For The Win (Gamer Girls, #6) - Auryn Hadley Page 0,158
benches, chairs, or picnic style tables set along its length. Then Amy pointed to a bench on the far side of the door.
"That's Dez's. You're welcome to use it, but if she shows up, we all get up and let her have it. It's the only place she'll sit out here." Amy paused. "You should also know that a man was killed right over there." She pointed to a spot on the concrete. "He had a gun to Dez's head because KoG encouraged him to take her out. She'd fired him, and they egged him on. It was the morning that Silk released, our very first game. Chance had to run around the building to get over there." Amy pointed out to the grass. "And that made the guy look. Jason Raige took the shot. That asshole had a gun to Dez's head, and Jason put a bullet over his ear to save her. That's what it means to be on the Flawed team, and yeah, Jason's not a Deviant employee, but he's one of us."
"Whoa," Rhaven breathed. "KoG did that?"
"You've heard about Soul Reaper, right? Well, he's one of the fuckers who kidnapped, tortured, and raped Dez. He's the one telling all these incel idiots to go after women. He's the head of the show, and the problem is that he knows how to hide his tracks. He will come after you, Rhaven."
"He already has. He's the reason I was outed at home. Someone trashed my room at the hotel. People were spewing shit about me in the chat lobby during the tournament that they shouldn't know. I'm also not going to back down."
"Good," Amy said. "And we'll have your back. We may not be able to find him, but we're more powerful than he expects. Eternal Combat was designed to lure him in, and it's the only thing that's gotten Jason closer to catching him. This has been a very long game of cat and mouse, but we will win. One way or another." Then she huffed a laugh. "Sorry. Kinda a pet peeve around here I guess. Anyways, that house over there? That's Chance and Dez."
Behind the building was an oval of grass. Behind that, the driveway that led to the loading dock had been extended to lead to a small and unimpressive little house. Brick, one story, and much smaller than Rhaven would've expected for someone making as much as they had to be. There was a small backyard with a privacy fence, and two vehicles parked out front. One was the same SUV that had been pulling the trailer in Denver.
"They drove all night?" Rhaven asked.
Amy chuckled. "Dez is a vampire. She shows up around four in the afternoon and leaves when we all get here in the morning. Now, let me show you the programmer pool." She turned to head back in, talking while they walked. "Deviant's grown a lot in the last few years. We've had to add on a whole new wing for the extra employees. Right now, there are just under twelve hundred people working here. Most of them are focused on bug fixes, the website, forums, and other non essential things. There's a group for the top tier escalations of tech support, some customer service stuff, and so on. Not all of them are programmers. Most of them aren't involved with the actual games in any way. But..." Once inside, she turned to a door on the far wall, and stepped through it. "This is where the bulk of your fellow employees work."
The room was filled with hundreds of cubicles and people working inside of them. Rhaven looked around in awe. This was a real company. For some reason, when she thought of Deviant, she always expected it to just be the warehouse area, but this? It made sense. It explained so much. It was also overwhelming. Especially the fact that the people closest to the door had all stopped and looked up to see who'd just come in.
"New developer," Amy explained, raising her voice. "Guys, this is Rhaven. She's the team lead for graphical interface for Renegade, and she'll be the go-to person for any GUI, HUD, or interface issues. Right now, she's training with Braden."
Someone lifted their thumb up, and that seemed to be all Amy needed. She turned Rhaven back around and into the warehouse, and then closed the door behind them. Then, she aimed back toward the lobby area, pausing when they were almost there.