Orson Card - Lost Boys

"Sorry, Dicky," said Step. "Perhaps a locked door would do the job.

"I was just getting up to lock it when you barged in for the third time-I hope you'll forgive me for counting."

"Sorry," Step repeated. "I'll never switch off another light at Eight Bits Inc., I promise." He drew the door shut behind him.

As he walked down the corridor, he heard Dicky open the door again and then slam it shut. Oof, Dicky, feel better now?

Step got to the door of the pit, set his hand on the handle, and then turned around and headed back to his office. He picked up the phone and called DeAnne. "Have you mailed that check to the mortgage company?"

"Not yet," she said.

"Don't."

"Why not? What happened?"

He told her about what he had seen, and how secretive Dicky had been about it. She didn't get it.

"The Compaq computer is an IBM clone. And Dicky is working on it secretly"

"Oh," she said. "The agreement..."

"If Eight Bits Inc. is supporting the PC when I quit, I can't do any programming for the PC for a year. I'll already be cut off from the 64 and the Atari as it is. I have to quit today, DeAnne. It may already be too late."

"If it's already too late," she said, "then what good will it do to quit? The baby isn't born. He's due on the twenty-eighth. But it might not be that long, he might be early. Elizabeth was."

"And Robbie was a week late and we had to induce him at that," said Step. "Don't you see? If I don't quit now, today, then I can't quit at all."

"But would that be so very bad, Step? It's been so much better since you stopped working such late hours."

He wanted to scream at her. No, it hasn't been any better, it's just been shorter. But he didn't scream. In fact, he lowered his voice, and he spoke rapidly, because he felt such urgency to persuade her. "My position here is deteriorating all the time. I'm not in charge of anything. My only authority comes from skulking around helping with programming and game design behind Dicky's back, and even that isn't all that valuable anymore because I've pretty much taught the programmers everything I know. In a month I could be so completely under Dicky's thumb that every hour of every day would be unbearable. He'd reject everything I wrote, make me do it over and over again for the stupidest reasons. In fact he already does that, I just ignore him and don't make the changes he suggests, but what if I couldn't ignore him anymore? You don't know what you're saying when you tell me I should just stay on."

"Step, I'm just asking you to stay until the baby-"

"No, you're not. You're asking me to stay indefinitely. No end in sight. Because Dicky knows that I've seen the Compaq. He knows that the secret will be out, and when he tells Ray, we'll get a memo announcing it so the news comes from them, not from me. Do you understand? It's now, this minute. I can't even give notice. I just have to quit and get out."

"You can't do that, Step, it wouldn't be right."

"Nothing has been right about working for them all along. Suddenly I'm supposed to be noble?"

"You have to give them two weeks notice and then if they challenge your right to do PC games, you can say that at the time you gave notice, Eight Bits Inc. was still not supporting the PC."

"Oh, right, I'm sure that that would hold up in court."

"It might," she insisted.

"Look, DeAnne. Call your Uncle Mike. He's a lawyer. Ask him what we should do. Tell him about my agreement with Eight Bits Inc.-read him the agreement-and see what he thinks. And for that matter, ask him what we should do about the house. What will happen to us if we hang on to that money to cover the cost of the baby."

"You mean let them foreclose?"

"That's what I mean."

"Oh, Step, we can't-that's not honest."

"No, DeAnne, if we had signed the mortgage intending not to pay, that would be dishonest. But the whole premise of the mortgage is that they recognize that we might not be able to pay, in which case they have the right to take the house. Well, we can't pay, and so they get the house."

"But we can pay, Step. We have the money in the bank right now."

"The money that's in the bank right now is not house money, it's just money. Our money. If we use it to pay for the baby, then I can quit the job today, right now, and we might still have a future with Agamemnon. Don't you understand that?"

"So you want to quit your job so bad that you'll walk off without giving them notice, you'll let them foreclose on the house, and you'll let us go into the birth of our baby without insurance?"

"I thought you wanted me to quit this job, too. I thought you wanted me to come home. To be with Stevie.

To be a family again."

"Well, I'm not going to be the villain in this, Step. If you want to quit, then quit."

"Oh, so it's all right if I am the villain, is that it? This time we don't make the decision together, 1 have to make it alone, so if it works out wrong then it's my fault and only my fault forever. If I wanted that kind of life I would have married my mother!"

"That is the stupidest and cruelest thing you've ever said, Step."

"Oh, you think so? Then try this. Just imagine how you'd feel if I came to you and said, Oh, isn't it a little selfish of you to insist on having the baby now? If you really loved the family, you'd carry it another six months and you wouldn't complain about it, either."

Then, because he hated himself so much that he could hardly stand to hear his own voice on the telephone, he hung up without waiting for her answer.

Either she would call him back, or she wouldn't.

After a couple of minutes, when she hadn't called back, he sat down at the typewriter and wrote: Dear Ray: I hereby resign my position with Eight Bits Inc., effective immediately. There is no need to pay me for today's work. Thank you for giving me the privilege of working with you for the past months. I'm sorry for any inconvenience my resignation might cause you.

Sincerely, He pulled it out of the typewriter and signed it.

He felt so free.

Then he tore it up into small pieces and dropped them into the wastebasket.

The phone rang. It was DeAnne. She was sobbing, barely able to speak. "Step, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I was being selfish," she said.

"No, I was the selfish one," he said. "I wo n't quit. I'll wait till the baby comes, and if Eight Bits Inc. is supporting the PC by then, well, then that's the way it goes. Maybe that's what the Lord planned for us all along."

"No," she said, "no that's wrong. What the Lord planned for us was Agamemnon. You know that, it all went so smoothly in San Francisco, and you really like Arkasian and he's kept all his promises and the money is good, you've got to reach out and take it, you've got to. It's only my fear, my stupid fear that made me say those things and try to get you to stay at Eight Bits and I was wrong, can't I be wrong? Can't I say I was wrong and then you just do the thing you were right about wanting to do?"

It was the same argument, only they had changed sides. When they both realized that DeAnne was now urging him to walk out immediately, they ended up laughing.

"Let's go back to plan A, DeAnne. Call your Uncle Mike. I'll be right here when you call me back."

"I'll call you right back. I love you, Junk Man."

"I love you too, Fish Lady."

He sat down at the typewriter and wrote another letter. It was like the first one, except that it gave two weeks notice. The resignation would be effective as of August 2nd. And if the baby didn't come by the twenty-eighth when it was due, then they'd induce it, and it would be born under Eight Bits Inc.'s insurance policy. It was the best compromise Step could think of.

He set the letter on his desk and this time he didn't sign it. He just sat there, eyes closed, waiting for DeAnne to call back. And he prayed, silently: Let Uncle Mike be home. Let him give us the right advice. Keep Ray Keene from sending a memo about the PC until after. Make it work out right, somehow.