Jameson (Face-Off 4)

A few more of my calls go straight to voicemail before the food arrives. After sitting alone, about to eat a family style meal by myself, I have hit a new low. Jamie is over an hour late. Tears well up in my bottom lids as I cut a piece of lasagna and put it on my plate. I have lost my appetite.

Looking over at Jamie’s empty seat and the untouched wine glass sets me over the edge. I dab my eyes with the napkin on my lap, trying my best not to break down and cry like a baby. My heart hurts from the pain of Jamie’s betrayal.

What could be more important than me?

As if it wasn’t bad enough that Jamie had cancelled plans on at least ten occasions. While I understood his reasons for rescheduling, it doesn’t make this situation hurt any less.

I feel like an idiot for investing so much of my time in a man who continuously cancels on me. A man who has established a pattern of standing me up from the beginning. Jamie wants to be a good guy, or so it seems, but maybe he’s no different from the rest. I can’t help but think of the saying, Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. It’s applicable at the moment. Jamie has turned me into an idiot. Apparently, I have been the fool from the start.

Chapter 14

Jameson

“Dude, what are you doing? You totally fucked us.” Ben announces with his hand raised in the air. The light on the gaming controller clutched between his fingers is lit, about to run out of power if he doesn’t plug it in to charge. “Everything is ruined.”

“I didn’t fuck us,” I say, defending myself. “Nothing is ruined. I only made a few modifications to the platform.”

With two days left until our final delivery to the TGS executives, everything is riding on me to get the modules working properly. But I’m still having trouble with some of the more advanced artificial intelligence. I’d made a dozen games similar to this one with some hassle, because nothing is easy when it comes to programming. But this game is giving me a whole other level of problems I hadn’t anticipated when we signed the deal with this client.

Most developers have at least one year, if not more, to execute a concept similar to what our client had asked of us. I was given a few months. I managed to hack together enough of a working platform to show the client. That is, until TGS had called Mr. Conway and requested us to expand the platform to run on mobile devices. I designed it specifically for gaming consoles, posing a major issue for my team.

Last night, as I was about to leave after a fifteen-hour day, Mr. Conway reamed me out in his office. TGS had called, yet again, to expand not only to mobile with in-app purchases but also to a computer game, which required a complete overhaul of the code I had already compiled. But nothing is impossible. Of course, I said I could do it, given enough time. He said I had three days. It was not a negotiation.

Ben plops down on the couch in my office, knocking a box of gadgets onto the floor. He glances down at the mess with a quick shrug, pretending as if it’s not there. I pick up the box and flash a disapproving look in his direction. Ben is such a slob that it’s a surprise he’s able to keep himself organized enough to serve as my right hand man.

While he’s a brilliant coder, his thought process is all over the place. Ben jumps from one thing to the next, same as he’s doing right now. We tested three different versions for mobile and gaming consoles, only to have him find something else he wants to change after we get it to where we need for the meeting.

Ben throws the controller in his hand onto the coffee table, the plastic hitting the wood with a loud thud. He lifts my cell phone, tapping a few buttons on it before I can see the app displayed on the massive flat screen on the wall in the corner of the room.

“Look at this shit,” Ben says, his fingers working faster than before. “If you switch from single to multi-player, the memory usage goes through the roof. You could never use this game on your phone or computer without maxing out your load.”

“Just try it one more time. We have too much riding on this. We only need to fake it long enough to convince the big shots that the game is worth the money. And it is worth it. Or at least it will be by the delivery date.”

“I doubt that.” Ben’s demeanor lacks any confidence that we can pull this off for our client. “The tech is too complicated. They’re asking for a miracle, and I don’t believe in them.”

“That’s what patches are for,” I tell him with a smirk on my lips. “There’s no way it will be perfect the first time around, but it will be at some point. They can release a patch to fix the issues and pretend it’s an upgrade. Companies do it all the time and make boat loads of money from it.” Nodding at my phone, still nestled in his hand, I say, “Now, give it one more try before we call it quits for the night.”

“Oh, right. You have a date.” Ben turns his head toward the screen, sticking his finger in his mouth to make fun of me. He’s your typical nerdy programmer.

We rigged the display so we could view the app on the TV, all while playing it on the phone. It makes it easier to spot the flaws. But it’s also more fun to see it up on the big screen.

Ben makes it to the end of the first level victorious. He’s midway through the third by the time he shouts, “Ouch!” Shaking out his hand, he moves the phone into the other and cries out in pain once more.

“What are you bitching about now?” I sit next to him on the couch, laughing as he switches the phone from each hand like a game of Hot Potato.

“I tried to tell you the damn processor can’t handle this game on mobile.” He sets the phone on the table to rub his hands together. “I think your phone is fried.”

“It just needs a minute to reset.” I almost believe that before I see tiny sparks fly up from the keys.

Ben rolls his eyes at me. “Trust me. That’s not enough. I don’t know why you won’t listen to me. We need to make a few adjustments before we can decrease our load.”

My finger burns when I graze the side of the case in an attempt to pick up the phone. “What the hell? How is it overheating?”

“I tried to tell you. Maybe you should listen, boss man. It’s no better on the computer. I hit seventy-five percent of my CPU usage when I tested it on my laptop earlier. I had to do a complete system reboot.”

Confused, I dig my elbows into my thighs, using them for support, as I cup my face in my hands, staring at the TV in search of an answer. This is the problem with deadlines. Something stupid always gets in the way. And that small issue always manages to hold up the timeline for the project.

The TV screen flashes, drawing my attention to the pixelated images on the screen. “I can’t believe this is happening.”