pairing: Colin Ritman x OC! Reader
Summary: On the day she presents her demo at Tuckersoft, Nessa faces nervousness and strange memories. What should have been just a game presentation turns into the beginning of something much bigger—and stranger.
a/c: I apologize for the delay in posting the first chapter. I recently started writing again and had a million ideas in my head. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the first chapter. ENGLISH IS NOT MY FIRST LANGUAGE 🤓☝️
A shrill noise pulls me out of a hazy, almost forgotten dream. I shiver from the sudden cold and the ray of sunlight coming through the crack in the curtain. As I turn, I see the red alarm flashing: 8:30 a.m.
I stretch and quickly get out of bed, hurriedly tidying up the blanket. Today is the day. The day I'm going to present my demo to Tuckersoft. A dream — and a challenge.
Today, July 14, 1984. After days of insistent phone calls, talking to secretaries who promised to call back — and never did — I finally got them to listen to me. I'm not sure what made Mohan Thakur change his mind, but he invited me to show him my project. And now, I can't falter.
I'm not going to miss this opportunity to show the work that could mean something big in my life.
In the bathroom, I look at my reflection as I finish washing my face with a mixture of anxiety and focus. As I brush my teeth, flashes of the dream come back. A little boy. Round cheeks, dark hair, lying in a bed too big for him. He looked at me from the bed while I watched him from the door. But... his face is blurred. Impossible to remember clearly.
I finish brushing my teeth, trying to shake off the strange feeling, then open the cabinet behind the mirror and take my vitamins, as usual. At that moment, I hear two knocks on the bedroom door—my father, reminding me that it's been 10 minutes since the alarm went off. It's time to get dressed.
I grab my purse, already packed, and look in the mirror one last time to make sure I'm dressed right for today. I choose dark suede pants and a black turtleneck. Not that it bothers me to be feminine, but in this environment — clearly dominated by men — anything that could make me seem "less reliable" tends to be used against me. It seems unfair, but that's the real world of business today.
I go downstairs for breakfast. At the bottom of the stairs, I come across my father locking the back door, where he keeps his gardening tools. I smile when I see him. I sit down at the table and open the book that inspired my game: Bandersnatch, by Jerome F. Davies.
I must prepare myself for any unforeseen circumstances today in that room where I will demonstrate my demo. Whatever the circumstances, I must show that I know what I'm doing, that I can add value to that company, and that, above all, my project can revolutionize a new form of gaming compared to our era.
I don't notice that my father is watching me until he places my cup of tea in front of me.
"Thank you, Dad." I reply, sipping the slightly bitter liquid and trying to concentrate. "Today is the day I'm going to present a game to be one of Colin Ritman's games."
"And it's going to be about Bandersnatch? The book you haven't put down since, I don't know, you were 18?" My father exclaims, looking at me confused as he drinks his coffee.
"Yes, it's Jerome F. Davis' book," I confirm, turning my eyes back to the book. "I can't stop reading it because you go back and forth... You decide what the character in the book does."
"You decide the character's path, right?" I see my father get up from his seat, walk over to the counter, grab two boxes of cereal in each hand, and turn to me. "Then you might as well choose your breakfast at least."
"Sugar Puffs," I reply without hesitation, almost automatically.
A slight twinge shoots through my temple.
On the last bus of the route, I find a seat, put on my headphones, and look at the cassette tape options. Lately, I've been listening to Thompson Twins and Eurythmics a lot, and even though I really want to listen to both tracks, I don't have much time, but...
Thompson Twins seems like the right choice today. I put the tape in my Walkman, and Hold Me Now starts playing.
The streets pass by the window like a blur — something inside me can't shake the feeling that I've done this all before. As if I were stuck in a loop. It's the same feeling as continuous déjà vu, it must be some side effect of one of my vitamins, and I try to ignore it.
As I face the imposing Tuckersoft building, I feel the name reflected in the glass like a warning: you have to prove your worth. I close my eyes, summoning my courage before entering, and feel a slight recognition of this. I adjust my coat and enter, identifying myself to the receptionist.
I soon arrive at what appears to be an environment in utter chaos: boxes being carried, employees talking at the same time, mixed sounds of keys, machines, and conversations. I try to get out of the way as discreetly as possible.
In the middle of the hallway, I spot Mohan Thakur—imposing, smiling, gesturing intensely. He hands money to a boy and soon notices me. I straighten up, try to smile, even though my hands are cold.
