Open Secret

by Fiona Quinn

  The grunts that the band members made as they egged on this newest coital celebration was just too uncomfortable for her. Avery simply couldn’t believe that epic-poetry-spouting Taylor developed this game.

  Avery stood and left the room, stopping at the bathroom where she relieved herself, washed her face, and checked her phone. She had no bars here.

  When she exited, Taylor was standing in the hall, leaning against the wall. She waved at Avery to follow her, and they moved outside, walking toward the horse.

  “I am tired of two things about men,” Taylor said.

  Avery was still in a state of shock from what she’d witnessed in the video game, no wonder Curtis had wanted to find a way to stop the next book from release.

  “I’m tired of working with them and socializing with them. I prefer the company of horses. This is Goose.” She chirruped, and Goose came over to eat a sugar cube that Taylor placed on her open palm.

  “Female game designers are harassed unmercifully. I had a good friend that attempted suicide from all of the shit she got blown back on her. She left the field and became a graphic artist. She hates it, but what are you going to do?” Taylor shrugged. “And on the social side of things, you think you’re going out with a nice guy, and, as you get to know him, you realized he was really a male chauvinist pig.”

  “Your experience doesn’t seem to be reflected in the game that I just watched,” Avery said, trying to choose her words carefully. They needed to work as a team. Avery’s job depended on her successfully managing this book. And that meant, getting some words on a page.

  Taylor ignored Avery’s comment. “One night, after yet another horrible date, I thought, you know what I want to design? A game that helps people know who it is they’re dealing with.”

  “Like a psychological test, like a personality test?”

  “The idea is, that in a game, a designer normally gives the player a vocabulary, and they build a level fluency. The player learns what the characters can and can’t do and what objects will and won’t do. They enter the world and learn to navigate the new terrain. But, I asked myself, what if I built a game the other way around? What if the player’s terrain was of their own design? What if I build a game that learned the players vocabulary, and the game learned the individuals fluency using machine learning and artificial intelligence?”

  “I…” Avery shook her head. Not her bailiwick. She’d just have to try to figure this out as Taylor spoke. “If I’m hearing you right, you’re saying that in this game, if you were a misogynist,” she lifted her hand toward the house to indicate the band members playing the game inside, “for example, you would develop female characters within the world that had a certain look, and you could manipulate them. The game learned how the player wanted the women to look and behave.”

  Taylor grinned. Her brows popped up and fell back into place.

  “So in there,” Avery focused on the house, “the game had really objectified kinds of bodies. Women were offered up as a reward or as a barter or gift.”

  “Yup, that’s how those guys developed their women characters. They’re pigs. After you saw them playing that game would you date any of them?”

  “Uhm, no,” Avery said.

  “Now, watch me play that same game.” She pulled out her phone. The landscape was serene. Children were laughing. Women were of various sizes, shapes, and colors. “In my game, I’m rewarded with chocolate and massages. My goal is to pop the bubbles. The repetition with no competition or other level to reach is hypnotic and soothing. When I get anxious I play ten minutes of this, and I’m much more centered and comfortable.”

  “Nice!” Avery laughed as she watched. “But these seem like completely separate games. Why don’t we hear about this side of your game?”

  “Simple. Few people who play The Unrest develop their world in this direction. And too, this is low drama. I mean, it’s a woman taking a walk, seeing pretty things, popping bubbles, and eating chocolate. Where’s the controversy there? The thing that powers attention is angst. Attention gets sales, those purchases are made by people who enjoy the idea of the drama. Therefore, The Unrest is played by people who create the kinds of worlds that you saw being played.”

  “Why did you call it Unrest if a bubble chocolate world was available?”

  “You cannot advance in this game without causing unrest.”

  “With chocolate?” Avery’s brow creased.

  “Ah, but I said you could not advance in this game without causing unrest.”

  “And in your bubble-chocolate-kumbaya-world, you have no desire to advance.”

  “Exactly.” She grinned.

  “And your novel?” Avery asked.

  “My novels don’t offer as wide a range of options, because it can’t. It’s still a novel and still has to hit the tropes of the given genre. But I still developed the plot to reflect a world of the readers own making to some degree. While the bubbles and chocolate scenario wasn’t available, whatever the reader’s mindset, the book will support that world-view. The book is designed so that it is read through whatever lens that reader is seeing through. I got a lot of pushback when it came out because the book was racist and anti-Semitic. If you are racist, or anti-Semitic, you will understand the characters in the book to share your racist point of view. And the reader will come to understand that they live in a world of ‘us versus them.’ That’s where the controversy of my work lies. That’s where people’s emotions live. It’s what feeds their brains. Humans are animals that thrive on conflict.”

  “Us-them. Huh.” Avery was unsettled by these concepts, and she had to admit, perhaps they were a little too philosophic for her to grasp. But there was more to this. Avery could feel that she was dipping her hand into a very deep well. And she’d admit that something about what she was learning today frightened her in a way that went beyond clinging to her job. “I have another question.”

