TMI (2014 Collector's Dream Winner)

TMI - Chapter 10

Chapter 10:

Ryder texted her!

Bailey hadn't heard a word the teachers in her first five classes had said. She'd spent the entire morning bouncing over Ryder's message.

She'd nearly caved when Meg asked who texted her. But Ryder was special. Okay, true, she hadn't known him very long or, well, even met him in person but Bailey could tell he was sweet and kind and smart and — and damn it — too special to risk sharing with Meg.

There. She'd said it. Or thought it, at least.

She bit her lip, wondering how she was going to keep a whole boyfriend a total secret from her best friend.

No, no, no! He wasn't her boyfriend. They hadn't even met in person. He was just a boy. That's all. She would take things slow and not mess up this time. Maybe Meg would like him.

Meg hadn't liked a single one of Bailey's boyfriends. Ever. It was so ironic — Bailey wanted to catch boys while Meg kept tossing hers back. Sometimes, she wondered if Meg expected her to live her life alone, too, so they could live alone together, even though that wasn't really being alone.

She rolled her eyes at the silliness of it all and then skidded to a stop when she spotted her best friend twenty feet down the corridor. Meg would take one look at her and just know. It was like a freakish super-power. She couldn't be near Meg right now and keep a secret this big. She searched the corridor for a handy escape route when her cell phone buzzed.

Hey, pretty Bailey. RU at lunch? Am free for the next .5 hour, can we chat?

Oh my God, yes — absolutely! Bailey grinned and ducked into the closest girls' rest room to spend the lunch period with her guy.

Bailey: Hi! What's up?

Ryder: Miss U. COD tonight?

Bailey enjoyed Call of Duty, but had planned to work on her game. Oh! She was supposed to meet Meg and go through her mom's high school yearbook. Then she smacked her forehead. When a guy suggests spending time together, a best friend would understand, right?

Bailey: I can't. Meg's coming over to help me do research.

Ryder: I can help U. What RU researching?

Should she tell him? It couldn't hurt.

Bailey: I'm trying to find my dad. Long story. Found mom's yearbook, plan to look for pictures of her with guys.

Ryder: Never met him?

Bailey: Don't even know his name.

Ryder: That really sucks. xo

Bailey: I know.

Ryder: I'll help. Send me info l8r. Then, we play :)

Bailey: Sure! We'll kick some enemy ass.

Ryder: Looked at game ideas u sent me the other night. Think it may work, but gestures??

Bailey: I know. Would B cool to play without controllers, but too hard.

Ryder: Right. Try controller play first. U can design gesture interface later. Don't worry about coding; just storyboard for now.

Bailey: Good idea.

Ryder: Hey, check UR email later; sent you some more level ideas.

When the bell rang, Bailey hurried to class but did her best to avoid Meg. She didn't know how much longer she could keep a secret as big as Ryder. As soon as she got home, she checked her email and discovered Ryder had not only sent her tons of ideas for game levels, he'd also included his rules for achievements and respawning new lives.

Ooo. These were good ideas. Bailey's fingers blurred as she added notes to her Ideas file. The game began as a classic puzzle design — simple rules, really, with a small battle capability. Ryder's ideas for achievements and spawning new lives — oh, that really took it up a few notches to a true adventure game. She read the rest of Ryder's list. Whoa, using military ranks for game levels was a really cool idea and maybe that could provide the foundation for the entire game universe — some sort of covert government branch whose mission is to change history — no, to rewrite it so that certain facts are obliterated. She sent him a text message to pitch the idea. He replied with a lot of exclamation points and the :) emoticon.

She clapped and did a happy chair dance. This was going to be the coolest thing ever.

With her Ideas file open, Bailey grabbed blank sheets of paper from her printer, sharpened a brand new pencil and started sketching her vision of The Foundation. She nibbled the eraser for a moment and sent another text.

What do you think of The Foundation as name for secret gov org?

Ryder replied with a single word: Meh.

She frowned. Maybe it should be an abbreviation like CIA or something. Or a one-word mythological creature like Pegasus or Cyclops. She could spend hours on the name alone. Okay, The Foundation wasn't the best name, but it would do for now. She drew corridors and cells and laboratories and she leaned back to assess her work. Squinting at a shape that looked like a turbo engine on the south wall, Bailey had to face facts; art was definitely out as a career choice. Unless...she leaned closer, used the eraser to smudge a few lines and smiled. What if that shape was an engine? What if The Foundation were a ship? Yeah. Oh, yeah, a ship run by The Admiral. She could picture him, tall, stern, dressed in a white uniform, recruiting the lost —no —The Lost. Characters that time forgot.

She texted Ryder, sketched and erased and labeled and typed notes into the idea document until her eyes burned.

She never did call Meg.