Loathe at First Sight

by Suzanne Park

  My stomach churned, jaw muscles tightened, knowing that any moment I could be called into Sue’s or Ian’s office to be let go. Terminated. My biggest nightmare becoming my reality. As various scenarios of getting fired played out in my mind, Kat messaged again. Interesting email. Very unexpected. Maybe Asher’s not such a horrible guy after all?

  Seventeen Studios had issued a formal statement: an incident had been reported in which an employee shared proprietary information with external media without proper clearance. Such action was not permitted at the company and warranted disciplinary action, including possible probation or termination.

  At last, something was being done about Ian’s deliberate actions that had directly resulted in my utter misery. Finally, he would be held accountable.

  Just before leaving work at a reasonably early time, WheedWacker disclosed the identities of many of my self-righteous, vicious cyberbullies. And they weren’t your stereotypical basement dwelling, Mountain Dew–drinking virgins.

  @ApeSht75: A white middle-aged accountant (ACCOUNTANT? WTF) from Des Moines, IA. Family man. Churchgoer with a lesbian mother and sister.

  @Hi_TierX: Upper 20s neuroscience PHD candidate. White. Played a LOT of video games. Harassed a LOT of women, people of color, and LGBTQ.

  @GSquad_7: This guy was always getting banned on social media and wanted to rape everything. EVERYTHING. It was all he talked about. He just turned 18.

  @XBulletGamr: In his 50s, lived with his mom, a day trader who posted lots of porn pics. Mostly Asian fantasy porn.

  @gravitygirl23: A black female gamer in her 20s. She posted about #girlpower in a sarcastic way and hated all women of all races. To be fair, she also hated men of all races. She must have a backstory, but WheedWacker couldn’t find it.

  @flipper9000: A Filipino American guy in his 30s. Single. He did not like Asian women. In fact, he hated them. All of them.

  She texted: Want me to dox them? I have cell #s, addresses, SSNs, even banking info. I wouldn’t go that far though.

  I could have asked WheedWacker to do it, and she would have. Posting that personal information would have escalated this to another level, but I refused to add more fuel to the fire. Game over. This stupid shit needed to stop.

  Nah, no need. The harassment has really taken a nosedive since my Seattle Met interview, but thank you for everything. Justice Brigade saved me.

  WheedWacker responded: By the way, we changed our name to Bitch Brigade. Police and Media confused Justice Brigade with the Justice League like all the time, and Wonder Woman was the only goddamned woman on that Justice League team. We’ll go by B.B. effective immediately.

  Me: Has a nice ring to it. I love this bitch identity appropriation. You might think about 13.13 as another way to express B.B. It’s way nerdier.

  WheedWacker replied: 13.13. Yes! Well, we can get you those files if you need them anytime. Just ask Candace, and she’ll find me. I’m disconnecting this number now. Good luck, Gamer Girl.

  I wrote: No, thank YOU, but the message did not go through.

  The rain had let up, and now the skies were clear, not a single cloud for miles. No bluebirds singing, though. The sun burned my eyes, like someone coming out of a dark movie theater and being thrust into direct sunlight. This momentary pause in precipitation was glorious. Pedestrians swished past me, some talking on their phones on their way home, some chatting with friends or coworkers, and a few walking alone. My body tingled all the way down to my fingertips and toes.

  I had control again. What a wonderful feeling.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  My phone rang at 6:15 A.M. a day before launch. All I heard were high-pitched squeals, which at first I thought was a fax machine transmission. But it turned out to be my friend Nick, shrieking with glee.

  “Melody! Are you up? Wake up! Remember how I submitted your game trailer to all the advertising award festivals? Well, it won Grand Prize at the Indie Webbies for video CGI! And not just any grand prize. It was the Grand fucking Prix! We got the highest honor! How amazing is that?”

  I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. “Oh wow. Congratulations, Nick! But it’s not ‘we’ we’re talking about, it’s YOU. YOU won this and you deserve this so much. I am so excited and proud of you.”

