Loading... Chapter Four
Screens that were once dedicated to every ESPN channel were now filled with snipers, boots scraping against prized digital ground, and other sounds of war. First person shooters may have lost their crown, but still held strong. Their clans mirrored the NFL's football teams and their seasons filled with fans just as loyal.
Only two members of team AK-aos were left defending their base. One was camping at the heart of it and virtually safe as long as they didn't move. The second was crawling around from vantage point to vantage point in hopes that he could pick off the other team one by one. It was a slow process as the other team went around picking up all the weapons and vehicles they could. But then, faster than a blink, the sneaking player got a rocket launcher to the face.
"I do envy how often FPS-ers can die without penalty," Owen commented as he sipped on his beer.
"It's not that bad," Neal said.
"Of course you wouldn't be afraid, you've died more times than Sean Bean," Owen joked. He tipped his drink towards Neal, who looked away towards the rest of the bar for support, but none was found as their friends broke out into a fit of laughter. "An inventory reset and drop in HP is basically your default character."
"It's an inspiration that you haven't given up yet. At the very least you'd think something would have rubbed off from watching Owen play," Emily said. She stood out from the group, not because she was the only female in the trio, but because her pregnant belly was so big that no one even asked if she wanted anything besides a refill of her caffeine free soda.
"Come on. I'm not that—"
"To Neal!" She raised her glass and Owen mirrored the gesture.
Neal fought the fake praise before he caved to bask in it. "I'm not handy with a knife, but I can whip you both in lore. And to that I will drink!"
"Oh, oh, keep it down for a second, I want to hear the halftime report." Emily leaned forward so she could focus on the TV in the noisy bar. No matter how big the screens were, it could still be hard to focus. The esports bar was close enough to Times Square that light from giant flashing billboard screens intruded through the windows.
"I'm Hank, and it's time for The Rundown." His words were broken up by the segment's title cards. "Developers of Age of Shadows have confirmed that one lucky player has reached a new milestone in game. No, the level cap hasn't yet been reached, but the record for NPC's has been broken. One player in the Spanish faction has somehow snagged himself two companions," Hank reported, before he turned to discuss it with the other gaming experts on the panel with him.
"I'm no MMORPG expert, but if today's game has taught us anything, it's the importance of teammates. I'm not sure how this guy snagged two, but kudos to him," said Jose, Hank's faithful co-anchor.
"Or them," Aaron, the third gentleman, corrected. His wardrobe was different than their suits. Being a former pro-gamer he got to wear his jersey. "Unlike other games, Age of Shadows doesn't show player information. They didn't confirm the player, did they?"
"Nope," Hank replied. "Meaning it's likely a roleplayer. All of the arena players are quick to announce themselves. The promise of sponsorship is just too good. Could you imagine a three on one match? It would be no contest."
"I know, I'm looking forward to tomorrow's analysis of it during #Rehashed," Jose said, before the ad break.
"Two?" Neal repeated. "Looks like someone is better than even you."
Owen said nothing. Even turned his head away to try and hide the sly smile that was demanding realty on his face. His hand soon pulled over to cover his mouth.
"No..."
Emily paused, looking at them both for a moment before her jaw dropped. "You didn't." When Owen didn't look back, she placed her hand on his, which was enough to make him look. "You did! Oh-my-god. You have to tell us everything!"
"It's no big deal," Owen said, failing to play it off, if he had even been really trying to.
"No big deal? You are on—" her voice dropped off so her increasing excitement wasn't heard by every person in town. "The news. How did you manage to pull that off?"
"I think I might have actually glitched myself into it?" Owen paused, not really wanting to tell everyone the embarrassing story. Amilia wasn't like Lance. It wasn't like when he simply asked for Lance to join and he did. Amilia was...perplexing.
"Lore doesn't do me a lick of good when your glitchy ass is so fortunate," Neal grumbled.
Owen looked over to him, scrunching up his face with a bit of worry, before Emily, with great enthusiasm, flagged down the waiter.
"I need a round of shots!" she called. The waiter leaning against the bar looked over, his expression shifting to horror when he noticed who was calling. Emily rolled her eyes. "Maybe I should just give you the money instead of me trying to order."
"Geez, Em," Neal laughed, his bitterness not lasting long. "You're going to give him a heart attack. Poor guy will have to worry about his tip or his ethics."
Owen got up from the bar stool. "Don't worry about it. I think I learned my lesson about accepting drinks from people." Neal and Emily shot each other a look as their friend went over to the bar, hoping the other could fill in whatever story they had clearly missed.
Several shots and a cab ride home later, Owen sat in front of his computer. He was too drunk to play, so looking into things for work seemed like the next logical choice. Owen couldn't tell if the first few candidates were actually clean or not, they simply were old enough that they didn't have a very big digital trail. If they had secrets, they were hidden the old fashioned way.
