Chapter 54
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Cat
A buzz—my Monday morning alarm—jolts me back to consciousness. I open my eyes to an empty motel room, devoid of a duffel bag or an extra pair of shoes or even an errant sock. Opposite me, a mounted moose head surveys the room. I recoil at first, until I realize it’s fake, with an ear-to-ear grin and an adorably large snoot.
It takes me a second to place myself in time and space, but when I do, I shoot an arm out and paw for my phone to silence it. Where’s Andi? Did she leave already? Memories of last night and this morning float to the surface. Her leather jacket, keeping me warm. The mess we made of the sheets, now tangled around my ankles. Andi, stroking my shoulder, then tucking me in.
“Holy Palutena,” I groan, hefting myself out of bed. I search haphazardly for the things I was wearing yesterday. It takes longer than it should. My body is languid and floppy, my skin still fritzing with leftover electricity, but eventually, I replace the straps of my dress over my shoulders and slip on my white tennis shoes.
I clean up in the bathroom, scrubbing the sand from my eyes and brushing my teeth with a disposable toothbrush that snaps in half thirty seconds in. Giving up, I poke my head out the door. As I suspected, Andi’s ride is gone, leaving my car the only three-dimensional object in the lot. To be expected—she told me where she was going—but still, disappointment gathers in the pit of my stomach, dense as a lodestone.
Insecurity is a weird thing. You can spend all night with someone and still be convinced they left first thing in the morning because they couldn’t wait to get away from you.
I confirm with the man working out front that I don’t owe anything for the room, then fold myself behind the steering column of my car. According to Google Maps, I’m three hours from Boulder, which will put me in the office just shy of noon. Right in time to make it for the wrestling match with Brett. I’m about to pull out of the space when I notice a piece of paper flapping on my windshield. Getting out, I snatch it and flip it over in my hands.
Cat,
Off to save our game.
xo, Andz
I grin. It’s such a terse note, but the “xo” gives life to the bird in my chest. Tucking it in my pocket, I start the car and hit the highway.
I get to the office a minute to noon and slink, head ducked, into Thedas, Heartrender’s biggest conference room. Slipping into a seat in the back, I scan the room for familiar faces. There’s Philo up front, whispering into Gabe’s ear and making him laugh, and Dom beside them, typing away on his laptop one handed, but no Andi. How did I get here before her?
I hold the worry fermenting inside me at bay and hide my hands under my thighs. I managed to take a proper shower and change on account of a slight bit of speeding on the state highway, and now that I’m back in my usual costume of hoodie plus baggy jeans, I’m both warmer and a little more invisible. As my coworkers file in and grab seats at the table, they skate their eyes over and past me.
The entrance by Philo and the other leads swings open and I jump, expecting to see Andi. It’s not her, though, but Brett, holding both thumbs and pinkie fingers out like he’s a surfer dude who’s just won first place in a burrito-eating competition. He slaps hands with Philo, Gabe, Dom, and several of the engineers sitting up front before jumping up and down and flicking his wrists. I roll my eyes so hard one of my contact lenses shifts out of place.
Philo checks her watch, then her phone, and frowns. I track her expression as she leans over to say something to Gabe, who hovers a hand behind her, and Dom, who shrugs. She squeezes past Brett and is about to leave the room when Carter rushes in, his laptop in his arms. He gives Brett a little smirk, which unsettles me. I didn’t know they were friendly.
“What’s taking so long, you think?” the person next to me whispers.
I hitch a shoulder up. “No idea.” Surreptitiously, though, I pull out my phone and dash off a text to Andi: Everything okay? People are starting to look for you.
Three dots appear, wiggle, then vanish. What the … ? I laser my eyes at the screen, as if that’ll get Andi to resume typing. It doesn’t.
