Chapter 26
After the Fall
I’m still sitting shell-shocked behind the desk when Rob reappears.
“He’s gone,” he says, hovering in the doorway, his eyes sliding towards the wall. “You were pretty badass.”
“Thank you,” I say. “You were pretty badass too.”
“I felt like Booker in Bioshock Infinite.”
The reference is lost on me, but I assume he’s referring to a game. He’s still lurking like he doesn’t know whether to stay or go. I make it easy for him and give him a social cue.
“You did good. I’d love to stay and celebrate, but Effie is waiting.” He ducks his head and is about to leave when he stops.
“You know that in the end, it will all be alright?” he says.
I seriously doubt that. We are in trouble big time. But still, I value Rob’s opinion. “How do you know?” I ask.
“Because I'm a gamer. And this is a game built by gamers for gamers.”
Maybe it’s because I’m tired that I’m slower on the uptake than usual. “Isn't that every game?”
“No.” Rob issues his denial to the floor. “The big studios build games for profit.”
My eyebrows rise. “And we don’t?”
“We build games for gamers and hope to make a profit. There’s a difference.”
And then he’s gone.
Good news travels fast, but bad news travels faster. Rob’s big frame has barely unblocked the doorway when Ramesh appears. Thirty seconds later, Marnie joins him. Luckily Ahmed will already be home with his family, so there’s no risk of him appearing like a third witch.
“Is it true?” she says. “Have you sacked Piotr?”
Her hair is in its usual disarray, and there’s a drawing glove covering part of one hand. She’s obviously abandoned something midway.
“Yes,” I say with more confidence than I feel. The anger that sustained me through the call with Harriet and the confrontation with Piotr has evaporated. Now, I’m left drained.
“You should have consulted us,” Ramesh says, drawing himself up to his full five foot seven inches.
Maybe. He has a point. There’s a management team for a reason. But there’s a reason I didn’t; I didn’t want one of them warning Piotr. I can’t tell them that without causing offence. In this case, silence seems the best play.
“Anders did leave her in charge,” Marnie points out. Then she turns her sharp eyes on me, and I remember she is not only loved in her department, she is also respected. “Did you talk to him?” she asks.
“No,” I admit. “I had to move quickly.”
“Why?” Marnie asks, quick as ever.
“Because he was leaking our secrets to Wobbegong Interactive.”
Marnie gasps, her gloved hand flying to her chest.
“No,” Ramesh says firmly. “He would not do that. None of us would.”
“I thought that too. But trust me, he did.” Even without hard evidence, I’m sure of it. It all falls into place too neatly. Even dumping Ginny makes sense now. He had to get rid of her in case she happened across something or someone. He couldn’t be certain Ginny would play along.
But it’s not just him meeting with Wobbegong. He claimed he didn’t know about the influencer slots. It was Scarlett who brought it up first. But he should have known. Marketing was his remit. It was either incompetence or malfeasance, and Piotr didn’t make a habit of the former.
“If you’re wrong,” Ramesh says, “you’ve just opened Cerium up to a massive wrongful dismissal case.”
“Athertons were at the meeting,” I tell them.
“Good,” says Marnie. She seems reconciled to my actions.
“But we are down a head of marketing and publishing,” Ramesh points out. “And only weeks until launch.”
They don’t know the half of it, but if I tell them now, I won’t get out of my office until tomorrow evening. And I need to go home. I need to be with my daughter and not be Cora, acting CEO, for the rest of the weekend.
“I’ve asked Scarlett to step into the role. She’s confident she can take over.”
“Scarlett?” His dislike and his doubt are combined in a single word. But then again, he clearly rated Piotr so maybe his people radar is awry.
“Anders rates her. And we don’t have time to go to the job market. There’s no one else internally who could do the job.” Believe me, if there was, I would have offered it to them.
Marnie considers what I’ve said, her head tilted. Then she nods. She’s on side.
Ramesh looks unconvinced.
“We are already running without a CEO,” I point out, “and none of us know when Anders will return. We can’t run without a head of publishing as well. I’ve got no more bandwidth. Have you?”
He frowns, but he doesn’t say anything. Of course he hasn’t. His engineering teams are the most under-pressure.
I move away from them and start collecting my belongings. Glancing at my phone to check the time, I see I have a message from Ahmed. I’ll deal with that later.
