章 25: Lure the Investors

** Harper **

The successful adventures with Eli more than brightened up Harper's weekend. She got another long draft ready on Sunday, and from the look of it, her readers' enthusiasm over her improved writing was only increasing. Her phone kept flashing with notifications throughout the day, even into Monday morning.

[ Notification: You received a new comment on your book: Secret Crush ]

Harper was eagerly swiping for details when she heard a gasp, "Oof, be careful girl!"

Then she realized belatedly that the elevator had already arrived at her office floor, and that she was just about to trip over the door gap. She quickly shuffled her feet and narrowly avoided planting her face on the floor.

"What keeps you so occupied this early on a Monday?" It was Lindsey, the coworker sharing a cubicle with Harper, who saved her from an embarrassing elevator accident. Lindsey pushed up her glasses and glanced curiously over Harper's phone. "Is there a new game I don't know about that just came out?"

Harper chuckled. This was why she loved Miracles — only here would she get this kind of reaction for being distracted by her phone, rather than questions and jokes as to whether it was her boyfriend texting her. "Nah. Unfortunately, looks like all the good ones already timed their release back at the beginning of summer vacation." She walked beside Lindsey to their desks. "But speaking of which, I did try Legends of Time this weekend. It was awesome."

She chuckled again as her coworker and friend's face lit up with joy.

Like Harper herself, Lindsey was a product designer in charge of new game concepts. Legends of Time was Lindsey's latest work, just out on the market two months ago, and that was the one Harper and Eli spent the rest of their time on Saturday playing on the couch. The person providing the company probably mattered more than the game itself when it came to how much Harper enjoyed it … But she did enjoy it either way, so the developer deserved the credit.

"I'm so happy to hear that. Thanks, Harper." Lindsey heaved a big sigh. "Honestly, I was a bit scared when it first came out. The deadline was super tight, and it was nowhere near the best I could do. Can you imagine coming up with all that storyline in four weeks? I'm impressed no one has found plot holes big enough to drive a truck through yet."

"Well, management obviously had enough faith in you to know that it wouldn't happen," Harper smiled.

"You mean management has no idea that creative work isn't something I can just pull out of my—"

Lindsey cut herself off when the "management" in question — their boss Brandon — appeared from the other end of the cubicle isles.

"You got a minute, Harper?" Brandon stopped in their space and flashed his golden business smile.

Harper blinked. From the corner of her eyes, she could see Lindsey darting a surreptitious glance at her, a what-the-hell-is-management-doing-here-at-9am-on-a-Monday look written clearly on her face.

"Y-Yeah, of course," Harper replied, wondering if she needed to feel alarmed.

"Great. I have a favor to ask you. You're aware of our investors coming to visit soon, I assume?"

Oh, well that wasn't a typical conversation she expected. "I've heard of the meetings that marketing is preparing," she said, though utterly puzzled as to what any of it had to do with her. Being in the development branch, she'd never had the chance to get close to these board meetings. Heck, she didn't even know who the investors were.

"Right, they've been preparing presentations for our current projects in development." Brandon nodded over to the software team's area. "The thing is, it's been brought to our attention that the investors are interested in seeing a broader portfolio than what we currently have. They've been impressed so far with some of our competitors' works in terms of variety, whereas you know, the products at Miracles all focus quite heavily on kingdom-building and FPS. We need to be able to convince them that we can open up a wider market just like our competitors."

Harper nodded. "That makes sense." Except … Again, what did any of this have to do with her?

"So we'd like to add in something new for them in the upcoming presentation. Of course, the time is a bit tight to design from scratch, so we're pulling up a couple of proposals that were shot down in the past. The marketing team has chosen your deep space tactical RPG as one of them."

Harper's eyes went wide. "The one I drafted when I was an intern? But—"

"I know, it didn't pass initial review back then because of the concern that it wouldn't do well within our established market. But that's precisely what makes it a good candidate for what we need this time around." Brandon smiled brightly again. "I'm sure you'd be excited to bring back the project that you've put so much time and effort into, right?"

"Oh, yes, of course—"

"Great, then get on it. And don't worry, the details don't need to be thoroughly fleshed out. We're not necessarily going to put it through production — just a few highlights on the main plot and selling features to entice the investors would be enough for now. I'll also assign someone from marketing for you to bounce off ideas with, so feel free to ask for as much help as you like."

Brandon did the typical I'm-the-manager-don't-you-dare-talk-back-to-me thing and didn't even give Harper a chance to speak again before he left.

Harper's head reeled. She stared until Brandon was completely out of sight, then looked back at Lindsey. "Did he just say they're not necessarily going to develop it?" Her eyes were probably still wide. "So he wants me to spend all this time on a dead project, and to bring it from a preliminary draft stage to something presentable by— When are the investors coming again? Next Wednesday?"

Lindsey gave her a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. "Good luck sweetie. Now I feel better that I was at least given four weeks."

Harper wanted to wail. This was arguably the most ridiculous workload she'd ever gotten on this job, and she'd be lucky to not have to work extra hours over the weekend. Then she remembered her web novel — poor book, the chapters were just starting to get better, but now she definitely wasn't going to have time to write more for quite a while!

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