The meeting starts. Dom gets his demo working and shows off the new paragliding mechanic he and his team have spent the last few weeks perfecting. Then Gabe goes, introducing Brett to Meridian, a floating city of granite and marble and one of the first metropolises Sentinel gets to explore in the game. Finally, Philo gets up. She’s reviewing the production schedule for the next year when Brett waves a hand and interrupts.
“This is all great. Really. Amazing, top-notch work.” Standing, he adjusts his belt. “But I’m really eager to hear more about the narrative—specifically, the romance. Everyone loves a good love story, right?”
Around the table, heads bob, either out of nervousness, agreement, or both. I steal a glance down at my phone. Still nothing.
“Now where’s that little lady writer of yours, eh?” Brett asks. He looks over his shoulder, as if Andi might materialize behind the mounted monitors.
The sound of blood rushing to my ears drowns out all rational thought. I grit my teeth, mostly to keep my mouth from opening and a swarm of angry bees from tumbling out.
“Andz is running a little late,” Philo offers. “They’ll be here soon.”
“Seems a mite unprofessional, wouldn’t y’all say?” Brett comments with a broad smile toward the rest of us. No one laughs.
“Maybe we can get started without Andi,” Carter interjects, rising to stand beside Brett. He surveys the crowd and—to my horror—seems to rest his gaze upon me. “After all, we have Cat with us today. Andi has been having Cat draft most of Sentinel’s love interests. Why don’t you come up here, Cat?”
I nearly shake my head, but Brett follows up Carter’s invitation with a football coach’s encouragement. “All right, way to save the day, Kate. C’mon up here and tell us what’s going on in Sentinel’s love life.”
With everyone’s attention on me, I feel my knees unbend and straighten. My body shuffles, as if of its own accord, toward the front of the room.
“There we go,” Brett says, stretching his arms out wide. “Everyone, give Kate a hand. Carter, why don’t you let Kate borrow your laptop to get set up?”
I think about confronting him—telling him I overheard his nefarious plan to tear Andi down and that by the way, my name is Cat—but there’s a wad of cotton in my mouth, blocking my windpipe. Instead, I take over from Carter and log him out. My fingers are shaking so badly I mistype my password three times before I get it right.
“Her name is Cat, Brett,” Philo says with a tight smile.
I flick my eyes to Philo in thanks. She gives me a tiny nod.
As the laptop boots up with my credentials, Slack loads first. While Brett’s holding court with the rest of the company, I take the opportunity to dash off a last-ditch message to Andi: Brett’s making me present on your behalf. I swear to Kefka, Andz, whatever ace you’re hiding, PLAY IT NOW AND GET YOUR ASS IN HERE. Then, before anyone can read over my shoulder, I shrink the window and pull up the script in its place.
“So.” Brett claps his hands together. “What’ve you got for me, Cat ?” He overenunciates my name in a way that grates.
“Um …” My finger trembles over the trackpad. Should I start with Kelsi or someone else? Does it even matter? While I don’t know what Brett will say, I know it won’t be positive. The whole point of this farce is to tar and feather Andi in the most public way possible. In the cross fire, I’m just collateral damage.
“What’s the holdup, darlin’?”
Darling . Suddenly, the handful of Takis I ate for breakfast is threatening to come back up. That word doesn’t belong in Brett’s mouth. It shouldn’t even be in his lexicon. I edge away from him while hunting for the button that will let me project Kelsi up on the monitors.
Where is Andi? After all her talk last night, is she ditching her game, her team, Philo and this entire company? Is she ditching me ? Is that what she meant when she said “no strings attached”? The lodestone pressing on my diaphragm gets heavier and heavier as the doubt looming in my mind grows talons. What if, despite everything, Andi’s decided to drop me like everyone else always does?
Hell, that’d be a new record. Not even a full twenty-four hours.
Brett clears his throat meaningfully. “Cat?” he says, his voice a low growl.
“Right,” I stammer. “One sec.” Bending my attention to the screen again, I find the button I’m looking for. I’m about to cast when I see a notification in the bottom right. I click on it. It’s from Andi.
Trust me.