  “Shoot,” Taylor said. “Or don’t shoot. You build your world on your own paradigms.”

  “How does the game know.”

  Taylor scratched her brow. “Know what?”

  “What’s going on, how to mirror the player.”

  “Easy. And I’m going to remind you of your NDA.”

  “Yes, of course.” Avery swept her hand through the air.

  “The game is connected to the users digital platform. All user data collected in the past, present, and future, helps to build the framework of the player’s world. Once that frame is in place, then the choices that the players make refines that data.”

  “Wait, what data?”

  “From Internet use.”

  “Like search engine histories from your computer? Your phone?”

  “Exactly.” Taylor paused. “Social media…” Taylor made an odd kind of bemused tweak of her lips. “Ha! I wonder where you’ve been and what you’ve done to have your face make that expression.”

  Avery wasn’t going to admit that she got a wash of fear like when she read 1984 or The Handmaid’s Tale back in high school. Instead, she said, “I’m an editor. As I edit books, I have to fact check my author’s work. If they’re doing a romantic suspense, for example, I might look up information about hiding bodies and decomposition, I might look up various religious groups, or cultures, even stuff about bombs and terrorists. I think that your game would be pretty confused by my online activity. But data is more than that isn’t it?”

  “More than the sites you’ve been on? Sure. The game has one of those permissions that are found on almost all apps. They can access your contacts lists, and learn from those, it can look at your photos, your GPS, read your email and texts. When you function on the Internet, you are an open book. Big Brother is watching you and compiling your data. This game simply uses that information and artificial intelligence in a new way.”

  “Its job is to provide a mirror for the person playing, so others can see what they’re really like.”

  “And save themselves some heartache.”


  Avery felt the need to run as far and as fast as she could. She checked her watch. “I have to get back to the office. I’m so glad that I was able to meet you in person. Listen, I need something back from you by Saturday, okay? Seriously, my job is on the line if I don’t get something from you, and if I get fired, you’ll be working with a guy. There are no other female senior editors to manage your project.”

  “Okay, I’ll get you something.”

  As they walked back toward the house, the trepidation Avery felt run through her body was almost palpable.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Avery

  Monday Afternoon

  Washington D.C.

  Avery had thought when she got back to the office and told George she’d had a face to face with Taylor, that he’d be beaming. She’d thought when she told him she’d gotten a promise from Taylor she’d have something on Saturday, the day Avery was coming home from the conference in New York, would be soon enough.

  She was wrong.

  George had called her—commanded her—to come to his office. And as soon as she shut the door, George began to unspool.

  That was a half hour ago.

  Now, Avery sat immobile, poised tight as a spring, ready to eject herself from George’s office. Her hands and feet tingled with electricity while her nervous system processed the unfolding scene. George was scaring the bejeezus out of her. She couldn’t remember the last time her scalp prickled with fear.

  She had never seen George this unhinged before, despite their history.

  With unblinking eyes, Avery tracked George as he prowled five steps, and then retraced his path.

  Back and forth.

  Back and forth.

  His face fired a brilliant red hue, deepening to a purple across his throat. His arms went from clasped behind his back to fists shaking in the air—the calisthenics of the overwrought.

  In George’s impassioned speech, his words leapfrogged one another, making them incoherent.

  All Avery could do was wait and hope the blaze would cool.

  It was taking a long time.

  “Reasonably, George, you just handed me the assignment last week, and Knapp was already contractually three months late with the manuscript,” Avery said. “I reached out electronically, then I went to physically visit. Knapp is clear about my expectations. I anticipate a good amount of work to be handed to me by the time I get back from New York. But I can’t realistically imagine the manuscript being complete before Thanksgiving.”

  George stared out the window. He didn’t turn his head or respond.

  “I suggest you push the publishing date forward. This timeline is too short given our present situation.”

  “What in the hell is wrong with you?” George balled his hands into fists and swung, stiff-limbed toward her.

  Avery shook her head.

  “I need that manuscript.” Spittle sprayed the air, leaving a strand dangling from his lips.

  Avery didn’t move. Words failed her.

  “Have you any clue what’s at stake here?” He batted the phone from his desk. It hit the wall with a deadly thud, leaving a dent behind. “Our heads are on the collective chopping block. You get that, right?”

  “I’m not sure I know what you want me to do here.” The tone of her voice came as a shock to Avery. She sounded composed and reasonable, extremely professional, and not at all like the chewed-up-and-spat-out-piece-of-garbage feelings poisoning her insides. “I can’t make the words come out of Taylor’s head, through his fingers, and onto the screen.” Since obviously George had no idea that Taylor was a woman, Avery had decided not to disabuse him of his assumptions. Avery felt somehow that Taylor and she both gained some protection from the subterfuge. “There is only so much someone can do from the outside.”

  George stalked around his desk.

  Avery jumped up and circled to the back of her seat, using it as a barrier between them.

