Gamer Girl (9 page)

Andrea laughed, “Call me Andy.” She lowered her voice as well. “
I got it on E-Bay of all places. You certainly know your designers.”

“
I’m just a closet fashionista. Can’t afford any haute couture, even on E-bay, but I look for great knock-offs and sales at the Nordstrom racks.”

“Oh my,” Andrea laughed, “you really aren’t Eamon’s usual date.”

Eamon introduced Sarah to everyone at the table. Then, to her surprise, he escorted her to the bar, got her a moscato and took her along as he made the circuit of the room, introducing her to people he knew and making small talk along the way.

Sarah marveled
again at his poise. Eamon may not have been born to this world, but he moved among its inhabitants confidently, certain that he belonged among them. He knew his own worth, and she admired him for it.

They returned to
their table for the meal. A member of the board from a corporation that was developing three dimensional copiers was seated on Sarah’s right. Sarah had read something about them, and within moments had her dinner partner waxing lyrical about how they were going to change the world. Martin was seated on Sarah’s left. When she could she turned to him. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to Jim. Has he decided…?”

Martin nodded his head. “He’s staying on for another couple of weeks so that I can get up
to speed on Rainwhite’s legal files. Then I think he’s going out on his own. Have you thought about joining him?”

“No,” Sarah said softly. “
I want to see what I can do to help Rainwhite transition into Gryphon World.”

“G
lad to hear it,” Martin said. And he meant it. He’d watched Sarah this evening. She was pretty, but she was more than that. People responded to her because she was genuine and honestly interested in them. Sarah had taste and a style that was all her own. He was beginning to understand why Eamon had wanted the introduction. Martin looked across the table at Andrea. She was watching him study Sarah and she subtly nodded toward Eamon. Martin looked. Eamon was watching Sarah. He met Andrea’s eyes again and she lifted her eyebrow a little. Martin shrugged and returned to his meal. There were a few short speeches. Thankfully, they didn’t last long. Then the orchestra began to play a waltz.

“Care to dance?” Eamon
held out his hand. Sarah pulled on her gloves and rose from her chair, giving him her hand. They reached the dance floor and Eamon took Sarah in his arms. Sarah settled into his arms and they waltzed their way around the floor with other couples. Grateful for a few moments during which she could relax and enjoy being in Eamon’s arms, Sarah closed her eyes and let him lead.

Eamon glanced down and caught S
arah just as her eyes closed giving herself into his keeping as they danced, trusting him to lead. He felt a momentary twinge of conscience but he made himself let it go. After all, he wasn’t really going to hurt her, just use her a little. The song ended and Eamon escorted Sarah back to the table. He didn’t have to worry about dancing with Sarah again. Partners came from all over the room, eager to dance with her while Eamon danced with corporate executives’ wives.

As the evening wound down, Eamon went to the men’s room. He was washing his hands when one of his fellow board members came up to the sink next to him to wash his. “Great party, Eamon, thanks for inviting Carol and me.”

“Any time, I’m just glad you could come,” Eamon replied.

“You know, Eamon, I’ve seen you at a lot of events, with a lot of beautiful women.
Miss Adams, though, she’s different.”

“She works for me, Jeff.” Eamon met Jeff’s eyes in the mirror.

“I’m not surprised. That woman is bright, gregarious and has a genuine interest in other people. Plus, she’s got class. You can’t get that with good makeup and a designer dress. I’d hire her in an instant.”

Eamon smil
ed at that. “Well you may get your chance in a few weeks.”

“
Let me know if she’s on the market. I am definitely interested.” Jeff turned away to take a clean towel from the pile.

Eamon returned to the table. The crowd had thinned enough now so that they could leave. Eamon called the driver to bring the limo around. Then he turned to Sarah. “You ready?”

Sarah, who had just come back to the table nodded. “It’s your dance, Mr. Byrne. I’m just here for the ride.”

“Let’s go then.” Eamon
said goodbye to everyone, and within moments they were in the back seat of the limo headed to Sarah’s house. 

