Single Sashimi

by Camy Tang

  Her father grew very still. “How would he even know about it?”

  “Jaye and I have been working on it for years. It’s a small industry—maybe word leaked out somehow.”

  “Well, does it matter? Patent is pending—”

  “All they have to do is make something similar that won’t infringe on the patent. It’s done all the time.”

  “You had it locked up, right?”

  “Of course.” She was her father’s daughter—she’d even bought the same brand of fireproof safe that he had. “But I think he tried to get into the safe.”

  “He didn’t succeed?”

  “He didn’t.”

  A thoughtful, tense silence. Her father’s worry for her was almost a tangible thing that wrapped around her.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  She stared up at the night sky, at stars dimmed by the nearby street lamp. She had to be rational, not fly off the handle the way she wanted to. “I can find out easily if he was telling the truth or not.”

  “And if he wasn’t?”

  “I don’t know, Dad. This company is like the Google of game development. It’s only going to get bigger, whether I’m there or not.”

  “Do you want them to go big by stealing your proprietary program?”

  Maybe it was the dust and dirt from standing beside an expressway, but a headache started throbbing behind her eyes. “It’s not even completed yet. I’m not ready to start my own company yet.”

  “I keep telling you, you’ll never feel ready to start your own company.” He thrust his hands in his pockets. “You just have to do it.”

  Maybe he was right. “Besides, if Oomvid makes me Game Lead in fact—rather than acting Game Lead—there’s a good chance I would sell them the Spiderweb. Why would they try to steal it?”

  “Are you sure they’re going to hire you as Game Lead?”

  “I’ve seen all the candidates. I’m the best out of all of them.”

  Her dad snorted. “Does Oomvid really want the best? Or just whomever they happen to like?”

  She didn’t want to think about it.

  She didn’t have to—the tow truck arrived. After the wreck got sent to the garage her father used, they waved at the relieved policeman, and she drove her dad home.

  He paused after getting out of her car. “What are you going to do tomorrow?” Always have a plan. He’d taught her that.

  “I’ll see if Yardley really sent Edgar to my condo.”

  “And then?”

  “And then…” What could she do, short of turning in her resignation? “I’ll poke around, see what else he’s been up to.”

  Dad sighed and looked grave.

  “I’m not going to just quit, Dad. I’m acting Game Lead, and I’m not going to throw that away.”

  “You’re acting Game Lead; Yardley’s an established Chief Technology Officer. There’s a big difference between them.” He walked up the driveway and let himself into his townhouse.

  Venus wasn’t about to admit he might be right.

  “I don’t like the face of this Goobermonster.”

  Venus handed the sketch to her administrative assistant as they hurried down the carpeted hallway toward the boardroom. “Tell the design team to make him less like Barney and more like Aliens. He should make the consumer want to shoot him into tiny pieces, not sing along with him.”

  Her admin, a young Asian girl right out of college, handed her another file. “Jaye can’t find the bug the testers complained about.”

  “Schedule a meeting so the testers can demonstrate what they do to make the video game crash.”

  “The testers have said they’re too busy.”

  Venus stopped and planted her stiletto heel. Her admin halted and swallowed as she gazed up at her.

  Venus frowned. The girl didn’t have to tremble as if Venus was going to eat her. It didn’t help that this particular admin was petite and frail-looking. “Tell the testers we pay them to help us make the game better, not to dictate to me if they have time or not.”

  She turned and continued toward the boardroom. “If I have to go into the basement to roll some heads, I will.” In this male-dominated business, she wouldn’t let anyone be impertinent to her—certainly not a posse of uppity testers. Most testers she’d worked with at other game development companies had been nice guys—this particular group was like a high-powered laser rifle shot to the rear end.

  She stumbled a little on a bump in the carpet. Her world tilted on its axis before it righted itself with agonizing slowness. Too little sleep, too much caffeine. She needed to be alert for this meeting. “Tell Edgar’s programmers that the Angoramonsters’ mass attack on level five is too slow. They need to speed it up a bit.”

