Chrysalis

22

In an anonymous room marked E-103, Rosalind Madrigal sat at a computer workstation, staring intently at three monitors. The room she occupied was deep within the Torus, barely large enough to hold the workstation, let alone a chair. But that was by choice. Here, far from her office, tucked just off the operations corridor of the Omega Development Division, she could avoid the constant interruptions and endless noise that inevitably came with “crunch.”

She’d been a game developer before moving up to project lead at Infinium, and she was all too familiar with the seemingly unavoidable crunch cycle that came just before a deadline: missed meals, missed weekends, missed life. She’d seen people lose unhealthy amounts of weight, get divorced, even develop neuroses as they went through a crunch. In some ways, the Voyager rollout was the same. Maybe even worse. It had its Gantt charts, its milestones… and its crunch. And this was the most important deadline she’d ever faced. Wrigley — everyone called him Wrigley, from the interns to the CTO — had likened it to an evolutionary event: transitioning people from horses to automobiles.

But of course, in many ways this crunch cycle was unique. For one thing, they had practically unlimited resources. For another, the work was far more secretive. But also — and this was what kept her up at night — the deadline was immovable. Most projects had a little wiggle room, but this time there were too many moving parts: too much investment, too much potential collateral damage. This rollout had to happen Monday at 9 a.m…. or else.

Come to think of it, there was no “or else.”

She murmured a few commands into her Omega device; a series of commands rolled across the central screen, then a status indicator turned from red to green. One more bug squashed.

She murmured into her Omega unit again, striking the task from her list and preparing to move on to the next. As if on cue, a two-note chime sounded in her ear, followed by the voice of Wrigley. “Roz, I need you in Theater One.”

She took her fingers from the keyboard. “What’s up?”

“Don’t even ask. Just get over here, please.”

Shit — Wrigley’s voice held a nasty harmonic that, she knew, meant something unexpected and unpleasant. Quickly, she put the workstation into encrypted hibernation, grabbed her tablet, and hurried out into the corridor.

She made her way through the labyrinthine R&D area and across the soundstage leading to Theater One. As she stepped into the room, she saw Wrigley standing before the first row of seats. His arms were rigidly at his sides, like a Queen’s Guard outside Buckingham Palace: another bad sign. Beside him was the man she’d seen just over two hours before — Logan — the visitor who’d requested a last-minute demo. He appeared to be in his early forties, with thick auburn hair brushed back from his forehead. He smiled and nodded his recognition.

“ — answer his questions,” Wrigley was saying as he gestured toward Logan.

She glanced at him. “Sorry?”

“I said, you need to answer this guy’s questions. You know the nuts and bolts better than I do by now.”

“Questions about what?” The man had already experienced the demo, with all the trimmings.

“I…” Wrigley stopped, then shook his head. For the first time she could remember, Roz’s boss seemed nonplussed. And he looked worried — more worried than she’d ever seen him. “Just tell him whatever he wants to know.”

“Anything?” This was unheard of — but then, she remembered Logan had been accompanied earlier by Asperton, who was a big cheese.

“Anything!” Wrigley turned his back, raising a hand in petulant dismissal.