Eamon undid his tie but said nothing as they sped through the streets toward her apartment.
As the silence lengthened, Sarah began to wonder if she had somehow pissed Eamon off. 

“
I assume I performed up to your standards, Mr. Byrne.”

Eamon came out of whatever funk he was in long enough to look at her and smile. “Miss Adams, you did everything right tonight. I couldn’t have
asked for a better partner for this event. Thanks again for coming.”

They got to Sarah’s apartment and Eamon sent the driver with Sarah to see her safely to her
door. He wanted to follow her to her apartment. He wanted to go inside and take that beautiful, impossible dress off her enticing body. He wanted to do things to her that made his heart pound, his mouth go dry and his cock get stiff. But that wasn’t a part of the plan. When the driver got back, Eamon told him to take him home.

Monday morning, Sarah got together with John Billis, Brad O’Neil, Tammy Reid and James Pratchett.

“Hello
. I called you together because I learned that you four were working on companions and better dialogue for
Wickerworld
.”

They
looked at one another and back at her. No one spoke so Sarah tried again. “Look, I have week before Mr. Byrne decides who goes and who stays. I believe in
Wickerworld.
We can create a DLC that’s good enough to bring the original title up to a decent sale point, and give us a shot at pitching additional games in the series. If you don’t want to do this, tell me so I can go to other programmers and writers. I am going to save this title if I can. I want your help, but I’ll do it with you or without you.”

“What makes you think that Byrne will give us the capital to create a DLC?” John Billis asked her.

“Mr. Byrne is smart when it comes to turning a profit. He sees the potential in this game just as I do. Aaron said you all had worked this up part-way. Do you have anything? Storyboards? Initial programming for the companions, anything I can pitch? If you do, then I might get him to put capital into it.”

The four of them
huddled. Sarah had a sudden hunch. “You’re going out on your own, aren’t you? You’ll take what you have, move it around a little and sell it somewhere else. Maybe you already have an idea of where you’re going with it.”

Tammy looked over at her. “We thought about it. I suppose an argument could be made that some of this already belongs to G
ryphon World, the companion programming, for sure, but the stories, the quest lines, those were never pitched.”

Sarah gave it another try.
“Look, don’t give me everything. Give me one good story line and the programming we already have. Get me some art to go with it. Think of this as an opportunity. We’ve been bought out by the best financed, most secure game corporation in the USA. These people have the means, and you have the idea. If we can make a DLC work, I’m willing to bet we will have a very good budget for game two.”

When none of them
spoke, Sarah turned toward the door. “Give me an answer in twenty-four hours.” She left the four of them to talk it over and went on to her other interviews. Sarah got back to the office in time to talk with Nicole about the upcoming trip.

“Can
you give me a little background on where we’re going?  And what do I do when I get there?”

“Well…” Nicole did a dramatic pause, “…pack your warm clothes, you’
re going to upstate, New York.”

“Hoookay…New York.” Sarah said.

Nicole laughed. “Look, it’ll be okay. The weather’s supposed to be sunny, and you’re staying at a great little hotel.”

“So, what will I be doing?”

“You’ll set up the booth, run slide shows or videos, be the gopher, ‘run for this, and run for that’, eat a lot of junk food and get very little sleep,” Nicole explained. “Hey, this is a baby convention compared to the biggies. It’s a good place to get your feet wet.”

“That’s good
. Are there any materials I can look over?  What are we going to promote?”

“
Mirrored Nation: Reflections
for the most part. Eamon’s taking a lot of trailers, there’ll be a Q&A, and the demo will be set up on PC and the consoles.” Nicole said.

“I don’t know anything about
Mirrored Nation: Reflections
. I haven’t even had a chance to play the demo.”

Nicole stood
up. “Well, come with me.”

Sarah followed Ni
cole down to the second floor. They went to the test room. “Take your pick. The demo is on the consoles and the PCs. I’d suggest playing on each for awhile. Then if you get asked questions, you’ll have answers.”

