1. Last Shot

It’s not until after I jam my muzzle into his collarbone, pull the trigger and watch coins fill the air where his body used to be, each glinting disc free of gravity until they fall in unison, clattering against the floor and my barrel and my boots, that I start thinking we might win this thing. The now-coined man was the last of our opposition. Barley, our stalwart, huddles over our prize with legs like trunks. It’s a steel machine two meters tall and yellower than the heatless sun, and she starts to claim the cashout inside. The box must have been rocked to its side at some point in the action; I imagine her grenades were to blame.

The moment her palm touches the machine, a shrill sound pierces the air. The siren blares, and I count with each shrieking note. Four, five—this last moment stretching, a splinter of time widening like a starving mouth—and done. An opponent from another team enters the wreckage of the building where we’re standing. They’re small, and they’re fast, but they’re also a moment too late. Barley and I both turn to engage. My AK raises as if it’s got a mind of its own. Before I can squeeze the trigger, the space before me is voided. Barley curses under her breath in a private channel beyond our quarry’s hearing. Cloaker.

“Let’s get going,” I say. We’ve gotten our prize. There’s nothing more for us here. While we fought for this cashout, two teams across the city exchanged their own blows. The lightweight cloaking zephyr is a kill-hungry straggler. Barley grunts. I take that as agreement, and as progress. Not so long ago she’d make no sound at all. Claimed she was nodding, but who’s to say? Clunky old headsets like hers aren’t so good at recognizing subtle motions. It’s while I’m making this silent judgment that the zephyr decides to reappear. I don’t see them. I hear them and I feel them. A salvo thumps rhythmically into my spine. The last thing I hear is Barley’s guttural roar.

Getting coined is a funny feeling, like jumping into a warm pool. I’m nowhere. A mind buoyed on electric surf. Then I’m seeing the world through Barley’s eyes. The world blurs in her periphery as she shouts and throws her considerable mass forward at the cloaker. Their body splits open at the chest, and then they’re gone. Barley heaves a little, reorienting herself. She scans the wreckage for my statue. A little plasticky idol in the form of my avatar. It rests atop a kicked-down door. She sets about reviving me, reprimanding Sonnet the whole time.

“Where were you?” Her mic crackles, unable to handle the magnitude of her voice. Her words clip in the vowels and roll in the consonants. “Could have used some more firepower.”

“Snatching the next box,” Sonnet snaps back, his voice coming through sharp and crystalline, “Catch up, won’t you?”

“Box won’t do you much good alone,” Barley says. She finishes the revive, and I’m myself again. “Spreading out’s how we wipe.”

“Knew you had it,” Sonnet replies. Barley grunts, but she swallows any brewing retort. She’s too pragmatic not to recognize when Sonnet’s right, even when she hates his guts, and in this case he’s right on the money.

“We’re coming your way,” I say. Sonnet drops a ping eighty meters out, where he’s deposited his box. He’s a zephyr, built to soar across the sky. He won’t be able to hold his own for long. I do a quick mental evaluation of the current state of this Bank It! game. Here’s the rundown: time’s run out on the other cashout across the map; the team with the straggler wiped, thanks in part to Barley’s intervention, but they held their machine long enough that it didn’t matter. Now they’re in first, and their opponents, fully recovered from their injuries, are stuck in third. No doubt they’ll want to jockey with us for second. The fourth team, the one we wiped earlier, is back now as well, but I can’t imagine they’ll give us much trouble. Ah, one more variable—a final box lying unclaimed in a far corner of the map. Clock’s running low, so it’s unlikely that anyone will start another cashout, but if they toss it in our machine for a double-stack bonus, well, we might be in for a bad time.

This is what’s going through my head as Barley and I sprint through the ruined streets of Skyway Stadium toward Sonnet and, with him, our last chance at making it to the finals.

