"Ugh!" I let out a pained groan. "What is my life? It's a Friday night. I should be out having fun. Instead, I'm spending my night with four nerds over video chat." The sad part is, these guys are my main friends.
"What makes you think we want to be here?" Harry argued back.
I'm currently in the middle of a late-night video party with Ned, Harry, and Peter. Something we'll have to eventually get used to, making a social media app in a month is not an easy feat.
Especially when you only have three coders, even if they are the best ones available. I didn't count Peter, mainly because he's doing something else.
"How's it going on your end, Pete?" I asked.
Peter paused for a moment as he analyzed his work. "Kind of hard to tell, it's sort of a mess." Then he went back to soldering the processor in front of him.
"Remind me again," Harry glared, "why are we only getting a month to do something that would take a small team three months to do?"
I let out a sigh. "'Cause Halloween is only 33 days away, which means we only have 28 days to get this up and ready. Think about it, it's a picture-based social media app. It would be a waste not to capitalize on people showing off their outfits."
"While that may be true," Ned let out a yawn, "I just don't see us finishing this in a month."
"It's possible," I argued back. "If we forgo sleep, and maybe ditch class," I added.
Everybody just groaned in response.
"Look." Peter took his goggles off and rubbed his eyes. "Aunt May wants me in bed at a certain time. I think I'm calling it for today."
"Fine, go to bed." Or, so he claims.
Knowing Peter, he's probably going to sneak out in a moment and patrol as Spider-Man.
"I should go as well." Ned let out a yawn. "My Nana has a strict no-computer rule after twelve."
"Ugh, fine." It didn't matter, he probably needed to rest anyway.
"If they're leaving, so am I." Harry didn't even wait for the green light, he just left.
With everybody gone, I decided to double-check everybody's work. It was bad. Well… it isn't exactly bad; it's actually amazing work. Just the amount done, it's not enough.
I'm not entirely sure how long it took the original team to make Instagram, but I'm pretty sure it took them almost a year. If there was some way to speed this up… unfortunately, there isn't, at least not for now. I'll just have to go back to coding and hope for a miracle.
—
Saturday; Sept 29
"Hold it tight." It took everything I had not to yell at Peter.
"Scoot over." Harry nudged me to the side.
"Wait, don't connect those—" Peter's warning came too late as an electric shock knocked the screwdriver out of my hand.
"Fuck!" I frantically shook my hand.
Currently, me, Peter, and Harry are in the middle of constructing our brand-new server. We've been calling it The Compact, more of a temporary name than anything. Despite its odd shape, it's three times stronger and half the size.
Harry let out an expert sigh. "I'm just gonna come out and say it—why don't we just sell this thing's design?"
Me and Pete glanced up from our work. "What do you mean?" Pete asked.
"We're building a server out of scrapped and second-rate parts," Harry explained, "ones that are probably three times stronger at half the size than anything else out there."
I scoffed. "Why sell our work when we can dominate it? Also, who are we going to sell this to? Stark Industries? Your dad?"
Harry shuddered at the idea of working with his dad, even if it's just selling a design.
"Not to mention, we're almost done," Peter added.
"What?!" Harry and I spoke in unison.
Peter grabbed a nearby blueprint and began to explain. "I noticed a few reduced features. By removing this part, rewiring here, adding an under-relay here… we can probably finish this in a day or two."
My hand grazed Peter's cheek, it was weird. "Peter, have I ever told you how amazing you are?"
Peter had a confused and uncomfortable expression. "Why are you doing this?"
For the longest time, I've always assumed Peter's ability to build stuff was supernatural in some way or another. In the comics, he was always inventing crazy things, like his web fluid or the DNA cleanser—usually in a single afternoon, or sometimes even mid-fight.
"Well, men." I examined our work. "In a week, we're probably going to have designed and built the next generation of server technology."
"You guys ever wonder why we're in high school? Most of us have an IQ over 200?" Harry asked out loud.
"I plan on graduating as early as possible. I'm not sure about you or Pete, though," I answered honestly. "You two should join me, graduate early and flex on the seniors."
Peter just laughed, while Harry gave me a look like he was genuinely considering it.
—
Sunday; Sept 30
"Hey, hello, are you even listening to me?!" Gwen pinched my ear.
I gave her an unimpressed look. "What? What are you doing?"
She gave me an embarrassed look, probably expecting a different outcome. "Well, I—" She stumbled over her words. "I'm trying to get your attention. We're supposed to be working on our project. Instead, you've been using your laptop the entire time."
I shrugged my shoulders. "What's the big deal?"
"The deal is our project is due in two weeks," she explained. "This is worth half our semester grade."
"Oh, that." I waved away her worries. "I finished that already." It took me an hour to build it, and half an hour to attach it to the clock's frame.
I pulled out my phone and handed it to Gwen. She began to scroll through the pictures of the finished project. "Wow, this is amazing."
"Yeah, I'm pretty good with my hands. Building a grandfather clock is easy, building a house is way harder." Or restoring one with a limited budget, in my case.
As I continued to type, Gwen began to peer over my shoulder. "Can I help you?"
She held onto my shoulder. "Just curious, what kind of app are you making again?"
"It's a social media app. It's supposed to be a more streamlined way to share experiences through videos and photos," I explained without even looking up from my laptop. "Like I've told the guys, it makes Facebook look like a senile old man."
Gwen gave me a nervous look. "So if this takes off, it'll impress a lot of colleges, right?"
I froze. "You're a freshman. Why are you worried about college?"
She blushed. "Shut up, it's never too late to plan ahead."
"Whatever, nerd." Ignoring that for now, I went back to work. "As for college, I have no idea what they would think. It's not like every day somebody invents a million-dollar app, especially a group of teenagers."