  The admin wrote the memo down and nearly tripped flat on her face as she struggled to keep up with Venus’s long stride. “They just finished the Inca Death Mine set for level nine.”

  “I also wanted the Vampire Spike Field ready. Where’s that?”

  The admin swallowed again. “They didn’t mention it.”

  Venus ground her teeth. Edgar’s group kept “neglecting” to tell her if they were behind schedule—yet another small way some of the men under her flouted her authority. “If they needed more time, I could have reallocated resources or rescheduled the Smelly Werewolves design for a later date.”

  The admin remained silent.

  Venus would have to go down herself to get things done. She could never win with her admin choices—the female ones jumped every time she sneezed, which made them ineffectual at relaying Venus’s instructions to the men who worked under her. However, whenever Venus hired male admins in the past, they backstabbed her at the first opportunity, speculating that she’d warmed a few beds to get where she was.

  This particular admin wasn’t bad—just intimidated by Venus’s height. Also possibly green at the way Venus garnered attention from a certain Korean American programmer, who looked like the hero of the girl’s favorite Korean soap opera. Venus wasn’t the most sensitive person, but she’d have to be blind to not notice how the admin straightened her posture and smiled more when Jin Hoo came to report to Venus.

  She hadn’t yet found anyone she wanted to have a relationship with, and it wouldn’t be a programmer—she never dated someone who worked under her. When she’d been fat, they hadn’t been interested in her, anyway When she lost weight, she wasn’t interested in them because they’d acted so differently toward her, and that galled her. But no one knew she’d never had a significant relationship with any man, they just assumed she couldn’t have reached the age of thirty and still be a virgin.

  Venus always gently brushed off Jin Hoo before he could make any overtures, like she did all her coworkers, but he never seemed to lose that just-been-slammed-in-the-face-with-a-sledgehammer look when he saw her. He never noticed the pretty little admin right outside her door.

  Well, Venus could at least do something about that. With her hand on the boardroom door, she turned to her admin. “While I’m in my meeting, take the new design specs to Jin Hoo.”

  The girl’s eyes sparkled like the Chopard earrings Venus had coveted in her latest InStyle magazine.

  “I’ll be busy with the meeting all afternoon and you deserve a break. Leave your notes on my desk and then take the rest of the day off ” Hopefully with Jin Hoo at her side, if the girl had an ounce of female persuasion in her.

  The admin looked like she wanted to kiss her. “Thank you, Venus.”

  “Wish me luck.” Venus opened the boardroom door, ready to face Goobermonsters in Armani suits.

  “You want me to do what?”

  Venus bolted to her feet and stared down the length of the oak conference table at Ed Mandley VP of Marketing and the biggest idiot she’d ever worked with in all her years as a video game programmer.

  Ed skewered her with dark eyes under his bushy gray brows. “This isn’t negotiable, Miss Chau.”

  She hated it when they c
alled her Miss Chau. It delineated her from the rest of them—the VPs in designer suits who sat on either side of the table. Her Versace business suit had masculine lines, but the feminine curves underneath didn’t. And those curves were all they saw, sometimes. Like now. They saw “brainless woman,” not “competent programmer.”

  Venus took a sharp breath through tight nostrils. “The game heroine already has an improbable size C cup. She can’t possibly do all the flips and aerials in the fighting sequences with a larger chest size.”

  Ed’s gaze didn’t waver. “The testers wanted a more sexually appealing character—”

  “The testers are only supposed to be looking for software bugs and trying to make the game crash. They are not the product’s focus group.”

  “On the contrary, our marketing department values their input highly.” The VP of Manufacturing, a thin man in a burgundy tie to her left, spoke up timidly.

  “The testers do nothing but stare at a gaming monitor for twelve hours a day. Of course they’d want more stimulating eye candy.” In lieu of a real social life…

  “The testers are an important part of your team, Venus.” Ed cleared his throat and smoothed his Italian silk tie.

