“You’re breaking up with me over the phone and you call me lazy?” Devlin said into the dangly bit of his earbuds. The twenty-something redhead couldn’t be bothered to put on a belt or wear shoes with laces, so holding the phone to his ear was out of the question.

“There’s a difference between laziness and efficiency, Dev,” replied his five-minutes-ago girlfriend, Kara. “I work nine hours today, and the last thing I want to do after I clock out is take another bus to your rat hole apartment and break up with you over microwave mac and cheese!”

“Fine,” Devlin sighed. “I’ll make the blue box one. But I have to use water instead of milk. And instead of butter, probably.”

Kara scoffed so hard through the earbuds, Devlin shuddered. “That’s the kind of crap that drives me nuts! You act like you miss the point,” she added, “but you don’t. You’re not stupid, Dev.” Shoving his tongue against his bottom teeth, Devlin glanced around the Waterstone Building’s lobby. The space was sparsely decorated and about fifteen years behind the interior design curve, with a lone elevator on the far wall that would lead to his morning gig on the twelfth floor. 

He knew they’d be waiting, scowling at their phones when he got there. Most of the users on the Chore Weasel app looked like that after being assigned Devlin Froad.

“Not stupid,” Devlin sighed, “just lazy, right?”

Kara didn’t answer.

“Okay, Kara. Client’s waiting for me.”

“Yeah,” she said, her voice suddenly calmer and quieter. “I’ve…got to prep for the lunch rush.”

Devlin rubbed his hand over his forehead. “Bye then, I guess.”

“Bye, Dev.”

After thumbing out of the call, Devlin’s playlist rose back to full volume. His ears hummed with the dulcet tones of old cartoon intro themes that had been remixed at 130 beats-per-minute.

Devlin nodded along.

Thundercats!

He found a row of chairs bolted to the floor near the elevator and dropped into one like a sack of hammers.

THUNDERCATS!

Devlin’s shaggy, red hair bobbed as the beat intensified.

THUNDERCATS, HOOOOOO!

He closed his eyes, making every effort to shut out whatever thoughts were trying to creep in through the tinny bassline in his ears. 

Whoever was waiting for him at CrossRoad Games LLC would just have to keep waiting. 

Devlin reached a state of overt flailing by the time someone’s shoe made contact with his shin.

He jolted out of the bolted-down chair, ripping the earbuds from his head. “Hey! What the sh…”

From the swinging buds, a grainy, low-fi rendition of a Smurfs heavy metal ballad backed his almost face-to-face encounter with the kicker. A foot taller than Devlin, the heavyset beardo looked ready to bulge right out of his Galaga tee-shirt 

“You the Chore Weasel?” the man asked, scowling — as is customary. 

“Uhm. That’s me. Devlin.”

The man crossed his arms, displaying a surprising amount of biceps for someone with an obvious love of carbs. “They not teach you how to use a freakin’ elevator?”

Devlin tilted his head, then smirked. “Technically, no. They didn’t.”

Beardo grunted, almost as if he had to stifle a laugh to keep up appearances. Walking toward the elevator, he shook his head, stepped through the waiting doors, and pressed a button.

In the midst of what he considered mixed messages, Devlin decided the gig was still on and rushed through the doors just as they lurched shut. 

As the elevator rose — painfully slowly — toward the twelfth floor, Beardo ceased all communication in favor of staring at himself in the funhouse mirror of the aluminum elevator door.

Devlin tugged up the khakis that had nearly fallen around his ankles during his leap through the doors, then cleared his throat. “I’m sorry I’m late, though. Really.”

“Uh huh.”

“Was on a bad call with my lady friend.”

Beardo turned his head, popping a raised eyebrow at Devlin. “Probably because you couldn’t hear her over whatever the hell was blasting out of your headphones.”

Devlin offered a nervous chuckle and shifted his weight between feet. “Oh…yeaaah. Smurfs. Ya know?”

“I know the Smurfs,” Beardo replied. “I’m forty-three.”

“You don’t look it.”

Beardo scoffed. “Yeah, I do.” He slapped his belly. “This is ten years of declining testosterone, brother. You’ll find out when you turn thirty.”

Ding!

The elevator chimed, doors sliding open, just in time to save Devlin from coming up with a response. Why would he think about getting old and growing a gut? He had a long time to go before thirty — much less forty — and with the rate they were churning out pills, they’d have something that would take care of it by then.

