteboard and then slammed backed down, rocking crazily on the carpet. “That’s bullshit and you know it! You were supposed to keep her secret so we could finish her. And now Lucas is gone, and it’s just you and me left, and I don’t think I want to work with you.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. “I don’t want to work with you, either, but we’ve got a project to finish, and Salvador’s on a tight deadline.”

  Terry actually sputtered at that, and I swear little flecks of foam bubbled at the corners of his mouth. “Salvador? Salvador! What the fuck are you talking about Salvador for? There’s one thing we’re working on that’s worth talking about. One! And that’s Blue Lightning!”

  “Yeah. And that’s the problem.” I stood up. “Let’s take this outside.”

  Terry gaped like a fish. “Are you trying to fight me?” he finally choked out.

  “No,” I said, squinting in anticipation of the headache that I was certain the conversation would bring on. “I just want to talk in private, and we’re a lot more likely to get that if we’re out of the building.”

  “Your office door is shut,” he said stubbornly. “We can talk fine right here, unless you’re trying to avoid me.”

  “Not you,” I said. “Her.” I let that sink in for a minute, while suspicion and anger chased each other around Terry’s face. “Now, do you want to talk, or do you want to just stand here and yell at me? If that’s the case, let me go get some Advil and you can do it all day long. But if you actually want to talk about what’s going on and what I did, then we’re taking a walk.”

  I could see his hands clenching and unclenching as he thought about it. “Nothing funny?” he asked.

  “There’s nothing funny about this at all,” I said, and walked past him to the door. “Come on.”

  Terry followed me at a safe distance, hunched over and with enough steps between us to let any observers know he was just coincidentally going in the same direction I was. Once we got outside, I waited for him. He stopped and lit a cigarette with nervous fingers. One puff, and then another, and then he finally sauntered up to where I stood.

  “You’re not supposed to smoke out front,” I reminded him.

  He gave a snort of laughter. “Or what? I’ll get fired?”

  “Point taken.” I turned and started walking. After a second, Terry scuffled after me. “
You wanted to talk. So talk.”

  “That was a shitty thing you did,” he said, ever so slightly out of breath. “You didn’t have to get them fired. She’s not going to be happy with you.”

  “Funny,” I said, “She said it didn’t really matter as long as I was still around.” I let that sink in for a moment as we rounded the corner of the building and caught the first faint whiff of stale tobacco from the smokers’ lounge.

  “She…told you that?” he said after a minute. “That can’t be right. She told me that she needed all of us.”

  “Uh-huh.” I shot a glance at him. He looked genuinely upset. “You think maybe she was just telling you that?”

  “No! And that’s not the point. You didn’t have to get them fired. Hell, I know things about you that would get you shitcanned, right now. Or maybe I call your house and tell your girlfriend what went down at the coffee machine. You ever think about that?”

  I shook my head. “You’re not going to get me fired, because she clearly wants me around, and that would piss her off. And besides, from the way Eric handled things yesterday, I’d say you and I are both bulletproof right now.” Stopping, I turned to look at him. He nearly ran into my sternum before he realized I wasn’t moving any more. “And sure, you can call Sarah if you want, and tell her what you think happened, but if my home life goes in the crapper because of you, I’m going to make your life a living hell through the end of Salvador.”

  “I could quit,” he sputtered. “After all, you got the only people I actually liked here blown out the door.”

  “As long as she’s here, you’re not going anywhere,” I said. “So let’s call off the pissing contest, all right? Yeah, I did a crappy thing, and I did it to save my ass, but they’re better off out of here anyway. I don’t know what she wants, but I don’t think it’s going to be about any of us in the end.”

  “She said she wanted to be with me.”

  “She told me that, too.” I could feel the pressure building behind my eyes, the headache coming on full throttle. “Look, Terry, there’s only one way to put this: she’s a project. And what do we know about projects?”

  He thought about that for a minute, then answered warily. “That they feel good when they’re done?”

  “Jesus, man, what happened to you? You’ve been in this business nine years. You’ve shipped four games. You should know this by now. The project always takes, man. It takes your evenings, and it takes your weekends, and it takes your energy, and it’s all in the name of pushing to the end for the good of the project and the good of the company and if you’re lucky, the good of the guy in the cube next to you. It’s about the project, but we all think it’s going to be magic at the end, and that’s why we keep on signing up to have the shit kicked out of us. Every. Single. Time!” I was shouting, and I realized it, and I didn’t care. “She’s a project, Terry. She’s going to take everything she needs from us, and a little more, and we’re going to be grateful for the chance to work ourselves to the bone for her. She’s going to flash her tits at us and tell us she loves us until we believe her, and when it’s done, she’ll move on and what happened to us to get her there won’t matter. Do you understand?”

  He looked at me with heavy, sad eyes, and shook his head slowly. “I think you don’t want her to leave you,” he said, drawing each word out like he was tasting as he said it. “And I think you’re worried you’re not that good at your job, and that she’s not going to be as cool as you thought she was, and that someone else might actually contribute something worthwhile to her.” He paused, and thought for a second. “Here’s the deal, Ryan. I’ll keep my mouth shut about all of your bullshit, because she needs you. But when this is over, and she makes her call, then all bets are off. You understand me.”

  “No,” I said truthfully. “But it doesn’t matter. I’ll see you at the meeting at three, right.”

