Chapter 7
Luca
In Desolate Dread, some characters can be saved.
Others can’t. That’s life.
On either side of us, shelves of retro video game consoles clash with the wood-paneled walls.
We pass a life-sized display of Master Chief from Halo; Mr. Crow has clearly made an effort to give us a fitting welcome.
From my research, I know that he used to work in the industry himself.
He now heads a large marketing agency and is one of the sponsors’ main investors, which is why the event takes place at his estate every year.
Apart from the topical decor, the conference room is in no way second to the rest of the house.
Every piece looks antique, carefully curated.
On our way here, Elsa showed us the library next door, and Lara wasn’t the only person immediately absorbed in taking pictures of the rows and rows of books.
She’s not taking any pictures now, though.
Instead, she’s standing next to me, rigid as a board.
Her eyes are the only part of her that’s moving, and they scan the room.
I look around too. The tables are arranged in little groups of four, with drinks, biscuits, and notepads in the middle.
There are tables in front of the stage too, but they’re arranged in a row.
Six chairs are lined up—I bet that’s where the judges will sit.
A man in a suit is milling about, taking coffee and tea orders.
Everything here feels like a posh restaurant, not a video game event, apart from the banner up on the stage highlighting the event’s sponsors.
“Not bad,” a dark-haired man next to me mutters, leaning forward in his wheelchair, intent. “Not great for my nerves, though.”
“Tell me about it. There’s a proper stage and everything. This really is starting to feel like a competition.”
The man grunts in agreement and holds out his hand to me. His rolled-up shirtsleeves reveal a tattoo of a video game controller. “I’m Akito, by the way. Hi!”
“Luca.”
I wait for Lara next to me to introduce herself too, but she stays silent. She hasn’t uttered a single word since we’ve left the breakfast room. There’s not much left of her excitement from when she was telling me about Novel Haven as we ate our waffles.
I’m in dire need of a few minutes of quiet to sort through my thoughts on Lara.
It’s true what I told her: I really did sleep more last night than I did the past few nights.
But I did, as usual, wake up drenched in sweat, and I had a hard time shaking the images from my nightmare.
That’s normally the point where I give up, turn on my computer, and do some coding.
But last night, Lara’s regular breathing calmed me down after a few minutes, and I even managed to fall asleep again.
That observation confused me so much that I wanted to avoid talking to her too much this morning.
I don’t want to start liking her. But that’s impossible as long as we’re together, so the easiest thing is to simply flee.
The fact that she doesn’t seem like someone who’d intentionally harm another person, considering how tense she’s looking, just confuses me more.
It doesn’t matter though. Even if she doesn’t know that the game she’s working on is stolen, she’s my competitor, and I have to stop her from winning at all costs.
But the glow in her eyes when she talks about Novel Haven . . . I know that feeling all too well.
I give Lara a sidelong glance, but she’s looking straight ahead, fidgeting with her bracelet. Her chest is rising and falling fast, and she’s obviously anxious. Even my muscles are starting to tense up. It doesn’t exactly help that complete silence falls as Elsa walks past our group.
There are twenty of us participants, and although I checked out the competition online beforehand, it’s now only just dawning on me that I have to hold my own against nineteen other dev teams. Nineteen.
Some of whom are clearly older than me at twenty-six and probably have more experience.
Akito is my age, but thanks to his LinkedIn profile, I know that he’s already won an award for the Most Promising Young Talent.
It’s unsurprising, really. He works with VR headsets and games for people with physical disabilities.
Unfortunately, accessibility is often treated as an afterthought in the industry; color blindness support, language controls—that’s usually it.
Along with PixelPulse, his studio is already among this competition’s favorites in the press.
I’m sure he’ll get through to the next round; he deserves it.
Which means the pressure is on for me. Only eight of us will make it to the next round and get a chance to present their game to a larger audience.
I want to win, of course, but I definitely have to get through to round two.
Because GameChanger isn’t just well frequented; there will also be live streams of the trade fair and from famous streamers.
Even if I don’t manage to win, I’d at least get some exposure for Desolate Dread.
Elsa has us take our seats and pour ourselves a drink before we officially get started. I approach a table along with Akito and Lara. To my great annoyance, the man we met at the bar yesterday joins us.
“Hi, I’m Shane!” he says, nodding at us. “How about a fresh start?” At those words, he looks mostly at Lara and me.
“Sure, if you apologize,” I respond with a syrupy-sweet smile. I shouldn’t provoke him, but I don’t want to let him get off scot-free either.
“I really am sorry,” he replies. “Won’t happen again. We’re all in the same boat, eh?”
I have no idea if I can take his words at face value, but I nod and introduce myself too. Lara, on the other hand, just quietly mutters her name with her gaze fixed on the stage, although there’s nothing going on there yet. I’m not even sure she realizes who’s joined us.
“You all right?” I ask quietly so the others can’t hear. When she doesn’t respond, I worry that I spoke too softly, but suddenly, almost imperceptibly, she shakes her head.
“I can’t do this.”
“I saw you practicing your presentation yesterday. Why wouldn’t you be able?”
“Because I shouldn’t even be here. Sophia should be up on that stage.
Or Nat, I guess. But they had to send me, out of everyone.
” She laughs out loud, and Akito gives us a curious glance.
“I used to book my courses at uni so I’d have to do as few presentations as possible.
I hate public speaking.” She shakes her head again. “Coming here was naive of me.”
