Paranoia ✓

IX: Daniel - Party Chat

"Fucking Americans," yelled a man with a heavy Indian accent. "They killed me one off of my IS."

"They always seem to do that," another man agreed with a British accent. "It's only a matter of time before I call mines in and wreck havoc upon these gits."

"Watch your left," the first man warned. "Sniper in the grassy knoll."

The man breathed heavily through his mouthpiece and multiple bangs went off. "Got 'em."

Person number one, age 28, was a male named Raj Harold, born on January 8, 1996. Currently resides in Madrid. Person number two was a male named Richard Harrison, age 26, born on February 8, 1998. Currently resides in London. Conversation, via Omega Party Chat system, began at approx. 12:02 P.M. Eastern Standard Time. Ends at 12:23 P.M. Eastern Standard Time. Flagged for notice. Mentioning of trigger words, "blown-up" and "fucking Americans" and "coordinated strike" among others.

Daniel reached for his cup of coffee and took a sip as he continued to listen to the two way recorded conversation between Raj and Richard, who were playing The Call to Serve on the Omega gaming console. Daniel found listening to rage induced video game chatter between young adults on a gaming system the greatest waste of his time. He guaranteed that every person who said they were going to harm the person on the other end of the O-Helm was simply talking out of their asses.

Daniel usually found himself amused when listening to these exchanges. It always followed the same order. The friends are excited to start up a game after a long day at school or work. Then they get into a lobby and do great the first game. They spank the other team with ease, called in all sorts of insurances, and rained hell as if they were gods. Then the next game they found someone who was of equal skills, or even better than them, and that was when a condition that was prominent in gamers flared up—raging.

Half the conversations Daniel listened to were a result of the terrible illness. It was highly infectious and could only be stopped by either avoiding online gaming altogether or having better reflexes. The people who raged were the people who liked to think they were not "noobs." A noob is the outcast of the online gaming experience. They are simply put, bad at the game. They are the untouchables in the gaming caste system. One does not associate themselves with a noob if they wish to maintain their ranking. The Call to Serve was all about who could get the most kills while dying the least. Thus, a high Kill-to-Death ratio, or K/D, is important to ragers. A K/D to ragers is their resume that shows other online gamers how much experience they have at the game, and how great they are. A noob on one's team ruins one's K/D, and thus obliterates a rager's resume.

Thus, a rager does everything in his power to avoid playing with and becoming a noob. When a rager finds himself against another person who was better than him, he immediately calls the person a "try-hard." Ragers hate try-hards because they make ragers into noobs. Thus a rager will call anyone threatening his position in the online gaming caste system as a "try-hard."

Now the terminology of the three words (rager, noob, and try-hard) varies depending on the group of people, but overall these terms are solid across the field of online gaming. One group may call a "try-hard" a "super-sweaty," but if you mention the word "try-hard" they will make the connection between the two. Daniel found the various terminologies for noobs, "try-hards," and ragers very hilarious.

But his job wasn't supposed to be funny.

Daniel was pulled back into the conversation when he overheard Richard activating a special ability. "Just resurrected and killed the camper."

The mentioning of the word "resurrected" brought back a bitter memory. The last time he heard that word (outside of CTS of course) was when he was seven. He was at his father's funeral wake. His parents were Catholic. So they had a priest celebrate mass before the burial. Some families have a wake days before the burial. Others have it minutes before the burial. Daniel's mother opted to have the wake and the burial within hours of each other. It was at the wake that Father Ryan, the celebrant of the mass for that day, gave a sermon.