Gamer Girl (21 page)

“Sure, Sarah. Talk to you later. Got work to do.”

Sarah went back up to six
and turned her mind to the marketing campaign. By four in the afternoon, Mike called down and Sarah and her leads filed into the viewing room to view the cut scene on the screen. Kiaria, the fresh-faced ingénue was the character who sang the song,
In the Meadowlands of Home,
a song of yearning for the hero’s return. Mike had informed Eamon of the change and when the cut scene would be run.

“
Okay, Mikey, run it,” Sarah said.

Everyone watched the cut scene through. At the end everyone sat silent.

“One more time, Mike.” Eamon’s voice came from the back of the room. Mike played the cut scene once more. When it was over Eamon said, “Sounds good, Miss Adams, and I hear you’re offering it gratis.”

Sarah turned around. “That’s correct, Mr. Byrne.”

“Sorry, but you’ll be paid minimum voice over rates. Do you want your name in the credits?”

“No sir. Use Alanna
ó Cionaoith. I researched it and copyrighted it a long time ago.”

“As you wish. Good work, everyone.” Eamon turned and left the room. Only then did everyone gather around Sarah and give her high fives and back thumps.

“Thank you all. Now, let’s get back to it.”

Eamon got back up to his office and he called Mike. “Mike you got that footage from Sarah’s recording session?”

“You mean the cut scene?”

“No, the film footage.
”

Mike knew what he meant. They filmed singers, musicians and voice over actors as they worked. It was standard procedure and written into their contracts that the footage could be used if Gryphon World wanted to use it, with the appropriate payment, of course.

Mike went to his computer. “It’s coming through now, boss.”

“Thanks
Mike.”

Eamon watched the footage, watched Sarah pour her heart and soul into the song. “Ah
Gamer Girl, what you do to me.” He whispered. Then he turned his mind to other things.

Go-Fly

Two weeks after the studio session, Eamon received an email from Sarah. “
Everything is in place to roll out the ads on the first of August with a download date of September fifteenth. Do we have permission to proceed?
”

Eamon had seen the marketing, the DLC and the plans to take it to the convent
ions during the month of August. Game reviewers already had it in hand. They expected the reviews to come out in the September editions of the magazines.

Eamon wrote back. “
It’s a go
.”

Sarah saw very little of the inside of Gryphon World during the month of August. She was out at gaming convention
s including one in Finland and one in New Zealand.

Sarah promoted the DLC
for
Wickerworld
and
Mirrored Nation: Reflections.

Meanwhile their banner was up on the
Wickerworld
website, each member of the team was taking turns posting interesting articles about the DLC, and the forum chatter was positive. The September editions of the gamer magazines were out and many of the reviews for the DLC were great!

Sarah’s favorite said,

Wickerworld: The Meadowlands
brings a much needed new component to the game. The companions are three-dimensional characters with interesting back-stories and even more interesting dialogue. Gryphon World seems to have found the missing ingredient to make Wickerworld a viable game series for the future.

Even those who weren’t as positive said only that it might be too late to save the series even with a truly great DLC like this one.
Sarah hoped they were wrong. 

Sarah hoped she was wrong abou
t something that had nothing to do with the DLC. She was in Los Angeles in early September when she realized she hadn’t had a period in over a month. As soon as she had some time off from the convention, she drove around until she found a pharmacy. Sarah bought a pregnancy test and took it back to her room. She did the test the next morning, and when she returned to Kansas City she did a second. Both tests were positive.

She held the
second positive pregnancy test in her hand. Crying, she slid down the wall of the bathroom until she was sitting on the floor. She’d sworn to him there would be no consequences. Nothing she said or did would convince Eamon that she hadn’t planned this, nothing! He would forever be certain that she’d gotten pregnant just to have a hold on him.

So what was there to do?
Think, Sarah! Think!

By the time she got to work, s
he’d decided couldn’t tell Eamon. This was her deal, her responsibility. She must have put the condom on wrong. Mentally, Sarah counted the weeks. She was about nine weeks pregnant.

E
xamining her body, her breasts were a little bigger, but her stomach still seemed to be flat. She didn’t seem to have any morning sickness. If she could get Eamon to let her resign in early December, she would only be five months along. With some baby doll sweaters, tunics, leggings, and a good spanx, she might pull it off. Maybe she’d just look fat. If she really started showing, she’d just go home for Thanksgiving and stay there. Sarah got on the internet and made plane reservations for Thanksgiving.

