Single Player (14 page)

“Francis took me here a couple of weeks ago and the food was incredible. I thought you would like it.” Dee got out of the car.

“I like all food. We've covered that.” For a guy who sometimes forgot to eat, yes, Silas did appreciate all food. That was something he could bring up to Matthew that he enjoyed. Matthew, who thought he lived a completely banal existence except for work and had no pleasure in life that wasn't his job. Allergic to fun, as he'd put it.

The restaurant was small and dimly lit, with decor that looked authentic and quiet music playing that was vaguely Spanish sounding. Silas and Dee were led to a table near the window, which let a little of the early evening light stream across their table. He looked out at the parking lot, half empty with cars glowing red-orange in the sunset, and thought about the general emptiness of everything. Having Dee around helped. She had launched into a story about her date with Francis here, and what foods they had tried and what they had thought of them, and he was able to listen with one ear while also zoning out as well. Maybe it wasn't polite, but he had a lot on his mind, and some unsettled feelings that he couldn't exactly reason his way through.

“What do you want to get?” Dee asked after the waitress left with their drink orders—a margarita for Dee and a Pepsi for Silas—and they'd had a few minutes to look over the menu. Well, Dee had had a few minutes. Silas just stared at the menu without reading it. He was hungry, but he didn't know what he wanted.

“I don't know. It all looks good. Why don't you order me something?” Silas folded the menu and set it aside. “I'm not sure what I want. You know what I like.”

Dee perked up at that and returned with renewed interest to the menu, her lips pursed in concentration. After a few minutes, she nodded, and then ordered different taco assortments for both of them when the waitress returned, carrying drinks.

“So, tell me about this Francis guy.” Silas drank his Pepsi and ate one of the tortilla chips the waitress had brought.

Dee looked off to the side, thinking. “Well, he's a nurse at Tampa General Hospital, he's twenty-eight, and he has a pit bull puppy. He's hot.” She fanned herself. “Jesus, he's hot. I'm hopping on that every opportunity I get.”

“That's too much information, Dee. I'm on a need-to-know basis with your sex life, remember?” The chips were good, hot and fresh, and he was starting to realize how hungry he was as he sat there eating them.

“Speaking of which.” Dee folded her arms, then realized she wanted to eat more chips and unfolded them to dig her hand into the bowl. “I'm on a need-to-know basis with your sex life, too, and I need to know what's really up with you and the bartender. You said it's not serious, but do you like him?”

“Sure, he's nice enough.” Silas tipped his head to the side. “Why would I go see someone I didn't like?”

“I mean
like
like. Do you want to date him more?”

“I'm going to see him again next week, but it's not like we're really dating.” What they were doing didn't seem like dating. Making a cat wheelchair together wasn't a common date, after all.

Dee's mouth opened in a comical little O and her eyebrows shot up again. “Oh my god, it's just a sex thing, isn't it? You've got a booty call.”

Silas blushed and shook his head, but the Pepsi was much harder to swallow than he'd thought, and he almost choked. When he could breathe again, he rushed to correct her. “It's not a booty call, all right? Please don't call it that. In fact, if you can never use the word ‘booty' around me again, except perhaps when discussing pirates, that would be great.”

Dee rolled her eyes. “Fine, whatever. I think it's great for you to be getting some action. You're too wound up. You need to relax. I've been saying that to you for years.” Dee shook her head while biting off the corner of a tortilla chip. “Too wound up.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that?” Silas felt bewildered and knew it must have showed on his face. “I've been working at Wayscorp for years. Now everyone thinks I'm working too hard? I'm fine.” Granted, he'd been struggling to sleep for the past few months, and he had been putting in many more hours on this project than the last one, but that was because it was a much more demanding task.

Dee shrugged. “I've known you for a long time, Silas, and you always get into situations like this where you're too deep into work to even come up for air. Then your project ends and you mope around for a couple of weeks, but then you're back in it again. It's not sustainable.”

“I don't want to talk about this anymore.” Silas had to take deep breaths to calm himself, feeling as angry as when he had driven home from Wayscorp earlier that day, and he was aware enough to know that he was being irrational. Even so, he couldn't use logic to push the anger away. It surprised him and frightened him. He didn't generally have strong emotional reactions, and here he was having the same one twice in one day. Maybe there was something to what others were saying about him. He wasn't an irrational man, regardless of how this anger might be making him feel. If other people thought he was too engrossed in his work, then maybe he was . . . only he had no idea how to change that. How did you stop caring about something? If he didn't have work, what did he have?

