against the false king, but we were beaten. If only we had found the king’s crown—the crown of the true king. The Crown of Winter! Simon knew about this.” He sighed. He seemed as disappointed as his inflexible features would allow. He wasn’t designed to look very sad.
“Yeah, so I’m going to bed, Brennan. I have to work tomorrow. I can’t just ride around looking for loose gold, like you. I have to go to work every day.”
“In sooth, thy life sounds passing strange and shitty.”
“Yeah, it sucks,” I said, climbing the stairs to my apartment. “I’d rather be you.”
“In sooth, my life is kind of better than yours. Maybe you should play more video games.”
“Aye,” I said.
Chapter Sixteen
I made sure to be in the office by nine fifteen on Tuesday morning for the ten o’clock leads meeting. On my way in, Holly, the receptionist, smiled and congratulated me, then Roger in QA waved to me in a low-key but cheery way. I sat down at my computer and there it was, a company-wide e-mail about the restructuring:
We are happy to announce that Russell will be stepping up for us as lead designer for Realms of Gold VII. Gabby will stay on as art lead. Lisa will fill in as lead programmer.
Peter and Jared came in together around nine forty-five—they were roommates—and my skin prickled as I sat rigid in my chair and waited for them to sit down and get the news. Should I have met them as they came in and greeted them with the news? I’d hoped they would come in later—I wanted to meet them coming out of that meeting, after they’d had time to adjust to the news.
I strained to hear a reaction. I think I caught a whispered “No way!” I knew I was going to look weirder and weirder just sitting there and not saying anything, so I went around for a low-key hello. Jared and Peter shared a table side by side, among a tangle of cables and action figures (ironic? I never knew) and Jared’s trackball, which he brought from home and insisted on using instead of a mouse. I hate going to see people at their desks, because they’re always facing away from you and you have to figure out how to get their attention, but this time Peter was perched on one of the desks and could say “Hey” to get things started. They were—how did this happen without me?—cool. They had actually competed to get into the industry instead of retreating there because no place else would take them.
They went out and (I assumed) hooked up with girls. For them, a video game job was a little like a job in film. It was actually, sincerely, cool. “So you got the e-mail?” I said. It was, in fact, up on Jared’s screen. “Yeah, congratulations, man,” Jared said, while Peter came up with some combination of “Totally cool!” and “Yeah!”
“So we’ll meet, like, eleven thirty after leads and go through some stuff,” I said abruptly. I didn’t know why eleven thirty.
Nobody had anything to do that day, and I had my first realization about management, which was that a big part of the responsibility is making sure everyone under you has something to do every second of the day.
“Right, right.”
I added, “Okay, cool. See you then.” I left them with this sparkling witticism. Troops rallied.
The leads meetings were a daily status update where the heads of different disciplines reported on progress and exchanged information. For the most part, Black Arts had a non- or antihierarchical ethos, but there were limits. The conference room was always freezing for some reason. I had only been in there for company-wide meetings, where we all crammed in and stood against the walls, or for the occasional office party, or because it was the only place to make a private phone call.
We were a revised and reconstituted Black Arts, headed by me and Lisa and Don, the old second-string players. Genius had left the building. There had been a couple of summary resignations since Darren’s announcement, and the vacant tracts of third-floor land encroached still further on our cubicle village. Lisa was the only person there.
“Hi,” she said. She looked tired.
“Hey. Congratulations.”
“It’s not that much of an honor,” she said. “Just seniority. Everyone here now is leftovers. Producers, a couple of level designers, journeyman programmers.”
“So, ah, how come you didn’t go with them?”
“Nobody asked. I’m a tools programmer; it’s not sexy. Plus, Darren’s guys,