Luke’s furious.
And he has every right to be.
I really rarely get into furies. And when I say I rarely get into furies, I mean it. I like to reason myself out of any extreme emotion that I might or might not be feeling.
Which is kind of contradictory given I had a massive crying spell in WOE yesterday.
Which is kind of one of the reasons I’m here right now.
I’m back at Eden headquarters, and I’m sitting in Luke’s office with my head down and my hands folded in my lap. Luke’s pacing around me, arms folded and he’s so ticked off I can see fiery fumes escaping from his body. He’s about to throw an epileptic fit, and it’s all my fault.
I look up from my lap, and Luke’s throwing punches in the air.
I roll my eyes. Throwing rages is so has-been.
Luke ignores me and starts shredding some paper in his paper-shredder. I’m surprised he doesn’t have a paper-machete up in the air in his office that he can machete at. He’s inserting paper into his cutter with a vengeance.
At least he’s not shredding me.
Batting that thought aside, I put my head down again.
He rages,
“Buffy. I told you again and again not to go into the game until you’ve patched up the mess that YOU created. You can’t just go into the game in admin mode and fuck up the game even more than you have already. Do you know what you did?”
I shake my head morosely. Let’s pretend to be petulant until he cools down.
“You caused a blackout in the game, Buffy. Millions of users have been complaining that they couldn’t move or see anything in the game for a good hour. AN HOUR. They were stuck in the game for ONE HOUR and couldn’t even log out until the system went back up.”
“Doesn’t that happen all the time?”
Luke slams his hand on the table.
“Buffy, Eden Enterprises is known for its professionalism and attention to detail. You’ve violated the very core values that we operate on.”
“Discipline. Excellence. Attention. Dedication.”
I stare at him, baffled. The core values of Eden Enterprises are DEAD?
As if he read my mind, Luke scowls at me.
“No, Buffy, Eden Enterprises is not dead, but we will be if you continue to fuck up our game. Unfuck this. Now.”
He leaves the room, slamming the doors shut so hard that I can feel my feet vibrate.
I put my head on my hands.
I really want to pray right now. But I’m not sure if there are any hidden spy cams or microphones hidden in Luke’s office. Knowing Luke, they probably are a bunch hidden. Like inside that stuffed teddy bear sitting on his bookshelf.
I give the teddy bear a tender look. I wish you were mine.
But that’s a discussion for later.
Right now, I need to figure out what to do. My job is on the line, and I can’t call a friend to help me out of this mess that I created. I don’t have any “friends” at Eden Enterprises, they’re all just coworkers, the best any of them can be are “allies”, and the worst they can be are “enemies”.
But maybe I can call a friend from elsewhere.
I get out my phone. My phone is ultra-high tech, imported from Japan, and has all the latest features that any smart phone can have. There’s a name for phones like these –
Sporty.
(A sport, according to my favorite book A Wrinkle in Time, is a genetic feat of evolution. Like me. And so can you be if you biohack.)
I take my sporty phone, and place it on my forehead. My phone is able to detect brain waves and adjust its settings according to the signals it receives. Almost automatically, my phone projects a visor around my head, kind of like one of those tennis sports headbands that Maria Sharapova wears.
I say a word,
“Screen.”
My phone immediately projects an augmented reality screen from it. Reaching out with my friends, I press on my contacts. Only 10 people are on my contacts list. Saves room, and it is way more efficient than having to scroll through hundreds of contacts.
I press the call button next to Adam’s smiling profile picture with my finger. Hope he picks up.
Several seconds pass, and Adam’s face pops up on my screen.
“Hey Buffy!
“Hi.”
I hesitate. I’m suddenly not sure if this is a good idea.
“So I’ve got a problem.”
He frowns quizzically.
“What kind of problem? Anything I can help with?”
“Yeah. I’m at Eden – “
“Eden?”
Peter’s head suddenly appears into the screen. I stop talking. Why is my brother hanging out with Adam Park? I thought they cut off ties a long time ago.
Some explaining needs to happen. Right now.
“So my extremely career-oriented sister is hanging out at her work place right now while I’m busy HAVING FUN playing tag football. What else is new?”
I glare at my twin brother. He and I are like oil and water. We used to be super close when we were younger, but we fell apart, kind of like vinaigrette separating when you leave the bottle standing up too long. That’s what happens when school and life just happen and neither one of you invest that much in your mutual relationship.
