by Nick Cole
Deadly, noted Fish again.
The lagoon. A massive underground grotto with a wave generator for surfing, a jetboat course, and a secret beach with a tropical SimSun that was, of course, “deadly.” Most of the developers’ significant others hung out in the chill lounges there. The suit nodded at Fanta, who had closed her eyes while she chewed, humming or moaning, on another massive ghost pepper-harissa cocktail sauce-drenched piece of chilled shrimp.
Then there were the design labs, or “the Labs,” as they were simply known to the world. A state-of-the-art development complex where coders, developers, and producers interfaced using the latest computing technology to image and develop their games. Each developer was given his own suite with access to the legendary WonderSoft Design Core.
Fish, along with every other code monkey in the world, had heard of the fabled WonderSoft Design Core. WonderSoft was the only game company in the world with one. Its actual specs were unknown, and lacking hard data, rumors were what remained. Rumors that sounded like lies made up by little boys who dreamed up massive monsters to be both afraid of and in wonder of all at once. Except this monster was an UltraFrame with luminal processing speeds that sounded like lies told by drunken sailors who had once been little boys. To Fish, one of the best parts of this deal was that he would now find out, he hoped, how much of the Design Core was unbelievable legend, and how much incredible fact.
After that, Evan Fratty rattled off all the services available inside the Labs for game development. Exactly how many of the best and brightest coders recruited from the MIT School of Game Design, and Beijing Prime, would be made available to Fish on Monday. Then Evan Fratty told them all about Fish’s new home, where they’d be living for as long as he chose to develop for WonderSoft.
It was a state-of-the-art cliffhouse in the Granite Rock section of the campus. The house included a designer kitchen by the Guy Fieri Corporation, and a master suite with a special-manufacture bed twice as large as a California King. The suite also had an Opaque-Choice glass ceiling to enjoy, or not enjoy, providing a clear view of the stars at night up in the mountains as one lay in bed. There were three indoor BonFireplaces along with a patio deck BurningMan Firepit by iBanksy. A man cave done in library leather theater seating with a developer’s model of the rumored Xbox DreamFudge gaming system, including a Bang Olafsen wallscreen to “play deadly games on.”
Play, noted Fish, and looked down at the remaining half of his massive two-and-a-half-pound porterhouse steak. Gamers “game,” he reminded himself.
The cliffhouse also came with a saltwater pool and Jacuzzi with selectable colored lighting to fit your mood, all controllable by app, and perfect after a long day of “making the next deadly game.” Fish often coded on his own for days and nights on end. Then he went coma. Then he did it all over again. A “Day” could mean several solar units or even weeks.
Evan Fratty continued, describing first the Megahopp Houseparty sound system with full access to the entire WonderSoft cloud. Then the Maserati Samurai in the garage. “Yellow, we know that’s your favorite color, right?” And the Land Rover Conqueror, “Gray, but you can have white if you want.” A lounge for entertaining with a pool table, and, “Don’t worry, we keep the bar stocked. Gratis.”
Later, as the anthracite gray GoogleLimo pulled away from the front of the small executive terminal, heading down a winding road that would lead through the quaint mountain village of Twisted Pine Falls and up to the famed, secretive, and very elite WonderSoft campus, the soft jazz of Diana Krall played in the background and Evan Fratty tapped at his smartphone. Fanta, sated for now, leaned into Fish and murmured about all the wonders Evan Fratty had described.
Ninety-Nine Fishbein was still thinking about the server loads and the Infinitum engine. And the Design Core. He was thinking about that and eight hundred other problems that needed to be addressed before Island Pirates launched. On Monday he would hit the ground running; his entire world would change as he passed into a design bubble he might not exit from for five years. This would be his last weekend to relax.
They passed a moonlit meadow, and Fish’s eyes were barely open as Diana Krall murmured “I remember you…” Fish saw tiny hooded figures moving around at the far edge of the meadow, near massive pines that rose up like shadowy giants reaching into the starlit blue mountain night.
