The two dozen employees of this successful young game studio looked alive. Raptor Games was only two years old, but its flagship game, a ground breaking first person shooter called "A Day and a Night," had earned it recognition on an international scale. Initially a PC game, this FPS had been ported to Xbox360 and even PS3, and had a sequel in the works. However, now that Raptor Games was under new management, it was unclear what would happen next.
"Don't worry," said Michelle, patting Fred on the arm, "they're a huge gaming company. With their resources and manpower, I'm sure Raptor Games will take off like we always dreamed."
"I dunno," said Fred, shaking his head softly, "I keep thinking of Westwood, and Bullfrog."
"Oh, stop worrying. Even if they were that bad, they wouldn't sabotage a great moneymaking series like a Day and a Night. They're intelligent. They know that if they keep our team together, we'll do a better job."
"I guess so," murmured Fred. She had a point. He'd play it cool, and appeal to their sense of pragmatism. They could make this work.
"Ooh, they're here!" Said Michelle, running to the door, "okay everyone, act professional!"
As the young, plucky, and highly talented group of friends arranged themselves around the studio to look as productive as possible, Michelle walked to the door.
"OPEN THIS DOOR!"
She paused for a moment, her hand on the knob. The voice from the other side was high pitched, shrill, and metallic. It sounded almost like a computerized voice, except that it had a demanding, almost hysterical quality to it that made the short hairs on her skin stand on end.
"OPEN THIS DOOR! OPEN IT! OPEN IT!!! OPEN IT!!!!!!"
Each "open it" was louder, higher pitched, and more panicked sounding than the one before it. Looking nervously at her coworkers (who looked nervously back), she opened the door and allowed the managers from EA Games to enter.
There were three EA representatives. They were all identical, metal cylinders, about five and a half feet tall, and hovered an inch or so above the carpet. Their tube-shaped metal bodies were capped by a dome, bearing a single video camera in the center that served as an eye. Attached to the body were two arms. One ended in a manipulator appendage that resembled a rubber suction cup. The other ended in a laser gun. All three of the reps made a harsh, electronic sound as they glided into the room.
Michelle gave a worried glance from the corner of her eye to Fred. Fred's mouth was hanging open in confusion.
One of the reps hovered up into the middle of the room.
"RAPTOR STUDEO IS NOW THE PROPERTY OF ELECTRONIC ARTS GAMES! YOU WILL OBEY E.A. GAMES! OBEY! OBEY!!! OBEY!!!!!"
With each loudening "obey!," the rep's eye stalk flashed a painful white. Slowly, it turned its head-dome to look at Michelle.
"WHICH OF YOU IS LEADER?"
There was a short, awkward pause. The rep was about to repeat its question when Fred stepped forward.
"Hello," he said, "I'm Frederick MacLeish. I'm sort of the de facto head of the team, I guess, but we've never had a form-"
"SILENCE! YOUR AUTHORITY OVER THIS GROUP OF SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS AND ARTISTS NO LONGER EXISTS! YOU ARE NOW A SUBORDINATE TO E.A. GAMES! YOUR STATUS WILL BE EQUAL TO THAT OF ALL OTHER SUBORDINATES UNTIL SUCH A TIME AS YOU ARE REEVALUATED!"
It was all Fred could do not to cover his ears. The high pitched, robotic staccato was literally painful.
"WHERE IS YOUR MARK OF COMMAND?"
"My...um..." He looked around, "We don't really have uniforms here. I guess I do have this baseball cap."
He pulled out a yellow cap that said "boss" on it in black letters. As soon as it was visible, the rep shot a beam of harsh, green energy out of its gun arm. The hat disintegrated into dust. Fred yelped in pain, clutching his burned fingers in his other hand.
One of the other reps glided forward, completely ignoring Fred's injured hand. "PRODUCE THE CURRENT TIMETABLE OF PLANNED GAME DEVELOPMENT!"
There was some confused (and not a little scared) running around. Soon, one of the developers came forward with a little notebook.