The fourth candidate, Suzanne, he found on Twitter. Her tweets were mostly really boring political comments linking to even longer, more boring topics. But, when he dug back enough to find more casual things like silly photos of animals lazing in a manner similar to his own, he found exactly where she ruined her whole campaign. Either haphazardly, or not caring at the time, Suzanne had turned on the location marker. Most showed she was tweeting from out of state, and if she lived outside of New York, it would disqualify her from being elected. Sure, it wasn't hard evidence, but enough to make news, and enough that her opponents would bring up a complaint and demand they officially check into it.
Owen's excitement was dashed as he groaned suddenly. He leaned back in his chair as a deep pain in his stomach hit. The other names on the list would have to wait. The once friendly buzz had shifted. Without much grace, he twisted out of his chair and stumbled into the kitchen to get some water. He leaned against the counter, and massaged the headache that was trying to settle in his temples. His room wasn't far, but the trip there felt like it took forever. The bed was a relief. He didn't bother to struggle with getting under the sheets. For now, this would do.
He rolled into work at the barely morning hour that was 11 am. Falling into his office chair more than sitting in it, Owen tried his damnedest to look up the rest of the names, but his headache was making it hard to read anything.
"Owen!" His boss' voice was an air horn going off next to his ear. Wanting to completely give up on the respectable adult thing, Owen put his head down for a second. He took a deep breath as he gathered the strength to get up and collect his papers.
Frank didn't look at him for more than a second before narrowing his eyes. "Are you hung over?"
This question was completely ignored. Owen saw no sense in addressing it. It would only send the conversation in a direction he didn't want to go. Instead he held out the folder, which Frank took. "Suzanne hasn't been a New York resident long enough to run for office. Right now, it's only speculation, but it's enough to start an official investigation."
After a few pages were flipped through, Frank looked back up at Owen. "Does anyone else have this?"
"I dunno." He turned his hands up. "It's all out there for people. I don't know if anyone is sitting on the information or simply hasn't put it together."
"This is good. We'll include this right away."
Owen took an eager step towards the door, but once again was stopped by his boss calling for him. It was enough to make him cringe slightly. "I'm amazed you can come in here like that," Frank said. His boss gestured to the whole of Owen, making him worry he badly needed to find a mirror. "And still can find me this. What happened?"
This time, Owen thought a bit longer about answering the question. "If your pregnant friend says you are 'drinking for two,' do not take that as a challenge."
His boss laughed, and Owen returned to work.
For much of the afternoon, Frank went on about a package that needed to be here right this second, until finally Owen volunteered to head downstairs and wait for it. To save a few more seconds, he watched the doors for the bike messenger while drinking his black coffee. Courier services swarmed the streets of midtown Manhattan, assisting every business in its 'here and now' mentality.
He walked over to the front desk's water dispenser to fill his empty mug. Probably better for him than the coffee, anyway. When he turned around, drawing a hand through his short, dark hair, he saw what he guessed was a bike messenger, dressed in thermal cycling tights and a chimney collar sweatshirt, making her way towards the front desk. He jumped to action to intercept her so he could sign off on the package and get back upstairs in his somewhat comfortable desk chair.
"Hey. I'm the one picking that up."
The girl turned on her heel, shifting her backpack off her shoulders. "I.D.?"
"Yeah, sure."
Once he handed it off, she swiped it on the little scanner she had attached to her tablet before visually confirming the badge. Her lips twitched slightly. "Nice picture."
Owen raised an eyebrow at her before pocketing his I.D. again. His hair was near buzzcut in the photo, with an expression that hinted at both delight and horror that his photo was being taken for a press badge. He eyed her for a moment while she did something on the tablet, taking note of the piercing in her nose and the height of her cheekbones. Her features weren't strongly one race or another, but he guessed she had Asian heritage somewhere.
"Sign here." She handed over the tablet before pulling the package from her backpack in anticipation of trading the items.
He searched for a name tag, thinking one must come with the job, but came up empty. After looking over her face a second time, he tilted his head as if she was a puzzle he hadn't stopped to see the pieces of before. "Do I know you? Maybe from another life?" Owen mused.
"Does that line get you laid often?" she asked with a straight face.
"You'll be the first to know."
That one managed to get a chuckle out of her. "You think you're cute, don't you?"
"No," Owen countered. "But you might."
She rolled her eyes. "I really need to go and actually do my job. Can you just sign and take this?"
With a scribble, he signed an unrecognizable version of his name. He held the tablet out now tiredly as it was swapped for the package.
"Thank you for using Minute Messengers," she droned, likely for the thousandth time.
Owen barely lifted an eye from the package as the girl stuffed the tablet back into her bag. Without further word, he headed up stairs to deliver whatever this heavy thing was. Freedom of Information request, he assumed. Which meant this package would end up on his desk after a once over.