“Hey, we just passed…” Fish began, and then realized that what he was about to say sounded crazy. Then again, as the latest rock star game developer, crazy was probably expected. Evan Fratty, well groomed, well-cut suit, looked up from the world inside his smartphone. His eyes were bright and shining and his perma-smile seemed to convey that his fondest desire was to be of service to anyone. Especially the rock star of the moment.
“We just passed some weirdoes out in a meadow,” said Fish, craning his neck out the tinted back window to see more.
The GoogleLimo dove into a hall of rising pines alongside the tiny winding road, leaving the small moonlit meadow behind in the darkness.
“Did we?” remarked Evan Fratty cheerily. “How were they… weird?”
Fish twisted his thick lips together, thinking about how to convey that he’d just known the figures in the forest were weird. That there was something not right about what he’d seen in the brief passing moment.
They were short.
They were wearing cloaks.
They were out in the middle of a moonlit meadow at ten fifteen on a Thursday evening in the mountains. In a meadow. Y’know… weird. He settled on the “dress” aspect.
“They were wearing… cloaks.”
Without pause, Evan Fratty smiled. A smirk, really. Then he returned to his phone. “The locals are…” he nodded his head up and down, almost laughing to himself, “… are characters.”
Evan Fratty appeared to be struggling to figure out how to diplomatically convey the peculiarity of the locals to someone who might just be as weird as the locals.
“Let’s just say that a lot of people have come up to Twisted Pine Falls because there’s money here. Because of WonderSoft. Listen, it’s nothing to be worried about, in fact it’s a boon.”
Boon, noted Fish.
“They’re pretty good, the best in fact, service professionals,” continued Evan. “Waiters, retail personnel, service providers, masseuses, they’re all the cream of the crop. A lot of them have even worked entertainment, whether they were actors or Big Park guest services people. And, personal observation here, Fish, a lot of them are quite good-looking. But, they’re just an odd lot. They…”
Evan Fratty switched off his phone and dropped it into his coat pocket with one manicured hand. His gaze dropped from the opaqued roof of the GoogleLimo down through the darkness onto Ninety-Nine Fishbein, rock star developer.
“They’re the kind of people that do ren faires… Y’know, LRP-ing. Live-action Role Playing. That sort of thing. I think it’s great. Don’t get me wrong… it’s their way of expressing their individuality and it probably increases their service-excellence quotient, significantly. As a developer here at the WonderSoft campus, and down in Twisted Pine Falls, you’re going to find that people will do anything to make you very, very happy. It’s even rumored that Mr. Rourke pays out bonuses if it comes to his attention. How he finds out, I don’t know. But he does.”
“Is he really…” asked Fish and then stopped. “A recluse?”
Fanta murmured softly in her sleep.
“Yes,” answered Evan Fratty without enthusiasm. “He is. I’ve worked for the company for five years and I’ve never met anyone that’s actually seen him.”
They drove on. Through the clustering pines, the lights of the campus could be seen rising in the night. As though the limo were approaching some secret hidden world of fae and imagination. Fish felt unexpectedly excited. Like the day his dad had come to pick him up in Burbank from his grandpa’s house. The day, the morning real
ly, when he and his perpetually absent dad had driven to Disneyland way down in Anaheim. The day Ninety-Nine Fishbein had learned that dreams can be created. That it was possible to dream up things that might actually come true. One day.
“It’s really nothing to be concerned about,” said Evan Fratty in the darkness of the GoogleLimo as it sped toward the campus beyond the trees. The place where dreams were actually made. “Probably just some LRPing group out playing steampunk vampires or whatever in the night. Forget about it. They do it all the time around here.”