Problem is, there’s still more distance than we have time. Gunfire erupts in the third-story room where Sonnet stands guard. With my eyes locked on the tall beige residential building, I envision the needed trajectory to close the gap. Here. At thirty meters, I motion for Barley to halt. She nods. From the folds of virtual not-space, I produce a palm-sized disc that expands as it spins out of my hand. When it reaches the street, it’s about as broad as a truck tire and flat as a painting. Barley goes first. She sprints for the pad, landing on it with both feet at once, and then she’s gone. I follow her lead. In the final meter of my run-up, I dive headlong and then I’m weightless. Gadgets like the jump pad are why I play the maven class. My inertia carries me through the sky, arcing into the jagged opening where a third-story window used to be. I land on my feet. Sonnet’s already dead.

“Attic.” Dead men do tell tales.

“You get any?” I ask, training my rifle on the threshold in the ceiling.

“Their big guy’s at half. Others are full.” When Sonnet says this, Barley curses again. I keep my gun raised and hope we get third-partied. Holding out in chaos would give us better odds than a straight fight. Something detonates in the street below us, answered by the crackle of shots. I can still hear footsteps creaking the boards above my head. Must be first and fourth at it, then. Too busy blasting at each other to get up here and turn this situation on its head. I bite my tongue. Shouldn’t have even thought it, I guess.

Something’s off. I realize this when, after another five seconds elapse, I’m still standing here with my gun pointed up. Barley’s in the other room, ready to light this place up with all kinds of explosives the moment I go down. What’s off is I’m not down yet. They’ve got us at a disadvantage. Were roles reversed, I’d certainly be capitalizing. Unless—

Finishing my thought, the carpeted floor fails beneath my feet. I, the cashout machine, and a mess of splinters drop a story. They’re ready. One with a shotgun across the room and another, by the sound of it, maybe twenty centimeters from my back. I shout a warning at Barley before a sledgehammer comes down on my skull and folds my spine like an accordion. Then I’m back behind her eyes. To her credit, Barley waits before diving through the floor. She waits until the big guy with the hammer starts his steal. Her M32 spits grenades at a steady rate, and I watch on as they drop to the floor beneath. Two detonate before the hammer guy backs off. In a sliver of world outside this one, my heart beats double-time. She needs to hold. We need this, all of us.

“Eyes up,” Sonnet, who’s sharing eyes with Barley too, calls out. Barley looks up, but the bullet’s already run through her ribs. A flicker from the attic. Stupid. Should’ve noticed. Only two downstairs, should’ve gotten the idea then. The sniper chambers another shot. It misses Barley, because she’s gone down to the room where our other two opponents lie in wait. Again, she fights well. Wouldn’t be here in the first place if she couldn’t hold her own. Her grenades scratch at the shotgunner, though they manage to avoid any direct hits. She finishes the hammer guy. It isn’t enough, and I don’t think she knows it yet. Probably Sonnet does. Of course I do. For Barley it doesn’t register even once a second sniper round’s entered her, this time through the head. Then she’s a pile of coins like the rest of us. The floor is coated in dust and splinters. Free of Barley’s POV, I float spectral through the room. Get an over-the-shoulder view of the shotgunner taking our point. Our respawn timer ticks thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight, which might as well be forever, because it’s more than the rest of the game takes. We’re down to thirteen seconds when the match ends and the world around me melts into red.

---

The Ready Room’s not a place in the way you’d imagine a place. A place has got to have dimensions, limits, if not walls then at least a vanishing point on the horizon. The Ready Room has no walls, no dimensions, no limits, and yet it’s hard not to feel claustrophobic. The sky, if that’s what you’d call it, is everywhere. No floor, just more sky, though I don’t feel like I’m falling. Easier to imagine when you’re not too fixated on meatspace rules. Anyway, I’m not alone. Barley and Sonnet are here too. Neither look pleased.

“You should have waited,” Barley growls. She paces, rolling her shoulders. Probably still getting the adrenaline out. “If you waited, we could have held the point together.”

