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“Oh, and one more thing…”

I paused, but only for a moment.

“You can call me again,” I said. “You know… if you want to.”

Without even closing my eyes, I could already visualize his white-toothed grin.

“You can count on it,” he said, and hung up.

Thirty-Two

JULIANA

I hadn’t seen Robert Valentine in almost half a year, except on Zoom calls. And I hadn’t been to Legendary Gaming in almost twice as long, ever since Aric took over the everyday aspects of dealing with our most important client.

The building was the same, although they’d taken over many more floors. Legendary had acquired a few fledgling game companies and had recently swallowed a pretty big rival. They were expanding fast into the realm of virtual reality, and had built a cutting-edge rendering engine that would apparently “blow the doors off” anything else out there, if they could ever get it released. The problem was the project kept getting knocked back. The specifications kept changing with the invention of newer technologies, and at times it seemed the whole thing would never get done.

I didn’t envy Robertthatseemingly unending problem, nor did I begrudge him for being unusually short on the phone with me the other day. But going over things for a second or third time and replaying our call in my mind, I had to agree with Aric’s simple but vague assessment:

Something was definitely wrong.

The elevator deposited me into their same old lobby, where I encountered their new front desk and all new receptionist. Everything was bigger and more impressive, except for the short, pale man behind the desk who didn’t seem fit at all.

“Good morning miss, how can I help you?”

Even the man’s voice was thin and tinny. The enormous desk seemed to swallow him whole, making him seem small and out of place. Like a little boy trying on his father’s shoes.

“I’m here to see Mr. Valentine.”

His eyes went wide. A moment later, after scanning something on the desk in front of him, he shook his head.

“I don’t have any visitors, for—”

“Never mind. I can find him myself.”

I pushed past him, moving in the direction of the steel-framed door off to one side. Before the man behind the desk could protest, I reached out and pressed the button I knew would buzz me in. The desk was new, but the button was still the same… and located in the same spot.

“M--Ma’am!” he stammered. “You can’t just—”

Whatever other protests the receptionist had were cut off as the door swung closed behind me. I made my way swiftly through the maze of initial corridors, then out into the project management floor.

“Damn.”

In the past, this had been the lifeblood of Legendary Gaming — the brainstorm area for all creative hired talent. In the past it had been full of mismatched desks and tables, even a few couches here and there. People discussed things in the wild. They drank coffee together, and huddled over laptops while shuffling through flowcharts, proposals, and concept artwork.

But not anymore.

Gone were the couches, the tables, the homegrown, grassroots feel. The haphazard placement of desks had been replaced by long rows and columns of prefabricated walls and whitewashed partitions. The whole thing was a giant cube farm now, filled with evenly-spaced people sitting in standard office chairs all working on identical terminals.

Like good little plants, growing in their little square pots.

It was a phrase Aric had once said, when we were pitching a campaign within a similar style office. I had been sad, then. It made me even sadder now.

“Juliana! Hi!”

The dark-haired, middle-aged woman who came rushing up beside me swept me into a semi-formal hug. Tori was one of Legendary’s first six employees, and had been with the company long enough to be calling me by my first name. Which really said something.

“Oh my God, it’s beenforever!”she gasped. “How in the world are you?”