Chapter 8: Showing Off the Crown Jewels

Thanks to Emily’s assistance, Reactor Critical was able to arrange for four members of their leadership cadre to visit Reforged HQ the next weekend:

Captain John “Johnny Goomba” Gomes

Vice-Captain Malik “Iceman” Kelleher

Coach Roger Wilkins

Team Principal Jorge Rodriguez

Elias had trouble believing that a pro team was going to be visiting them on short notice. He cocked an eyebrow at Adrian.

“Now, if they wanted us to come visit THEM, I’d say they were thinking about sponsors, loans and the like. But them coming to visit us? It doesn’t make ... wait.”

He spent a minute thinking it over.

“You spilled the beans about Martin, didn’t you?”

His voice was flat. Adrian confirmed it.

“Yes. Vaguely, of course, but it looks like it’s paying off.”

“I thought we were treating Martin like the Manhattan Project. No one could know about it.”

“It’s a risk. But it’s also a big opportunity. Why? They have things that we need.”

Elias nodded. Adrian considered it, then walked over to one of the whiteboards and grabbed a marker.

The first thing he wrote was “TEST BED / SCALE.”

“They can be our test bed for new equipment and new strategies that come out of having Martin-designed technology on our WarMACs. They can produce to scale quickly.”

Then he wrote “FAMILIAR WITH SECRECY.”

“They’re also familiar with the need for secrecy and with how to word Non-Disclosure Agreements. And really, they brought it up first. They commented on how some of our WarMACs just refused to go down. If I tried to fob them off with something like ‘Just lucky,’ they might have figured it out on their own.”

He added “THEY KNOW SOMETHING’S UP ALREADY” to the list on the whiteboard.

“Not Martin’s methods, but the mere fact that something better than what people consider the absolute best can exist.”

He moved over to the next whiteboard and wrote “BUILD RELATIONSHIPS.”

“This brings them into the tent, rather than spying on us, watching our matches, and figuring things out on their own. They can be our shield when dealing with other Pro League teams, who might not be as ... accommodating to our desires to keep things on the down low.”

Finally, he wrote “CONTROLLING EXPOSURE.”

“At least half the teams, if they got something half as good as what Martin can already do, would be trumpeting it to the stars to galvanize their fans and attract sponsor interest. They haven’t made the playoffs in a while. They’ll want to keep this under wraps just as much as we do. There’s enough difference in prize money for making the playoffs to more than make up for whatever they might get from a quick sponsorship bump. They want to win more than they want to cash in right now. Staying in the playoff hunt means more attention, more eyeballs, and potentially better terms from prospective sponsors.”

Elias considered the whiteboards, deep in thought.

“I hate how reasonable you make it sound. I keep coming back to that old line about three people keeping a secret if two of them are dead.”

Adrian laughed out loud.

“Trust me, I think business partners killing each other off would be a detriment to any future business relationship. Let’s put it this way. Both of us would have good reason to keep it secret. We’d be the only folks at our respective levels to have the technology. Hell, we’d be the only folks who know this technology exists!”

Elias felt like he was playing devil’s advocate, but he had to make sure Adrian knew what he was doing.

“And what about Martin? Did you spring this on him yet?”

Adrian grinned.

“Would you believe Martin’s even more in favor of it than I am?”

Elias was confused. “Why would he...?”

Adrian gestured with his marker.

“If Reactor Critical can make this at scale, who’s to say they can’t make it for US as well?”

A figurative lightbulb went off over Elias’s head. He understood why Martin would be excited about that. He just had to put it into words.

“It means he can stop making the existing projects and spend more time hunting down the NEXT breakthrough.”

Adrian pointed the marker at Elias.

“Exactly.”

Then, after a beat, he expanded on the thought.

“Martin’s happiest when he’s pushing against some theoretical barrier. Right now, he’s spending large amounts of time making stuff he already knows he can make. It’s important, but it doesn’t have that little something extra that really gets his brain going. And I think we’ve all seen why keeping Martin interested is a very good thing for this team.”

