Page 9 of Boss Level

About ten minutes before our go-live, I walked down the hall of the old, converted community college that was our offices. Everyone was at their desks, in Art, Music, QA, Story, Security, and my stop—Development—but I doubted any of them was getting any more done than I had.

I headed straight for the Director of Development’s office, and knocked on Eliot’s door.

He motioned me in without pause. I liked Elliot. Of course, I liked most of my people, but I’d been working with him the longest. He was smart and driven. Not the same kind of driven as me. Or Xander or Dom. But he knew what he wanted, and a lot of it had to do with this game.

As one of our office grumps, he looked brighter today than normal. Was that an actual smile?

Good. He should be proud of what he and his team had built.

We didn’t make any small talk, and instead got right down to our final checklist. I was grateful he was a business partner, an investor, and so much more than a manager. Eliot had been by my side through all of this, and it was reassuring having people around who believed in what we were doing.

And then we were done with that final list of items. “It feels like there should be something else,” he said.

“There’s not. We’re done.” Were we really? No. There would be work to do on this game for years. Bugs we didn’t catch in QA, new content, marketing pushes, good and bad press… “But I get what you mean.” There was nothing else we could do in the next seven minutes that would matter.

He shrugged. “Well, you know my motto.”

I didn’t. Not at all. I was pretty sure there was nothing I heard him say over and over, and the only rule he lived his life by wasdon’t get attached. That was a good one. Still, I would give it a shot. “Always expect trouble?”

“That’syourmotto.” Elliot laughed. “Mine isif you can’t fuck it, eat it, or kill it, play with it.”

Uh…. No. “I’veneverheard you say that. And by the way, it’s time.”

Like that, Elliot’s mood shifted. He gestured to his desk phone. “Would you like to do the honors?”

Damn right. I dialed everyone in the office, and put the call on speaker. If they were all doing the same, the noise out there must be a myriad of echoes.

Maybe I should’ve prepared a speech. Fuck it, I’d wing it. “I’m going to make this short.” I hoped. “It doesn’t matter if you’ve been here since the Cord days, if you’ve come on in the last year, or somewhere in between. If you’re here today, be proud of yourself. Regardless of what happens next, we’ve already set records, broken barriers, and told the industry they’re a bunch of stodgy old fucks and we know where the future is.”

“Of course, what happens next is going to be even more incredible than what we’ve already seen.” Elliot stepped in.

That made me smile, and he was completely right. We might not be creating world peace or solving the world’s problems, but we were definitely about to changesomething. “Last chance to tell usno gobefore we pull the trigger.”

I went through the entire list of departments, asking each of the heads if they were ready for this game to launch, and one after another they assured the office they were a go. Though the goofballs over in security stretched out their answer to a round of giggles.

So much better than the last guy over there. The one who was currently suing me for wrongful termination.

When everyone else had given their blessing, I looked at Elliot, whose broad smile was as out of place as my own. “Last, but never least. Development?”

He gave me a thumbs-up, though I was the only one who would see it. “Go.”

It was time. Metaphorical Mom and Dad—me and him, I supposed—had woken up. Now the countdown began. I gave him a look, and he started a literal count toward Go Live. I moved to his side of his desk, to watch him put the final pieces into place.

Fuck me, this was real.

When he hitTwo, every muscle in my body tensed. This was almost better than an orgasm.

Or maybe I wouldn’t go that far. But it was pretty good.

Ononehe hovered his finger over his mouse, and on his ownGohe launched the page that would let people log in.

I should focus on breathing, but I was too fascinated by the sudden silence that rolled through the office. I swore even on nights and weekends, it hadn’t been this quiet in here since we moved in.

And then status reports started rolling in from everyone who was monitoring. Not only were we launching a new game, that was adult in its nature, more controversial than anything out there, and we were sending it into the world a few days before one of the biggest gaming conventions. A huge convention that we were headlining, because most of us had come from the company who hosted it.

So it was crucial that we work out the bad kinks, while keeping the good ones intact, before RinCon started.

And we were doing it. People were playing. So many people wanted in that the servers were maxed out and the login queues were full. But our game was running and not crashing.

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