Chapter 10
ten
. . .
Witt
Encrypted Message: Glitch
The best technology doesn't replace people. It removes the barriers keeping them apart.
Friday morning, my routine fails before seven.
I wake at five.
Shower at five-oh-seven.
Dress by five-twenty-one.
Coffee at five-thirty.
Elevator by five-forty.
Office by six.
Fuck, I forgot work out.
Maci Hart is disrupting my brain function because I said something to her that never should have escaped my mouth.
My brain keeps returning to the same sentence.
They don’t expect me to be normal.
Not because it’s untrue. Because truth is dangerous when said to the wrong person, and Maci isn’t my friend. She’s not Rune and hell I didn’t tell that to her for over a decade.
I sit behind my desk staring at a line of statistics for the streaming service.
I’ve already read it nine times. Once we reworked the algorithm recommending even higher rated shows than what they were originally looking for, customers are browsing longer and the watch time has increased.
I’m happy but it makes me think of Maci solving the issue in a matter of hours.
I sit back and sigh, running my hand through my hair.
The way she looked at me last night after Noelle left the kids. How the corners of her mouth tipped when she brought the kids a glass of milk to go with the big sheet pan of cookies I ordered from a restaurant around the corner.
She looked at me like I had given her something special. And I did. No one sees me with my family like this. Maci looked at me like she understood me better.
That’s worse.
Pity can be dismissed. Curiosity can be redirected. Understanding requires acknowledgment.
I don’t have time for acknowledgment.
I have a foundation gala on Sunday, an e-football season launching next week, sponsors arriving in less than twelve hours, investors expecting reassurance, and a boardroom full of executives from all the e-football teams who still believe numbers matter more than people.
Numbers matter.
People are simply harder to predict.
My office door opens.
Dara steps inside carrying her tablet and my coffee. “You’ve been staring at the same screen for eleven minutes.”
“That’s not accurate.”
“It is. I checked.”
I look up. She sets the coffee in the correct place.
Good, at least one thing is functioning.
“The meeting starts in fifteen minutes,” she says. “Maci is already in the boardroom.”
My attention shifts before I can stop it. Dara notices, unfortunately.
“She’s early,” I say.
“Seven minutes.” Not five. Not ten. Seven. Long enough to organize her notes. Short enough not to waste time.
I dislike that I know that.
Dara opens her mouth but I shut her down.
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were going to.”
“I was going to say she’s prepared.”
“No, you weren’t.”
She smiles wider, which confirms I’m right.
I stand and grab my tablet. “Meeting.”
“Excellent deflection.”
“Efficient deflection.”
“That too.”
The boardroom sits on the opposite side of the executive floor, surrounded by glass on three sides used for digital displays and wood oak paneling on the fourth with the SGI logo.
The table is long enough to make conversations inefficient, which is one of several reasons I hate it.
Today, every seat is filled with division heads, team representatives, marketing executives, streaming partners, foundation directors, and three investors who use too much cologne.
Maci sits near the far end with her laptop open, hair falling over one shoulder, posture straight, attention focused on the display in front of her. She doesn’t look nervous. She looks ready.
Something unfamiliar settles beneath my ribs.
Not anticipation.
Not exactly.
Pride.
The word appears without permission, and I immediately dislike it.
Pride implies ownership.
Maci Hart is an employee. A temporary resident in my penthouse. A woman who solves problems too quickly and sits on my kitchen island like furniture guidelines don’t exist.
She’s a problem.
For the company? No.
For me? Apparently so.
The meeting begins with launch projections. Ticketed live events are nearly sold out. Streaming pre-registration is ahead of target. Sponsor placement exceeds forecast. Merchandise is already backordered in four team markets.
Then we reach the rookie retention program.
One of the investors leans back in his chair. “I still don’t understand why we’re investing this much into players who haven’t spent a dollar.”
The room shifts and several people glance at me.
I could answer because the answer is simple. Lifetime value. Long term retention. It’s like when you go into a restaurant that just opened and they give you a free appetizer or dessert. You immediately want to go back the next time. But there’s much more to it than that.
