Work Text:
Wednesday
“We’re ready.” Cameron announces it matter-of-factly, but Donna isn’t fooled. This is big. Once they launch, Mutiny will graduate from their private dream into a real company, with real customers who might have very, very real complaints.
Donna tries not to think about any of that, tries only to remember how exciting the past few months have been, how happy she is not to be working at TI, how she finally—finally!—feels as though she’s actually doing what she’s always wanted to be doing, with people who care about the work as much as she cares. It’s been little short of intoxicating, but she instinctively fights against letting herself get swept up in blind optimism. Anything, she knows, can happen at any moment to halt Mutiny before it has a chance to get started at all.
“The XTs are online, and the network is as fast as I can make it. As long as the games load, we’re fine.” Donna knows that she’s done a good job with the hardware; the Mutiny house is wired to the hilt, and the network has no discernible lag time. It’s as good as she can make it right now, before the acid stress test of having multiple actual users all online at the same time.
“They’ll load. “ Cameron says it confidently, the way she says everything having to do with Mutiny, so focused on the keyboard in front of her that she barely seems to notice Donna at all. Donna wonders if Cameron ever worries at all about their company, ever has any of the sorts of doubts and fears that plague Donna constantly. Donna studies Cam for a moment out of the corner of her eye. Probably not.
Thursday
But the games don’t load. In fact, the entire system crashes every time Cameron tries to pull one of them up.
“Dammit!” Cameron slaps the computer desk in frustration, sending a few stray pieces of scribbled code flying. She’s been at it all day, tinkering, re-coding, trying again. The games load fine on every standalone XT that they have, but they won’t load on the network.
Donna bites her lip and tries not to panic, tries not to think about Gordon and her girls and whether going to work for Mutiny was actually the most self-indulgent flight of fancy that she’s ever had. “I can add some more RAM to the server. That might help.”
Cam looks at her with a flash of something that in anyone else might have seemed like genuine gratitude. “You think?”
Donna actually doesn’t; she’s pretty sure that this is just a software problem, and that, as such, it’s Cameron’s to solve. But she doesn’t say that. Instead, she picks up a screwdriver and starts opening the case of the server to install the memory chip that she fishes out of her desk drawer.
Friday
The extra RAM, of course, makes no difference at all, save for the fact that the system crashes might actually happen just a little bit quicker than they had before.
Yo-yo and Lev are giving each other uneasy looks, and Donna can hardly blame them. They’re all watching Cam work, not saying anything to each other. Cameron has barely slept in the last two days, barely eaten anything except handfuls of Doritos and cans of orange soda, certainly not showered or bothered to change her clothes. While the others are looking more and more despondent (“This is never going to happen,” Donna hears Bodie muttering to himself), Cam is looking more intensely focused, more inward, and Donna feels a ripple of an oddly complex emotion as she watches her partner. For just an instant, she discerns a flicker of something like open vulnerability and fear in Cam’s eyes, but it’s gone so quickly that she thinks she must have imagined it. Even so, it’s clearer to her than it ever has been just how desperately Cameron needs Mutiny to work, how much of herself and her soul is in the company.
“Cam—let’s take a break. Do you want a sandwich?” Donna winces at her own words, not quite believing just how absurdly Mom-ish she sounds right now. Cameron needs an engineer, not a worried parent clucking at her to get more sleep.
Cameron just looks at her, eyes vacant. She shakes her head without saying anything, staring at the blinking monitor in front of her.
Donna nods and doesn’t ask again.
Saturday
By mid-morning, chess, checkers, and backgammon are all loading quickly from the system menu and not crashing no matter how many times the coder monkeys try to put pressure on them, and Cameron looks a little less haunted. Donna smiles at her, relieved at the progress, relieved that Cam is somewhat more herself even if she still hasn’t really slept or eaten. (Stop it! Donna orders herself when that ridiculous desire to take care of Cameron inconveniently presents itself yet again.)
Cam doesn’t smile back, and they both know she doesn’t because Parallax still isn’t loading, and that Parallax basically is Mutiny. Without it, they have nothing to offer that their subscribers can’t get from the most basic game cartridge on any system anywhere.
“Have you tried tweaking the sub-routine of the server’s autoexec.bat file?” Donna knows as soon as she says it exactly how ridiculous her question is. Cameron has been fiddling with the startup files of the server for days and getting nowhere.
Cameron gives her a look of something close to fury, and Donna can hardly blame her. “No, gosh—I’m brand-new to all this. Why didn’t I think of that? Donna, you’ve cracked the case!” She turns away, fists clenched.
Even though she knows it was a dumb, pointless suggestion, Donna is still hurt. She bites her lip and doesn’t answer. She sees Cameron glance at her, start to say something, and then stop. Cam might look a fraction softer than she had a moment ago, but Donna can’t really be sure.
“Cam, I’m . . .” Donna trails off helplessly. She’s what? She’s sorry that she can’t be more useful? Sorry that Mutiny might be dead in the water? Sorry that this odd partnership of theirs may never be a partnership at all? Sorry that, if Mutiny folds, she might very possibly never see Cameron again? Donna blinks as this last thought occurs to her out of nowhere, accompanied by a jolt of sadness beyond anything that she’s felt even in these emotional last four days.
Cameron looks at her directly for the first time. “Donna, it’s . . .” Suddenly, she stops, jaw going slack and eyes glowing. She turns abruptly from Donna and starts typing at her keyboard. Code flies across the monitor, keeping time to the clickety-clack of Cam’s keystrokes.
And then, there it is: the Parallax welcome screen. Donna stares at it, not quite believing what she’s seeing, dimly aware of the cheers coming from the coders in the room.
Cameron swivels around, looking exhausted and deliriously happy. “It was so simple—I can’t believe I didn’t see it for days. I just needed to increase the memory allocation in the game itself. I was so focused on the server-side software that I just didn’t think of it.”
Donna fights off a sudden, intense urge to give her a hug. “Cam . . . it’s beautiful. We’ll test it, of course, but I think you did it. We’ll be able to launch next week, just the way we wanted to.” Donna’s voice is almost shaking, but she doesn’t care about that right now.
Cameron hears it, and for the first time meets Donna’s eyes honestly and completely. “Yeah, we will. And Donna . . . thanks. Really. You were . . . great.”
Donna shrugs, embarrassed. She hadn’t been the least bit great, and she dimly wonders why Cameron would say that she was. Cam’s glance right now is warmer than it’s ever been, and Donna chalks that up to exhaustion. They both need some food and some real sleep.
Cameron, finally, seems to be thinking the same thing. “Who’s up for pizza?” A roar of affirmation explodes around the room, and Donna steps away to order a couple of large pies, glad to be doing something to get away from the slightly awkward moment. She smiles fondly at the group as she dials, eyes lingering last on Cameron for a beat longer than perhaps is strictly necessary. She shakes it off, willing herself only to think about the fact that Mutiny is actually going live next week. Donna can’t wait to get started.