Jameson (Face-Off 4)

“I tried to tell you,” Ben says again, almost as if he’s satisfied that he was right instead of worrying about the fact we may be out of a job come Monday.

I stare in horror, as I watch the game along with my cell phone turn into a useless piece of tech. My phone is now overheating to the point it only blinks intermittently and is too hot to touch. It’s hard not to have a complete meltdown in front of Ben. My phone can be replaced, but the game…

“What are we going to do?” Ben has his hand over his mouth, his eyes wide in shock. “All this work and for what? We’ll barely make it through the live console demo, let alone a decent beta version of the app.”

Minutes pass in silence, possibly even an hour before I pull myself together. My hair appears as though an animal has taken up residence from me tugging at the strands for so long. Once my phone completely shuts off, unable to turn back on, I wait for the heat to stop radiating from it before I clutch it in my hand.

“Hey, what time is it?”

Ben glances at the Apple Watch on his wrist. “After nine o’clock.”

“Shit!” I yell, coming to a standing. “How did I…how could I?”

“Weren’t you supposed to have a date tonight?”

“Yeah, over an hour ago. Regan is going to hate me.”

“Just call her. I’m sure she will understand.” Ben reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone, handing it to me.

“I don’t know her number. It was on my phone.”

He points at my laptop on the table in front of us. “You can access it from your last backup.”

“Good thinking,” I mutter, wondering why I hadn’t thought of that. Stress, I suppose. I can only take so much in one day.

“And you’re supposed to be the genius,” he says, laughing. “One-seventy IQ my ass.”

After I find Regan’s number in my contacts, I use Ben’s phone to call her. It rings a few times before going to voicemail. I repeat the same ritual twice more. Either she hates my guts, or she won’t pick up because she doesn’t recognize the number. I redial her again, leaving a message about how sorry I am and that I will make it up to her.

I keep saying the same thing repeatedly. Regan must be tired of my excuses. I would never intentionally leave her waiting for me at a restaurant. I am not that guy. But, now, I have become that guy without meaning to do it. And it’s our three-month anniversary. Fuck.

Finally giving up on contacting Regan, I decide to Google the number for Luciano’s. A woman answers after two rings. I ask about Regan, hoping she’s still there so I can head over to apologize in person. She makes me hold to the sounds of Italian opera music. After a long pause, the woman informs me Regan had eaten alone and left ten minutes ago.

I couldn’t feel worse than I do right now.

“She’s going to hate me. I blew it, all because of this stupid game.” I sink back into the couch cushions, deflated. “I lost the girl. We’re going to get fired on Monday. This day cannot suck anymore than it does right now.”

“You never know. Maybe if you explain what happened, Regan will give you another shot. As far as the game is concerned, I have bills to pay and mouths to feed. We will make this game work if it kills us.”

At the rate I’m going, I will end up being married to this job. And I don’t want that. I would like a life outside the walls of this office, my place of employment and prison. Or at least that’s what it feels like right now.

I hope Regan will forgive me. If only she’d answer my calls.

I lost Regan. All because I’m an idiot and can’t get my shit together. And I’m about to lose my job. Soon, I will know what rock bottom feels like as if I hadn’t had a taste of that as a child. Making something of myself has always been important to me. Now, I’m about to embarrass myself in front a boardroom of executives.

Seated at the head of the table, at the opposite end from where I stand with my team, Mr. Conway glares at me, his eyes telling me that if I fuck this up, I am done. He hates me, though I have never understood why. I suspect it has something to do with the fact he never earned a cent from his own talents. Every dollar he has made was from the labor of others.

In the seven years I have worked for Conway Development, I created over a hundred different games and apps, all of which were unknown entities I could care less about. While I made them, they were not my vision. They were the product of someone else’s vision, their dream. That’s why I haven’t been able to figure out the missing piece to this game.

Regan had pointed out that I don’t name the games back when we first met. She was right about one thing. I have lost my inspiration when it comes to creating these new worlds and characters because they are not mine. I did not even care enough to name them, which is why the demo for this game is a miserable failure.

Trying hard not to scream in the middle of the presentation, I force myself to hold it together. Mr. Conway flashes me a look that could cut through steel. Ben and the team do their best to navigate through parts of the game that they know will work long enough to impress the TGS executives, but we cannot fool them.

I can tell by the way they point at the screen and whisper to each other that they see right through the facade. Anyone with a decent understanding of video games and the associated technology could notice all the flaws. It’s so blatantly obvious that the product is a hunk of shit. They couldn’t box this up and sell it even if they wanted to.

The problem…I lost my way. I lost my inspiration. Because I lost the girl. I went straight to Regan’s apartment on Friday night, but you need a key to get into the elevator for her floor. And she would not answer my calls. After three days, she still hasn’t answered my calls.

Once my team finishes the lackluster demo, we stand in front of the screen, looking like a bunch of jerk-offs, waiting for the firing squad to hit us with their questions.