They sat in silence for a few minutes. If there had been food in front of them, they could have each distracted themselves by eating, but instead they just stared awkwardly at the table before Silas felt cowed enough to speak. “I'm sorry. Maybe you're right. My project manager talked to me today at work—”

Dee interrupted him. “Maybe you should start by taking weekends off like a normal person.”

Silas waved his hand, dismissing the comment. “That's not the point. I work on Saturdays. Lots of people do.” Well, maybe not at Wayscorp, but surely people did work on weekends. “Anyway, Elliot is concerned about my work habits, and that I haven't been myself lately. He's worried about me burning out, and I'm concerned that he's going to say something to Maria.” Maria Baez, department head, was a no-nonsense woman, and a bad mark in his file now might end his future career. “I don't know any other way to be, though. How am I supposed to work less hard at a job that I feel demands my full attention?” The more he thought about it, the more the situation felt hopeless and overwhelming.

Dee nodded in sympathy. “I get it. But maybe this Elliot guy is right. Take the rest of this weekend to relax. Go see a movie. Call up your fuck buddy.”

“Would you please not call him that, either?” Silas looked off to the kitchen, praying their waitress would come back soon with the food. “And I already saw him today. I'm seeing him next week. We're building a wheelchair for his cat.”

Dee raised her eyebrows. “You're doing what?”

Silas spent the rest of the time until the food came explaining the situation with Matthew, Zuul, and the adaptive technology. Then the food came, which was every bit as good as Dee had promised. By the time dinner was over, he felt a little bit better, and maybe like he could relax this weekend after all.

If only Silas had any idea what the word “relax” looked like.

The end of the
weekend was always a disappointment, but Matthew didn't really mind going into work on Monday morning. He never did. Deviating from his normal routine a bit, he swung by the Brass Buckle on the way to work to get a cup of coffee rather than bringing one from home, and that delicious hot caffeinated wonder carried him all the way through his morning programming tasks. He finished his work on the
Orion
expansion pretty quickly, but rather than screwing around like he normally did until lunchtime, he dug into
Endgame
instead. Once he had a sense of the project, the coding became satisfying rather than tedious. He'd forgotten the enjoyment of really digging into a difficult task. Once his own part of the early-stage beta programming was under way, he started looking at the rest of the team's unfinished coding sections, and then started working his way through those as well.

He ran into Isabel in the break room while on a stretch break. “Hey, you.”

She looked up from the coffee she was pouring. He occasionally dipped into the company coffeepot, but thanks to Silas, he was starting to become more of a coffee snob. The thought made him smile.

Isabel raised her mug in salute. “Hey, yourself. How was your weekend?”

“Fantastic.” He smiled. “How about yours?”

“Pretty good.” Isabel took a sip of coffee, grimaced, and started to doctor it up with some milk and sugar. “I'm looking forward to DiceCon. It's coming up fast, isn't it?”

“End of next week.” Matthew was going to have to meet with the rest of the team soon to make plans for that trip. He wasn't in charge, but he had attended more times than anyone else. In fact, it would probably be best for him to gather everyone today, because once they all got into their week's work, he would have a difficult time dragging everyone away. He would have a difficult time dragging
himself
away, too. “You think you can spare some time today to talk about big-picture DiceCon plans, actually? I'd rather get this under way now instead of waiting until next week, and I was going to talk to Will about meeting today.”

“Sure, no problem.” Isabel nodded. “Are you actually taking point on something?”

Matthew put a hand to his heart, mock-affronted, but her comment stung more than he expected. “Hey, now, I'm a model employee. I've even been working on all the
Endgame
programming.”

“Fucking
finally.
” Isabel exhaled. “We're way behind on that.”

“It's not like we need it for DiceCon. The trailer's done, right?” Matthew shrugged. “We have the trailer and the art, and we'll sign people up for open beta based on that.”

“I know.” Isabel took her mug in both hands. “I just want it all to be perfect. Hey, whatever happened with that guy you were telling us about? The uptight one? He ever call back?”

