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Chapter 2

Robert came home Wednesday evening to find his flatmate, Ben, in the kitchen cooking.

“Are you making enough for two?” he called out as he took off his coat and hung it on the peg in the foyer. His stomach was already grumbling at the pungent aroma of…he wasn’t sure what, but he knew it would be delicious.

“I always make enough for a small circus troupe.” Ben raised his voice over the sizzle of onions in the frying pan. “I thought this was one of Liam’s nights off.”

“Usually.” Robert hurried to the kitchen table to set down his computer bag. “This week he’s swapped shifts—which is great, as he’ll be off Friday.”

“Any special plans?”

“It’s the night before a match, so whatever we do, it’ll be low impact.” As Robert slid onto the chair, he opened the computer bag and withdrew his laptop.

“Och, I know how that is,” Ben said. “Evan’s a fiend about Friday-night rest. I’ll be glad when the season’s over.”

“Mm.” Robert brought up his email, eager to review the latest analytics for the test version of his Glasgow Effect game. The message had popped up on his phone as he’d left the university, where he’d been meeting with the project’s researchers.

“And yes, I know the season’s not over until May,” Ben said.

Robert clicked on the spreadsheet attachment, bouncing his heel against the wooden floor with excitement. The last report had been stellar—the game was mostly bug-free, and the playtesters seemed to be enjoying the crap out of it.

The report’s top sheet showed the performance metrics. All had remained healthy: The app rarely crashed or made its users wait more than half a second for a response.

Robert gave himself a mental high-five before switching to the sheet containing engagement metrics. These crucial stats would tell him how often users came back to Glasgow Effect , as well as how long they stayed in it—basically, whether people liked it or not.

The numbers there were…

“Oh God.” He swallowed hard, his mouth gone dry. “Fucking hell.”

“ Robert, what’s wrong?” Ben left the pan and came over. “Has someone died?”

Just my dreams. Robert checked the units, hoping everything was off by a factor of ten. But no, what he saw was heart-stompingly correct.

“It’s my game.” He slumped back in the chair. “It’s rubbish.”

“I’m sure it’s not.” Ben patted his shoulder, then returned to the hob. “Would it help to talk about it? Mind, I’m fluent in Javascript and Python.”

“It’s not a programming problem.” Robert scrolled down the spreadsheet and took in the catastrophic details, the worst of which had been highlighted in red. “Engagement has fucking plummeted in the last week. I don’t get it. Everyone loved it at first, but now almost all of them have stopped playing.”

“That’s troubling.” Ben shifted the pan on the burner with a metallic rasp. “Why have they stopped?”

Robert switched to another tab labeled User Comments . The entries made his stomach roll over.

Was great, but now feels like work

kinda depressing

meh…

He scrolled down.

Cool idea, no glitches or bugs. Just not fun anymore.

too much like life :(

I keep playing but I don’t know why.

Makes me wish I lived somewhere else.

Robert read the comments aloud until his friend made him stop.

“I get the idea.” Ben picked up a small green ramekin and reached inside it. “This doesn’t sound like the Robert McKenzie mobile games I know and love.” He sprinkled a rust-colored herb over the contents of the pan. “They were ruthlessly addictive—just ask all the hours of sleep I lost to Hamster Planet and Hamster Planet 2: The Nibbling .”

Robert gave a nostalgic sigh at the memory of making pure entertainment. When he’d started the Glasgow Effect app, he’d proposed incorporating some of the more popular—and silly—aspects of his previous games. But the researchers and municipal funders he worked with had declared these elements “incompatible with the serious nature of the current enterprise.”

“How long did it take you to play through those two games?” he asked Ben.

“About a week each.”

“See, that’s the problem. The games I used to make were meant to be quickies, the sort people get mad obsessed with, then finish and move on. They weren’t meant to change lives, much less save lives.” He shut his laptop and put his head in his hands. “I’m letting down my entire city.”

Ben stirred in silence for a moment, his wooden spoon scraping the bottom of the cast-iron pan. “When you’re in the middle of a football match, are you thinking about winning the league?”

Robert looked at him, confused by the question. “No. I’m focused on the ball and my teammates and our opponents.”

“Would you be a better player if you kept the big picture in mind at all times?” Ben wiped his hands on a tea towel, then adjusted his black-framed glasses. “While you’re deciding whether to, I don’t know, keep the ball or kick it or whatever, would it help to think about how vital it is for queer lads and lasses round the world to have teams like the Warriors to look up to?”