"Well…" She stared at her feet. "What if I wanted to help?"
"Why?" I asked bluntly.
"Because I think it's a neat idea, and I want to be a part of it," she explained.
I gave her a blank look. "For some reason, I don't believe you. Also, do you even know how to code?"
"Of course I do," she defended. "It's just—just—" She stumbled over her words. "I've been thinking about reinventing myself, and what's a better way than making a social media app?"
I paused my work and examined Gwen: her silver braces, messy blonde hair tied into a ponytail, thick red glasses. Everything about her just screamed nerd.
"A part of me still doesn't believe you." She gave me a blank look. "But we're desperate. Do you have a decent computer?"
"Yeah," she answered.
"Then pull it out. I'll send you the concept work. We have three weeks to build the social media app that will define our generation. Prepare for long nights and an addiction to energy drinks." It might destroy her, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
Gwen frowned. "I'm starting to regret this."
—
Monday; Oct 1
The next day at school, I decided to call a company meeting, aka. I called Ned, Peter, and Harry into an empty room.
"Okay, everybody. Welcome our new coder, Gwen." I showed her off like she was a brand new car.
Gwen waved her hand. "Hi."
"Sup/Hi/Hey, Gwen," Harry, Peter, and Ned greeted in unison.
Gwen gave the group a nervous smile. "Happy to abo—"
"Alright, now that everybody's introduced themselves," I cut her off, "back to work." I pulled out my laptop and began to type.
Gwen raised a brow. "Has he always been like that?"
"Lately, yes," Harry answered.
"But it's lunch," Ned whined.
"When our app is trending, then you can eat," I argued back.
As everybody pulled out their laptops, Harry began to whisper to Gwen.
They assumed nobody could hear them, but they underestimated my Gacha-enhanced hearing.
"So, why are you here?" he whispered.
For a brief second, Gwen glanced at me. "I just thought it would be an interesting project."
Harry gave her a dead look. "Whatever. Let's just get back to work."
—
These next couple of days, the group and I fell into a pattern. We went to school, coded after. Went home, ate, and did our homework. Did some more coding, etc.
Unfortunately, we were still way behind. Despite everybody's genius-level IQ, we could only type so fast. The process was easy—the problem was how tedious it was.
Ring, ring, ring.
My phone began to ring. Ned was calling. After answering my phone and putting it on speaker, I was greeted by frantic shouting.
"Leo! It's finally happening, just like you said! It's amazing!" Ned continued to ramble.
I groaned, tired after coding for twelve hours straight. "Ned, I can't understand you. What's happening?"
"Flappy Bird is trending!!!" Ned practically screamed.
Using my laptop, I pulled up Flappy Bird's analytics. My eyes widened as I read the data, a smile forming on my face.
In the past two days, over three million people have downloaded it. It was amazing. I checked the profit margin, we've made almost four thousand dollars, excluding the cut the App Store takes. That didn't matter, though, because the number was still growing.
"While I'm excited, I'm kind of confused. Why the hell is it suddenly trending?" The sudden shift came out of nowhere.
"You haven't seen it yet?" Ned asked. "Hold on, I'll send you a link."
After a moment, I received half a dozen video and article links. "Oh… he's going to be pissed."
{Harry Osborn Made Video Games!}
{Son of Norman Osborn Has Joined the Game Development Industry?}
{New Trending Game Was Made by a Teenage Millionaire?}
{Harry Osborn Chooses Games over Medical Technology?}
It was a bunch of classic media-grabbing titles, well. All except for one, The Daily Bugle.
{Flappy Bird, Invented by a Group of High Schoolers.}
My eyes were in tremendous pain, but I couldn't help myself. Jameson always made me laugh, I had to know what he said about us.
The video began to play. Like always, it started with Jameson seated at his desk.
"Alright, I'll skip to the point. From what my intern has told me, there's this new mobile game called Flappy Bird." One of the reasons I watched him, always straight to the point.
"Normally, I wouldn't talk about this, but apparently one of its creators was Harry Osborn. For anybody who lives under a rock, that's the son of Norman Osborn and heir to Oscorp." A picture of Harry and his dad was displayed.
Jameson grabbed his glasses. "But here's the detail everybody has missed and ignored, he wasn't the only one. My sources tell me he had help. Due to their young ages, I won't disclose their identities."
If I had to take a wild guess, somebody from our school probably told him. Everybody already knew we made it, mainly due to Mr. Harrington telling everyone.
"And I say, good for them! When I was a boy, my father had me delivering papers, working in his factories. He made me earn my inheritance!!! Literally, he refused to put me in his will until he saw my first paycheck." One of his interns brought him a phone.
"Normally I don't do this, but I'll make an exception." The iconic theme played as he booted up the game.
What happened next was pure bliss, Jameson began to play. He died pretty quickly, he got annoyed. He tried again, an intern tried to take the phone away. He yelled at them, then he tried again. Got even angrier, and eventually threw the phone at the camera in frustration.
"Well, damn," I spoke.
"I know, right?" Ned responded. "After that, people started to play. There are hundreds of videos on Facebook of people sharing their high scores and throwing their phones in anger. It's awesome!!!"
I smiled. "You're damn right it is, but how's Harry taking this? He's mentioned how much he hates the media, he's probably pissed."
Before Ned could answer, I heard a knock.
"I'm not sure. I've tried calling him, but he's not responding," Ned explained as I walked to the door.
I opened the door. "Well, I have a feeling we're about to find out."
In front of me stood a man and woman, the woman looked like a stereotypical lawyer while the guy looked like her beefy bodyguard.
"Leo Faith, right?" The lawyer spoke first. "Mr. Osborn would like to have a conversation with you. Are you currently preoccupied?"
Fuck.