Matthew poured himself some water from the Brita in the fridge. “He didn't call, but we ran into each other, and we've seen each other a few times since then.” He tried to make it sound casual. “No big deal. Nothing serious.”

Isabel smiled. “Oh yeah? Nothing serious, but you've seen him a couple of times already?”

Matthew gave a long-suffering sigh. “Yeah, nothing serious. I told you, the guy is seriously uptight. But he's also got a work ethic that completely blows me away.” He hesitated on sharing the next bit, but Isabel was his closest friend here, and he wanted her advice. “He's an engineer who works on creating equipment for the disabled. It's amazing work even though it stresses him out like crazy. But, I don't know . . . it sort of makes me feel like I'm not doing enough with my life. Like I missed out on something somewhere along the line. I feel like I'm just coasting instead of really putting my all into it.” He looked down into his glass. “That's kind of why I'm working on the extra
Endgame
stuff.”

Isabel blew a long breath of air between her pursed lips. “Phew. That's heavy talk for a Monday morning, Matthew. I was just trying to get some more coffee into my face so I could work on this project.” She let out a little laugh.

“Seriously, though.” He set his water down next to him. “You work really hard here. Are you fulfilled? Does it make you happy?”

“Well, yeah.” Isabel folded her arms. “I've known this is what I wanted to do since high school. I want to actually accomplish something in the field. Being design manager is perfect for me. I get the responsibility and the reward.” She tilted her head to the side. “Do you want more responsibility? Is that it? Mr. Nine-to-Five finally going to put his all into this?”

“It's not like I'm
slacking,
Isabel.” Matthew drank from his water glass. “You know that. I get everything done on time. Pretty much. But it's not a challenge anymore, and I was thinking . . . maybe I should be doing something more.”

“You aren't thinking of leaving, are you?” She gave him an incredulous stare. “You can't leave. Our whole programming team would fall apart. We're in the middle of two games. We're in the final steps of
Endgame,
and
Orion
is about to launch. Is this guy talking about stealing you away? Have you talked to Will about it?”

“Easy, easy.” Matthew waved her down with both hands. “I haven't been offered anything else. I like what I do. But ever since I've been spending time with Silas, I feel guilty that I'm not working hard enough. Not like him, and not like you. They asked me to pick up another shift at Gigi's
this weekend, and I told them I'd think about it, but I just feel like I'm spinning my wheels, using it as a placeholder for something I should be doing instead. I don't know.”

Isabel shrugged. “I don't know what to tell you, Matthew. I know Will's been talking a lot lately about wanting a manager for the Programming Department. I figured he'd just hire from outside like he did with Caleb, but I'm sure he'd rather promote from within. If you want more responsibility, it's there for you, but you'd have to deliver. Be consistently on top of your game. I don't know if you're ready to make that kind of commitment if you're just doing it because of some guy.” Isabel headed for the door of the break room, patting his arm on her way out. “Especially when commitment isn't really your thing.”

The comment stung, not because it was an unfair assessment of him, but because it was too accurate for comfort. He didn't want to see himself that way, but Isabel was right. He was an average programmer with the potential to be more, maybe, but if he wanted a leadership role, he couldn't put in half-assed effort anymore. He was naturally good enough to keep his job, but a promotion would take effort. God, did he really want to put in more effort? Plus give up the Gigi's weekends and parties?

Now, though, there was DiceCon to plan for, one of his favorite events of the year. He didn't have to worry about commitment right now, only the immediacy of the upcoming convention. He stopped off at Will's office, knocking on the door at the end of the hall.

Will opened the door and gestured to Matthew. “Hey, man, come on in! How was your weekend?”

“Good, it was good. How about yours?” he returned. As Will answered, explaining about a day trip he and his wife, Gwen, had taken, Matthew considered his boss while listening. He couldn't help but smile when he was with Will. The guy was a great boss. Cheerful, hardworking, business-savvy, capable of managing his employees and his company with intelligence and finesse. He didn't know everything, but as long as Matthew had known him, he was good at hiring people who had the skills and talent to complement his own. PI Games was a small company, but they produced quality products that customers had come to rely on, and Will was careful never to expand beyond what they could handle. He'd kept his company at a perfect size and with a reasonable workload, and Matthew was happy to be working for him.