Sarah gave Nicole a hug. “Thanks, Nicole.”

“I’ll leave you to it, okay?”

“Yeah, see you later.” Sarah sat down and fired up one of the consoles. She set her phone to alarm after an hour.
She returned to Rainwhite to finish up her interviews. She came back to Gryphon to play the demo some more. It was five when she received a text message on her phone from Tammy.

We’re in. See us tomorrow and we’ll give you what we have
.

Great! See you then
.

Sarah went back to the demo. An hour later, she got anot
her text message on her phone.
WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?

It was Eamon.

Playing the demo so that I can get ready for New York
.

UPSTAIRS NOW
.

Sarah went up to eight
and knocked.

“Come in.”
Eamon looked up from his desk and saw her. He stood up. “Do you mind telling me why you haven’t answered your phone?”

Sarah pulled out her phone and looked at the settings. Sarah realized that she’d left the ringer on silent after her interviews. Her text message ringer had still been on vibrate. She held up the phone. “I put it on silent while I interview
ed the staff. I forgot to put it back on normal.”

“Well, at least leave your vibrate on next time.” Eamon growled.

“No. I’m done now and even if I weren’t, it’s just rude to let the phone interrupt you during something that important.”

“Damn it! I—”

Sarah threw up her hands. “Look, I was doing what you asked me to do. You squished my time table down to nothing, so I couldn’t afford to be interrupted.”

He looked away from her
, took a breath and let it out. She had a point; he knew that. When he looked at her again, he was considerably calmer.

“All right. Sit down and tell me. You must have a list by now,
let’s see it.”

“I need
my notes,” Sarah told him. She gathered her things and came back into Eamon’s office. He was at his conference table and was just getting off the phone. “There’s some Thai food coming. They’ll ring.”

Sarah couldn’t help but laugh a little. “I’m beginning to think you have a thing for Asian food.”

“Well, I have a thing for easy take-out,” Eamon told her. “Sit down and show me what you have.”

For the next two hours, Sarah went through each department of Rainwhite, each employee, their strengths, who seemed a good fit, who wasn’t working out.
When the food came, they ate while Sarah went over what she’d learned. Then she told Eamon about her idea for a DLC for
Wickerworld.

“So, let me get this straight. You want me to invest more money into this game?”
Eamon leaned back in his chair, clearly not convinced.

“Look, you said it yourself, the game has potential. With a kickass DLC and some promotion, you not only get the pe
ople who like the game to buy, but you may also pick up some new players. I think it’s worth a shot.”

“A million dollars ago, I might have agreed wit
h you, Miss Adams, but—”

“Oh get over i
t! These four people have an idea, but if you say no, they are going to walk with that idea right into the lap of some other game company. You know as well as I do that they can create a
Wickerworld
clone and put their good ideas to work.” Sarah stood up and slammed the table for emphasis. Her eyes flashed fire. “You can at least let us make the proposal. Don’t say no without looking.”

Eam
on watched her reaction, shook his head and began to laugh softly.

Sarah got more incensed. “Damn it, why are you laughing at me?”

Eamon grinned from ear to ear. “Just who the hell are you anyway, and when did you take over Sarah’s body?”

“What do you mean?

Eamon made himself stop laughing. “All right. You’ve got your shot. Make it good because I’m not cutting you any slack on this.”

Sarah took a deep breath and let it out. The relief showed on her face. “Thanks.”

Eamon walked close to Sarah and leaned in. “Don’t thank me yet, Miss Adams, I may not agree to the proposal you know.”

Sarah looked up into his eyes. “Yes, you will. Because it’s going to be good; it’s going to be great.”

“Whatever. Now, get your things and I’ll see you down to your car.”

Sarah looked at her phone. It was well after ten o’clock. “I’d appreciate that.”

As they rode down the elevator, Eamon asked, “So, when can I see your proposal in full?”

“A week after we get back from New York?”

“Okay. Good night, Miss Adams.”

“Good night sir.”

The next day, they left for New York.