Geek Mafia

GEEK MAFIA 

Rick Dakan

Acknowledgements 

First and foremost, this book is dedicated to mom and dad. Without 

their support and love none of this would’ve been possible. 

Thanks to everyone who helped me with early drafts of this book 

and for all their helpful comments and careful criticisms: Karen and 

Stephen Dakan, Alan Dakan, Austin McKinley, Neil Hendrick, Becky 

Woomer, Laurie Roberts, Rebecca Stultz, Poz, Charles Salzberg, and 

Michael Neff. All of you gave valuable insights and your support 

helped me see this thing through to the end (which is really just the 

beginning.) Thanks to Austin again for his tremendous efforts with 

laying out the book and designing this kick-ass cover and logo. Also 

thanks to Jeff Bowen, for helping me get the word out and getting this 

book into your hands. And if you enjoyed reading my babbling here, 

you can read my babbles every day at 

rickdakan.com.

Chapter 01 

Paul Reynolds crisscrossed his sketchbook with furious pen-strokes. The 

pages overfl owed with images of the vengeance he would take on his former 

coworkers at Fear and Loading Games. He’d founded it three years earlier and, 

just a few hours ago, his partners and erstwhile friends had fi red him without 

cause or warning. He imagined their regret as his pen brought to life demonic 

fi gures from one of the best-selling comic books he’d created, scythe wielding 

cyber-men called Myrmidons who tore into surprised computer programmers. 

Elsewhere on the page, computers assembled themselves into 21st century 

Golems, crushing traitorous CEO’s and producers to bloody pulp as they cowered 

beneath their desks. 

Sitting at the bar in Señor Goldstein’s Mexican Restaurant in San Jose, 

California, Paul’s own artwork engaged him for the fi rst time in months, maybe 

years. Under other circumstances, that would have made him happy. But today’s 

circumstances allowed only two emotions: despair and rage. Not wanting to succumb 

to the former, and not quite wanting to buy a gun and go back to the of- 

fi ce, he’d decided to draw. 

Paul turned to a fresh page and had begun to sketch his most elaborate revenge- 

scheme yet when a woman walked into his line of vision. There were four 

or fi ve other women in the restaurant already (most of them employees), but this 

one stood out. This one would’ve stood out anywhere. Her hair, cut short and 

spiky, was dyed a magenta so bright it seemed to glow. She wore a tight, violet 

t-shirt, baggy olive drab shorts that hung on shapely hips, and heavy black boots 

with two inch thick soles. She had a faded leather messenger bag slung across 

her chest, the strap pressing between her breasts. If Paul had to guess, she wasn’t 

wearing a bra. She defi nitely wasn’t your average Silicon Valley techie on an early 

lunch break, and certainly not a restaurant employee. 

Grateful for the distraction, Paul focused on the newcomer, chilling his 

rage for a moment with a swift sip of margarita and melted ice. He ran a hand 

through his fi ne brown hair, brushed a few wrinkles out of his Green Lantern tshirt, 

and sucked in his bit of beer belly before he turned back to the sketchbook 

and resumed drawing. As far as Paul was concerned, a sad man sitting at a bar 

before noon was not someone that striking young women with punk-rock hair 

engaged in fl irtatious conversation. However, as past experience in many a coffee 

house and dive bar had taught him, a scruffy artist sketching away when normal 

folks should be working often attracted all kinds of interesting attention. And so, 

he sketched. 

"I’m here to speak with the manager," she said to the bartender. 

"Yeah, sure. Hold on." the bartender replied and skulked off to fi nd the boss. 

The girl leaned forward onto the bar, drumming a random beat on the 

wood with her knuckles while she looked around the room. Paul, who’d been 

watching out of the corner of his eye, took the noise as an excuse to glance over 

at her. She was looking right back at him, smiling. 

"Hey," she said. 

"Hey," he replied. He gave a smile. She was really good looking, he thought, 

forgetting his troubles for just a moment. 

"What’re you working on there?" she asked. 

"Oh, just doodling, you know," he said as he looked down at the page. He’d 

sketched the outline of a hydra-like monster with fi ve heads and ten tentacles. 

Four of the heads were laughing as the tentacles strangled the fi fth. "I’m a... I’m 

a comic book artist." 

Was that true? Was he no longer a videogame designer then, just like that?