Hello everyone!
Today, we are starting our weekly publishing of extracts from Cyberside: Level Zero, which is currently scheduled for the April 4th, 2025 release. Those scenes do not contain any spoilers in the plot, but to me, they look like a great way to get the vibe from the book. It has a storytelling style, so perhaps treat yourself with some good fiction. Without further ado, let me get you somewhere in Boston in 1998.
***
James finds himself waiting, as usual, for Steve to jump in the driver’s seat and open the passenger door from the inside.
“Do we have to do this song and dance every time I get in your car, or are you gonna get this locking mechanism fixed?”
“After Beta, Jim. Everything after Beta.” James adjusts his seat as Steve hits the gas and pulls out of the driveway. A few choice samples of the hits of January 1996 blast through the Volvo’s tinny speakers as Steve turns the dial:
And I miss you, like the deserts miss the rain. And I miss— nope. Too depressing.
I said, “What about Breakfast at Tiffany’s?” She said, “I think I remember”— too desperately whimsical.
Power and the money, money and the power, minute after minute, hour after— too gangsta for this hour.
Whatever I did, I didn’t mean it. I just want you back for good— Christ, no. Steve spins the dial in frustration. His eyes light up as Alanis Morissette’s dulcet tones fill the vehicle.
And what it all comes down to is that everything’s gonna be fine, fine, fine. ’Cause I’ve got one hand in my pocket…
“Yes! This is more like it! And the other one is givin’ a high five,” Steve wails. He holds his hand up to James, who simply stares at it.
“I didn’t have you pegged as a fan,” James deadpans.
“She spits the truth, Jim. What can I say?” James braces as Steve pulls onto the I-95 and joins the swarm of other cars heading towards downtown Boston.
“I wonder if today’s the day this menace wagon becomes my coffin.”
“Every time you ask yourself that,” Steve responds, “remind yourself that Volvos are, statistically, one of the safest cars on the planet.”
“I’m not talking about the car, Steve. I’m talking about the driver.”
“Come at me when you learn to drive,” Steve says, eyebrows raised. James smiles, content that his best friend has won this battle.
“Does Tina from the art department know you like Alanis Morissette?”
Steve throws James a knowing look. “I don’t know. It didn’t come up last night.” The statement just hangs there. Steve takes it upon himself to fill the stunned silence. “We went to the movies. Thanks for asking.”
“Yeah? What did you see?”
“She wanted to check out Toy Story, but I dragged her to From Dusk Till Dawn.”
“Bold move, hombre.”
“Oh, she hated it,” Steve exclaims. “We won’t be seeing each other again outside work.”
James gestures to a towering billboard advertising Independence Day. In theaters July 3. “I guess it’ll be me going with you to see the movie event of the summer, in that case?”
“Six months from now?” Steve responds. “Sure thing. Beta should be locked by then. Everything after Beta, Jimbo.”
“Everything after Beta, Steve-o.”
James exploits the natural lull in conversation to indulge in a recent daily habit. He absentmindedly picks up the latest copy of Edge magazine that Steve has lying around on the dash. Although he has already read this particular edition a few times, as indicated by its numerous dog-eared glossy pages, it gives James a thrill to see a hearty profile on the company he works for within the sacred pages of the UK’s coolest gaming mag. In between Steve concocting various reasons why Tina from the art department isn’t future wife material — preferring sweet over salted popcorn and sullying the previews with inane chat being just two examples — James scans a best-of-the-year list. Quake, Mario Kart 64 and Command and Conquer: Red Alert all feature. Tomb Raider and Crash Bandicoot are cited as key titles that will usher in the exponential growth of the console market as the world hurtles towards the millennium.
James flicks through to the magazine’s profile on Fall Water Lake and a reassuring feeling washes over him. The endless late nights, the relentless number-crunching, the winging it with the vague hope it’ll all work out in the end… this is what it’s all for. It only feels like yesterday that he and Steve were two nerds at Boston University College of Engineering, stumbling blind and horny through the world of academia. This article confirms that these avid gamers and C++ engineers are both now well on the journey into the world of interactive entertainment. The fact they made it into Fall Water Lake is a miracle in itself; Steve managed to scrape an internship after graduation when the company consisted of a few like-minded boffins in a rented space above a Chinese restaurant. It wasn’t long before his unbridled enthusiasm landed him a permanent gig and he pulled James along for the ride.
The Edge article charted the company’s rise under the leadership of Boston native John Burrow, CEO, and his best friend, New Yorker Tom Simmons, CTO. Their first title, Otherscape, an adventure game on which James served as a junior engineer, proved moderately successful after a slow start, finding its true audience with the launch of the game on PlayStation. Second out the gate was Distant Shores, which cemented the company’s reputation as an ambitious player in an already crowded market. The game seduced players with its multiple explorable realms, intricate narrative and immersive graphics, utilizing the Underside engine that Burrow conceived in college and developed with Simmons over a number of years.
James flicks the page and reads on as the profile details a key moment in the company’s history. Last year, Fall Water received a hefty investment injection from the Versa Foundation, an international consortium with numerous fingers in various pies. Versa was drawn in by Burrow’s and Simmons’ grand plans and was smart enough to know that the Underside engine could serve as the secret weapon that could send the company into the stratosphere. Although the partnership is still fairly new and the company has grown to a modest 100 employees, James’ Spidey-sense is telling him that things are now changing significantly. He and Steve have been burning the midnight oil on Otherscape 2, a project that isn’t merely a follow-up to a mildly successful adventure title. The scope of this one is immense. Although delays are common and release dates keep getting pushed, Jim knows he’s working on a classic in the making. He and Steve are now senior engineers, with the Beta delivery date hurtling towards them. Although the Versa money was significant, it isn’t a permanent deal. Future investment depends on the success of Beta; investment that will provide the necessary resources to secure Fall Water’s seat at the table for the long term.
The magazine falls from James’ hands into the footwell as the weight of the mammoth task at hand rears its ugly head once again. His mind drifts onto the pressures of code modifications, implemented features, console-porting struggles…
“Dude.” Steve glances at his friend, who stares aimlessly out of the window.
“I say, James, my dear fellow.” He lowers the radio’s volume, hoping this will snap James from his daydream. It doesn’t.
“DUDE!” That one does it. James snaps out of it and looks over. “What the hell? Every morning this week, you’ve been staring out of the window like one of George A. Romero’s walking dead. How does Sarah tolerate that crap?”
“Sorry.” James tries desperately to claw himself back to the present. “Lack of sleep, I guess. You sound just like her, you know.”
“Yeah? No shit! Are you even in the vague region of knowing what the hell I’ve been talking about for the last ten minutes?”
James considers. Then he considers some more. “Tina from the art department?”
“Old news, bro!’ Steve exclaims, slamming his hand on the steering wheel in frustration. “I’ve been babbling incoherently about the new CEO they’re bringing in. Some corporate money guy. One of Versa’s stooges.”
James absorbs this before growing conscious that he isn’t actually saying anything. “What do you mean, new CEO? Where does that leave John?”
“Word on the grapevine is that Burrow wants to channel his energy into coding and product, rather than day-to-day management.”
“Word on the grapevine? Who, specifically?”
“Tina from the art department,” Steve answers sheepishly. “Oh, look. We’re here.” Steve pulls a sharp right, managing to secure a parking spot right outside Hermit’s Den.
***
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