And Fish did forget as they drove through the massive “W” made of two redwood giants, split down the middle and given growth hormones to form the gigantic letter. Beyond that lay spreading green swards and postmodern gardens, all drenched by the spray of nighttime watering systems. Shining, upswept gargantuan boxes of banded and polished metal erupted from the center of the gardens like some fantastic wedding cake for robots. Fish knew these were the secret labs of the world’s most exciting game maker. He’d seen pictures, just like everybody else, of the fabled Labs.
Stadium lighting rose on impossibly tall poles, illuminating everything, making the world inside the light seem to be one of safety and security and cleanliness. A place other and unlike the world outside at the bottom of the mountain and along the coasts and deep in the deserts. Unlike it in any other way. Around the perimeter of the campus, towering pines made a wall just before the darkness that seemed like a distant barrier of nothingness beyond.
Fanta placed one of her long olive-colored fingers against Fish’s lips and murmured, “Shhhh…” as she closed his open mouth.
Chapter Three
“Next,” bellowed the forms clerk from within the bulletproofed window cage, then added, “Number tree-oh-too,” with a sour flourish befitting the most manic depressive of Department of Public Transit workers. Mara Bennett was neither “next” nor anywhere near number “tree-oh-two.” Mara Bennett was somewhere on the high side of the five hundreds according to the “You Got Job!” app she had up on her special-needs smartphone.
Other wait-ers waiting for a chance at an interview slot for the few coveted government positions available at private sector corporations had wisely brought books to read. Mara desperately wanted to continue listening to her latest free credit purchase on her Audible app, courtesy of the Department of Unemployment, The Thousand Dead, but she’d need to wear her headphones for that. Mara Bennett was blind. The only way she “read” the latest books was to listen to them on her smartphone.
But this job interview was too important; she couldn’t take a chance on missing her number being called aloud. She’d need her ears free as the numbers were called, instead of listening to a dark epic fantasy about a noble samurai named Wu.
Later, when number “fi-aity-ait” was finally called, Mara in her best and only business suit, a hand-me-down from her neighbor who’d left the corporate world and gone full-time private escort two years ago, pushed herself up from her chair and fitted her arm braces with the swift practiced motion of someone who has been handicapped her entire life. Her arms found the cuffs and she remembered to make sure her purse was on her shoulder, then she moved toward the window, counting the steps. Mara had cerebral palsy.
“It’s mild,” she told the “You Got Job!” counselor later, in the middle of her interview. She wanted to add, “I’m not retarded.” But she’d done so in the past and that had only made things worse. Instead, practicing for this interview, which she’d imagined as being much, much more than it was turning out to be, she’d gone with the plan to merely state that she had only a mild form of cerebral palsy. She’d had it her entire life. Since she was a little girl. It hadn’t stopped her from getting a degree in accounting. She could do any job in accounting and even some in other fields, starting out at an entry-level position of course. She just needed a chance to prove herself to someone.
Those were the things she’d practiced saying in the nights leading up to this very important interview. Practiced in her micro-apartment with only her cat, Siren, listening, and once for Colby her neighbor. The escort.
“I know that, honey,” said the counselor, who had a big bass voice and sounded to Mara like a black man. “I give ya mad props for comin’ in and lookin’ for work today. But times are real tough…” He proceeded to very succinctly break down the state of the economy for her and how the government was attempting to help people get jobs by forcing corporations to hire quotas from the “You Got Job!” program sponsored by the Department of National Employment.
“But you are up against some stiff competition here, girl,” he continued. “Other people want this job just as bad as you do, honey. Believe me. But most of them aren’t handi-capable and we’ve already filled up all the mandatory handi-capable slots. Now, you’re wantin’ to compete with people who are…” He stopped. Mara knew he was trying to run through his certification training and find the appropriate way to express that the people she was competing against were “normal.”
She’d told herself that morning, before the bus, in the predawn dark sitting on her bed with Siren in her lap, she’d told herself that they would respect honesty, even if it hurt her.
“… aren’t blind and don’t have cerebral palsy,” she finished for the job counselor.
