T-MINUS 28 TO RESTART

T-minus 28 minutes to game time. Angie was awake. Just barely awake. Her plan had been to stay up and keep things on task. With some effort, Janet had convinced her that half an hour of sleep would be more helpful than anything else she could do.

Angie glanced at the clock in the dimly lit room. I don’t have time to be sleepy. Angie was still upset that she had to play. She was the team president and chief engineer and her place was here, out of game and overseeing the work that needed to be done.

Slowly she dragged herself off the cot. Mike and Heather were still sleeping, in separate cots, of course. Mike had crushed on every girl on the floor, in the building, at the university. Hell he had probably crushed on every woman ever born. As far as Angie knew, none of them had ever gone out with him, herself included.

Mark wasn’t in his cot. Where is he? Her poor abused heart skipped a beat as her fears and imagination went into overdrive. Did he quit and go home? Did I drive him away? She didn’t run, but moved with some urgency as much as her sleepy body could. In a flash she was out of the sleeping room and into the engineering spaces. Through one of the glass walls she saw Mark talking to Billy Long Hair. She relaxed a bit.

She relaxed more when she saw the board. Everything was checked off as done. Almost everything was marked as tested.

She was going to ask about one of the items, but before she could, she heard one of the engineers, Dahlia, reporting to Janet. “Neklix checks out.”

Angie looked at a readout on a computer monitor. Janet marked the big board. As her eyes swept the displays again, Angie saw Dahlia place a soda cup on a control panel. She was going to say something, but Janet spoke up.

“All systems go, boss,” Janet said.

After another look at the big board, Angie smiled. “All systems go.” Her team was hitting on all cylinders. The final test simulation was starting now. It was the last automated test. In a few minutes they would know if they were in trouble.

The contingency plan was to quick revert back to the old code. They were stuck with any hardware changes, but the only hardware changes were a few new jumpers soldered in place and…

She saw the other new hardware being tested. For Mark’s capsule they switched to speakers. Flanni had preferred earbuds. Flanni and his grunt team had jumped ship hours before the game started. It was his damn fault that Angie was going into the game instead of being in the control room monitoring everything. Damn Flanni.

“I never asked,” Janet began, “what team did Flanni join?”

Angie stared at her friend, can she read my mind? Did I say it out loud? Angie gave a small shrug. “I didn’t ask.” SA small frown. “Now I’m curious too.” She pulled out her smartphone. Janet interrupted her.

“I’ll find out, you eat.”

Momma Robin came after Angie. She had Mark in tow.

“We’re coming,” Angie said cutting Momma Robin off. With a big smile Momma Robin lead the way back to the team room.

“What were you doing with Billy?”

Mark gave her a wry smile. “There’s a whole lot I didn’t know.” “Like what?”

“How to change the notification settings so I can actually see. No more great big blocks if text in front of me when I need to be aiming.”

“Seeing is good,” Angie agreed.

“I learned how to chat and send messages. You know, all of the interface stuff you probably know inside and out.”

Noob problems, she thought. Just noob problems. Please just be noob problems.