I pause and look down at the table. “Maci.”
Her head lifts. Eyes wide. It’s her first meeting of this magnitude.
“Explain.”
A flicker of surprise dances on her face for a fraction of a second then it’s gone.
She stands, smooths one hand down the front of her blazer, and connects her laptop to the display.
“Brand loyalty doesn’t exist.” Some of the members laugh, but she’s not wrong. How do I know? I know the way she thinks. She’s the female version of me, but softer, more outgoing, braver.
“It can but it doesn’t happen just because they spend money on the game.”
The screen changes to a clean dashboard of user pathways, drop-off points, league participation, social integration, and projected retention curves.
No wasted slides.
No decorative nonsense.
No apology in her voice when she begins.
“Players quit games because they feel invisible. There’s nothing to keep them there.”
The room goes quiet.
I lean back in my chair. She’s right. How did this woman fall into my lap, speaking rhetorically of course.
Maci continues, and with every sentence, the room shifts from skepticism to attention.
She explains the data without drowning them in it.
She shows where new users are entering the ecosystem, where they’re getting lost, and why the current onboarding process is technically functional but emotionally empty.
She doesn’t say emotionally empty.
That’s my phrase.
Hers is better.
“They get dropped into the game without belonging to anyone,” she says. “No team identity. No rival. No mentor. No reason to care whether they come back tomorrow.”
One of the streaming executives taps his pen against the table. “So the solution is what? Giving every new user a friend?”
"Not giving," she corrects, because that makes it sound cheap, like we’re handing out participation prizes and hoping people stay.
"Creating the structure for connection. Rookie classes so new players don’t enter alone.
Mentor pairings so somebody experienced is responsible for pulling them in.
First-rival achievements, because the fastest way to make someone care is to give them a person they want to beat.
Team welcome messages that make them feel claimed from day one.
Community challenges that require players to show up for one another.
Recognition for first wins, first losses, and first rematches, because those are the moments people remember. "
Maci’s new mockups fill the glass walls.
She explains it exactly like she did to me.
Team colors and flags. Maci says, “Treat the teams the same way as Austin Armadillos fans. They show up in Parker O’Ryan’s number eighty jersey.
People don’t just cheer because someone is good.
They cheer because they feel like the team belongs to them. "
Damn, she’s good. I stop tapping. It’s such a small thing, but I’ve been measuring her argument one quiet tap at a time.
My gaze drops to the slide, then shifts across the projected logos, the flags, the onboarding flow, the achievement path.
For once, I can’t find a flaw. It’s architecture.
Building this league from the ground up.
We’re no longer a start-up and we have to stop acting like it.
It’s clean. Scalable. Monetizable without being predatory. More importantly, it solves the actual problem. The players aren’t leaving because the game fails them. They’re leaving because nobody is giving them a reason to belong. Maci is.
She nailed it.
The investor who challenged her folds his hands. “And this increases revenue?”
Maci doesn’t flinch. “Eventually. But if revenue is the first thing users feel, they leave. If belonging is the first thing they feel, they stay long enough to spend.”
I smile inside, not because she’s clever.
Because she understands.
Rune used to challenge every assumption I made. She refused to accept because that’s how it works as an answer.
Maci does the same thing.
The difference is Rune exists behind a screen.
Maci is standing ten feet away, commanding a room full of people who expected her to be decorative support.
She is not decorative.
She is dangerous.
By the time she finishes, nobody is questioning the program anymore. They’re asking implementation questions. Staffing questions. Timeline questions. Expansion questions.
Maci answers every one.
When the room finally empties, I remain seated longer than necessary.
She gathers her laptop and reaches for the presentation remote at the same time I do.
Our fingers brush.
Barely.
A second of contact.
Skin against skin.
Insignificant.
Except neither of us moves immediately.
Her breath catches.
Mine doesn’t. I’ve spent years hiding how I feel and what I feel.
She pulls her hand back. “We keep doing that,” she says quietly.
