The Primeval Maze

The video presentation is cut, and I wait. Standing next to the promo art of my two-year long project in front of my employers. A long oak table in the center of the room, three executives on either side with the CEO sitting at the head of it. I can feel my heart thumping in my throat. 

“Is this all the progress you’ve made, Connor?” 

This isn’t enough progress for you, he thought to himself. “N-no, sir. We’ve finalized the environmental programming and character diagnostics. The difficulty has been coding the initial program for alpha testing.” 

The executives murmur to themselves in a way that makes me nervous. Diagnostics class with Professor Torres was less intimidating than this. I gaze up to Matt Bauer, sitting in his chair with his chin resting on his fist peering back at me through his glasses. I can’t read him any more than I could when I first met him before he took this position. 

With a small sigh, he sits back in his chair with a stern look. “Connor, Soulscapehas been consistently running into these coding issues. It’s been pushed back once already, and our resources are getting limited on this project. If we don’t see any progress or alpha testing results soon, it could mean shelfing it altogether.” 

My heart sinks. I’ve been trying to get this project off the ground for almost four years now. If it wasn’t for the God damn coding bugs that keep popping up during trial runs, this wouldn’t be happening. “I understand… I’ll keep trying.” 

One of the other executives stands up, buttoning her blazer like a typical business power move. “We expect to have your results by the end of the month. This meeting is adjourned.” With that, the other five stand and leave the room. Only Matt and I are left here. 

“God dammit.” 

Matt comes and sits on the table while I hang my head in defeat. “Connor, what happened? I thought it was getting resolved.” 

“The damn bugs are the problem, Matt. I scrub them up at the end of one day, they spring up like a fucking plague the next.” I pull one of the seats to me and flop down. “I thought I had this. I never ran into these problems back at the U.” 

“So, it’s our programming and equipment you’re blaming, now?” He replies, clearly annoyed. 

I retort defensively, “No!” 

“Sure, sounds like it.” He crossed his arms with disappointment.

I can’t believe this! 

“I thought you were on my side, here!” 

Matt unfolded his arms and pointed a finger at me, “I am. But I’m also the CEO of SnoWire now. I have to do what’s expected of me, just like you do.” Matt sighs and stands up, adjusting his blazer, “Connor, we’ve been through a lot. I brought you on so we could keep Dominic’s legacy alive while fixing his mistakes. I don’t want to do that without your help.” 

It comes flooding back. Dominic’s pleading eyes looking at me as he holds his crazed daughter, Lorena, back for us to leave The Mortal Gate. Two years of recovering from that virtual prison has not been easy. I thought I would be able to move past the nightmares and focus on my career. Matt thinks that pouring himself into the company’s success will help him overcome his guilt. Are we both wrong? 

I sigh with defeat, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll try harder to work on giving you a beta product.” 

“Good.” He looks at me sympathetically and pats me on the shoulder, “We’ll circle back to this later. In the meantime, go check in on Mr. Woods and see how his draft boards look. He was supposed to join this meeting and has been radio silent.” 

Dammit, Riley.I nod and leave the boardroom. If this isn’t the definition of a clusterfuck, I don’t know what is. First the presentation is a bust and the board is already giving up on my project, now Riley is skipping out on meetings that we were both supposed to tackle. Every time I think he’s forgiven me for pulling him back from the game, he turns around and gives me the cold shoulder instead. He wanted to stay in a world where he felt strong and powerful rather than be some “struggling paraplegic store owner”—his words, not mine. I thought giving him a chance to create this game with me would be enough to keep him occupied to the point he’d forget about it. 

I take the elevator to the floor he and I share in the building. The same floor where our entire testing team has been busting their asses trying to help me get this game off the ground. I approach Riley’s door and knock, “Riles? You in there?” 

No response. I knock again and go inside. Riley’s hunched over his desk in front of his laptop, typing quickly and sharply not tearing his eyes away from the screen. 

“Riley?” 

He doesn’t look at me. Just keeps staring at the computer, “What is it?”

“You missed the meeting.” 

He looks up at me from his computer with a stoic face, “Sorry. Been busy with this whole scripting mess for the level progression. How bad was it?” 

“Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence,” I reply dryly. 

He sighs and rolls his wheelchair around his desk to get closer to me. “Look, I knew it was gonna be bad. I’ve been trying my best to help with progressing the work, so it doesn’t look like we haven’t been getting shafted for the past five months.”

“And I appreciate you doing that, but it’s getting worse. Matt is barely keeping the board interested in Soulscape and he’s breathing down my neck to get this going.” 

“Fuck him.” Riley turns his chair back around and returns to his desk. He pulls a drawer open and grabs a stack of papers before throwing them on the desk. “He’s been shoving these notices down my throat and I’m sick of it. If he wants the development to work, I need to work. So do you. Rather than bitch about the coding, find a way around it and get the team to bust down on production.” 

I feel a vein pulsating in my head. He has been like this for the past year since we’ve gotten past the initial programming and the story was approved. Before that, he was getting chummy with me again. I thought we were past all of our issues when he agreed to help me with this. I’ve started losing my best friend and he keeps shutting me out.

“Riley, you’ve gotta stop stalling me here. You seriously need to move past what happened.” 

He goes quiet and returns to his computer. “I am moving past it. There are… bigger things coming. So, let’s make it happen.” 

With a sigh, I nod and leave his office. Walking through the halls back to my office, his last words ring in my head. I want to believe he really is moving past what happened. I have. Krissy has. Mark and Danica, maybe not so much. But still, it’s been two years. Long enough for us to return to reality. But I’m afraid Riley is still living in The Mortal Gate, even now.