My heart swells. The corners of my mouth turn up. Taking a breath, I start describing Kelsi x Sentinel.
Beyond the occasional grunt, Brett doesn’t say much about Kelsi—probably because Andi and I wrote her to fit the stereotypical straight-male fantasy. Yet halfway through Evaralin, he interrupts with a loud yawn. Scratching his ribs, he gestures at the story beats I’ve pulled up. “This is all well and good, but do we think it really adds anything to the game?”
The hairs on the back of my neck go up. Here we go. But I have to fight. For Andi … and for me. “What do you mean?”
“It’s a little boring, isn’t it?” He swivels his head at the rest of the table, like he’s inviting people in on a joke I don’t get. “And what about Dane? You haven’t talked about him yet.”
“Them,” I correct.
“Dane’s a nonbinary party member who goes by they/them pronouns,” Philo adds gently.
“Right,” Brett says, waving a hand. “Them. Do they really need to be romanceable? I just think it might alienate a significant portion of Heartrender’s fan base.”
I gulp down a mouthful of air to keep myself from throttling Brett. “Our plan is for all eight party members to be romanceable. It’d be weird for Dane to be the only nonromanceable one.”
“Would it, though?” Scrunching up his face, Brett squints at me. His teeth are so white and rectangular, they look like Chiclets. I want to knock them out of his face. “Alternatively, you could just make Dane a man. He already looks like one.”
They look like a half-orc , I think bitterly. What the fuck do you know about half-orc gender presentation? “You honestly think—” I start, anger making me brave.
He cuts me off. “I’m honestly having second thoughts about this whole love interest thing. Everything you’ve shown me today is quite derivative, and at this point, the revenue risk seems too great for whatever statement you’re trying to make with this game.”
“Statement?” I sputter.
In the back of my mind, I know I’m overreacting. I overheard his entire plan yesterday, relayed it to Andi, but still—nothing can prepare you for having your work torn down for the sake of appeasing an incel like Jan Eschler.
“Oh, come on,” Brett says, looking past me at Philo. “You’re clearly trying to say something with all the”—he sneers, the very picture of condescension—“ diversity in this game. But games are supposed to be fun. They’re not supposed to be political.”
“Fun for whom?” I burst out. My insides are buzzing, shaking, a series of fast-moving tremors. Throwing caution to the wind, I jab my thumb out toward Brett. “For straight white cis men?”
“Now, now.” Getting to his feet, Brett pushes past me like I’m nothing, like I’m an NPC who can be expected to simply move out of the way. “I can see there will be no reasoning with you while you’re like this. It’s a shame Andi’s not here to try and defend her subpar writing, but I suppose we can’t wait for her any longer. I’ll let you know EA’s official thoughts later today, but for now, I’m leaning toward getting rid of all the romance.”
He’s leaving, leaving , after shitting on everything Andi and I have produced and asking us to rip it all out, and Andi’s not even here to stop him. Andi, who told me to trust her but didn’t show, who never wanted romance in this game anyway, who’s probably—
The door bangs open, smacking Brett square in the pecs. I crane to see around him but catch only a stack of pizza boxes.
“Sorry I’m late,” the person behind the pizza says. “But hey, I brought ’za.”
Andi.
She sweeps in, grinning so wide her eyes turn into sideways commas. Brushing past Brett and Carter, she slides the boxes onto the table. Hands start dismantling the stack and running them down, and as lids flip up, I smell cheese and ham and sour-sweet fruit.
They’re Hawaiian pizzas. Every last one of them.
I turn toward Andi. She winks at me—holy Palutena, she’s hot—and my heart falls out and puddles somewhere around my ankles.
“Brett! Are you leaving already? I thought I’d take a leaf out of your book and bring some ’za to boost morale, but they ran out of pineapple”—here I snicker—“so I had to wait for them to run to the King Soopers across the street to get more, and, well, I’m here now.”