I look at the remote. Then at her hand.
“Apparently.”
Her mouth curves like she wants to say something else.
I should step back.
Instead, I stay exactly where I am.
That is not efficient.
Dara appears in the doorway before either of us can make the situation worse.
“Excellent presentation,” she says to Maci.
Maci smiles. “Thank you.”
“Also, final gala details were sent to both your inboxes. Black tie. Doors open at seven. Program begins at eight-thirty.”
Maci’s expression freezes. “Black tie?”
Dara nods. “It’s the e-football kickoff gala and SGI Foundation fundraiser.”
“You didn’t mention black tie.” Maci looks over her shoulder to me.
“I didn’t plan the dress code.”
“That wasn’t the question,” she says with a hint of nerves in her voice.
“You didn’t ask a question.”
Dara clears her throat, looking far too amused. “This year’s foundation campaign is adaptive gaming access for visually impaired children. Spatial audio development, tactile feedback controllers, AI-assisted navigation, and grants for schools that can’t afford specialized equipment.”
Maci’s face changes.
Her teasing expression softens into something quieter. Something that makes me uncomfortable because it feels too close to admiration.
“That’s incredible,” she says.
Dara looks at me. “It’s his favorite event.”
“No.”
“It is.”
“It’s useful.”
Maci glances at me. “Useful?”
“Technology should remove barriers,” I say matter-of-factly.
For some reason, she rewards me with a tender smile.
I look away first and as I turn, Dara smirks. That old fart misses nothing.
Maci closes her laptop. “Well, I don’t think I own anything worthy of a black tie event.”
“You have two days,” I say.
She laughs under her breath. “I’ll add that to my schedule.”
We walk back toward our offices together. Not intentionally. The hallway simply goes the same direction.
Maci asks Dara something about seating charts, and I pretend to check my tablet while listening. Every executive has one guest. Sponsors have tables. Team owners have the tables in the front. Media check-in is on the lower level. Security access changes at six.
Normal information.
Useful information.
Then Dara says, “Guest names are due by end of day.”
Maci nods. “I’ll send mine over.”
Mine.
Plural, possibly.
Singular, possibly.
Irrelevant.
Entirely irrelevant.
By afternoon, the meeting notes are distributed, the rookie program has been approved for launch, and Maci Hart has become the most discussed person on the executive floor. And my text chains are lighting up from other teams in the league.
Where did you find her?
She’s amazing.
Not many gamers can explain in simple terms that we understand.
Good. But she’s mine so none of them better come around offering her more money.
But it does please me.
I spend the next three hours attempting to work and failing at a statistically embarrassing rate.
My cursor blinks on an unfinished email. I check the foundation speech, the launch projections, the event security details.
Then the guest list pops into my email, and I have never opened a guest list in my life because I don’t care.
I open it anyway because evidently I do care—this time.
My name sits near the top.
Witt O’Ryan — no guest.
Correct.
Then I scroll.
Maci Hart — two guests.
My hand stills on the mouse.
Guest One: Tyler Hart.
Guest Two: Chase Bennett.
I stare at the name.
Chase Bennett.
There is no reason for the name to irritate me.
None.
I know almost nothing about him except that he calls her, makes her laugh, helped her pack, and apparently attends black-tie events with her.
That is more than nothing.
Still irrelevant.
I close the guest list.
Then reopen it.
The name remains.
Chase Bennett.
An unfamiliar sensation presses under my sternum, sharp and unwelcome. I wouldn’t call it jealousy although I have no idea what that feels like, not ever having been jealous before.
Jealousy implies emotional investment.
This is data.
Maci Hart is bringing Chase Bennett to the gala.
That is all.
A data point.
A variable.
A potential distraction.
Nothing more.
I close the file again and lean back in my chair. The office is silent and all systems are functioning.
The company is ready.
The launch is on schedule.
The foundation campaign is strong.
Everything is exactly where it should be.
Except my attention.
That keeps returning to a name on a guest list that should not matter.
Chase Bennett.
I hate variables.