But mostly it was a stressful set of days. Especially when a senator from one of the Southern Bible Belt states started laying into me about the depiction of magic and demonic elements in my game. He didn’t understand that many of these things were key elements to the fantasy genre—dragons, wizards, spells. I saw him as one of those guys I used to hear about back at the beginning of the millennium who wanted to burn all the Harry Potter books. Clueless muggle, I wanted to mutter under my breath. Even though it was stressful, there were moments when an irreverent thought like that would cross my mind. I’d picture this staid, conservative politician barfing up a bunch of slugs or biting into a vomit-flavored jellybean. Or maybe earwax.

When the horrible weather started to kick in and the holiday approached, Congress adjourned for the year and there was talk that, due to other issues arising in the news, these hearings might not be reopened for some time.

I hoped the politicians would lose interest and this would be the end of it. Yet another reason to be thankful for Christmas. And after a freezing existence in the East, I was all too eager to return home to sunny weather, dry winds and the eighty degrees predicted for Christmas Day. Thank God for Southern California.

I made it home on the morning of Christmas Eve. While I’d been gone, I’d had Maggie buy gifts for me. I usually did not adhere to this practice, preferring to make gifts more personal. But this year, since things were so crazy, I’d conceded that I just couldn’t.

Jordan called from the road on his way to San Luis Obispo, where his parents lived, for the holiday. He’d flown back from the East Coast days before me to help wrap up the shop for the holidays.

“Hey,” I said.

“Merry Christmas, bro.”

“What’s up?”

“While you were in the air, I got a call from development. The hidden quest has been unlocked. Holy shitballs, Adam. General SylvanWood? Talk about hiding that thing under everyone’s nose. I can’t believe I didn’t even figure that shit out. You’re a fucking genius.”

My world spun for a moment and it felt like being once again in the weightlessness of space. I had no words for a moment. It felt like a burden removed from me. I was lightheaded and a little giddy. Was this the feeling of relief, this revelation of yet another deep, dark secret? One of those secrets which I loved so much, according to Emilia.

I realized that the crew at development knew about the quest triggering because the programming was in place to send notifications to them when this happened. We’d have some information about the character who had triggered it, and their account.

“Tell me what you know. Who was it? One of the big power players on a hardcore server?”

Jordan laughed. “They have no idea, actually. The name of the character is MisterRogers and he’s a level-four assassin.”

A newbie. “It has to be an alternate character of some other player. Must be a power gamer or some player who belongs to a big guild playing anonymously on a different server. Did you check the account info?”

“MisterRogers has no guild tag and he is the only character made on his account. No high-level characters on any server. We checked. The account is fresh. And might I add that I find the name hilarious?”

“What about the billing info on the account?”

“Nope. Yet another dead end because the account was paid for with a prepaid game card.

The quest was designed to be triggered when a character approached General SylvanWood and began questioning him about his lost love instead of following the usual script of the well-known newbie daffodil quest. A certain string of phrases, which a player had to intuit, unlocked the script, which would lead the broken-down general to give the beginning of the quest that would save the captive elf princess.

The call cut off after that as Jordan said he was about to go through the big tunnel on the 101 just outside Lompoc. I stared at my cell phone for a long moment, almost tempted to text Emilia and tell her. But I stopped. I’d be seeing her tomorrow. I could tell her then…or not.

Still, this feeling inside me was nothing like the panic I’d felt when Emilia had jokingly told me in Yosemite that the quest had been unlocked. No, this one felt…light. Like a burden removed. I could breathe more easily. I surprised even myself with that reaction.

I went home and spent Christmas Eve alone when I could have been with her. If only I hadn’t fucked things up so thoroughly.

And after being on the road for weeks, all I did was work out, swim and hit my bed early.

We would celebrate Christmas day at Peter’s house, like always. And this year, the new family dynamic was awkward beyond words. Emilia arrived late, looking pale with her extra-weird hair in two braids. It was obvious that Kim hadn’t seen her daughter in a while, because she made a comment about Emilia’s new look, complete with pink and purple streaks.