"Ah, you're Lissa Yorkie?" he exclaims as he opens his arms in a warm and very loud welcome, even though he ignored the fact that he got my name wrong.
"Actually, it's Nessa Yorkie. Nice to meet you." I extend my hand, smiling slightly.
He apologizes and laughs. He looks around. "Sorry about the mess, we moved in on Monday, so..." I agree with a nervous smile.
"Yeah, expansion. That's my plan, a whole team just for graphics, another for sound, gameplay... We're going to be a success!" he says excitedly.
I imagine the future he describes. A complete studio, like the ones that only exist in the United States. Specialized teams, games with more than one brain behind them. "Like an office... but for computer games," I think out loud.
Thakur smiles. "Exactly. And you came here first, huh?"
My chest warms slightly. Maybe I can belong here and see it happen. My eyes stop on the posters, and one in particular catches my attention: MELT HEDD. I vaguely recognize it from some game showcases.
"That's Colin's new one," says Thakur, pointing to the back of the room. My heart races as I follow what he wanted to show me on one of the tables in front of the hall. Colin Ritman. Colin Ritman, the super-rich, genius, eccentric game designer of this company, who spent much of his time watching his few interviews and wanting to be up to date on all his releases. I see his blond hair, the lit cigarette, the headphones in his ears. I feel the sweat on my hands again.
"Colin Ritman? I've played all his games..."
Thakur notices my nervousness, of course. And then — as if in a nightmare — he says, "Well let’s go say hello, then."
I follow silently, forcing my feet off the carpet where I was trying not to trip, not to sweat anymore, and most importantly, not to embarrass myself in front of several people on this floor. As we approach, Colin is focused while smoking, and then Thakur removes one of his earphones and exclaims something in his ear, causing Colin to shudder, slowly coming out of his bubble, taking a drag on his cigarette, leaning back in his chair and looking at Tharkur.
"Can you believe him? He’s made enough this year to buy a Lamborghini and he still smokes roll-ups." Thakur jokes.
"Well, the pre-rolled ones have strychnine in them. So they're the suckers," Colin replies dryly, and then his eyes fall on me.
Thakur introduces me — and again gets my name wrong.
"An... Yorkie. Nessa Yorkie." I extend my hand, smiling.
No one ever told me what it feels like to meet someone you're a fan of. I have no idea if what I'm feeling now is anything like what someone else has felt. When I look at Colin, I feel my body grow cold, my face flush, my heart skip a beat with anxiety, and I feel a twinge in my head again.
Colin doesn't shake my hand. Instead, he frowns. He studies me. He analyzes me. Increasing the tension inside me. "We’ve met before?" he asks, pointing his cigarette in my direction.
"Um... no? Well, not that I know of," I reply, trying to sound casual. He shrugs and turns his attention back to the screen. He starts a new game.
"This is my latest..." I watch him start the game and slide his chair back a little so I can get closer and see better. The character seems to be falling from a building. The goal is to rescue small colored balls in the air as points while dodging clotheslines.
"Nohzdyve?" I ask without thinking as I watch him dodge the obstacles. Ironically, Colin must have made the player's design look like him, since the little man who was falling had platinum hair.
"Mh-mh... that's right?" Colin murmurs, agreeing with a suspicious tone. I blink slightly, taking my attention off the screen and glancing to the side, seeing him with raised eyebrows and a look I can't describe. I just remember that he mentioned the name of the game before.
I shake my head slightly, trying to put it behind me, and follow his movements in the game. As soon as Colin tries to retrieve an object that appears to be a clock on the screen, something goes wrong. The image freezes and returns to the command prompt.
"What was that?" asks Thakur, confused, as Colin straightens his posture, trying to correct the screen error.
"Buffer error." I reply without hesitation. "The eyeball sprites overran the video memory."
They both look at me in surprise. Colin especially. He stares at me as if I had said something I wasn't supposed to know, again with that same look from 5 seconds ago.
"How do you know that?" he asks me, looking at me deeply.
"I... just did," I say, trying to hide my blush. Then I look at Tharkur and see him smiling as if satisfied with my answer and pats Colin on the shoulder.
"She's good, isn't she? Anyway, let's get down to business. Nessa has a demo to show us." He signals for Ritman to get up, and he sighs and takes a drag on his cigarette while I follow Mohan to his meeting room just ahead. I can hear Colin's footsteps right behind me.