  He grasped the arms of the chair, put a knee on the seat, leaning within an inch of Avery’s nose. “I don’t care what you have to do.” His voice had dropped to a menacing whisper. “I don’t give a shit if you have to move in with him and babysit his every move. He has a contract. He owes us a book.” With each staccato word, vehemence ramped up George’s volume. “And you will hand me that book.” George raised himself to standing. “Or so help me…” He was up on his tiptoes with an arm over his head, pointing a finger like a weapon down at her head. Reflexively, Avery ducked.

  “George, I have my mother,” she whispered.

  “Then take your mother with you as you move in next to Knapp and monitor his every move. There are no more jobs open in publishing. No matter what we’ve accomplished in our careers, if we fail to deliver the Taylor Knapp book and get fired—and make no mistake, we will be fired—our careers are over. Over. This will not happen. You will hand me the manuscript, and it will be the best manuscript Windsor Shreveport has ever touched. Do I make myself clear?”

  “I understand you want me to go babysit Taylor. I’m not in a personal position to pack up and head there for an arbitrary amount of time. Quite frankly, George, I think you’ve lost your mind. I’m glad to strategize with you. But I will not stand here one more second and have you threaten me. I promise you if this continues, I’m walking out the door, heading to HR, and filing an abuse report.” Avery’s mind stood back and watched with awe. She couldn’t believe she sounded so solid and strong when this whole time all she had wanted was to curl up in the corner and whimper like a beaten dog. She was so tired.

  But look at her; she was doing great.

  George stilled.

  Avery wondered if she had, over the months and years she had known him, by degrees, ceded power to him to the point that he thought this kind of behaviour was acceptable. Somehow, she held herself responsible for his tirade.

  “You said you were there today, it can’t be far away. You figure it out. I want Knapp’s babysitting to start the moment we get back from New York. I want you to monitor his progress. I want reports. I want a manuscript in the next month ready for your content edits. And you go back again tomorrow. You put him in a chair. You tie him there if you have to.”

  Avery opened her mouth.

  George’s hand came up like a stop sign. “Not a single word. Get out.”

  Avery walked from the room with as much poise as she could muster. When she got to her office, she was shaking violently. She yanked her purse from the desk drawer and pulled out her compact to inspect her neck. Splotchy red welts ran all the way down her chest. Avery slung her purse over her shoulder and headed to the pharmacy for an antihistamine, hoping it would calm the hives.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Avery

  Monday Evening

  Falls Church, Virginia

  Parked in her driveway, Avery called her sister Fanny. She might as well get this over with out of earshot of her mother. Neither of them was going to be happy with this turn of events. Oh, well.

  When the call connected, all Avery could hear was background noise. “Fanny?”

  “Hang on. I’ll get my mom,” one of her nephews huffed rudely.

  Avery took another slug of Benadryl, paying no heed to the dosage warning on the label, as she resisted scratching. She wanted to peel her skin off and throw it out the window. Avery blasted the air-conditioning. It offered her a modicum of relief.

  “Why are you calling?” Fanny sounded put out.

  Avery felt a sudden wave of satisfaction flow through her, knowing she was about to dump her mom-burden squarely onto Fanny’s lap. “I’m just giving you a heads up. That the day I get home from New York, I have to turn around and head out of town again. I don’t know when I’ll be back. It’s probably for the rest of the month. Mom will be with you.”

  “Wait. What? You don’t know when you’re coming home?” Fanny’s voice squeaked out. “But Mom…”

  “Is your responsibility.” Avery tried hard to keep the glee from her voice. She s
uddenly felt vengeful for having shouldered the cost and the responsibility for the last two years almost completely alone. Fanny got the husband, her own home, children, and the freedom to come and go as she pleased, spend her money on what she chose. Those jealous thoughts churned angrily through Avery and seemed to suck all the air from the car. She climbed out, panting, her nails ripping at her blotchy itchy skin.

  Fanny went off like a volcano. But Avery had been through one too many of these tirades today, so she just said, “Bye.” And hung up.

  She made a second phone call. “Lolly, how would you feel about getting rip-roaring drunk tonight?”

  ***

  Avery stood at the kitchen counter, wiping tears from her eyes that she blamed on the onion she was cutting.

  “Are you going to tell me what happened?” Lola asked.

  “In a minute. Let’s start with you. How was your day?”

  “Fine. The kids were all in school. My mother came over in her full OCD-mood. So I needed to leave the house while she sterilized everything.” Lola took the chocolate cake out of its bakery box and positioned it on the cake stand.

  “God, you’re lucky. I have to pay Sally extra to run the vacuum or dust the furniture.”

  “Mom would come over and do your house too, but Ginny scares her to death. Mom thinks delusion is contagious.”

  “But she watches the kids all the time, so you can come be with me.”

  “Yeah, well, she thinks it’s contagious after you’re fifty, so I have a few more years.”

  “What did you do while she cleaned, go shopping?”

  “I went to confession.” Lola poured Chardonnay into their tulip glasses.

  Avery stopped mid-chop and held Lola’s gaze.

  Lola’s eyes lit up with laughter. She winked at Avery. “Bless me, Father Pat, for I have sinned.” She chuckled.