I have a strong feeling though, that we’re going to come together soon.
Ew, not that way. Get your mind out of the gutter.
Peter grins at me in that way he does when he wants people to know he’s not being serious and is just teasing. That sort of apologetic and conscientious grin that lets me know that I shouldn’t take offense to anything he’s saying.
But I still take offense.
“At least I have a job. What are YOU doing with your life?”
Peter rolls his eyes and stare off screen.
“Having. A. Life. Unlike you.”
“I DO Have a life. I went to a party last Friday, which I didn’t see you at. Why is that?”
Peter gasps pretentiously.
“A part-ay? My little sister went to a part-ay? That I wasn’t at?”
Adam laughs.
“He was there, Buffy. We were all there.”
Peter smirks. I shoot lasers at him with my eyes and bite my tongue from replying,
Probably fucking some girl in James’ bedroom, Peter?
But I’m trying not to ruin the atmosphere, so I don’t say what is on my mind.
And seriously, I need to stop cursing.
I’m not surprised though. Peter is infinitely more social than me, and not only is he a certified player and has hoards of women worshiping his feet but also he is an incurable party animal that only has girls, sex, sports, and external validation on his mind.
And because of all of that, he’s going to end up a cult leader once he graduates from high school.
(He was actually voted Most Likely To End Up As A Cult Leader by my middle school yearbook committee.)
Seriously.
I think I saw him this morning sitting in front of the lockers with some girls sitting on his lap.
Ignored, Peter.
Ignored.
I ignore him and pointedly direct my words to Adam.
“The party last night was awesome, Adam. Thanks for inviting me to it.”
“No problem.”
I scramble to get my train of thought back in line after being interrupted by the sight of my brother literally sitting in Adam’s lap.
“I need your help in something at work.”
“yeah what’s up.”
“Can you get some people from school to test world of eden’s new feature for me?”
“New feature? What’s going on?”
“SO, basically I’m working on this new feature that’s going to implement generative AI and I need testers.”
I purposely neglect to mention that World of Eden is being attacked by a virus.
That I created.
Is that sin?
Nop-
Yup.
(lying by omission)
“I heard there was a huge blackout in WOE servers yesterday.”
Shit. No one was supposed to know of that.
But I’m forgetting that Adam is actually a regular WOE player and has been since we got into the game together.
When we were 12.
Peter chimed in.
“Yeah, bitch, do something about your company. I was one of the players in lockdown mode yesterday. Do you know how much time I wasted in purgatory?”
I roll my eyes. Do you know how much time you waste already? Regularly?
Not going to get in a fight with my twin. Just going to keep it in my thoughts.
I bite back a spiteful reply and say shortly,
“Sorry, bro. I’m working on it.”
“You better work on it! I’m going to go play some ball now, see you at home. Not.”
Peter whizzes off and I’m left with Adam.
Trying not to feel abandoned (but failing), I redirect my attention to Adam.
“Can you help? Spread the word and get some testers?”
“Sure.”
He types something into his screen, probably a reminder to himself, and gives me a thumbs up.
“Also, I wanted to ask. How’s Age of Atheos going?”
I stifle an inward groan. I haven’t had the time to work on it, thanks for reminding me Adam.
“Not going.”
“Weren’t you going to release it? You won SECOND PLACE in the Virtual Reality Symposium this past summer.”
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And what good did that for me?
Stuck with a dead-end internship and racking up major negative clout to boot, to accompany my major lack of social clout, and my major lack of romantic life and lack of interactions with the guy who could be the guy of my dreams.
Seriously, I don’t even have Rod’s (is that even his real name) number, and I have no idea where he is and when I’ll see him again.
But I’m not going to tell Adam any of this even though we’ve been reviving our childhood friendship since two weeks ago.
I didn’t realize I got over Adam until now. Seeing him after everything that’s happened at the party and everything’s that been happening at work made me realize one thing.
Adam is the guy I thought I would end up with, the way you think you match with someone perfectly on paper, based off of expectations, based off of premeditated musings, based off of logic.
I mean, I’ve known him since forever and we’ve had a ton of history and we were both mixed (major selling point, according to my mom).
It made sense in my head. And it used to be that head mattered to me over heart.
But slowly, I’ve being converted.
Don’t tell Peter. He wouldn’t like the competition.
“Earth to Buffy?”