I feel that annoying throbbing in my temple again, causing me to lower my head slightly as if a large hammer were hitting my skull. I have to remember to check if I've restocked my painkillers and if the vitamin drugs are doing the trick, otherwise I feel like I might go crazy with this pain.
"Are you okay, Yorkie?" Colin murmurs behind me as he takes a drag on his cigarette and blows the smoke in the opposite direction from me, then looks at me. I see his gaze go from my eyes to my head, and being closer to him, I realize how intimidatingly tall he is, requiring me to look up to find his eyes behind his large glasses.
I nod, trying to smile. "Yes. I'm just nervous about the presentation," I say in a more confident tone, wanting to show that I was really fine and that I probably wasn't paying that much attention to his face.
"Don't worry. No offense, but Mo is already impressed that a woman is playing the game. Just don't stutter," " he says ironically as he looks at Tharkur's back, hoping he won't hear him. I frown when I hear this, but it's no big surprise to me that in this industry, he would obviously want to see for himself what a woman can deliver as a game.
It's as if he could see my insecurity even before I said anything. Perhaps he sees more than meets the eye.
The joystick is steady in my sweaty hands, but I feel calmer seeing that the demo runs smoothly and is working perfectly, just as I had tested it several times on my computer. I try to avoid thinking too much about the thousands of possible errors that could happen at this moment, but I fail to calm down, feeling Tharkur's heavy breathing in front of me as he watches my game and Colin's presence sitting at the table. As I advance the game, I finally meet PAC, and then the player's choice options appear.
"Don’t worship him. He's the thief of destiny." Colin looks at the screen and then at me as I shudder at the sound of his voice, suddenly choosing one of the paths. He stares at me as if it were an obvious answer.
God, how grateful I was that he chose this path, since it was the one I had managed to program some advances for. At least I wouldn't have to suffer the embarrassment of showing that I hadn't prepared the other side.
But I can't stop thinking or looking at him in surprise that he knows who the villain of the book is, so I'm probably not the only one in this room who fell head over heels for the work.
"Did you read Bandersnatch?" I ask, still surprised.
"Jerome F. Davies. Visionary." My chest tightens. Until a few moments ago, I was feeling mixed emotions, controlling my posture as much as I could to show confidence, ignoring or trying to ignore the fact that my head had been throbbing stupidly since I entered this place, and the great fact that I had been ecstatic about Colin's presence all this time. But now, I felt this great warm sensation in my chest, as if I could finally ease all this accumulated stress and then the anxiety subsided a little.
"Isn’t he that bloke who cut his wife’s head off?" says Mohan, bewildered, while Colin agrees, still staring at PAC on the screen.
"That is what people tend to focus on, yes." Colin replies, without losing focus.
"Which ending did you read?" I caught his attention again, seeing that his gaze was less harsh than before, as if he had noticed my nervousness all along.
"All of them." He shrugged, and my reaction was to frown as I watched him turn his attention to a rubber ball and throw it up in the air.
Why choose all paths? Why read them all? As much as it is a tireless work to read, no one reads them all. Even before I had the idea to make the game, I always read the book wanting to subject the character to the best possible ending, to finally find the final path of the great maze that Davies created...
Before I can process any further, Mohan takes the controller from my hand. "Excuse me."
He chooses the wrong option. "Worship PAC", and then, as expected, the error screen pops up, causing him to exit the game.
"What happened?" he asks, looking at me.
"I haven’t programmed that pathway yet."
"So there are many paths?"
"Yes. If it's supposed to be the same as the book..." I murmur as I take the joystick when he hands it to me.
"There are many divergent realities in the book. It was ahead of its time," Colin comments, as if he understands everything I tried to put into the project. "If there is such a thing as time," I hear him murmur, seeming to be talking about more than just the book...
Mohan's palm against the table startles me. A new twinge appears along with the buzzing.
My heart leaps. I feel it as if it wants to jump out of my mouth.
"Mhm. We'll give you some desks and put together a small team just for you. And of course Colin will be here." Thakur points to Colin, who waves at me but doesn't look at me. I feel my cheeks ache and realize I've been smiling all this time listening to Mohan's proposals. "I'll hire a guy to take care of the audio next week and we can take care of the music right here."