She would be honest. Even if they, he, the man in front of her, wasn’t allowed to be. She had to be. To be or not be. That was always the question, according to Mrs. Watson.
Maybe honesty would work this time.
Maybe they’d finally find it refreshing. Maybe they’d give her a chance because she’d been honest.
Maybe…
Maybe no one was doing “honesty” anymore and someone, somewhere, was searching for just one honest person to give a chance to.
Maybe something would happen if she was honest despite… everything.
Something had to work.
“Exactly, honey. They don’t have those things,” the man said softly.
There was a pause. A silence in the room between them as someone, somewhere, slammed a door. Someone else was talking with another someone about lunch in the outer office. Someones with jobs.
“Now cheer up, honey,” said the black man.
Mara felt her face burning and she hoped she wasn’t crying… but she knew she was starting to.
They don’t give jobs to people who cry, she heard herself scream in her head, where no one could hear. And yet, she felt so humiliated for even trying.
“Don’t cry now,” soothed the black man in his deep, gentle basso rumble as he tapped at a keyboard. “I see here you’re signed up for housing, food card, the “You Got Weekend” entertainment allowance, wi-fi and cable direct assistance, healthcare, your Internet passport is up to date and you’ve got four more semesters left on the Get Smart program. Maybe you could take a few more classes? That would qualify you for the student Vacay Abroad program. Hey, lemme ask you somethin’ girl, what’chu wanna work so hard at work for, honey?”
Mara pushed herself up from her chair and heard one of her arm braces clatter onto the cheap linoleum floor behind her.
“Most people don’t wanna work,” said the job counselor, coming from around his desk and bending over with a grunt as he retrieved her arm brace. “You got all the benefits. You can become who you wanna be without having to worry about work.”
Mara took the brace and made sure her upper arm was secure inside it. She tried to remember where the door was.
“Right here,” the man said and led her to the exit. Tears were definitely escaping her eyes and running down her cheeks.
She heard the door open with the tiniest of squeaks. The sudden flood of noise from the outer office felt like the deep end of a bottomless pool she was about to dive into. Was being pushed into.
“You be careful getting home now, okay honey?”
She stopped.
Hon
esty. She’d promised herself she’d be honest. But she knew what she was going to say next wouldn’t come out in her most controlled voice. The emotion was choking her ability to control her diction and tone, problems people with cerebral palsy tried to overcome with long hours of practice and coaching. She’d used a lot of her student aid to minor in speech pathology just so she could sound… “normal.” But when she became emotional, it was almost impossible to control.
“Goodbye, honey. Thank you for coming in,” said the counselor again, like some jump instructor reminding a reluctant parachutist to pull their ripcord before they hit the ground. Not really advice so much, more of a prompt to get going and jump already.
“I just need a chance,” Mara said and hated the sound of her voice. The voice she’d been teased about, imitated in, and made fun of behind her back. The voice she’d cried herself to sleep in and wept over in all the strange bedrooms of countless foster homes. Until Mrs. Watson.
“I just need… a chance.”
***
Now, on the street, trying to pay attention as her WAYZ app gave verbal directions back to the bus stop, Mara Bennett focused. She took a deep breath and laughed at herself with disgust and as much forgiveness as she could muster. No wonder the guy didn’t believe in her. She’d actually started to cry in the middle of an interview!
“Well,” she laughed and wiped away a tear. “That didn’t go so well, did it?”
The air was cold and filled with the smell of burnt ozone. She could hear the whine of hundreds, if not thousands, of electric cars as she walked back up Lexington, heading for the bus through New York City that would take her to her micro-apartment. People bumped into her on the overcrowded and tiny sidewalks even though they saw the braces. She didn’t like to wear the sunglasses some visually impaired people chose to. She could control her eyes and could even see vague shapes and fuzzy colors. Mrs. Watson had always told her she had beautiful eyes. Green eyes.