Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Andi
Hi Carter!
Please call me Cat. Ms. Li reminds me of my childhood piano teacher whom I share a last name with and didn’t like very much! (As an aside, you could probably drop the “Ms.” from Andi’s name too. IIRC, they prefer their full first name.)
Attached is a proposal for Sentinel’s arc with the Warden Kelsi, which I’d love Andi’s thoughts on. Could you please help schedule a 30-minute meeting between us for the coming week? My calendar is quite flexible.
Still working on the other seven arcs! Thanks! Hope you had a great weekend!
Cat
Catherine Sulin Li | Games Writer + Avid Eater | catlimakesgames.com
Five exclamation points. What sort of email requires five exclamation points? And who asked Cat to come to my defense? Although I’m not mad about it, I am embarrassed that I can’t seem to get my own assistant to address me the way I’d like.
Tearing off my blue-light-blocking glasses, I press on my eyelids until I see jagged colors burst and break. When I open my eyes again, there’s another email at the top of my inbox, this one from [email protected]: “Accepted: Cat / Andi Sync.”
Hazard of letting Carter field my emails and manage my calendar: I didn’t even get a chance to tell him no.
Out of curiosity, I click on the attachment in Cat’s first email. Kicking off with Kelsi makes sense; we see a two-to-one ratio of people who play as male heroes versus female heroes, although now that we’re introducing a they/them/theirs option, who knows how that number will change. Kelsi also has an inherently romanceable personality. She’s smart and capable and a little standoffish when she first meets Sentinel, which (for better or worse) will make her more attractive to a sizable subset of players. Just because Cat’s identified the most logical place to begin means nothing, however. I scroll past the first page of her proposal, ready to rip the details of it apart and declare romance dead.
Except … it’s actually good. Reading what she’s written, it’s clear she’s absorbed how Sentinel and Kelsi’s platonic relationship changes and matures over the course of the game. And instead of proposing an overhaul of what’s already been established, she’s suggested the addition of a handful of lines and one extra cutscene—just enough to lay the groundwork for some romantic tension. All in all, the five-page write-up is clear, succinct, and considerate of the narrative decisions the rest of the team and I have already made.
Shitballs.
It’s unbecoming of me to be annoyed, but I hurl my pen across the room anyway. Deciding that grace is an overrated personality trait, I storm out. “Taking a walk,” I say to Carter on my way through the D-pad. It comes out more like a snarl than a heads-up, and he visibly recoils, but I’m moving too fast to reassure him. A minute later, I’m outside, blinking in the late-morning sun and marching toward my favorite caf é , Revivify.
Its owner, Val, is there when I trounce in, and she immediately brings a red-eye and pain au chocolat to the bay window table I colonize whenever I’m in one of my “moods” (as Philo refers to them). With my back to the door and a view of the street outside, I can cool off without subjecting myself to the world.
“Rough day?” Val asks, setting down the pastry and coffee and reworking the ties on the back of her apron.
“Rough week, more like,” I mutter.
“It’s not even noon yet on a Monday, Andi.”
“You’re right.” I rip into the pain, sending flakes flying everywhere. “Rough month.”
Val lets out a bark of laughter and raps my table twice. “Well, sorry to pile on, but I won’t be able to make our date on Saturday. My parents need me to go home and help ’em pack. They’re finally selling the house my brother and I grew up in.”
“No worries,” I say around a full mouth. Val and I have been friends with benefits ever since my last relationship ended and I moved back to Colorado. (Coincidentally, my ex also moved to Colorado a year and some change later, so we’ve stayed in touch.) Val is good in bed, doesn’t do feelings, and plays a mean game of Splatoon . Usually, I’m the one canceling at the last minute due to work creeping up on me, so I’m not about to be a jerk to her the one time she needs to bow out.
We make a little more small talk until another customer clangs in and calls Val away. I return to sipping at my red-eye and letting its bitter warmth drown out any lingering, uncharitable thoughts. I’m determined to step back into the office a changed person. A person who’s happy, not defensive, that Cat’s done a great job of writing Kelsi x Sentinel. Why in the world should I be defensive anyway? I’m not above conceding when I’m wrong. I’m the lead writer and narrative director of one of the most highly anticipated games in years. I’ll be the first person to celebrate if this romance stuff pans out.
I’m about to get up when the bell to the front door behind me tinkles and an oddly familiar voice rings out. It’s lilting and warm, and—unless I’m imagining things—also very, very exasperated.
“No, I’m fine. Yeah, things are going great. No, the new job doesn’t come with health insurance, but … No, no 401(k) either.”
I duck my head and peek around the back of my armchair. Sure enough, the voice belongs to a smallish person wearing a dark-gray hoodie with a scythe printed on the back. I wedge myself lower in my seat. Above my hammering heart—why is it going so hard anyway?—I catch snippets of Cat’s phone call.
“Heartrender’s great, though! I’m having so much fun and— Of course, I know fun isn’t the only thing that’s important.” A slight pause. “My boss is nice, yes. Yes, I think they’ll help me grow. Yeah, lots of good opportunities. Okay, thanks for the advice, Dad.” Another pause. “Right. Yeah, I’m still seeing her. You don’t have to sound so surprised. I know, but you and Mom don’t have to worry— Okay. Love you too. Bye.”
Interesting. So Cat’s queer. I dismiss this tidbit of information as one hundred percent irrelevant to me as she ends the call. I wait for her to move on to the register, but she doesn’t. Instead, she just exhales for what feels like a whole minute. She probably doesn’t know there’s a person right behind her, sinking into coffee-stained velvet, but at this point I can hardly announce myself, not after I’ve heard her lying to her parents about how I’m a “nice boss.” All I can do is wait her out and pray that my bladder wins in the skirmish against the two hundred milligrams of caffeine currently besieging it.
Finally, eons later, she sniffs and moves on. As soon as I hear her speaking to Val, I stiff-leg it out of the caf é . I pelt back across the street, the contents of my bladder sloshing like an overfull jug, and make it to the gender-neutral bathroom on the ground floor in the nick of time. As I relieve myself, I send an email to Carter, asking him to add Cat to our weekly writers’ meeting on Thursdays. Because even if I’m not a nice boss, I can at least try to be nicer.