The First Age

Marta had been working hard and it was beginning to pay off. Marta wasn’t typically book smart, but when she was excited about something, she worked hard. Marta had poured most of her free time into learning how to code and program. She had done some hacking too, but it had been with Sage’s help, and it had been to get access to his information for her job. 

Today she was working on a text-based fantasy game. She knew not many people played those anymore. They were popular around sixty years ago, but she figured it would be a fun way for her to work on her coding skills in a fun way. She liked telling stories, games, and coding, so why not make a “choose your own adventure” game. 

Everyone seemed to be focused on their work. He wasn’t there often, but today Sterling’s crush, Liam, was here. He seemed to be inattentive at times as he worked on whatever it was he was doing. Marta sighed as she finished what she was working on. Now she needed to test it. She started up her program and smiled as it came up on her screen. So far so good. She went into the introduction to the game and tried an option. It just repeated the first screen. She tried a different option and found the same thing. Something was off. 

She went back into her code and tried to troubleshoot. She thought she found it, but upon testing, she was getting the same thing. She had no idea what was wrong. 

”Ugghhhhhh,” she intoned, frustrated and began to lightly bang her head on the table, accentuating every word.  ”Why. Won’t. My. Code. Work. What. Am. I. Doing. Wrong?” she gave one one bang on the table and then just lay there, feeling a little discouraged.

The Wicked Truth was at the office today. Liam was excited. But unfortunately he'd already made a date to go to Kallisti and work. Rather it's what his schedule told him to do so he couldn't just up and break it because he wanted to be in the office to meet the man himself. And make sure he didn't hack the system.

Liam tried to work but was distracted by his infatuation with a man he knew by name. Knew he had a computer in his head. And he was going to be talking to his dad! It was exciting. But he had school to do and his dad would get mad if he didn't stay on top of his grades now that he'd found a place that worked for him. Nox's little school for misfits was doing great for his grades. And he still got to see Sterling. She was sitting with the girl with golden eyes. He didn't quite understand all the things that went on here, but it didn't matter to him. He just wouldn't tell his dad -- at least not everything.

The golden-eyed girl banged her head on the table in frustration. He was intrigued by her words and got up and stood behind her and glanced at her screen. Sterling looked up at him and he grinned. She was cute, but he had to play it right, her cousin was lenient but he was also a hard man to convince. Liam liked Nox, though he barely knew the guy.

"Watch out for typos." He said from behind her. "After so long they look alike. You shouldn't be coding like Wicked. He doesn't need things like we need and he forgets that sometimes." Or at least that's what Liam had assumed happened. She was typing in the terminal like a pro -- she needed an IDE with all the fun helpful things that every coder with eyeballs uses. Sage Parker -- the Wicked Truth didn't need those things.

Liam pulled a chair over and sat down next to her and reached for the laptop. "May I?" He added. "I'm not fixing anything, just downloading what I use and setting you up to code as a normal person would. Only the really old or really smart or pedantic ones code without the visual tools. Wicked sees things differently than us it's okay for him."