  I could feel him beaming through the phone. “There’s more. The Ultimate Apocalypse trailer’s been picked up by a few industry news outlets, so your game trailer is going to be featured in both Adweek and Ad Age. And the UK and other European countries and regions are also picking up this news. A video game for women, with stripper heroes? The press is already all over that shit!” More press for him meant more press for me. Good deal!

  Like a guardian angel, Nick sent miracle news a day before my game launch. Newsletter subscriptions for the game nearly doubled overnight, thanks to this buzz outside of the gaming news world.

  Joe our PR guy called me that morning, too, on my way into work. “We’ve gotten so many urgent merchandising inquiries from toy and apparel companies, and new wellness, skincare, and fitness product placement requests. Hurry up and get to the office!”

  That afternoon, women’s interest magazines reached out to ask for copies of the game, company press releases, and high-resolution game images so they could publish online game reviews around the holidays. I’d just finished putting together press kit mailers to send out to editors, but this influx of requests made marketing so easy because these publications and websites sought me out, and not the other way around.

  In our last afternoon team meeting before the big day, all of us looked like the apocalyptic zombies we’d designed in the game, but we were in good spirits. Ultimate Apocalypse would be in the hands of people outside of the Seventeen Studios walls!

  In an unexpected company announcement, Ian revealed that Asher’s Girls of War game would have a soft launch on the same day of Ultimate Apocalypse’s release. “Our goal is to maximize our PR opportunity for Seventeen Studios by launching two of our amazing games on the same day. This is rarely seen in the game industry, and we expect exponential press coverage because of this two-for-one surprise release.”

  I passed Asher’s office on my way to mail a few press kits. His shaggy hair, full beard, and untucked lumberjack shirt that pulled too tight on the buttons made me feel a little better about my own unkempt appearance.

  “Hey,” I said, shifting the leaning tower of padded envelopes in my arms. “How’re you doing?”

  He looked up and a smile spread across his face. “Oh good, I thought you were the finance guy, hounding me for budget numbers. Isn’t he annoying?”

  “I wouldn’t know, I had no game budget,” I said drily.

  “Oh, right, I’m an asshole. I forgot . . . sorry.”

  “Just stopping by to say hi, wish you luck on your game launch, and to thank you for talking to HR about Ian.”

  “I have my own apology for you, too.” He dipped his head down, so low that his overgrown beard merged with his chest hair. “I’m sorry I didn’t think you could produce a video game. More proof that I’m an asshole.” An apologetic asshole was way better than just a plain ol’ regular asshole.

  “Ash-hole apology accepted.” I put the envelopes down and extended my hand.

  He reached out to shake it and then hesitated. “Before we call a truce, are you sure you don’t wanna talk smack tomorrow when our games launch? We’ll get real-time download numbers so we can see which game, you know, wins.”

  I lowered my hand. “Fine then. Tomorrow we’ll see whether my male stripper and female warrior game can outdo your big-boobed war-ravaged women one.”

  His eyes sparkled as he laughed. “Deal!”

  “I need to get to the mailroom before the last pickup. See ya.” I padded out of his office.

  While tasked with putting postage labels on my mail, I thought through the launch-day download scenarios. If Girls of War came out on top, which everyone expected, I’d be okay with that. Our studio considered GoW to be one of their bigg
est flagship games. What I didn’t want was for the GoW beta release to blow my game out of the water, though. Time had run out for any last-minute maneuvering, so we’d just need to wait and see.

  And pray.

  And possibly vomit.

  NOLAN STOPPED BY my office while I was checking download links to make sure there were no typos in our Ultimate Apocalypse game description.

  “Hey, stranger, got a second?”

  I smiled and waved him in. Nolan was back! “For you, yes.”

  “Guess what?”

  “I’m terrible at these guessing games.”

  “Try anyway.”

  “You’re an alien life-form who wants to take me to your native planet so I can rule as queen.”

  “Okay, never mind, you do suck at this. I got a job offer! A few actually. One from your friend Jane’s company, and another at Epicenter Games!”

  My stomach sank like an anchor. Epicenter was in the Bay Area. And of course, the other position was in NYC.