“Of course not,” Robert said. “That’d be overwhelming.”

“Your work’s no different. Don’t get all bogged down in how important it is. You can’t change people’s lives with this game if they stop using it.”

“I know.”

“And beating yourself up won’t help either.” Ben switched off the gas flame beneath the pan. “Sure, this is a setback, but you can learn from it. Mistakes are still progress, yeah?”

Robert knew Ben was theoretically right, that each failure was just another step toward success, blah blah blah. “Tell that to my funders. They want results, and they want them now.” Robert pressed his knuckles to his mouth, resisting the urge to bite his fingernails. God, he’d kill for a cigarette, even though it had been more than a year since he’d smoked his last.

“This is almost ready,” Ben said, “so be a dear and lay the table?”

Robert set his laptop aside and did as Ben asked. It had been an adjustment for the two of them to move in together after each had lived alone in single student flats. But Robert found his friend’s companionship—not to mention his cooking—a fair trade for the relative lack of privacy. He hoped his own willingness to clean made the arrangement worth it for Ben.

“What is this?” Robert eyed the plate in front of him. “I know it’s something polo , because of the rice, but what are the red things?”

“It’s zereshk polo . Zereshk are barberries. My mum makes it without sweetening them first, but that’s sadistically sour for non-Persians, so I cooked them with sugar.”

“I appreciate that.” Robert took a bite of the dish and sighed with bliss. “Fuck, that’s amazing.”

“Thank you.”

Before they could return to the depressing topic of his game, Robert asked, “How’s your PI exam review going this week?”

“As well as ever,” Ben said. “Passing it should be just a formality, but of course I’m nervous. It’ll be so amazing to work in the field with Evan and the other investigators as a real detective.” He brushed a flop of black hair off his forehead. “Evan tells me it’s not as glamorous as it seems, but I think he’s minimized the fun so I wouldn’t be jealous stuck behind my desk writing reports and upgrading the firm’s geo-tracking software.” He frowned. “Unfortunately, my new work hours will make it hard to continue with wedding planning.”

“Will you give up your business?”

“Maybe. I could simply help with Mum’s weddings again. Now she’s taking on same-sex couples, there’s no reason not to.” Ben picked up his water glass and swirled the lemon slice floating inside. “It’s funny, when we were at university, these time conflicts were all so clear, weren’t they? Uni was the priority and everything else somehow fell into place. Now it’s a pure struggle to balance all these obligations.”

“Adulting is hard.”

Ben laughed. “Right? Totally worth it, though. You couldn’t pay me to time-travel back to this day last year, when I was waiting weeks for Evan to phone me, not realizing he was waiting for MI5 to finish my background check.”

Robert thought about his life a year ago. An American developer had just bought one of his old mobile games, the funding for his Glasgow Effect project was starting to roll in—and best of all, he and Liam had just fallen in love. Everything had seemed so fucking possible .

“Then again,” Ben said, “if you’d told me last January that I’d be with no other men for an entire year, I’d have assumed that meant I’d died in February.” He set down his fork suddenly and straightened up. “Maybe there’s a lesson there you can apply to your game.”

Robert blinked at him, having not paid full attention. “Sorry? Lesson?”

“Long-term relationships are an exercise in maintaining interest.” Ben dabbed his napkin against his lips before continuing. “Think about what’s kept you and Liam together after the initial infatuation. Once things got regular.”

“I don’t know, we just…love each other. We’re an essential part of each other’s lives. The best part.”

“It’s that simple?” Ben asked.

“I guess. I never really thought about it, to be honest.” Robert helped himself to a second serving of rice. “Do you constantly analyze your relationship with Evan?”

“Not constantly. But neither of us is the type to settle for mere contentment. So I do think about ways to keep things challenging, but not so challenging we want to quit.” He snapped his fingers. “See, this does apply to your app. You’ve got to find that delicate balance between boredom and frustration, and keep dishing out unexpected rewards. It’s a perfect metaphor for romance.”

Is it? Robert wondered. He’d read articles and heard friends talk of how relationships required “work” in order to last, and he’d certainly muddled through difficult patches with some of his past girlfriends.

But being with Liam was…well, easy . Did that mean there was something wrong with them? Were they settling for “mere contentment”?

Did Liam need more?