That twinge in my head instantly turned into a slight ringing in my ear, muffling Tharkur's voice slightly. I listen, enchanted. But something inside me... hesitates.
The word comes out. Without permission.
Thankur looks at me in surprise and looks at Colin, seeming to want to make sure he wasn't the only one who heard my answer. I follow his gaze and see him looking at me with his eyebrows raised, just as he has done since we first met. Once again, I capture that surprised and sombre look on him.
My hands start to sweat, and I feel cold sweat break out as I fear ruining everything. My eyes are wide with astonishment.
And with a snap, it comes to me, I remember what I wanted to say and immediately exclaim.
"Sorry, I-I want to do the game, of course... I just, I believe I need to..." I take a deep breath and force myself to stop stuttering. "...I prefer to create it the way I know how. Do you understand?" I look expectantly at Mohan, who continues to stare at me as if I were an alien standing in front of him. I feel like he still doesn't understand my proposal or isn't used to being contradicted.
"Yeah, it's all in my head, and I think if I work with other people, it'll be a little more stressful? Especially with people who may not have even read or know anything about the book."
"Stressful?" Mohan looks uncomfortable. He's not used to refusals.
"But I know that this way I can make the game just like the book," I conclude, wanting to reassure them and show them one last time that I deserve a chance, and I see the man in front of me nod slowly.
"But it's still a game, right?" He asks me, wanting me to reassure him, but before I can speak, I hear Colin speak up.
"I get it" Colin says, without me having to answer. "She's a craftswoman. A lone woodsman, I’m the same." Colin's gaze toward me seems warmer, something I didn't expect at this moment.
He stands up and crosses the room. He stares at me more closely with his eyes behind his glasses.
Colin points the rubber ball at me. "It’s like a saying. Teams are fine for things like action titles but when it’s concept based..." he points the rubber ball at his own chest as we look at each other "... bit of madness is what you need."
"And that works best when it's one mind," he says, pointing at me again.
Mohan rolls his eyes. "Right, Timothee Leary. We'll discuss 'The Doors of Perception' later..." Tharkur mocks Colin's speech, which he immediately refutes.
"That was Huxley, not Leary," Colin retorts.
"You'll have your room. The important thing is to move forward by Christmas, so we need you to finish by September 12. No delays."
"Okay," I smile, relieved.
I extend my hand. With a slight buzzing continuing in my ear, something forces me to look at Colin, who is almost next to me, paying attention to the carpet in the room. I don't want to listen to the voice in the back of my mind telling me that he seems to be avoiding my gaze. I turn back to Tharkur and smile, taking his hand to seal the deal.
The twinge returns. My attention suddenly turns to the living room door, and at that moment, the boy from earlier enters timidly, looking at each of us, carrying chocolate bars. Tharkur, upon seeing him, or rather, upon seeing the bars, claps his hands in celebration.
"That's my man!" he says, laughing. He takes one of the bars, ready to eat it, and then waves it at Colin without even looking at him, too busy with the chocolate in front of him.
"Colin, introduce her to the provisional table."
I feel a little nudge on my shoulder and see Colin starting to walk out of the room. I say goodbye to Tharkur, then grab my bag and follow Colin, who walks back to his desk. "What do you usually listen to?"
"Mhm?" I ask, confused by his question.
"To get into the flow." He clarifies, turning to me as he sits in his chair, crossing his fingers and resting his legs on the table. I stand awkwardly in front of him, waiting for his response.
"Ah, music. Well... Thompson Twins." I say, grimacing slightly, waiting for his assessment, perhaps...?
I see the shadow of a smile on his lips. He stands up, now closer to me, making me hold my breath for a few seconds and look up to see his face. How tall is this guy, 6 feet?
"Grab a pen, come with me. Looks like your brain has gotten used to some junk." He says and then heads toward the elevator. I stare at his back, not understanding where he's taking me or what he's saying. I quickly grab the first pen I see on his desk and hurry to keep up with him, making sure my bag doesn't fall off my shoulders.
"Wait, where are we going?"
"A coffee shop nearby. It's almost lunchtime." He clarifies once again as if it were obvious, and then the elevator doors open. We get in and stand side by side facing the door, and then I feel it again.
"There are several tea options you might like," Colin comments.
I frown... How does he know I like tea...?
A/C: I hope you enjoyed it. I will post the next one soon (I promise it won't take long). Please leave your feedback 😊
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