“If I waited?” Sonnet laughs. “If I waited, we might not have even gotten our box in. You both got bogged down in petty scrapping.”

“Scrapping might’ve gone quicker with another set of hands.”

“Hey, I’m the runner. I know my role.” Sonnet crosses his arms. “What about you?”

“Don’t even start,” Barley says, “I was on point, defending.”

“Yeah? Couldn’t do a little more defending there at the end?”

“Would’ve done more if you’d downed that sniper.”

“Oh, forgive me for not getting a solo wipe in the attic. They were all there, remember? You knew that, and you did nothing.” He glances at me. “Neither of you did.”

Barley looks at me too. “Are you going to take that?”

I think, trying to formulate a reasonable answer. Apparently I take too long, because they’re back at it before I can respond.

“See,” Sonnet says, jabbing a finger at me, though his eyes are locked on Barley, “Google knows when to shut up and take responsibility.”

“They couldn’t have changed anything,” says Barley, “We were in a bad spot.”

“Could’ve rezzed me, at least. You even think about using those defib paddles, Google?”

“Sniper was in the attic with your statue,” I speak up. Not because it’ll solve anything, but because Barley will start defending me if I don’t, and then Sonnet will call her my mother, which would then make me look like a coddled child. “The others were up there too, until they dropped down. Even if I got the revive off, I’d have likely been coined before doing anything else. Best case scenario was a questionable trade.” I get a smile from Barley for that one. Try not to smile back. Don’t want Sonnet to think we’re ganging up.

“Guess you’re right,” Sonnet feigns shame, “All my fault we’ll be getting the boot.”

“Already got it,” I say, frowning at him.

“More to lose than the tournament,” he says. As if on cue, a springy notification pops through my headset. It’s accompanied by a text bubble I’d rather not scan. “You’re both seeing that too, yeah?”

I nod. We both look to Barley. Her expression’s unreadable, and I’m not sure whether her facerec’s screwing up again or if that’s just how her face is. She doesn’t break the silence for another thirty seconds. Sonnet and I don’t say anything either, because this silence belongs to her. Feels like we’d be interrupting. When she does speak, her voice is stiller than the Baltimore floodstreets.

“He isn’t going to be here for another eight minutes. Arguing all that time won’t help anything. I suggest we take a break. Breathe, shout, do whatever you need to do. I want you back here before he arrives. Understand?” She’s so matter-of-fact about it. Not a hint of malice, even when it seems like the words should hurt. She knows the sharpness of her tongue, and she knows when to blunt it. For that I’m grateful. I nod again, then reach my left hand around to the back of my head to undo the brace. Now loose, I yank my sweat-dank headset off and set it on the floor.

The world I enter is flatter. Technically it’s got more depth, but it doesn’t feel that way, especially in the confines of my office pod. The room’s about three meters across in each direction. Pretty sizable for a headroom. I know I’m lucky—most can’t swing a pad with a dedicated room for floating in the bleed. Still, it feels cramped. And a little dim. Empty as well, except for a single ergonomic chair. The space feels dead or never really alive, which shouldn’t matter given the purpose of the room, but something about its drab walls puts a pit in my stomach. There’s a burn in my eyes too, but that’s not the room’s doing. That’d be the eye strain coupled with the fact I’m on the verge of tears. I drag myself from the headroom to the same-sized, better-lit living space. I walk to the kitchenette and let the lukewarm water run. 

