Vaporware by Richard Dansky

Executive Board has decided that it is not in
BlackStone’s interest to pursue the Blue Lightning project at this time. This
is not a formal announcement, of course, but I wanted you to be aware of the
way the wind was blowing. I do know that they are very pleased with your
studio's work and plan to offer you something else to make up for the
disappointment.
    I
am sure we will be in contact soon.
    Best
Wishes,
    Phillip
     
     
    I
stared at it for a while, then stared some more. There was a soft ping, the
sound of new mail, and I looked down.
    It
was from Eric. Apparently, he'd been having trouble sleeping as well. I opened
it up.
     
    Not
a word to anyone.
    -Eric
     
    That
was all it said. That was enough.
    I
shut down the computer and walked out of my office. The bedroom was to the
right, warm and inviting.
    I
turned left, went downstairs, and spent the rest of the night sitting in a kitchen
chair, staring at the wall.
     
    *  
*   *
     
    Sarah
was her usual bustling self in the morning. If she noticed that I hadn't come
back to bed, she didn't say anything about it. For my part, I didn't say
anything about the email I'd seen. I had a bowl of cereal; she had an egg-white
omelet with low-fat cheese and a precisely measured pinch of parsley, and then
she was off in a whirlwind of newly promoted efficiency.
    I
stood at the front door and watched her go. It wasn't until after her car's
taillights had faded into the distance that I dragged myself upstairs and threw
myself into the shower.
    Maybe
it was a mistake, I told myself. Maybe Phil jumped the gun. Maybe I didn't
actually read what I thought I read. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
    But
in my gut, I knew it was bullshit. I knew the project was dead. Maybe it didn't
know it yet. Maybe I wasn't allowed to tell anyone that the sentence had been
passed. But it was over.
    Hot
water sluiced over me. I stood there, letting it run down my back, and leaned
into the wall. It should have been no big deal. Projects got killed all the
time. There were guys I'd met at Game Developers' Conference who'd been in the
industry ten years without ever shipping a title, because the games they were
working on always got axed or handed off to another studio or otherwise taken
away.
     
     
     
    But
this was going to be the one. I'd felt it. So had the team. There was something
magical in the game, a real sense of something new and exciting and cool. This
was going to be the one to really make us as an independent studio.
    I
was the creative director, and it was going to be the one to make me. Now, for
reasons that would never be explained and that I would never comprehend, it was
dead.
    Just
like that.
    I
sank down onto the floor and let the water flow over my skin until it was
freezing. I was thirty five, positively ancient in game-development terms, and
I'd just seen my best shot go bye-bye. Maybe Sarah was right. Maybe it was time
to let her pay the bills while I tried to do something else, something that
didn't rely so much on so many other people, so far away.
    Eventually
I turned the water off.
     
    *  
*   *
     
    Eric
was waiting for me when I walked in the door. “My office. Now.”
    “And
a good morning to you, too, Eric.” I dropped my laptop bag on the floor outside
my door. “Is this a before-coffee or an after-coffee conversation?”
    He
glowered at me from behind his desk. “It's a now conversation.”
    “Right,
then. No coffee.” I was already headed toward his office as I said it, any
cheap bravado I'd felt draining away.
    “Shut
the door.”
    I
did.
    “Sit.”
    I
sat.
    He
leaned forward over his desk, looking tired. Looking beaten, for lack of a
better word. There were dark circles under his eyes, which were reddish in the
way only a sleepless night or a long drinking binge can bring. There were lines
down his face, and his hair looked like he'd done the five-finger brush job
instead of his usual immaculate grooming. There was stubble on his cheeks.
    I
was shocked. There was