They were freaking expensive, but
she’d held onto the bonus Eamon paid her, and she had that little paycheck from the singing gig. She booked on one of the majors. It was a crappy seat, but beggars could not be choosers.

After work she hit the mall and went through every major department store, mall franchise and big box she could. By the time she was done, she had a new look, a new wardrobe, and
a get out of town free card.

The next morning, Sarah went to work
dressed in a long baby doll tunic, leggings and mary-janes. Once she got there, she went downstairs to get a decent breakfast. The doctor’s daughter in her remembered that babies needed protein so she got a scrambled egg, a piece of toast and some strawberries for breakfast. She chose tea instead of coffee and took everything back up to six to eat.

The DLC was in the bag
, the reviews were in and they were just waiting for the release in two days to see what the gamers were actually going to think. Sarah worked through lunch, so that everything was ready when the numbers started coming through from the midnight downloads.

An IM came up on her computer.

Come up to eight
.

When Sarah walked into this office,
Eamon looked up from his desk and frowned. “You look tired, Miss Adams.”

“I am tired, sir. LA was a long convention, but if you look at the figures you’ll see it was quite profitable.”

“It was. I saw the figures.” Eamon pointed to his conference table. Go sit down, Miss Adams, I have to check on something and I’ll be right back.”

“Sure.” Sarah watched him leave.
She leaned her head on her hand. When Eamon came back into the room moments later, he found Sarah asleep, her head cradled on her arms. He meant to wake her but couldn’t resist drawing a strand of her hair through his fingers before laying a hand on the bare skin of her neck. “Miss Adams,” he said softly. “Wake up.” When she did not stir, he shook her shoulder.

Sarah flinched and sat upright, “Oh!” She looked up at Eamon. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—“

“Are you sure you’re okay, Miss Adams?”

“I
’m just tired. Long hours and lots of travel can be cumulative you know. But thanks for your concern, Mr. Byrne. What is it you wanted to discuss?”

“It can wait, Miss Adams. You go home, get some rest. You’re going to need it because once the downloading starts you and your team are going to be really busy for a few weeks.”

“Thank you, I think I will.” Sarah turned to leave his office. She got halfway to the door.

“Miss Adams?”

Sarah turned around. Eamon started to say something. She could see the words forming but then he looked down at his desk. “Never mind,” he said. Sarah turned and left the office. Sarah had kept her word and was the consummate professional whenever their paths crossed. He couldn’t even claim that she was cold, for Sarah was as friendly to him as she was to everyone else. He was beginning to feel as though that night had never happened, that it was being erased, which bothered him. He wanted her to remember because he couldn’t forget.

Eamon could close his eyes and remember the feel of
her skin under his hands, the sweet smell of her breath, the way she touched him, the way she…he got up from his desk and went to his walk-in, to change into his shorts, tank and running shoes.

Eamon went up to the roof and ran until his legs were jelly, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Sarah, about what it had been like that night, about
how much he wanted to hold her again. Cursing in frustration, he gave up and went home.

Gryphon World had enough se
rvers to handle downloads world-wide on a small game like
Wickerworld
, so at midnight, of the fifteenth, Greenwich mean time, the download was opened for the
Meadowlands
DLC in Great Britain and Western Europe.

It was seven o’clock in the evening in Kansas City. Sarah and her team
were huddled around a large flat screen mounted to the wall that was filled with data coming in from Europe. Sarah knew a lot but she wasn’t quite sure what the numbers from Europe would mean.

In five hours, the United States and Canada servers would unlock, but for now, this was all they had to go on.

“Okay guys, so tell me. Are we good, are we not good?”

“Too early to tell, Sarah,” John explained. “We aren’t gonna know for a couple days. Even with our server power, a lot of people are going to have to wait to get online to download.”

“I know, I’m just a little anxious,” Sarah told him.

“That you are,” he said.

Sarah stood up. “I need to visit the ladies’ room.”

“Sure.
”

Sarah went
to the restroom and noticed something amiss. She was spotting. Not much, just a little but enough to make her stomach clench and a cold shiver pass over her. Her hands instinctively went to her breasts. It could be her imagination, but they didn’t feel as tender or as large. Sarah went to her desk and looked up
miscarriage
and
spontaneous abortion.
She read the articles, but they told her nothing she didn’t already know. Her mom told her that, in her experience, once a woman began to spot, the chances of the baby still being alive were slim.