The old chronograph on my wrist ticks the seconds by. I follow its spindly fingers to 10:49, or 22:49 standard net time. Six minutes to go. I look around my apartment, all ninety-degree-angles and vinyl. No interior walls, except the one between here and the headroom. It could be called a studio, excepting again the headroom. Emptier than I’d like, though the shelves in one corner stacked with vintage speakers and other old gadgets bring a splash of warmth. Water still running, I fill a mug and down it in one go. Half the water’s absorbed in my arid mouth before it reaches my throat. I refill the mug, taking it more slowly this time. One hand’s on the mug, the other’s on the counter’s edge to steady my trembling body. I’m not good with failure, if that wasn’t clear. I try to slow my breathing. In for three, out for three. The trembles go to a low warble. I tell myself I’m OK, that this too will pass, or so the meditation apps say. My eyes closed, tears slipping under the lids anyway, I try going to my happy place. Turns out it’s not open right now. Entry is barred to me. I’m turned away at the gate, pitched into the orange-tinted dark of simsun filtered through thin skin. Left with the emptiness behind my eyelids, I make my way to the floor, resting my back against the kitchenette’s corner cabinets.

Can’t let the panic take hold. Not now. Give me an hour, I tell the pins and needles in my brain, then I’m yours. We’ll relive whatever you want until I’m convinced everything about me is wrong. Until then, we’ve got to make it through this next bit bearing some semblance of stability. Just let me have this.

That works, somehow. My body finds an equilibrium. Don’t even have to breathe manually anymore. Feeling a little better, or at least riding the slope of a short-lived high before my spiral resumes, I get to my feet. My chronograph reads 10:54. I return to the emptiness of the headroom, then into the bleed.

The inactivity’s put my headset in sleep mode. A backlit darkness surrounds me. I wave my arm, and then I’m back in the Ready Room, its crimson sky bare and glowing. I’m greeted with a scowl. Expected that. Doesn’t make it easier. Right now I’d rather be queuing up to rematch that sledgehammer guy. Anything to dodge the searing gaze of Edmondo. His pinstripe suit and deep purple tie make it worse, I think. They give a formal twinge to his “you’re fired” look. I don’t like it, and I don’t think the others do either.

“Sonnet. Google. Barley,” He looks to us in turn, forcing us each to bear the heat of his attention alone for a few moments. He lingers on Barley. Though the corners of her eyes crease, she doesn’t turn away. I feel bad for her despite myself, despite the fact that I’m stuck in this mess too. But Edmondo’s not done. Nah, he’s just getting warmed up. “Would anyone like to tell me what that was?” Our silence is damning. I can see the gears turning behind Sonnet’s eyes, but he evidently decides against voicing whatever smartass comments are going through his brain. “Well then,” Edmondo continues, “how about I tell you what I saw? Is that agreeable to everyone?” Once again, our silence tells him what he needs to know. “Alright, then. What I saw was a farce. Losing is one thing. Losing happens. But you have to make it sizzle. The way the Tough Shells went out, well, I almost fell asleep. You were boring, stiff. You were tactical, and not in a cool way. When I watched you, I felt like I was watching my kids play a videogame. That’s not what I want to see. That’s not what audiences anywhere want to see. We want to believe. The illusion must be complete. You should be fighting like hell, like your lives depend on winning.”

“Edmondo,” Barley speaks up, “everyone on this team worked—”

“Yes, well, whatever you did, it wasn’t enough, was it? You failed to win the match, and you failed to hold my attention. That’s not a good look. For you or for Ranzio.”

Sonnet opens his mouth, visibly tired of holding back words. “Come on, it’s not like we got culled in the qualifiers. Second round of semis isn’t even close to bad. We’re still top thirty-two worldwide.”

“Top thirty-two? Do you think that’s Ranzio’s caliber, young man?” There’s a dare in Edmondo’s eyes, and I just know Sonnet’s about to go for it. Maybe that’s why I interject.

“Can we talk, Edmondo? Privately?”

“So be it,” he says, even though he’s visibly disappointed at my interruption. He wanted Sonnet to give him a reason, I can tell. With a flick of his pinkie finger, Sonnet and Barley fade into silhouettes. The Ready Room seems to shrink. “Well?”

“Give us another season,” I blurt.

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“Yes,” Edmondo says. I bite my tongue. He’s enjoying this too much. “I want to hear it from you. Why?”