"Um...here...we were planning to pretty much concentrate on A Week and a Day-that's the sequel to Day and a Night-until we could hire more devs. Um, we had a couple of ideas for other projects...uh...mostly-"
"SILENCE!"
He stopped talking.
"DEVELOPMENT OF PROJECT 'A WEEK AND A DAY' WILL HEREBY TERMINATE! ALL SOFTWARE AND ART ALREADY SYNTHESIZED WILL BE SURRENDERED TO E.A. GAMES!"
"What??? But we-"
"SUBORDINATES FORMERLY ASSOCIATED WITH RAPTOR STUDIOS WILL BE REALLOCATED TO OTHER E.A. VENUES AS NEEDED!"
The third EA rep began rotating, pointing its suction cup arm at each subordinate in turn.
"THE FEMALE WILL BE REASSIGNED TO OUR HARRY POTTER PLATFORMER FRANCHISE! THE OVERWEIGHT MALE WILL BE REASSIGNED TO OUR CALIFORNIA STUDEO, WHERE-"
"Wait!"
Michelle marched forward, standing next to the (still gasping) Freddy. She glared angrily at the newcomers.
"You can't just tear our entire company apart overnight! We have the rights to the work we've done on Week and a Day! It doesn't make any-"
"SILENCE! THE FEMALE WILL DESIST, OR SHE WILL BE EX-TER-MI-NAT-ED!!!"
The last word was delivered higher and louder than anything else yet, each syllable enunciated distinctly. The other two began waving their limbs at Michelle and chanting.
"EX-TER-Mi-NATE! EX-TER-MI-NATE! EX-TER-MI-NATE!"
"You see, Shelly!" Shouted Fred, walking up beside her and glaring hatefully at the EA executives, "I told you! I told you they'd do this! Why do you think there's no Dungeon Keeper 3? Why do you think there'll never be another good Command and Conquer game?"
His right hand was covered in blisters and sprinkled with ash that had once been part of his boss hat. He was still wringing it in his other hand.
"Look," he said to the reps, "you can have all the work we've done. You can put us to work on any *******ed project you want! Just let our team stay together! We promise, we can give you better result-"
"EX-TER-MI-NATE!"
Three fiery beams shot from each of their armguns, converging on Fred's torso. In a flash of green and white, Fred's skin, cartilage, and soft tissues turned to dust and fell off of his charred skeleton. A second later, the blackened skeleton fell too, clattering to the carpet in a pile of smoking bones.
There was a panic. Everyone screamed in abject horror and tried to escape through any door or window they could find. Panicked by the sudden motion, the EA reps responded the only way they knew how.
"EX-TER-MI-NATE!"
Michelle's clothes burst into flames, her sizzling carcass choking on its own, agonized scream. A moment later, she hit the ground. The building's sprinkler system came on, covering the grisly scene with water, blinding the new EA programmers as they tried to escape.
"EX-TER-MI-NATE!"
Another laser beam. A young man fell to the carpet, his head splattered as a smoking stew against the wall behind him.
"EX-TER-MI-NATE!"
"EX-TER-MI-NATE!"
"EX-TER-MI-NATE!"
"EX-TER-MI-NATE!"
Four more beams. Four more terrified death screams. It went on and on until there wasn't a single former Raptor employee left alive. The Electronic Arts reps gathered up everything they wanted from the studio, carried it outside with their suction cup arms, and then set fire to the building. As they returned to headquarters, they never once looked back at the burning ruin they left behind them.
E.A. Games. Challenge Everything.
I sense much Angsty with you, hmmm, yes.
WTF was that supposed to be?
The whole story is funny though.
Sorry to break it to you, but I think Cybermen would fit better. Turning each studio into a sequel producing machine :D
Kinda sorta. What made me pick daleks is that 1) they are more recognizable, and 2) their inflexibility and constant hysteria make them comparable to an irrational, stubborn corporation like EA. The details of their business practices may be more like cybermen, but whatever.
