Eight
Jason stepped off the elevator and onto the fourth floor, home of his art and story teams for Universe. The usual hum of activity was present, though dimmed slightly—likely due to the late hour and fading effects of varying levels of caffeination amongst the artists and writers. It was nearly four-thirty on a Friday, and several team members had already headed home for the day or had taken the day off, understandable on a pleasant October Friday with a weekend that promised to be just as nice.
“Later than usual today,” Zander Hampton observed, wheeling back half a foot back from his desk to catch Jason’s eye. “Two days in a row.”
“Well, yesterday was launch,” Jason reminded him, unslinging his messenger bag that held his tablet and sketchpads, his pencils and colors, and dropping it onto one of the couches in the center of an open span of floor. The lounge area was ringed by the artists’ workstations, some with drafting tables, others with computers—and more than a few with both. There was a similar spot on the other side for the writers, and then a communal one on the west side of the building, bridging the gap between the teams.
Collaboration space, Marissa had called it while both of her brothers’ eyes had glazed over, but Jason had to admit that having that area dedicated to everyone did help when it was time for meetings in the conference auditorium at the east end of the floor.
“Yesterday made sense,” Zander said, grinning. “What’s today’s excuse? Storyboarding up in the penthouse again?”
“Nothing that glamorous,” Jason assured him. “Trust me. We were going over some of the numbers on the streams and some other numbers. Subscriptions, that sort of thing. Not nearly as fun as you’re thinking it could be.”
The artist’s nose wrinkled. “That bad, huh?”
“Any day he’s not drawing is a bad day for him,” Gayle Mason observed, leaning against the wall near the shared lounge space. A member of the writing team, Gayle had been with the company since it became more than just a pipe dream cooked up by three siblings and their brother-in-law. Jason had met her after he’d left the service and gone back to school and recruiting her as one of their story leads had been a no-brainer as far as he was concerned. “How’re the numbers looking?”
“Pretty good,” Jason said, leaning against the back of one of the couches, positioning himself so he could see both Zander and Gayle. “Subscription numbers bounced a little, but we weren’t exactly expecting much of a spike yet—that’ll come in a few weeks, if it comes at all. Goal was maintaining levels. Also looked at the stream numbers and those were pretty impressive—major spike over other casts and the replays have had a pretty consistent draw. We’ve got some players doing streams and commentary and that’s drawing hits and everything’s sounding pretty positive.”
Zander’s brow quirked. “What about the turnout for the go-live at the cafés? Are those numbers in yet?”
“Preliminaries,” Jason said, then smiled. “They’re beating projections. Marissa’s trying to figure out how the hell her business analysts could have been so damned far off the mark.”
“Ha!” Zander clapped his hands together, startling a few of the other artists and drawing a few confused looks. He shot them all a grin and turned his attention back to Jason. “You know damned well how that happened.”
Jason shrugged. “I do, but when I say something she gets mad.”
“I can only imagine her mad,” Gayle mused. “Must be pretty rough.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Jason said, rubbing his temple. His older sister could be a force of nature when she put her mind to it—which mercifully didn’t happen often at all, especially where her brothers were concerned.
“Anything else interesting come out of your all-day powwowing?” Zander asked, leaning back in his wheelchair. “Or was it a whole ton of that?”
“Mostly that,” Jason said with a slight shrug, though he glanced toward Gayle. “Peter wants an update on where we’re at with storyline design for the next push. Wants to know if we’ll be ready to start doing voicework for it before the end of the month.”
One shoulder hitched in a shrug. “We can be. Wouldn’t take much. Is that what he wants.”
“It sounded like it.”
She nodded. “Then we’ll adjust deadlines Monday and tell the team. Mostly it’s just looking over the last adjustments and then setting scripts. Little late to tell them tonight, though—most of them are already gone for the day.”
The story team had a tendency to start earlier than the rest of the employees and bail out a little earlier—typically, most of them found their creative juices flowed better with judicious applications of coffee around or before 8am. Jason didn’t mind it as much as some of the other divisions did, but Peter had always smoothed over any tensions with a few words and a smile—despite his insistence that Jason was the more charming one. Art was sometimes in earlier, sometimes a little later, depending on what their project load looked like—it wasn’t that uncommon to see some of the art team members lingering past nine at night, though by the same token, members of the writing team did the same thing.
There was a reason for the vending machines and the coffee-shop grade espresso machine in their shared lounge.
All nighters were not an impossibility on the third floor, and Jason often found himself at the center of them.
“He need anything from art?” Zander asked, brow quirking again. “Or are we just conceptualizing still?”
“Well, as always we’re open to suggestions,” Jason said, crossing his arms. “But as a matter of fact, no, you’re not just conceptualizing still. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is designing carnivale-style gear for every world and armor type we’ve got in the game. That should keep all of you busy for a while.”
“Carnivale, huh?” One corner of Zander’s mouth quirked upward in a smile. “Do I want to ask what brought this one on?”
“I mean, you can,” Jason said with a grin of his own. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll tell you.”
“Ooh. We keeping something close to the vest this time?”
“For the moment,” he answered. “That’s probably going to be a Monday project, though, unless you want to send out an email blast now.”