“I’ll set up a meeting for Monday morning,” I say to reassure them. “We can go through it all then. But I’ve got to pick up my daughter now, and you two need to go home as well.”
Finally, they get the message and leave.
I’m fretting about the state Effie will be in when I get to her after-school club.
The worry has been sitting there in my head since I called her childcare.
But in the quiet brought by their departure, it’s become a clamour.
She will know I’m late and her anxiety will be climbing.
It would just top off today if she melted down in the car park again.
“How is she?” I say when I finally burst through the door of the after-school club. I’m expecting sulks and accusations.
But the playworker greets me with the biggest smile ever and nods her head to the corner. Effie is sitting on a beanbag, reading a story to a little girl.
“She’s made a new friend,” the play worker says. I press my lips together to suppress my joy, but my heart is singing.
The playworker’s hand lands on my arm. “I know,” she says and gives a quick squeeze. We stand together, just watching my daughter.
The little one is sucking steadily at the thumb in her mouth and gazing up at Effie with big-eyed adoration. But Effie notices me in the doorway and closes the book.
As I walk over, I hear her say, “We can carry on with the story when you come to school. I have to go now.”
She passes the child the book. Effie, making wild promises she can’t fulfil but meaning every word.
“I’ll see you next time,” she says waving. And then she turns away to fetch her things.
“Who were you reading to?” I ask as we make our way to Stormfly. I’m not strictly allowed to question her yet, but she seems happy enough so I risk it.
“That’s Sarah,” Effie replies. “She’s having a trial day. She’s coming to our club when she starts school.”
“In September?” I ask.
Effie climbs into the car. “Yes,” she says. “She’s going to be my friend.”
My heart leaps. A friend! The first person I want to tell is Anders.
But that’s not possible. By the time we get home, I’m bursting with news.
Luckily, Dana and Max are already waiting.
As we’re so late, I throw some fresh pasta in a pan, pour over a ready-mixed sauce and we sit down directly to eat.
It means I have to keep everything throttled until finally, finally, the kids finish their ice cream and get down to play.
I start with the most important. “Effie made a friend today.”
Dana gets it. “Whoop, whoop,” she says and breaks out into a chicken dance. Go figure.
Effie’s first friend. We don’t talk about it but we both know that if Max and Effie hadn’t grown up together, they probably wouldn’t be friends. But they did and they are. Max is easy-going and socially acute, much like his mother. He makes friends easily. Effie doesn’t.
It breaks my heart. There is so much children like Effie can give the world, if only the world would allow them to.
Instead, their sense of order, justice, and loyalty make them the target of jokes and derision.
They are avoided or ignored or regarded as creepy, either because they stare too much or don’t make eye contact at all.
Effie might spend her life being excluded unless, like Rob, she is lucky enough to find a place she finally belongs. An employer like Cerium, willing to make basic concessions like fixed schedules, written instructions, and low-stimulus environments.
Dana interrupts my thoughts. “She’s growing. And I don’t mean physically. She’s unfurling like a dahlia, revealing her innate complexity.”
It’s a lovely image. “She is.” And I’m so privileged to witness it. How can her father not realise how much he is missing?
Then I shake myself. Dana will be leaving soon and there is so much still to cover. “How are things with you?” I ask.
She scratches her nose. “Okay,” she drawls. “Fiona and I had a fight. She’d like a child and she wants me to approach Max’s biological father for sperm, so our child is Max’s half-sibling.”
“And you don’t want to.” It doesn’t surprise me. Max’s father had wanted no involvement from the start. Dana did it all alone. Why would she want to drag him back into her life now?
“Nope.”
I think about asking Mike for something similar and the feeling of repulsion is overwhelming. “I understand why. I wouldn’t do it either.”
“I know, right? But to Fiona, it seems so logical. She thinks it will help Max bond and make our family unit stronger.” She takes a big swig of her drink as if that will make everything better.
“Max is an open soul. He would bond with a new baby, no matter. Look at him and Effie. And plenty of siblings hate each other.” I can’t understand why. I would have loved a sibling.
“Exactly,” she says.
After a moment’s thought, I point out, “That’s not the only way for the new child to be related. If the donor came from your family, the resulting child would be a blood relative to Max. Not a half-sibling but a cousin, maybe.”
“That’s not a bad idea. At least if I suggest it, it would show I’m on board with her concerns. And if I tell her it comes from you, she’ll give it more weight. She’s a fan of yours.”