“This way,” Beardo said, leading off down the hall.

He stopped a few doors down, jingled a set of keys from his pocket, and unlocked the office marked CROSSROADS GAMES.

“You the only one here?” Devlin asked as they stepped across the threshold. 

Beardo flicked on the lights, revealing a standard boring space filled with desks, computers, and file cabinets. A few whiteboards stood like sentries near the walls, some of them streaked from use, others with faded flow charts made up of red and blue arrows and boxes.

“I’m the last one, yeah,” Beardo sighed. “Founder, lead developer, and now sole debt donkey at CrossRoads Games.”

Devlin peered around, hoping to spot something more interesting than a rolling chair. “Never heard of it.”

He winced as soon as he realized the words left his mouth. But no more than Beardo winced after hearing them.

“We were…low-key,” Beardo said, heading off toward a pile of boxes in the far corner. “Critics said that was part of our problem. ‘Not enough community outreach’ or whatever. But that had nothing to do with it.”

Devlin followed him, then dropped himself into one of the many empty office chairs near the boxes. “Oh? What was it then?”

Beardo stopped in his tracks and stared out one of the windows that wasn’t covered with crooked horizontal blinds. 

Beyond the man’s scraggly head, the city skyline sparkled in waves as the morning sun danced over thousands of similar office windows. Devlin absently wondered how many of those offices were the half-empty ruins of someone’s dream.

Beardo blinked, turning on his heel. “Would you believe that it’s possible to be too good at something? Not in some pseudo-cute bullshit bragging way, but actually so good that your work…can’t survive in an imperfect world?”

Devlin’s eyebrows shot toward his hairline. “Uhm. I guess?”

Not that Devlin would know about perfection. As he’d just learned, he was the laziest man on Earth. Not even worth a face-to-face chewing out.

“Well, that’s what happened,” Beardo continued. “We worked for years on one game. Just one. And it was freakin’ groundbreaking. But the hard part was keeping up with the hardware trends. Damn near impossible with such a long development cycle, right?”

“Oh, yeah. I get that.”

“Last season, when the N-Com came out. Ya know? That killed us. Just killed the whole thing.”

Sure, Devlin knew the N-Com. Everyone did, and everyone wanted one. But he, like most of the world, would have to wait until they could buy refurbished to afford a gaming system that plugged directly into the brain.

“Couldn’t get it to work with the new system, huh?” Devlin asked.

Beardo smiled, leaning closer. “That’s just it, bro. It worked too well.”

Devlin cocked his head. “Like…what? It turned people into zombies or something?”

Beardo threw back his head and laughed. 

“Nah,” the huge dude added. “Nothing that cool. Just…ya know.” Trailing off, he glanced down at the pile of boxes. “Let’s get you started on this crap so we can get outta here.”

“I’m down,” Devlin said, rolling his chair closer. “What am I doing?”

Beardo lifted the top from a box and whiffed it across the room like a Frisbee. “Sorting. This pile is six years of files, memos, emails, and…shit…you name it.”

“Fun.”

Beardo chuckled. “Not even a little. That’s why you’re doing it, not me.” He dropped the box on the nearest desk. “I want four piles. Anything with a dollar sign on it goes here. Receipts, invoices, that kinda mess. Second pile is for letters and email printouts. Third is creative. If you see any concept art, development docs…even a sketch on a napkin.” 

Devlin stood and leaned over the empty box. “Easy enough. What’s pile numero four?”

“It’s important. If you’re not sure what something is, it goes in four so I can sort it later.”

Devlin tilted his head. “Like if it’s a drawing of a dollar sign? And printed from an email?” 

Beardo laughed. “Something like that, yeah.”

“What’s this?” Devlin asked, reaching into the box. 

He pulled out a framed photo of four people standing in front of the Waterstone Building. A brass plate along the bottom identified them as Lauren, Tom, Jeremy, and Diana. Tom definitely looked familiar — as long as Devlin made some adjustments for weight.

“That’s the startup team,” Beardo Tom said, taking the picture to look over it with a compressed smile on his lips. “Lauren there is my wife. She did all the models for the first two years.”

Devlin pointed to Jeremy and Diana. “What about these two? What’d they do?” 

“Jeremy is…no longer with the company,” Tom sighed.  

“And what’s that scribble under him?”

“Oh!” Tom chuckled. “That was his username in the game.”

“Huh.” Devin leaned back, scratching his neck. “What the hell is a ‘Wompy’?”