Nullform #1 by Dem Mikhailov

Chapter 2

"Game Challenge!"

I STOOD IN FRONT of the screen and studied these two words carefully, unhurriedly, keeping an eye on the countdown timer.

00:17... 00:16...

"What are you waiting for?" Someone behind me shouted. I didn't turn around.

I kept my eyes on the screen. After a few seconds, I noticed a familiar black square near the bottom. As I reached my right thumb out to touch it, someone pushed me. Hard. I staggered, almost fell. The slow, languid laughter from the audience made it clear this happened on a regular basis.

Are these griefers?

While my brain was deep in thought, my body acted as the fresh pain slowly receded. I kept my stance solid and took another step towards the screen, then turned my head sharply. My neck cracked and flooded with pain in response. Filling my field of view was a bald thug with ancient, muscular arms, swinging at me. It was a strange combination — this guy clearly worked out, never skipped arm day. His sullen glare was filled with malice. I looked directly into his eyes, pulled back my arm, and touched the square. A victorious beeping sound confirmed I wasn't too late. The thug hissed something at me and stepped back, shoving a couple skinny guys aside with his shoulders, and vanished into the far rows.

The man who had tried to stop me was Fifty-Eight. I would remember him.

But for now...

I looked at the screen, trying not to seem overly interested, keeping Ninety-One's words in mind. She had said not to look weak or insecure. But it was hard to keep my emotions from showing on my face.

Game challenge... From the menu that showed up on the screen, it had to be something strange.

Tic-Tac-Toe.

Three rounds.

Select difficulty:

Easy.

Normal.

Hard.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Tic-Tac-Toe?

Didn't everyone play that as a kid? It was a kid's game. Or was it? I couldn't remember. But the surge of astonishment I felt told me I was more or less right in thinking it was a kid's game, even if it didn't deserve to be called one. But I did remember one thing for sure — if both players knew what they were doing, every round would end in a tie.

And they were even letting me choose the difficulty level. There had to be a catch... I was no Tic-Tac-Toe pro — I assumed I wasn't, at least, since I didn't remember anything, but it wasn't exactly a hard game. Why were there three difficulty levels?

"Pick Hard!"

I ignored the hoarsely-shouted advice from behind me, but sensed a hint of malice in the voice. Or was I getting paranoid?

I put out my hand to press Easy. The menu disappeared, and a familiar game board appeared. Who was going first? A lot depended on that. Would I win or would it be a tie? I most likely wouldn't lose. What would happen if it was a tie? Would it be just that, a tie, or would there be a tiebreaker?

Nothing seemed to be happening. I tapped the middle square and a red X appeared. Bam. A zero appeared in the middle square of the top row. Bad move, I thought. I put my next X in the lower left corner...

All three rounds were over in just a few minutes — I won, no contest. My opponent had played incredibly poorly.

VICTORY flashed across the screen, along with the number 11 lit up in gold. It was nice... but what did I get?