  “I was so inspired by our conversations. And you were right. I needed to stand up for what I wanted in life. Fight for it, even when it’s hard, just like you do. So I ‘Sheryl Sandberged the shit out of this,’ as you say.” He chuckled. “I passed on the New York job because I wanted to stay in gaming. I’m taking the Epicenter job.”

  “Oh. Then you’d need to move soon, right?” An uneasiness in my gut made me grimace. He would leave, and that would be the end of us. Not that there was an us.

  But did I still want there to be?

  A rolling sense of sadness hit me, leaving me unsteady enough to grab the armrests of my chair. For months, Nolan had been there for me when I needed him the most. He didn’t care that I was career minded, so much so that my workaholic tendencies during a ship cycle meant eating microwaved Stouffer’s for nearly every meal. Most important, he liked me for who I was, flaws and all. Damn it, here was a guy I couldn’t live without, someone whose like-to-hate ratio was through the roof, and he was moving away.

  He sat down on the corner of my desk and his whole face spread into a warm smile. “The headquarters is in Northern California, but I’ll be in an office for their mobile games just down the street in Lake Union. This is my last official week at Seventeen as an intern.” Nolan leaned toward me and whispered, “You know what that means, right? For us? Or do you not want to play guessing games anymore?” His gaze met mine and my heart melted, then burst into streamers and confetti.

  Oh my god, yes. Oh my god. Oh my god.

  I breathed in and out, steadily and calmly. Must not freak out. Must NOT FREAK OUT. My stomach turned happy flips as he stood up and slowly drew a card from his pocket.

  “It means . . . we go celebrate!” He handed me a punch card. “I got my tenth punch at Cold Stone Creamery today! This entitles you to one free medium scoop with one topping. I thought maybe we could go tomorrow to celebrate my new job and your game launch.”

  Nolan MacKenzie had my whole heart. All I wanted was for him to feel the same way about me.

  “Th-thanks.” I put on the fakest of smiles as Nolan drop-kicked my shattered heart. I’d never been so sad to get free ice cream in my life.

  LAUNCH DAY TURNED out to be weirder than I expected.

  People ran through the halls yelling out download numbers. Someone right outside my office screamed, “Shit! GoW just hit fifty thousand downloads the first hour!” Our studio had never seen numbers that high on a launch day.

  In comparison, I’d gotten maybe twenty thousand downloads, but since my game included expertly integrated product placements and merchandise sale opportunities, my game would hit profitability first. The limited edition Ultimate Apocalypse tees sold out within an hour.

  Online reviews poured in for both games. GoW got accolades from both critics and players, and by noon his game had a four-out-of-five-star ranking on most of the popular gaming sites. UA hovered around three stars overall, with a wide range of ratings from one-star gaming haters (“game is stupid and shallow, like the game producer who made it,” “unoriginal and hack, unrealistic,” “guys don’t really look like that”) to my five-star raters (“finally, a fun game for women,” “hubba hubba,” “great story arcs, fun characters, and nice eye candy”).

  Kat warned me about trying to defend my game online. “If you respond to the negative reviews, people will go on the attack, saying you’re too sensitive and you’re femi-nasty. Let it go. And let your fans defend your honor. Did you see your good critic reviews in the press?”

  Joe emailed a launch-day PR summary to the entire company, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. My game had double the number of critic endorsements as GoW, plus Ultimate Apocalypse had been featured as the lead story in tech blogs and the Seattle Times daily tech section, and UA was trending on social media faster than GoW. BetaGank wrote, “Kudos to Seventeen Studios for its game originality and technical mastery. With Ultimate Apocalypse, they’ve set a new high bar for mobile games. An impressive FPS mobile debut from Seventeen Studios.”

  Rain, one of the senior producers who had given me a crash course in production when I first joined the company, popped his head in my office. “Congratulations, Melody! I’m so proud of you!”

  “Thank you, you were a great teacher.”

  “And you were a great pupil. Did you see the email about the company launch lunch? Or maybe it’s lunch launch? Whatever. There’s free food to celebrate the launches today.”

  My stomach muscles clenched tight. “I don’t really feel like going to another company event where women in skimpy cosplay outfits offer me an assortment of gourmet pig-in-a-blanket appetizers.”