"Mail's here," he announced as he popped into Frank's office.
"Oh, good! Hand it here." Frank might have been a child on Christmas if he hadn't been glued to his seat focused on writing up an article. Really, the only thing that held him away from the promise of a lead was one he was already working on.
Owen hesitated in the doorway for a second, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "At the risk of sounding like the worst employee ever, can I run out and get lunch? I could bring you back something?" He put an innocent little sing-song tone in it.
Frank glanced at the time. He had blown past lunch hour. "Nah, that's alright. You can go ahead though. A man cannot live off booze and coffee alone."
"We should get that on a plaque for the office." Owen turned to a blank space of a wall that was nearly filled with framed articles. His hands spreading out to show the perfect place for it.
"Get out."
Owen laughed, and left the man to write in peace. On the elevator ride down, he debated whether he wanted to walk all the way to Subway or just stop at the halal food truck on the corner. His decision completely forgotten when he spotted the same bike messenger standing outside the lobby's glass doors.
"You're still here." The statement was laced with confusion as to why. "I thought you really actually needed to do your job."
She turned, smoke trailing out of her mouth as a cigarette kept her hand company.
"Ah, never mind," Owen added, getting it now. "Don't let me disturb you." That left the where to eat question. He glanced down the street to some food carts, but it was difficult to tell if they were actually busy or just obscured by foot traffic.
"Hey, wait."
Owen paused, looking back with a brow raised. She looked unsure. Maybe surprised herself that she had even said anything. It wasn't a bashful expression, more calculating if she wanted to take it back. "Name's Andreah."
"Pleasure," he said halfheartedly.
Instead of frowning, Andreah took another drag of her cigarette. She decided he was cuter when trying to be friendly. "Would you like one?" she offered, trying to coax out more than a word from his lips.
"Why not?" He shrugged, and held his hand out.
Andreah smiled at the progress and pulled out the pack, passing them along before patting down her pockets for a lighter. She found it by the third pocket, but paused as Owen stared at the unlit cigarette in his hand. "What?"
"I was trying to think of the last time I had a cigarette," Owen said. The memory actually was pretty clear. He was standing outside a meeting, trying to gain the trust of a bone digger mark and asked for one as an excuse to talk to the guy. You get a lot out of someone if you shared their vice.
"Don't tell me," Andreah started filling in her own story. "You started to rebel as a teenager and this was the 'coolest' way you could think of that would piss off the family."
He gave her a dismissive nod that didn't quite confirm that was the case. "Maybe, I just didn't think I could pull off piercings as well as you."
Andreah took it as the compliment it was meant to be, and handed the lighter over without further tease. Well, for a moment at least. When Owen closed his eyes to take a drag she simply had to harass further. "I don't want to be a bad influence now."
Owen shot her a sideways glance. "Don't flatter yourself."
She let out a near impatient huff. "When do you get off work?" Andreah asked, innocently enough that it seemed like a new look for her.
"Uh..." Owen felt like he knew the answer he should give if he wanted to learn more than just her name. Frank was a cool boss, but he wasn't can-I-ditch-early-because-I-spotted-a-hottie cool. "I don't know actually. The news never sleeps and whatnot."
She lifted her chin to nod. Not really getting it and unsure if she fully wanted to. "And what do you do for the news, Mr. Press Badge?" Andreah asked. For an ID, it barely gave any information at all. "Hotshot writer who came to New York to make it big?"
That idea was quickly shaken off with a laugh. "Nothing like that. I'm a researcher."
Andreah's incredulous look now seemed permanently plastered on her face. "A fact checker?" While she wasn't blushing, she looked around with the same unbelieving and flushed manner. "Should I have invited you to a bookstore instead?"
"I feel so incredibly cool right now, you have no idea." Owen fiddled with the cigarette in his hand as it burned away on its own. "Do you want to get coffee tomorrow?"
Andreah didn't look all that convinced, so he rambled on. "A drink? Dinner? A line of coke? What I'm saying is, do you want to hang out with me later, or should I go back inside?" By the time his ramble was over he was blushing a bit at the level of ridiculousness, but didn't feel much shame for it. The nice thing about strangers in New York was that the odds of seeing them again were practically nonexistent unless one made a concerted effort. Easy to cut your losses if things didn't work out.
Behind a half-bitten lip, she chuckled to herself. "Alright, but only because it doesn't seem like you'd be the boring sort."
Andreah put out her cigarette with the aid of a trash can before digging in her bag for a pen. "Call me later for one of the first two. It's my general rule of thumb not to risk jail time around people I don't really know."
"That's a totally reasonable and normal rule to have," Owen said, unsure if she was still joking around like he was.
"Keeps me out of trouble." Andreah handed over a torn page from a booklet of forms with her number written on it. "Until we meet again."
"Au revoir."