  “Yeah.” He spat on the asphalt, then rubbed the wet spot with his sneaker. “I have to ask you one question, though.”

  “Why am I fighting her?”

  He shook his head. “No. If she’s really as dangerous as you think she is, why are you still here? After all, if it’s safer for Lucas and those guys to be gone, it’s gotta be that much safer for you, right?”

  “I don’t think there’s anywhere I could go,” I said. “I’ll see you inside.”

  “Maybe,” he said, and loped off.

  I sat down on the curb and watched him go. Time passed. Maybe it was five minutes, maybe it was half an hour. People drove by, pulled up, went in. A couple pulled out, never to return.

  And eventually, a shadow fell across me. I looked up. “Hi, Michelle.”

  “You need to stop shouting crap like that in the parking lot on a day when people have windows open,” she said. “They talk.”

  “What are they saying? That I’m crazy, or that I’m an asshole?”

  “Both.” She sat down next to me. “Me, I’d like to call you crazy, but I know better.”

  “You know that I’m an asshole?”

  She nodded. “Yes. You are. And I wish to God I could just hate you, like you seem to want me to.”

  I picked up a pebble from the parking lot and flicked it away. “You don’t?”

  “Not entirely. But yesterday I got real close. Now, Leon, on the other hand….”

  “Yeah. Leon.” We sat there in silence for a few more minutes. I tossed more pebbles into the lot. Michelle picked a blade of grass from a crack in the asphalt and started knotting it.

  “Are you going to do it?” She asked the question looking straight ahead, not at me. I shook my head.

  “I don’t think so. It’s getting scary, Michelle.”

  “Scary? How?”

  “She wants things,” I said. “She wants them, and she’s not going to stop until she gets them. And she’s starting to figure out that there are things in the way of what she wants, and I’m thinking she might want to get those things out of the way.”

  “Those things?” She turned to face me. “You mean Sarah.”

  “And maybe you, too.” I dropped the pebbles and then dropped my face into my hands. “So I’m going to stop it. I’ve gotten most of the guys on the black project fired, which isn’t even the first shitty thing I did this week, but it’s going to take away from her getting stronger. At least, I think it is. I’m trying to make Terry jealous enough to quit. And then I’ll take a few more steps.”

  “Idiot.” An elbow caught me in the ribs. “Why aren’t you asking for help with this?”

  I spread my fingers enough that I could see her and she could see my eyes. “Who’s going to help, Shelly? The friend I screwed around with, or the friend I screwed around on? Or maybe my girlfriend, whom I cheated on? I screwed up, and that means I need to do this and take whatever hit I have to in order to make things right. Maybe Sarah never learns that I had to do some horrible stuff to protect her from Blue Lightning. That’s fine, if she never learns that I did something horrible to whatever we have together. And I’ll carry that as long as I have to, because she hasn’t done anything wrong.”

  “And you have.” Michelle stood, shaking her head. “You ever think that you wouldn’t have fallen back into bed with me if there hadn’t been something there you weren’t getting at home? It’s not all you, Ryan. It never has been, and it shouldn’t be now. Most good leads learn that pretty early.”

  She reached down, hand extended in my direction. After a second, I took it, and she helped pull me up.

  “I’ll finish Salvador,” she said. “But no long nights, at least not working with you. And after this, I think maybe one or both of us should think about working somewhere else, Ryan.”

  I took a good look at her shoes. They were black Converse hi-tops with electric pink trim, long laces triple knotted and still trailing floppy on the ground behind her. They were perfect; they were Michelle. “I think you’re probably right,” I said, still keeping my eyes low. “Maybe I should have left after the cancellation.”


  “Yeah, well, we’ll cover that in the post-mortem. I’ll see you inside.”

  “See you,” I mumbled after her. After a while, I followed.

  * * *

  I ran into Dennis on the way back to my office. He was toting a couple of external drives by their cables, looking like a deep-sea fisherman taking his wares to market. “Hey, man. How’s the head?”

  “Attached,” I said. “How’s by you?”

  “Weird.” He shook his head. “You know all those backup tapes Eric had me order?” I nodded. “Well, now he wants me to send ‘em back. Only it’s too late for pickup today, so they’ve got to sit in the lockbox on the floor in front of reception all weekend, where some jackass can use ‘em for a stepladder.”

  “Isn’t the lockbox supposed to be proof against that sort of thing?”

  “Yeah, but you never know. There’s always gonna be some numbnuts who accidentally uses a blowtorch to get the candy jar open, and the next thing you know all the backups are crispy fritters.”

  “Well, good luck,” I told him. “I promise—no blowtorches out of me.”

  He gave me the sort of look he usually reserved for the newbs who didn’t realize that you actually had to plug in a network cable on both ends. “No, you’d come up with something interesting.”

  “Heh. Take care of yourself, Dennis.” I waved and headed back toward my office.

  “Have a good weekend, man.”

  I stuck up my hand to do a sort of backwards wave and vanished into my office.

  Four guys had gotten fired that morning. Four guys had gotten fired because of me. They were gone now, out of the building, with most traces they’d worked there already gone. I looked around at my office walls and wondered how long it would take me to be gone, to be scrubbed out of this place. A couple of posters, a couple of papers…I decided it wouldn’t take very long at all. I could be ready to quit in an hour, if I wanted to leave an orderly legacy for whoever came after me. If I wanted to be a dick about it, half that.