WICKED GAMES | COMPLETE

EIGHT

Miles

A whole day had flown by since Miles ran into that feisty girl, and he had almost completely stopped obsessing over who she was. Except when he passed a brown-haired girl. Or saw a brown-haired girl in an ad. Or imagined a brown-haired girl whenever he was alone.

Yep. Totally forgotten about her.

His director, an older gentleman named Wayne Alastor, was now on video with the team to nag them about numbers and partnerships. His coworkers huddled around the laptop in the VIP room, holding an assortment of notebooks and mozzarella pizza.

Wayne droned on. "I know we lost a good chunk of our manpower in the fallout, but see if you lads can't find any talent in the trade section there. Maybe the indie hall will have some hidden gems..."

Miles found his thoughts drifting to a lost world. A city rising from the ruins, with unknown terrors lurking in every corner. One hero's mission to make a risky delivery. She clutches the package in her arm, her wavy brown hair –

Ah, fuck.

"Miles? You with us?"

He snapped back to reality, suddenly feeling the weight of a dozen eyes on him. Mad Labs had a small team, but at this moment, it felt like a packed auditorium.

"Mr Dreamy, would you like to tell the room what's going on in that big brain of yours?"

His team sniggered as Miles scrambled for his papers. Imagine if this was a live interview. Get it together, Miles.

He cleared his throat. "Yeah, we've been digging into the main code. We're working on a new algorithm that will change the way people look at games."

Miles held up four rough sketches of people in different costumes. "Say we've got four main characters, and the player chooses Lisa here. Somewhere along the story, Lisa feels threatened by some guy – let's call him Greg – and offs him. She survives and finishes her story."

He raised up one of the male characters. "This is Greg. Our player wants to get the Everyone Survived ending, but sadly, they let Lisa kill Greg. So now, when they're playing as Greg, his story ends abruptly because Lisa's gone and blown his head off."

Wayne leaned forward on the screen, intrigue and confusion mixed into his expression. "Okay, so, the player just stops there? Game over?"

"No. They can keep playing as the other characters. Hell, they can replay Lisa and choose to spare Greg. Players love multiple endings. They will play a game until its end to unlock every single ending."

Miles raised all four sketches again. "But, hey Miles, I know you're a genius and all, but can't I just make sure I let all of these main characters live?"

He grinned and slammed the papers back on the table, startling Liam beside him. "No! Because the shotgun you decided to take with you from the store two hours ago? Some NPCs stole it from you and blew Greg's head off! Damn you, Lisa!"

The team erupted into stressed murmurs. It wasn't impossible – Miles knew it could be done, he'd already coded half of the key algorithm – but it was a huge time crunch.

Wayne blinked. "Yes, yes, that's all fun and games, but what about the story and artwork? How are you sorting that out?"

"Yeah..." Miles slumped and conceded timidly. "We're still looking for a writer."

His boss sighed, rubbing his temple. "Look, after your success with Red Sky and Wasteland, people are expecting the world of us. They are expecting the world of you. But how long do you think before some younger upstart comes and usurps the throne? What if it's someone from Golden Vault?"

The team burst into a choir of boos, and the chief had to glare them back into silence.

"I know you don't like to hear it, but the truth is, they are the loudest voice in the room. And if we don't say our piece soon, it's only a matter of time before they drown us out."

He looked back to Miles.

"You'd better bring us something good from GamersUnite. I don't want you wasting your time pulling all those celebrity stunts. Stop playing games, and start making one."

╳◯

"Well, someone's in a bad mood today," Liam said as they ended the call and headed back to their booth.

"What'd you expect?" Miles kept his eyes ahead of him in intense contemplation. "Golden Vault is launching Straight to Dawn at GamersUnite. If we don't build any hype now, we're fucked."

"Until the world sees how shit that game is. It won't matter if nobody buys it, will it? They'll all be back licking our balls waiting for us to bust a -"

"Look at this sinking ship," a gruff voice called out from behind the pair. They turned around to find two blonde gymrats standing beneath the Mad Labs logo.

"The fuck are they doing here," Liam cursed under his breath.

Miles eyed them scornfully. "Jayden and Aiden. What do you want?"

Seeing the Golden Boys was never a good omen, but turning up at Mad Lab's booth to heckle them was a whole new threat.

"Just dropping by to take a dump on this trainwreck," Aiden sniggered.

"We heard you were planning something for GamersUnite," the shorter blonde barked, his smug face jeering beneath a cap. "Well we've got something even BIGGER and BETTER. It's gonna blow you out of the water and into the fire."

"That doesn't make sense," Miles muttered.

"Have fun fading into oblivion," Aiden mocked and flipped them off before swaggering away.