I snap out of my internal contemplation.
“Yeah, I’m working on it. Albeit really slowly. But I’ll let you know when I release it in the game store.”
“Also have you heard of Fallen Angels?”
Adam frowns.
“The top-secret elite guild that no one talks about in WOE circles because they’re too embittered that they’re not in it?”
“Yeah. I’ve been recruited.”
“By who? The secret police of world of eden?”
“No. Fallen Angels. And Demon Slayers.”
Adam’s jaw drops open.
“No way. You’ve been recruited by two of the most prominent guilds of all of WOE history?”
Hell yeah. I’m wanted.
Soon to be a wanted person.
“Yeah. I mean, is it that…”
Pretending to be modest, I lower my eyelashes.
“Coveted. Yeah. It’s a huge accomplishment, Buffy, and I’m super proud of you. But somehow, I’m not surprised. You’ve always been a massive over-achiever, and this is just another one of your trophies.”
I perk up. After the denigrating scolding I’ve just received by Luke, I’ve needed this bit of validation.
“I mean, I have yet to receive any real assignments from them… just been doing some new recruit laps around the game, slaying some demons, monsters, you know.”
“Sounds like the usual run through. They’re probably give you some cool new quests to do eventually though.”
“Yeah. Looking forward to it.”
There’s a brief silence as Adam smiles absent mindedly at me and I fiddle with the visor around my head.
“So about the testing, I have some people in mind who’ll probably be interested in doing QA. Myself included. Just let me know the details and shoot me an email or something.”
“Cool. Will do.”
“Got to go now, Peter needs me to pick up the slack, we’re losing pretty bad.”
“Yeah sure, see you in class.”
Adam waves goodbye and my screen turns black.
I sit there in front of Luke’s desk, mulling over my conversation with Adam.
I lied. About not having work to do as part of Fallen Angels. I still haven’t forgotten the request I got from Gabriela who wanted me to go to Hell to retrieve “Excalibur”. She never gave me a deadline to finish the task by so I’ve been procrastinating on this homework.
Too busy partying and having panic attacks about college applications season and the state of my internship, which is on shaky ground.
I also haven’t heard from Michaelis. The so-called “Angel” who first inducted me into the Fallen Angels guild. He’s been on silent mode for a long time. I’ve tried messaging him several times, but no luck in getting a response from him.
This morning, however, I checked my equipment toolbox and I’ve noticed I got a gift from someone anyonymous.
A silver cross. With a defense stat of +1000.
I put it on immediately, because, hey, any free equipment that boost my attributes is a total win.
I suspect it’s from Michaelis. Not Luke because he’s so hopping mad at me that I doubt he’ll be handing out free swag any time soon.
I haven’t told Luke that I’m already part of Fallen Angels. On my bio in World of Eden, it says I’m an “independent contractor”. Technically, guilds aren’t allowed to pry into my personal statistics, they can’t run a background check prior to recruitment. Luke only knows the information I put on my public profile, which is I’m a Level 313 knight mage.
Luke thinks I’m a committed Demon Slayer, when really all I’ve been doing is slaying my email inbox at work.
No email will go unread by me.
None whatsoever.
Back to the silver cross, it’s really been helping me with boss battles. I don’t lose HP as easily, and I barely have to use any potions to heal. I can tackle on any boss dragon without a team and defeat it in a matter of minutes. No boss, dragon or no, can defeat me and render me helpless.
So there, Luke. I will find a way to overcome your tyranny.
I brush aside a tear that was threatening to swell up in the corner of my eye. I hate crying, especially at work, which is probably the least comfortable place to cry. Crying in public places is on my list of things NOT to do unless I was faced with a death sentence. And I’ve already violated it, a couple of times because of this stupid internship.
“Turn off.”
My phone folds neatly into my hand. I place it in my pocket and get up from my seat. Scanning the office one last time, I open the door and close it behind me.
Time to solve this problem.
My job is on the line, my future in World of Eden is turning bleaker by the moment, and unless I do something about this mess, I’ll be going to Hell.
Which is exactly what I’m going to do.
The chain of upcoming possible events unfolds in my mind, and I grin in anticipation.
I’m going to Hell, to retrieve the Holy Sword.
No one can stop me, no virus, no demon, no evil boss.
Armed with the Holy Sword, I’ll be unstoppable.
Let all Hell break loose.
Buffy’s coming.
