It was almost time for summer vacation, and the weather was starting to get hot. James pulled on a pale green t-shirt and khakis and wrestled briefly with his bedhead before grabbing his backpack and heading out. As he walked past the kitchen on the way to the front door, he noticed that his parents had also sobered up enough to get themselves ready for work.
“I’m heading out!” he called as he opened up the front door.
“Okay, sweetie! Have a nice day today! Say, ‘Hi,’ to Luke for us! Oh! And don’t forget that your father and I are probably going to be home late today! Make sure to eat dinner!” Katy called down in response.
“I will, Mom! Love you!”, he replied, shutting the door and heading down the street.
About a block away, he ran into his best friend, Luke Anderson. Luke stood tall for a high school student at about 6’ 1”. His blonde hair was, as usual, styled meticulously and he wore an outfit far more fashionable than the average high school male. Part of this was due to Luke’s troublesome reputation as a player and a flirt. The other half was due to Luke’s high-paying part-time job. While most high school students with jobs were making minimum wage flipping burgers, Luke had managed to get himself a job as one of 100 beta testers for a certain virtual reality company. Luke worked for Virtech.
“I’m so, so, terribly sorry for your loss,” James mockingly lamented as he patted his friend’s shoulder in a comforting manner.
“You can go straight to hell, alright, James?” Luke snapped, looking thoroughly unamused. “I was seriously looking forward to testing that Morphix gear,” he continued. James just laughed.
“Well if you still want to test it, you could always turn traitor and come work for my parents!” James offered, grinning slyly.
“They didn’t!” Luke exclaimed. “I haven’t heard anything about Tripwire making a deal with Morphix!” Luke was one of the only students at James’ school that knew about his parents’ occupations. People connected to the VR industry tended to get a lot of attention. Even Luke who loved attention more than almost anything kept his part-time job to himself.
“Between you and me, my parents have a meeting scheduled today with Morphix to talk about building a partnership,” James confided.
James and Luke had an agreement. They had been friends since long before Luke had gotten his job. Any conversations they had were kept between the two of them. James could talk about Tripwire’s progress and Luke wouldn’t tell Virtech. Likewise, Luke could talk about testing Solaris and James wouldn’t tell his parents, not that they were at all interested in copying Solaris.
“If Tripwire gets the Morphix deal, promise me you’ll let me be a tester,” Luke pleaded.
“Don’t you have some sort of non compete clause for Virtech?” James asked. Usually companies would ban employees from working for their competitors for a certain period of time after quitting. James thought this would be the case with Virtech.
“Hardly,” Luke responded. “Apparently there’s something like a community of professional beta testers. Once you’ve gotten used to testing, you know what kind of things to do try to find bugs in a game. It’s a pretty valuable skill. There’s nothing that says that I can’t use my Virtech job as experience to apply to Tripwire.
“I suppose that’s true,” James acknowledged. He had heard of a few famous pro-beta testers before. “Well, I don’t really have a say in company matters, but regardless of your connection with Virtech, I’m sure my parents trust you enough to let you test for them. They say, ‘Hi,’ by the way.”
“Your parents are the best!” Luke exclaimed. “Can I come over today?”
“Yeah, but my parents won’t be there. Besides, don’t you have work?” James asked.
“Nah!” Luke responded. “I took the week off. We have finals starting tomorrow, remember? I was thinking we could study. Besides, I want to be there when they get back from this fancy meeting you were talking about.”
“Haha!” James laughed. “That’s fine. Though I don’t know how much studying I’ll get done with a distraction like you around.”
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“For my sake, please study with me. I hate to admit it, but I haven’t been paying very close attention in most of my classes,” Luke confessed. “I could use a little help.”
“I figured as much,” James sighed. “I’ll get you caught up. You better be ready to work hard though.”
The rest of the day passed without incident. Luke and James arrived at school and headed to their first hour calculus class where they spent the period reviewing for their final tomorrow. At the end of class, the professor reminded the students that the two distance-learning students who had been taking the class online would be joining them to take the final in person. The rest of the classes offered similar reminders. James was curious as to what type of person would even want to attend high school through video lessons. Luke, too, was caught up in imagining what the distance-learning students might be like, although he was hoping at least one of them would be the frail princess type.
Like this, their classes passed uneventfully.
Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Marcel were having a much more interesting day. A little bit before 10, a shiny black car pulled up in front of Tripwire’s office. The building was lavish and modern, encased in a shiny mirrored-glass shell. The company name ran vertically up the building in a vivid shade of orange. It was located in a rapidly-developing region on the western side of the city.
The first person to step out of the car was a man. His short, auburn hair was gelled up in a messy style. His eyes were covered with shades and he wore a sharp-looking suit. He was about 6’2” and looked young enough to still be a college student. Katy had done her homework. This man was Samuel Coulter. He was Morphix’s lawyer and had been their sole representative during the discussions with Virtech. This time, however, he wasn’t alone. Samuel exited the passenger side of the car and moved towards the back to help the second passenger out. As he opened the door, a skinny arm clutching a bulky, silver, briefcase shot out. The man grabbed the briefcase with one hand and as the other hand extended towards the delicate wrist. The thin fingers slipped into his hand and a figure was hoisted from the car.
If Samuel was attractive, the second figure could be considered breathtaking. The young woman was probably no older than the man, but she possessed an ageless grace as her slender limbs lifted her out of the car. She stood at about 5’6” and wore silver pencil skirt with a conservative hemline matched with a sleek, silver, blazer that highlighted her slender frame. Beneath the blazer, she wore a black blouse fastened with a silver tie. In addition to the suit, the woman’s hair was also dyed silver. It spilled down her back in lustrous rivers and landed at her lower back. The front of her hair was cut short, just above the eyebrows. The woman’s eyes were also covered by shades. Hers had small round lenses that would have seemed old-fashioned if it weren’t for the chunky frames. She wore very little makeup and didn’t even bother to color her tender, pink, lips.
As beautiful as she was, Katy’s thoughts were not on her appearance, but on her identity. Katy had no idea who she could be. Katy was pretty well-informed when it came to the VR industry. A woman with this unique of an appearance should surely have been talked about. How come Katy couldn’t place her? Could this be one of Morphix’s mysterious executives? Why hadn’t she appeared before?
The car door closed and the Morphix duo walked towards the Tripwire building where Katy and her assistant and one of Tripwire’s top lawyers stood waiting. As they entered the shade of the building, the guests removed their sunglasses and Katy could see that Samuel had stunning, deep blue eyes, and the woman had pale green eyes with bluish tones. Katy wasn’t sure it was possible for there to be two human beings so beautiful. Recovering from her stupor, Katy stuck a hand forward.