Elias had run out of arguments, but he still had one question.

“Okay, I’m down with this whole thing. But answer me one thing, Adrian. Did you come up with this whole explanation before or after they called to say they were coming?”

Adrian actually thought about it.

“Honestly? After the scrimmage, when Roger asked me about it, I decided to give them a little information as a thank-you. Not just for the scrimmage, but for sitting down with us afterward and talking about what we needed to work on and what we could be doing better.”

He shrugged.

“We needed something like that scrimmage. We can do all the Arena stuff we want, but we’re only going to get better by playing people at our level or above it.”

He glanced back at the whiteboards.

“But now that they’re coming to us? Turns out all of this works out pretty damn well.”

Elias chuckled to himself. “So you went with your gut to start, and then came up with the whiteboard explanation after.”

Adrian tossed the marker to Elias.

“Well, I mean, you were the only one to use them before. When you asked, I figured I would see if I could write stuff on the whiteboard too. Although I do have to say, my writing is at least more legible than your guild storage algorithm was. Marcus told me he thought it was Sanskrit before he figured out what it was.”

He considered.

“I figure I’ll have to get used to it when it comes to team practices, schedules, and getting everyone in one place when it’s time to head out to that tournament in a couple of weeks. Thanks for getting everything done, by the way. It was a good thing we got our paperwork in. Even with our reputation growing the way it is, the fact that they limited entries to sixteen because of the lack of on-site space means we were fortunate to get in.

“I don’t think we’ll get any main-stage appearances unless we make a deep run, which is possible, if not yet probable. Finding more folks has been difficult. We’re going to be asking our players to do a lot. But as we get more WarMACs upgraded with Martin’s technology and build more of a team sense, we can cover some of that with an advantage people won’t see coming.

“By the time the next tournament hits, we’ll have more experience playing together. And with its opening rounds being online-only, and only the final four teams playing on-site for Finals Day, we’ll be able to get in even if we hit a rough patch in this first tournament.”

Elias nodded.

“So, you think we should take them down to Mama Bianchi’s after the meeting? I mean, just the leadership of the two teams. Hopefully, we have something to celebrate, but even if we just part on friendly terms, I figure Mama’s cooking can’t hurt our chances of them remembering us fondly.”

Adrian grinned and spread his arms open.

“Now there’s the Elias we all missed when you were overworked. Not many guild leaders can weaponize a good Italian meal.”

“I’m just following the lead of our captain, coach, star pilot, and general practitioner of leaping first and discovering afterward that somebody apparently left a mattress underneath him.”

He pointed to the whiteboard.

“Relationship Building. You wrote it down yourself.”

The visit started off productively. There was a round of introductions and handshakes between everyone. Amy and Adrian almost immediately started talking shop with Johnny and Malik, while Elias, Kevin, Roger, and Jorge looked on with varying degrees of amusement.

After a couple of minutes, Adrian realized they had accidentally cut everyone else out of the conversation and grinned ruefully.

“Sorry, folks. It’s traditional. Whenever you put people with a shared interest together, they immediately start talking about that interest, people they both know, and the state of the game.”

He gestured toward the others.

“That’s all good, but it’s not what you’re here for. We’ve just got some quick NDAs for everyone to sign before we get down to the nitty-gritty. After that, would you rather I give you the ten-thousand-foot overview of what has you folks so interested, or should I bring Martin out and let him explain what we’ve done himself? Then you can start asking our designer questions.”

Roger and Jorge gave each other a look, and then Jorge spoke up.

“Why don’t you give us the ten-cent tour of what you have, and then if we have questions, we can talk to your mad scientist. How did you find him anyway?”

Adrian laughed.

“Well, I knew him from my old championship days, but we had drifted apart after ... well ... after everything that happened with Kelto. But he was between jobs at the time I contacted him when we were forming Reforged, or at least the guild version. Seems he had been TOO successful in his last job with a raid team in Fantasy Battleworld, and nearly kicked off a real war between players and developers.”