Luna nodded.“Same Danny.He helped last night.Kicks ass.”
“He knows his shit,” Elliot confirmed.“Not the way Luna does, but they might as well have been speaking Greek last night, for as well as I kept up.”
Dustin stared at him.“You speak Greek.”
“Enough ask where they sell the Ouzo, and toaskzaharoplastis itan o babas sou?” Elliot said.“And I’m rusty.”
If I remembered right, he’d told me once the line meantwas your father a pastry chef?And that it was a pick-up line.He was also far more fluent than he claimed.
“Sorry to point out the elephant in the room.”Nigel’s tone implied he wasn’t.“But if this happened on Brandon’s network, it happened on Danny’s as well.The point is to make our machinesmoresecure.In fact, why are the rest of us paying the price for their shitty security?”
Maybe Nigel wasn’t that great a guy after all.“Danny’s specialty is finding people, and he’d be working with Luna’s patch.”I struggled to keep the frustration from my retort.
“Can he find this person?”Judith asked.
“Given enough time, yes.”I had no doubt.
Judith clacked her nails on the table in front of her, the tapping echoing through the room.“Luna, make Danny an offer.Pay whatever his contract fee is, and see if you can bring Cole in too.”
Luna clapped twice, and her grin was back.“Will do.”
“The stolen assets.”Judith moved on to the next topic without pause.“They’re out there, the surprise is gone, they’re associated with a different game, even though it’s not one that will ever get off the ground, what do we do?”
“New assets to plug into the demo.”Phillip made it sound so simple.His Art department was second in size only to Development, so it probably was easy for him.
I was a department of one, and I’d dragged the last piece out.My burnout snarled at the thought of having to do so again so soon, especially since we’d have to be finished ASAP for RinCon.
Judith looked at me.“Yes or no?”
Regardless of how my creativity felt, there was only one answer.Everyone in this room was here because we believed this game would be groundbreaking in as many ways as were possible, and that meant not skipping steps.“Agreed.New assets.”
“Great.”Judith stood.“Ivan will send out meeting notes.Make it all happen people.”
The rest of us gathered up our laptops and tablets to get back to work.
“Brandon.Stick around for a minute.”Judith’s request stopped me.
She hadn’t always been the big boss.She started on the bottom rung like I had at Rinslet.We’d been friends much longer than I’d worked for her.
Was this about the fact that the leaked demo came from my computer?That I’d beenhidingmy boyfriend’s cybersecurity experience?I joined her at the front of the room, and we waited until we were the only people in the room.
“You okay?”She asked.
I hadn’t expected that.“Fine.Why?”
“Because you looked like Phillip pissed in your Cheerios when he suggested replacement assets.”
I tried to push out one of those casual,it’s nothinglaughs, but the sound came out strangled.“Lot on my mind.Nothing I can’t handle.”
She frowned.
“You ever wish you hadn’t taken this all on?”I regretted the question as soon as I asked it, because I already knew the answer, and worse, I knew what my asking implied.
She shook her head.“No.Do you?”
“Absolutely not.”It was true.I wanted to be part of this.I also wanted to shove past the drain I felt every time I tried to create.
Judith sighed.“You’ve got a new score to write.But I’m here to listen.I’ll even stop being your boss for a few minutes if you ever want to talk.”