  Venus flexed her jaw. He always found something in her to criticize, possibly because she’d spilled champagne down the front of his suit when he’d made drunken overtures to her at the last milestone party. “Lara Croft has been done already. We’ve gone through considerable effort to distinguish our heroine from Tomb Raider. A larger chest will only decrease our market impact.”

  “For crying out loud, it’s a minor physical detail, not a complete overhaul of the game.”

  “It’s not minor.” A woman’s body was never minor. Venus didn’t eat tofu and nonfat frozen yogurt for something minor. She didn’t run on her treadmill or take those killer spinning classes for something minor. She liked being healthy, and she worked hard to keep herself healthy. She didn’t appreciate men who wanted a sex kitten instead of a strong, likable heroine for the game.

  “Venus, we have duly noted your suggestion but overruled you.” Yardley, the chief technology officer, attempted to be both firm and conciliatory in his tone, but Venus wasn’t in the mood.

  Ed smirked.

  “You hired me because of my expertise in the gaming industry and my understanding of the market trends.” Venus stabbed her manicured finger at him. “What is the point if you keep overruling me? First it was her name—and I still firmly believe ‘Tweety’ is the biggest mistake the gaming world will ever know—”

  “Market research indicated—”

  “Then it was her height—a five-foot-tall woman looks ridiculous taking on some of the monsters you wanted.”

  “The testers thought she looked too masculine—”

  “Now you want me to give her a chest so large she’ll cut herself with her sword.” Venus planted her hands on her hips. “We spent thousands to fine-tune realistic video graphics. You’re throwing it all away with these impossible—”

  “People don’t want reality, they want fantasy.” The Chief Financial Officer, silent until now, thumped the table, making his portfolio jump. “They want escape. We give them that escape with a woman they’d want.”

  “This will turn the game into the same kind of thing that’s already glutting the market. With nothing to distinguish it, your sales aren’t going to meet projections.”

  “The decision is made, Miss Chau.”

  Venus stared at the sea of closed, hard, male faces. She’d hit this invisible wall countless times, and it still slammed her like a crack to the head with a baseball bat. Calm down. You are in the middle of a meeting with all the VPs and the CEO. Stop shrieking like a spoiled child.

  Her hands touched the table. At least she wasn’t trembling. Be professional. She sat down with a hopefully neutral expression.

  Despite her outburst, she knew she’d been doing a stellar job as acting Game Lead. In her report, she had put a good spin on some of the delays her admin had told her about, and she knew she could get her programmers to kick into gear and get the projects done by the deadline she’d set.

  As they continued with the meeting, she glanced at Yardley. He hadn’t looked her in the eye since she entered the room. He probably knew she’d corner him to find out if he’d really sent Edgar to her condo last night.

  “Lastly, we have some news from the Board of Directors.” Yardley straightened his tie.

  Venus and the VPs of Product, Manufacturing, Sales, and Marketing looked at each other. News? Something more for them to do, probably.

  Yardley cleared his throat. “Miss Chau has done an amazing job the past several months as acting Game Lead for the Tweety project. Because of her work, we are ahead of development schedule and due for our next milestone soon.”

  He’d never praised her before. Her gut started to gurgle. Did this mean what she thought it did?

  “As you know, the Board of Directors decided not to hire outside the company for the new Tweety Game Lead.”

  They’d decided that weeks ago. She’d been working overtime and pushing herself to prove to the VPs that she could do the job—and better than the previous Game Lead, in her opinion. She knew she had it in her to be the best Game Lead the company had ever seen.

  Was this her chance? Had her earlier outburst ruined her chances? But the Board had made this decision in their own meeting, before this one had even started, right?

  “Miss Chau, we applaud you for keeping things running smoothly for our new Game Lead, and we know the transition will be seamless because of you.”

  Something inside her flash-froze, with harsh cracks radiating from her breastbone.

