TMI (2014 Collector's Dream Winner)

TMI - Chapter 4

Ten minutes later, they were eating burgers and fries at a table near the window where Meg would be sure to see them if she was working the ticket counter. Bailey told him all about her game but Chase was brooding.

"Chase?"

He shook his head once like he was knocking loose a blockage. "Uh, sorry, Bay. What were you saying?"

"Okay. It's based on our history class from last year. I was having trouble passing, so Meg helped me come up with a way to remember all those facts and places and dates and people and stuff and so..." she splayed out her hands with a flourish, "video game!"

"Uh huh." Chase just looked more confused, so Bailey started over.

"Okay, it's pretty simple, actually." She bit into her burger, talked with her mouth full. "Players move from level to level by figuring out what really led to the major historical incidents of a particular time period, like the Renaissance or the Crusades or World War I."

Chase eyebrows rose as he sipped his Coke. "What do you mean, what really happened?"

Bailey bounced in her seat. "Well, it started when Meg told me that there isn't just one thing that led to the major incidents throughout history. Usually, it was a combination of things, a build-up. A chain reaction. Our history books just scratch the surface. There are dozens of things that never make it into the books, like the Civil War wasn't only about slavery, and World War I wasn't only about Archduke Ferdinand's assassination."

"What was it about?"

"Well, the Civil War was also about money."

"Money?"

"Yeah." She emptied her fries into a pool of ketchup. "Slave labor was free except for you know, buying the slaves and having to feed them and take care of them and stuff. But that was still cheaper than running a big southern cotton plantation with paid labor. And then there was the unbalance between the heavily industrialized north and plantation south."

"Unbalance?"

"In the electoral college."

Chase blinked at her. "Right. The electoral college."

Bailey rubbed her lips. No ketchup. She angled her head at Chase, but he just kept looking at her. "Um. Yeah. So, the country was already pretty much divided politically before the slavery issue heated up."

She paused to pop a French fry in her mouth. Chase scratched his head and narrowed his eyes.

"So what caused World War I?"

"World War I was really caused by the sinking of the Lusitania, but even that was a conspiracy designed by— what?" Bailey grabbed a napkin and rubbed her forehead when Chase looked at her funny again.

Chase shook his head. "Um. Nothing. I'm just impressed."

Bailey's face split into a wide grin. "Really? You are?"

"Yeah. But there's one problem. The Crusades? Renaissance? Assassin's Creed already did that."

Bailey shook her head. "Yeah, I know, that's why there's more."

"More?"

"Yeah. Time travel, you know, like Halo's slipspace or maybe campaigns like in Call of Duty. I'm not really sure yet. But players are chasing these bad guys who are really aliens through time — kind of like Lavos in Chrono Trigger, only a lot more — before they can change history.

"Um. Aliens. Right."

"No, seriously. It starts off with a mission, you know, like a 'should you choose to accept it' thing." Bailey made air quotes. "You travel back in time to figure out what set off that moment in history and discover it's nothing what the text books told you. It's an alien invasion. You battle the aliens and then rewrite the history books so that the truth is hidden."

"Why do you have to hide the truth?"

"Because the MIBs work without glory, without fame."

"MIB — like the movie?" Chase blinked at her and finally smiled. "Okay. What the hell. Tell me more."

Bailey squealed. "Yay! Okay. It's called Lost Time." Bailey told him how she envisioned playing the game, described the various levels and achievements, as well as characters and their back stories.

"How long have you been working on this?"

"Since sophomore year."

"What about wire frames for the landscapes, maps of the time periods?"

Bailey frowned and shook her head. "I— well, I'm not a great programmer."

"Can you program at all?" He finished his burger, licked ketchup from his fingers.

She shrugged. "I mess around in Java, but I suck." She slurped the bottom of her Coke. Simon had promised to buy her the software she needed to build her video game. They'd spent hours talking about it, arguing over the points system and leveling up, how the environment would look. He'd said he was impressed, too. Her eyes misted and she blinked the tears away.

"It's not hard if you know the basics. I can get you a game library. Know what that is?"

Bailey nodded. That was the software Simon had promised her. "Sure. It lets you use pre-coded objects for common functions."

"Right. I get you one and you can—"

Bailey stopped him with a raised hand. "Yeah, I know what it is but I don't know what to do with it."

"Oh. Okay. I've got a few game engines, too, we can try out."

That term was new. "What's that?"

"It's software that helps you rapidly develop video games. It does the heavy lifting like rendering graphics—"

Bailey held up a hand again. "Yeah, and that's when you lose me."

Chase grinned. "Sorry."

"No, no, I have to learn all this." She didn't mention that learning how to use all this software would help her stop obsessing over Simon.

"So what do you have so far?"

"Nothing digital. I have notebooks filled with sketches Meg did and notes I've been making on the rules, the maps and stuff."

Chase's face tightened when she mentioned Meg. Bailey squeezed his hand. "I know it doesn't feel like it, but trust me, she likes you, too."

His eyes slipped shut. "I wish."

"I know her, Chase. Better than she knows herself. She's nuts about you. She paints you."

Chase's face lit up like a five-year-old's at a playground. "Me? She paints me?"

"Yep. Like every day. And she'd kill me if she knew I told you that, so that stays between us, okay?" She stood up, piled their trash on the tray.

Chase stood and grabbed her in a hug.

"Oh! Um. It's okay, Chase. She'll come around."

"Thanks, Bay." He grinned and took the tray.

Bailey glanced toward the theater and smiled. Please tell me Meg saw that! She prayed.