“Hey.” I prod her in the side with my elbow, forcing her to look at me. Her hazel eyes are wide, and indeed, there’s nothing but fear in there. There’s an ache in my chest, because I know the feeling all too well; it paralyzes me as much as it motivates me.
Calming Lara down isn’t my job, and according to Hank’s warning, it’s the last thing I should be doing.
The fact that she’s tense would play right into my hands if I were doing what I should be.
I know exactly what Hank would do now: He’d rub salt in the wound, dig deeper.
He’d unsettle his opponent enough to run them out of the room.
That’s why Hank is in a leading position.
As much as he supports his own teams, he can also be tough and merciless with his competition.
But a part of me—one of the injured parts that has never quite managed to find its way back to where it belongs after the incident—puts my hand on her shoulder instead.
Her eyes widen a little more, and I think I can hear her breath catch. I lower my hand again quickly.
“You can do this. You wouldn’t be here if they didn’t think you were the most capable for the job,” I tell her soberly, because that’s how it is. She holds my gaze for a breath before looking away again. But although her head is turned, I still hear her quiet “Thank you.”
The applause Akito gets for his presentation is definitely the loudest so far.
“Thank you very much; how incredibly impressive! I think we can all agree that VR Limitless is onto something big that will take accessible gaming to the next level.” Elsa gives Akito a warm smile before turning back to us.
“Next, I’d like to ask Lara Anderson from PixelPulse to step on stage.
PixelPulse is a small indie studio from lovely Notting Hill in London.
It was founded two years ago by Sophia Richards, who has been an active member of the industry for over a decade now.
Lara herself studied game design at University of the Arts London and joined PixelPulse as a developer right from the start.
The prototype she’ll be presenting today is called Novel Haven.
We’re very excited to learn more about their game! ”
There’s a smattering of friendly applause, but I can still hear Lara’s shaky breath as she gets up, smooths her skirt, and walks over to the stage.
Everything about her posture—her tense shoulders and erratic movements—says she’d rather be anywhere else: back in London, on the other side of the world, even at her own execution.
“Looks like someone’s pretty nervous, eh?” Akito whispers when he gets back to our table. His voice was shaky at the beginning of his presentation too, but he caught himself quickly and broke the ice with a joke. “I hope she calms down soon.”
I nod, my entire focus on Lara, who’s just taking the laser pointer and handheld mic from Elsa.
The sound of her clearing her throat echoes across the room, and then she launches into her presentation.
She jumps straight into the demo without greeting the audience or any words of introduction.
On screen, the main character moves across the map, runs through a cute little village, and stops at an old, weathered lighthouse.
There are dusty bookshelves inside, similar to the ones in the library next door, and we learn about the heroine’s quest to give the bookshop new life.
There’s a cut to a scene of village life and the various villagers with their problems, then a cut to the forests where you can forage for different rocks and plants, and finally a time leap to a well-frequented, pretty bookshop where the main character chats about works of literature.
The game is good. Very good. The animations are great, multilayered.
I know that lots of people will want to get their hands on it.
Cozy games were never really my thing, but it’s obvious that this one could become a great success.
Hard to imagine that Hank was contemplating working on such a relaxing game—all his other works include weapons, cars, and epic battles, not cute animated cats and sunsets on the beach.
“Not bad,” Akito says quietly.
“These sorts of games don’t really do it for me,” Shane interjects, anything but quietly. “Funny that this sort of thing even counts as gaming. It’s like The Sims; nothing interesting happens.”
So much for his honest apology. I suppress an eye roll and direct my attention to the front of the room, where the demo is just ending. Lara clears her throat, and I notice that I’m leaning forward, much more nervous than I was during the earlier presentations.
“This is Novel Haven.” Her voice sounds rough, and she clears her throat again.
“She wouldn’t drink last night, but she obviously smokes,” Shane says and laughs. No one joins in. I hope he notices.
“An indie game in the sixteen-bit style that whisks players off to the world of literature without losing any of its farming-sim charm. Only we’re not on a farm, but .
. .” Her voice breaks on the last word, and I can just see her flinch internally.
Her eyes meet mine, and I nod encouragingly.
I don’t know if it helps or if she’s just collected herself, but I breathe a sigh of relief as she goes on.
“. . . but in a bookshop. The goal is to establish the bookshop as a business and restore it to its former glory, but our journey also takes us through important subjects such as mental health and ocean pollution, which affects the coastal town of Novel Haven directly.”
Lara’s voice shoots higher again, and she shuts her eyes. Shane groans next to me, and I wish I could pour his drink on him. He mutters something and leaves the table, but my full attention is on Lara.
Come on, you can do it.
“The characters . . .” She clears her throat, but her voice can’t seem to find its way back into its normal range. There’s muttering from the next table now too. Meanwhile, Lara’s cheeks have grown flushed. She takes a frantic step forward, tries to speak again—and trips over a cable.
Lara only just manages to catch herself, but I can hear a clatter as the laptop Elsa plugged in for her falls to the ground.
The presentation on the screen flickers for a moment and then turns off.
The room goes dead silent. I can hear my own heartbeat; you could cut the tension with a knife.
My hand throbs in painful protest, and when I look down, I realize I’m clenching it into a fist. When I look back to the stage, Lara’s still standing there, stiff as a poker.
Maleek would be psyched. I’ve found out PixelPulse’s weakness: It’s Lara. No, not Lara, but her insecurity, and the fact that it affects her so strongly. I should be happy about this insight, but I’m not. Especially now that Lara’s panicked gaze meets mine.