Sarah wiped the internet history and went to sit down at someone’s desk. A miscarriage would solve her problems, but
instead of feeling relief she felt like crying because she was losing her baby and there was no one she could go to, no one she could tell.

Taki
ng deep breaths to calm down, Sarah went back into the conference room. She stayed until after midnight to make certain the American downloads were going well, that the servers were doing their job. Then she went home.

The next morning she called in sick
in order to visit her gynecologist, Doctor Antoine, who took some blood and asked Sarah questions.

“What about morning sickness, Sarah?”

“Never had it.”

“And
your breasts are less tender, less full?”

Sarah couldn’t answer she just nodded her head.

Her doctor
listened for a heartbeat with a doptone. Then she reached out and took Sarah’s hands. “Sarah, I don’t hear a heartbeat. I could do an ultrasound to be certain, but I’m ninety-five percent sure that the baby has stopped developing and you are going to miscarry.”

Sarah expression was bleak and she trembled.
Dr. Antoine squeezed her hands a little tighter.

“
I can send you home and put you on bed rest to make you feel as though you’ve done everything possible to save the pregnancy, or I can tell you to go back to work, let nature run its sad course and accept the fact that the baby is dead.” Sarah started to cry. Dr. Antoine came and sat beside her. “I know honey, I know. I had a miscarriage. Even after all these years, it is still hard to think about it.”

Sarah
cried for awhile and then dried her eyes. “I’m going back to work.”

“
Okay Sarah, but listen. You’re eleven weeks along, so if you start to cramp and bleed, you call me or get to an ER right away. Okay?”

“Okay.”
Sarah went home. She cried for most of the day and finally fell into a deep sleep. The next morning she got up and went into work.

“Tummy bug
. I’m better,” she told everyone when they asked why she was out the day before. “So how are the numbers?”

“Pretty good, pretty darned goo
d. We’re getting close to breakeven point,” John assured her.

“What about the forums,
are the players reporting any bugs?”

“Some, but not a lot, and n
one that have been game breakers. We’re working on them as we speak.”

“That’s good.” Sarah
walked to her stand up desk and fired up her PC. There were a ton of emails and enough work to keep her from dwelling on the fact that there was one more thing she couldn’t finish.

Sarah and her team watched the sales stats as they worked on an update to fix reported bugs. Four days after the DLC went live they noticed something really unusual. The DLC sales took a steep tick upward. In addition, the original game sales were starting to climb.

Hank from marketing came running up the stairs waiving the stats in his hands. “Guys, hey guys, look at this!”

Hank spread the papers out in front of the team leaders. “Don’t you guys understand what’s happening?” Hank pointed to a graph. “The DLC is so popular that the used copies of the game have been repurchased and the public is buying new copies of the vanilla version.
Wickerworld
has gone viral!”

“Whoa, someone needs to find Sarah and let her know. She’ll be really jazzed about this,” John
said. He turned to Nicole. “Nicki, can you check the ladies’ and see if Sarah’s there?”

Nicole got up. “Sure, be back in a minute.”

“Hello? Who is it?”

Nicole recognized Sarah’s voice and came around the corner
of the restroom where the sink was. Sarah was hanging onto the sink with both hands, shaking like a leaf, blood running down her leg and pooling on the floor.

“Oh my G
od, Sarah!”

“Nicole, n-n-n, c-c-call, ambulance.” Sarah bent over the sink again as another cramp hit her. She groaned.

Nicole watched, horrified as the line of blood flowing down Sarah’s leg grew thicker. Nicole whipped out her phone and dialed 911. Sarah slowly let herself down onto the floor and curled up in a fetal position. Nicole knelt by Sarah. “They’re on their way Sarah, five minutes tops.”

“
I’m g-going into shock.”

Nicole ran out of the restroom and found the team. “Guys, Sarah’s in trouble. I’ve got paramedics on the way but she’s going into shock. I don’t know what to do.”

John ran for his office and pulled a KU blanket off his couch and ran into the restroom. When he saw that Sarah was lying on the cold tile, he laid the blanket down and put Sarah on it. By then Nicole was back. “Nicki, find some more blankets, sweaters, or even newspaper. And bring me a box or something to elevate her feet.” Nicole ran out.

John looked Sarah over
. “Paramedics are on their way, Sarah. How long have you been hemorrhaging?”