  “Our new Game Lead has distinguished himself in his…er…current position.” Yardley accidentally glanced at Venus and blushed as he looked away. “He’s, um…worked here for more years than most programmers. We’ll announce it today to the company. We’ve chosen Edgar Smiley…”

  Venus had turned into a finely chiseled ice sculpture, about to shatter into a thousand shards and hopefully nail a few of those arrogant executives in their Italian-suit-clad behinds.

  Edgar. They’d hired one of her junior programmers to replace her.

  THREE

  Venus could always count on her cousins turning up on time for food. Two cars entered the parking lot of Moon Pearl Restaurant just as Venus stepped out of her Beamer.

  The September chill in the evening air didn’t faze her as she steamed toward the restaurant doors. She’d suppressed her frustration—barely—all day, but her insides boiled like Chinese hot pot soup. She really needed to vent to her cousins.

  “Reservation for four,” she said in Cantonese to the hostess.

  Lex came up behind her as the woman looked down at the reservation book. “Hi there. I brought Trish. You made reservations?”

  “I’m upset, not stupid.” Venus wasn’t in a mood to wait to be seated.

  “Well, duh.” Trish waddled through the door, her hands at her back. “You never want to go out to Moon Pearl because of the MSG and the oil and the—”

  The hostess glanced up at Trish. She blushed and stopped talking.

  Venus glanced around the restaurant, about three-quarters full. Jenn walked in the door just as the hostess grabbed four tattered-edged menus.

  “This way.” The hostess seated them at a square table near the back of the restaurant. A busboy deposited a steel pot of guaranteed poor quality jasmine tea.

  Jenn started pouring tea into the small porcelain teacups. “So Venus, tell us what happened.”

  “They hired my junior programmer to be Game Lead.” Just saying it made her want to cry.

  Lex sucked in her tea the wrong way and started coughing.

  Jenn swatted her on the back. “You’re kidding. Why would they do that?”

  “Do they want you to quit or something?” Trish’s eyes had gone round like the small dishes for chili sauce that she’d been passing out from the kiosk o
n the table.

  “I can’t think of any other reason.” Venus brushed her fingers to the side of her teacup, but the tea had made it too hot to touch. “If I quit—versus if they fire me—I forfeit my stock shares.”

  “Who did you offend?” Lex shot her with a narrow look.

  Venus sat up straight in her shabby velvet chair. “I didn’t offend anybody.”

  Jenn’s face remained carefully neutral while Lex and Trish both rolled their eyes.

  Okay, maybe it wasn’t so unreasonable a question. “They hired me as Programming Lead, and I did such a good job they made me acting Game Lead for three months. I did an even better job than the previous Game Lead. Why would they want me to leave?”

  “I don’t know, your winning personality?” Lex said.

  Venus’s glare should have pulverized her on the spot, but Jenn intervened. “Did you ask the CEO why they made that decision?”

  “I tried, but he shot out of the meeting like a phaser burst.”

  “Venus, you’re with us now. Normal-speak, please.” Trish winced as she rubbed her back.

  “I talked to his admin to try to make an appointment with him, but she said he was booked. I think he told her to give me the runaround.”

  “Coward.” Lex frowned.

  Jenn lightly backhanded her arm to chastise her, then turned to Venus. “So what are you going to do?”

  “Right now, I want to eat. Where’s the waiter?” She craned her neck to try to catch someone’s eye, but they all ignored her.

  “This place is terrible. Why do you like eating here?” Trish stretched side to side.

  “They have the best beef chow fun with black bean sauce on the planet, and I need comfort food badly.” She waved her arm, but the skinny waiter a couple tables down seemed to deliberately keep his eyes on the floor as he scooted around the chairs. Her stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten lunch and she’d skipped her fruit and yogurt this afternoon. Any minute now, she was going to start slurping down the red chili seeds in oil that sat in a small container on the table kiosk.