  Rain smiled. “When we have Zooful Nation launch parties, they’re circus themed and have cotton candy and peanuts and all kinds of shit. I can only imagine your launch lunch will be better than that. Ian usually gives a short speech, too.” He disappeared out of view. My stomach gurgled at his mention of lunch. Maybe I could get free food and then duck out.

  The thumping EDM music shook the walls as I approached the ground-floor party, and the light beams moving across the floor spilled a multitude of colors into the hallway through the open double doors. Dozens of people walked out with booze, T-shirts, and bags of swag. Most of the guys leaving the event had on GoW tees, autographed on the back by Asher and Ian. I rolled my eyes.

  A few people left wearing Ultimate Apocalypse shirts, mainly women and a few gay men. A handful of lanky hipster dudes wore them, too, but it may have been because most of the launch shirts for my game ran smaller.

  I walked in and beelined to the freebie stations. The only UA shirts left were size XS, about two sizes off from what I needed. Pulling one over my head anyway, I squeezed my head through the supersmall head hole, like I was reenacting my vaginal birth. My arms pushed through next but there wasn’t any room in the chest area to get both arms in there. My writhing caught Rain’s eye.

  “Here. Take mine. It’s a men’s L, but that’s better than shoving yourself into a too-tight S.”

  “It’s a too-tight EXTRA S, actually.”

  He looked mortified. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

  I laughed and peeled the shirt off. “I’ve never fit into an XS my entire life, honestly. I went straight from young girl sizes to ladies’ size S, and then M. Don’t know why I’m sharing all this with you, by the way.”

  “That’s okay, I grew up with sisters, and now my wife and I have three daughters. I’m used to talking about this kind of stuff. Did you get a good look around? Ian went a little overboard.”

  The entrance was only as far as I’d gotten. I looked up and noticed jumbo video screens playing synchronized scene excerpts from the two launch games. It was a game mashup party: there were apocalypse-themed “survival” boxed lunches, and war ammunition–themed drinks, like the AK-47 Absinthe Cocktail, a Grenade Grenadine Cooler, and Rum Rocket Launchers.

  Ian walked across the room. “Isn’t this amazing? The events team did such an am
azing job, right?”

  I muttered, “I’d rather funnel events money into more press kits and advertising.” And not on ill-fitting T-shirts or specialty drinks offered in cups shaped like grenades.

  He ignored me. “The board members are here, too. They just told me they want you to say a few words.”

  Before I could protest, the music lowered, drawing attention to PR Joe, who stood on a tall makeshift stage in the front of the room. “If I could have your attention, everyone! Let’s give the Seventeen Studios events team a huge round of applause. Lift your glasses. The food and drinks are amazing, events team!”

  The crowd erupted in cheers as everyone clinked grenade cups.

  Ian jumped on the stage and shooed PR Joe off. “Thanks for warming up the crowd, Joe. Or maybe it’s the alcohol that’s helping.” More cheers erupted. There were at least two hundred people there.

  He said, “Congratulations to both the Girls of War and Ultimate Apocalypse teams for working so hard to get those games launched on time. Seventeen Studios knows how to get shit done!”

  More applause. More cheers. Ian really had a knack for rallying the troops. People were loving this.

  “Unfortunately, Asher, the game creator of Girls of War, can’t be with us now, because he’s on the phone with Warner Bros. Girls of War was optioned for a TV series and a movie this morning. What a success story!”

  My stomach dropped, like I was on one of those horrible free-fall rides at Six Flags. My ears and face blazed with pulsing heat. Asher’s booberific game became a runaway hit overnight and Hollywood Reporter and Entertainment Weekly would announce his blockbuster deal soon. He’d hit the entitled-affluent-white-bro jackpot.

  Joe walked over and offered me one of his two grenade drinks. “You look like you need it.” He smelled his cocktail and furrowed his brow. “Is Ian going to ask you to speak about your experience as a woman in the gaming industry?” He took a sip and then coughed. “Wow, this is strong.”

  I took a giant swig, needing a little something to take the edge off. “He wants me to speak because the board is here, and of course he gave me zero notice. The expectation is to say amazing things about my opportunities here, right?”