No Life to Lose

The Game: Chapter 13

"Dang." Casey's eyes were shining. "We gotta get best four!"

"That's not a good goal," James said.

"It's not?"

"Since we're here, we should win."

Casey broke out in a grin. "Yeah! Yeah! I knew if ya gave it a try, you'd end up havin fun! It's great, right? Isn't it?"

"Sure."

James felt his blood starting to churn. For the first time, he wanted that gate to open. The weight of the item he had purchased was straining at the lining of his pocket like it wanted out. Lethargy and apathy had been replaced by a heat in his chest that made breath come faster: a too-familiar feeling from seven years ago, studiously locked away.

Rage.

The real world was not a place of fairness. Things didn't go the way they would if life was a matinee movie. In that world, James took tiny revenges indirectly: invitations turned down, calls and texts ignored, slowly but surely severing anything that might be hurtful.

At last, he had discovered a different sort of place; a place where building walls and keeping peace was unnatural. A place where people were lining up to beat each other to death.

It was only a game. He could hurt whoever he wanted. As much as he wanted.

***

The arena was different this time.

For one thing, it was somehow night; as soon as they stepped on the arena floor, the brightness of the sun faded away. Another difference was the size of the crowd. It was impossible to see them, but they couldn't hide from a mentalist. Some felt slightly different from the others: NPCs, though James couldn't have said how he knew. Probably sent by UCC to build the hype.

Even so, there were hundreds of real players in the gallery. James could filter in on any conversation he chose. Some of the spectators were commenting on the movements of players on the field despite the apparent darkness. From what he could hear, the match was being displayed in a point-of-view style on projected screens, and the arena floor had been divided into multiple areas with simultaneous battles in each.

There was one further difference in layout compared to the qualifier. Instead of pillars and alleys and pools of water, the arena was a mountainous tangle of rocky slopes, crags and treacherous scree. The terrain itself was now an opponent.

James stood, evaluating the flow of events, hearing every footstep the opposition took. Pebbles trickled in response to their movements. Casey was advancing on the left, surefooted and athletic on the unsettled ground. Jaleet, the wraith, glided almost soundlessly even here, executing a flanking maneuver that would set him behind all three enemy units.

James saw them now as pieces in a chess match. And one of those chess pieces, impertinent and unaware, was creeping down the center of the map, directly toward him.

James kept his eyes closed. There was no point in trying to see when he had far superior senses available. Ten steps west, fifty north, up and over a minor cliff face, then back down to the southeast, and now he was following behind the enemy. A large man, from the heaviness of his footsteps and the rasp of his breath, and armored in leather and chain, not plate. And there was a discordance in the jangle and scrape of his mail, a spot where the rings had been broken and never repaired. Just above the left kidney.

That was the target.

Maintaining perfect stealth was difficult. Sensory capabilities aside, feet were still feet, and the ground was coated in shards of rock too tiny to avoid. Fortunately, the opponent was having difficulty even staying upright. The muttered curses, pinwheeling of arms and scrape of hobnailed boots were invitations to advance ever closer.

James drew within two long strides of the enemy and readied himself. It was almost unfair how easy it was going to be.

Then there was a subtle change. James hesitated just slightly, and that was what saved his life.

"Don't sneak around me, you bloody coward!"

The man roared and spun with inhuman speed, slashing down so powerfully that his sword whistled as it cut the air. James could hear its shape in the wind: crude, heavy, and deadly.

I underestimated him.

Before the thought was even complete, James was diving on reflex, rolling over sharp pebbles that tore at his shirt. His advantage in the darkness was neutralized by the ear-splitting clang of sword slamming rock hard enough to throw sparks, temporarily deafening his echolocation. James threw himself aside and continued to roll, hoping to avoid the next blow by luck, but it didn't come. He could hear just well enough to catch explosive swearing as his assailant shook the numbness from his hands.

James rose into a crouch and dug into his pocket, fingers closing around the purchase he had made: titanium knuckles, midnight black and harder than steel.

James opened his eyes. In the gloom was a silhouette, renewing its grip on a terrifyingly large blade. With no combat experience to speak of and not even a particularly athletic body, James had only one resource to call upon for victory.

Animal fury.

The bladesman swung another downward cut, but James moved before the sword even reached its apex. Using his crouch to push off of a stone, James thrust almost directly forward, twisting just enough so that the sword cut air. The man cursed and turned mid-swing, slicing backhanded, predictable even for an amateur. James ducked under the blade and drove off of his left leg with every ounce of strength. His right fist, titanium-clad and with the whole of his body behind it, crunched through the weak area of his opponent's ringmail right at the kidney. Without even a cry, the man dropped like a sack of meat.

The lights went on—or rather, the sun emerged. Casey was jogging over from the far side of the hill, waving and grinning, an unconscious body on the ground at her back. Jaleet was already standing by the gate they had come in from.

James straightened to his full height and gazed at the opponent crumpled beneath him, the first human being he had ever struck in anger. Under the blazing sun, the man was far from imposing: a balding, run-to-fat wannabe-warrior, dribbling vomit and unconsciously clutching a sword chipped from where it had struck rock instead of flesh.

James took off the titanium knuckles and examined his fist. Minor bruising and swelling. The evidence of what he had done, written into his body.

"Dang, you took him out?" Casey skidded to a halt, staring down, eyes hugely round. "Wow! Wow." She took a deep breath and let it out again. "Wow."

"What's so amazing?"

"I dunno." Casey looked up at the sky, shading her eyes against the sun. "Just figured you didn't wanna fight."

"Maybe now I do."

Casey nodded. "Man, it's a rush, havin fun and playin with your friends 'n winnin matches. It's normal, right? Who wouldn't wanna do that?"

"Right," James said. But Casey was giving him a funny look, an expression stuck between uneasy and sick. "What's the matter?"

"Nothin ... just ... it's fun, right?"

"Sure."

"But you don't look like it's fun..." Casey's face was drawn. "You look like you're really sad." Then she dropped her gauntlets on the ground and hugged him in front of thousands of people, with Jaleet watching silently from the gate.

James couldn't hug back or even pull away. He just stood there, tears streaming from his eyes, not even knowing why.

"You shouldn't do things that make you sad," Casey said, arms holding tight. "Don't do things that make you sad."