I watch as about five different emotions bloom across Brett’s face: surprise and disorientation, followed by rage, then a genial eye-of-the-storm calm. “Who the hell gets ten pineapple pizzas?” he laughs, his voice a wadded fist of fury.
“There’s a few with seitan instead of ham for the vegetarians,” Andi calls.
“Look, Andi, I already talked to your associate here, but EA wants you to simplify the scope of Compass Hollow and cut out the romance. I can just tell you and your team haven’t really tried to make it work.”
My fists are screaming at me to let them punch a new hole in Brett’s face. I keep them in check—for now.
“Really?” Andi says. “That’s a shame. I can assure you Cat and I worked quite hard on them.”
“Can’t tell,” Brett reiterates with a sad cluck.
Still grinning, Andi offers, “Well, if that’s what you and EA want, we’ll do as you say.”
“You will?” Philo and I shout in unison.
“You will?” Brett asks, a leer chasing the confusion off his face. “Interesting. I was expecting more of a fight.”
“You know me, Brett,” Andi says. “I live to serve people like you.”
There’s so much sarcasm dripping off the ends of her syllables that I’m sure she has something else tucked up her sleeve, but at the same time, her skin is pale, almost as pale as it was at IAX. She inserts herself between Brett and me but folds her hands behind her back, as if she’s reaching for something. For me . I look around and, within full view of Philo and Gabe and Dom, wrap my fingers around hers.
Nonplussed, Brett narrows his watery eyes at Andi. “G-great. Well then, I’ll be in touch. Enjoy the ’za.”
At that moment, Philo’s phone goes off like a gunshot. Everyone in the room jumps. Everyone, that is, except Andi, who tightens her grip on me.
“Whoa,” Philo says, her eyes widening.
“What is it now?” Brett snarls, his paw on the glass of the door.
“I have a Google alert set up for Heartrender and … Gaymes.exe just posted an article about us.”
“That second-rate publication,” Carter snorts.
Ignoring his derision, Philo reads aloud: “ Compass Hollow leaks confirm at least four romanceable party members, including one who goes by they/them pronouns, in a first for nonbinary representation.”
The room goes dead silent. My heart is beating somewhere in my throat as I swivel my gaze between Andi’s hand, clutched in mine, and Brett’s face, which is slowly turning the same shade as Waluigi’s shirt.
“Who leaked this?” he demands. “Which one of you?”
Everyone shakes their head, from Alicia and Thayer in the back to Philo, Gabe, and Dom in the front. The tips of Carter’s ears are so red I’m afraid for his health. Meanwhile, Andi clicks her tongue like she’s never been more disappointed in her life.
Roving his eyes over the heads of those assembled, Brett scowls at me before dismissing my importance in the same second. He tilts toward Andi, letting go of the door for the third time in as many minutes. “Andi? What do you know about this? Are you the leak? Don’t think I won’t be able to find out.”
Andi goes still. Mentally, I send her what paltry power I have—whatever the real-life equivalent of mana is. All my extra lives , I think. All my magic points and skill points and legendary items, they’re all yours.
As if in response, she shifts and squeezes my hand. “Me? Be serious, Brett. You know I was against this whole romance thing from the beginning. I’m as disappointed as you are.”
Brett studies Andi as if deciding whether or not to believe her. I pray to whatever pantheon is listening that she rolls a natural twenty on this deception check. For better or worse, this is a final boss fight where the real BBEG isn’t even present. If Brett is the Paladin King Aethor, then Jan is the vengeful deity Brett’s sworn himself to, and we’ll be lucky if we can defeat the former just to buy ourselves some time with the latter.
The air around us chills. I forget to breathe. Brett’s lips thin and whiten as a vein in the side of his head pops out like an illithid larva searching for escape. Leaning in even closer, he bares his teeth.
“I’ll be looking into this, Andi. In the meantime, get a handle on your team.” He fixes Philo with a glare. “Another unexplained leak and you’re all fired.”
With that, he sweeps out of the room.