When Will had finished his weekend recap, Matthew moved swiftly into the purpose for his visit. “I'd love to get the DiceCon team together and start making plans for the trip. I was hoping we could meet today before everyone got immersed in their week's projects. Does that work for you?”

“Fine, fine.” Will nodded. “See if people can meet at three.”

“Thanks.” Matthew went to get up, but Will interrupted.

“Before you go,” he began, and Matthew sat back down, unsure what was coming. Will paused, tapping a pen on his desk. “First off, I was wondering how things were going with
Endgame.
”

“Oh. Better, now. I think everyone was having trouble getting started, but things are under way now.” Matthew rubbed the top of his head, his crinkly hair scratching the palm of his hand. “I can have the rest of the programmers check in with you, if you want.”

Will shook his head. “No, that's all right.” His expression was still thoughtful, a clear indicator that he had more to say, so Matthew remained seated. Sure enough, Will kept talking. “You know, with
Orion
doing so well, and
Endgame
coming out soon, I've been thinking lately about what the next steps are for PI Games. Matthew, you've been here longer than the rest of the programming team. You've been a solid employee, reliable and hardworking, but I haven't seen much desire from you for anything more than your current position. Is that accurate? I mean, are you looking for anything more?”

Matthew let out a long exhale and leaned back in his chair. So much for not having to think about this yet. At least he could tell the truth. “I've gotta be honest, Will. This has come up a few times for me lately, and it's something I'm wrestling with.” He looked around at Will's office—the walls covered with photographs from the early stages of the company, the team goofing off at conventions, award certificates for some of the games they'd already designed. “I love working here. I enjoy my job, I'm good at programming, I have great coworkers. I don't want to leave.”

“Good, good.” Will smiled. “I definitely don't want you to leave.”

“At the same time, I don't want to commit to something before I'm ready.” Matthew couldn't imagine making this leap today, or even right now at all. His recent malaise was born out of guilt, and he didn't want to jump ahead impulsively.

Will set the pen down and folded his hands. “I understand. Listen, I want you to know what I'm thinking. I'm creating a technical manager position. I'm about to do an internal posting. I'd consider you a front-runner for the job if you were interested, but I would need a commitment by the time you went to DiceCon, otherwise I would move to a public search.” He leaned in, the blue light from his monitor reflecting in his glasses.

DiceCon was barely more than a week away. That didn't give him much time to decide one way or the other. “What would the job responsibilities entail?”

“Mostly it's overseeing the programming team and being lead programmer, but also working with the audio, voiceover, and sound. We're going to keep subcontracting those aspects of our games, but I've handled most of the decision making for that, and I'd like to hand that off.” Will idly straightened one of the figures on his desk, a miniature Han Solo from
Star Wars,
before making eye contact with Matthew again. “Does that sound like something that interests you?”

It did, yes, but it also frightened him. His gut instinct was to turn it down, to coast like he'd been coasting. But did he really want to coast forever? “I need to think about it, Will.”

“Of course.” Will smiled. “I'm sending out the internal posting this afternoon, so look it over. I hope to see your application.”

“Thanks.” Matthew's smile felt tight, anxiety making all his muscles tense. He got to his feet. “I'll get the DiceCon team together at around three.”

Will's offer was on his mind as he hunted down the rest of the team to tell them about the meeting. He needed to compartmentalize this, though. He could process later, when he was home and had time to think. For now, there were other important things to accomplish. He stopped by Caleb's desk.

“Hey, Matthew, what's up?” Caleb looked up from the computer screen.

“I was wondering if I could get some metalwork help with a project I'm working on.” Matthew rested his arms on Caleb's cubicle wall, thinking of the many times he'd done this at Isabel's cubicle over the years.

“Yeah, sure. What's the project?” Caleb turned the rest of the way around to look up at Matthew with curiosity.

“I seem to have adopted this cat, and she's got a hip problem and can't use her back legs.” Zuul was certainly getting adept at maneuvering with just her front legs, as he'd noticed over the weekend whenever he let her out, but he could see that over time, her back legs would get irritated from being dragged along the hardwood. He knew the cat wheelchair was the answer. “I have some plans for adaptive equipment and I need a place to put it together. I'll bring the supplies, but I don't have a workshop or tools in my apartment.”