“I’ll wait until Monday,” Zander said, nodding to Gayle. “She’s right, it’s too late to spring shit on people tonight.”
“Jason?”
Blinking at the unexpected voice, Jason twisted, peering at the elevator and the woman who’d just exited from it. Aroha Kanawa-Davis was one of their programmers, working under Brannon as a developer, and usually didn’t venture down to the art floors—unless they were meeting for lunch. They’d served together and after Aroha had mustered out, she’d come to work at GreySoft. At Jason’s insistence, they’d made a point of hiring as many veterans as they could when they could, and especially in the earliest days of the company, that had been possible more often than it wasn’t.
There was something about the look on her face that made his stomach lurch and he straightened from his lean, turning to fully face her. “What happened?”
“You remember Lilah Bowers, right?”
“Chopper pilot, yeah. Yeah, I remember her. What’s wrong? What happened?”
“She’s dead,” Aroha said quietly. “I just found out from Jamie in HR.”
It was like being gut-punched. “What happened?”
“They were flying transport missions over ISIS territory in eastern Syria,” Aroha said, lips thinning. “Missile brought them down.”
“Damn,” Jason breathed, sitting down heavily on the back of the couch again. Zander wheeled himself closer, putting a hand on his friend’s knee. “She was due for her out soon, wasn’t she?”
“Stop-loss was supposed to start next month,” Aroha said, then shook her head. “I keep thinking we got out at the right time.”
“For better or worse,” Zander agreed quietly, glancing at Jason. “You okay?”
Jason swallowed hard once, twice. He and Lilah hadn’t been close, but they’d had a few drinks together on nights off and he knew her well enough that the loss hurt. He managed to nod before asking, “What about her crew?”
“Killed. Some of the squad on board made it.” Aroha hesitated. Jason frowned.
“Say it,” he said, mouth tasting like cotton.
“Caela Daughtry,” Aroha said. “It was her squad.”
“Is she dead?”
Aroha shook her head hard. “No. They were able to evacuate her and the rest of her squad. She’ll recover, but they’re sending her home. She’s done. Medical discharge.”
“Jaime tell you that, too?” Jason asked, feeling dizzy for a moment, guts twisting. “How’d he find out?”
“His sister’s on the medical team that treated her,” Aroha said. “She passed the information along.”
Jason took a slow, deep breath, thoughts storming, swirling in a maelstrom he struggled to quell. “She was planning on acting, wasn’t she? When she got out?”
“Yeah,” Aroha said softly.
“Get her number,” Jason said, pushing himself to his feet. “Call her—or have Jamie call her, or whatever, I don’t care who does it. Tell her she’s got a job here if she wants it—as long as she thinks she can work for me, we have a spot for her here.”
Aroha’s eyes widened slightly. “Are—are you sure?”
“I said it,” Jason said, his voice abruptly gravelly. “That means I’m sure. Reach out. The worst she can say is no.”
Aroha’s lips thinned and she nodded. “If she asks what you want her to do?”
“Voice acting,” Jason said, not even having to think about it. “That’s what I want her to do. We’ve got some slots for the next story push and I want her filling one.”
“Then that’s what we’ll tell her. I’ll tell Jamie.”
Jason nodded. It wasn’t until Aroha was back on the elevator and out of sight that his shoulders slumped and his eyes began to sting. Zander squeezed his knee.
“Hey,” the former Ranger said quietly. “Hey. Buck up, man. There’s nothing you can do that you haven’t already done—not yet. Y’hear me?”
Squeezing his eyes shut, Jason nodded again. “I know,” he said, his voice steadier than he expected. “Trust me, I know. Doesn’t make this shit any easier.”
“No,” Zander agreed. “But it’s what we’ve got to deal with, right?”
“Yeah,” Jason said, then sighed, scrubbing a hand over his eyes and straightening. “Why don’t you guys knock off for the night? I’ll see you Monday morning.”
“You’ll see us earlier than that,” Gayle said with a faint smile. “There’s the thing tonight in game.”
Shit. Yeah, and I almost forgot. He managed to smile. “Right. Guess I will see you tonight.”
“You going to be okay?” Zander asked. “We could meet for beers or something tomorrow if you want to talk.”
“Maybe,” Jason said. “I’ll let you know. Like I said, though, call it a night, you two. Get home and get settled or whatever. I’ll see you tonight.”
Gayle came over and hugged Jason tightly. “You do the same thing—or whatever you and Peter were planning to do before Aroha came up here and told you what she just told you.”
“I will,” Jason promised, squeezing her tightly for a moment before letting go. “Thanks.”
“Anytime,” she said with a faint smile as she stepped back. She clapped Zander on the shoulder as she turned to go. “I’ll catch you later, Z.”
He flashed her a peace sign and she laughed, heading back to the writers’ half of the floor. Zander studied Jason a few moments longer before he wheeled himself back to his desk.
“I meant it, Jason,” he said after a moment. “If you need something—”
“I’ll call,” Jason said. “I promise. Go on, get out of here.”
“Just going to finish this up, then I will. Catch you later.”
Jason just nodded as he gathered up his things, then headed for the elevator. Peter was going to want to know what was wrong when he got upstairs.
He wasn’t sure what we was going to tell his brother, but he’d figure it out somewhere along the way.