“You need me. R&D doesn’t have anyone else who can do what I do.”

“And if The Tough Shells go, you go too? You would throw away your position here at Ranzio, along with its considerable benefits?” Edmondo raises an eyebrow. It’s a test, but so is everything else with him. I keep my posture even, my face still.

“I don’t want it to come to that. I’d imagine working for the competition comes with a big pay cut. Ranzio’s good to its people.” I study Edmondo’s face, hoping I managed to toe that line of threatened corporate sabotage and upfront corporate bootlicking just right.

“Yes, Calliope Cambria is good to her people. Too good, I often suspect. Though one must imagine this travesty tries even her patience.”

“Have you talked to her since the game?” I ask, and that gets him. Edmondo stiffens.

“Not yet.”

“So you can’t off us just yet.”

“Beside the point. When I—”

“When you talk to Miss Cambria, will you tell her we’re two weeks ahead on the new bone conduction algorithm? You can bring the others back in, by the way.” Edmondo only stares at me. If we were in meatspace, maybe I’d be thumbing my pockets for pepper spray. After a while, he says something.

“I’m disappointed in you. I was refreshing myself on your file before this meeting. Did you know you were the youngest head DSP engineer we ever brought on?”

“I did,” I say, because I did know, and I’m damn proud of it too.

“You could have a bright future here, and you’d rather squander your time playing a game. First you got us to sponsor your team for a full season. Now you’re pushing for more money when you couldn’t pull your team out of obscurity the first time around.”

“It’s only registration fees. Tech’s already covered from last season. Free advertising must be worth at least that much. And the next season’s a big one, being the centenary and all.”

A short pause. “Why? What is it that you want?”

I want so many things. I want to create. I want to know the universe and make it beautiful. I want to wrap my arms around the sun and know its true name. But these are a child’s dreams. There is too much noise between any truths floating out there and me. So, why?

“Because the game makes sense.” When nothing else does.

Edmondo gives Sonnet and Barley their eyes and ears back. “You’ll all know whether you still have a place here by end of day tomorrow,” he loudly proclaims, “Even assuming we do elect to maintain our sponsor status, we may have to reconsider the roster. You’re all dismissed.”

The Ready Room goes dark. I quickly draft a message to Sonnet and Barley — “IT’S OK” — and then my headset’s off and I’m slumped against the wall of my headroom. When my back presses into the wall, I can feel the cold wet of my shirt cling to my spine. I tell myself that it’s true, that things will be OK. Ranzio won’t drop me. Maybe they’ll drop Sonnet and Barley. I hate the thought of it, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world. We’ve only known each other through the season. And where would they be without me, anyway?

No, that’s too much. They’re both great players. Maybe I threw the team together, but they’ve carried their share. Sonnet logs something like 14 scrim hours every day. Barley keeps an even head, leading us through it all no matter how hairy things get. Now it’s on me.

My body’s spent. It held up its end of the deal. I got to put on a brave face with Edmondo, and now I’ll need to relent. My body takes me automatically to the kitchenette, where I take a pill to quell the growing panic clenching my chest. Next I’m horizontal in bed. I know I should probably eat something, but my body isn’t responding to input right now. Instead of throwing a frozen meal in the microwave, I lie back and pick up my phone. The heft of its thin slab feels good in my hand. Most people have gotten away from these things, trading them out for chips or wearables, but I’m a sucker for old tech. The chunkier the better. I love the way it whirs and hums like a sleeping animal. Probably get that from Pops.

Speaking of, I see three missed calls from his number. Too late to call back now. I make a mental note to check in later. He’s probably still up, seeing as he doesn’t live on net time, but I’m too fried to answer questions about the game and listen to his preaching masked as support. So I don’t call. No, I slide my thumb along the smooth, warming surface of the phone and doomsuckle my feed.

If I’d been under the illusion that this would brighten my mood, I’d be sorely disappointed. My feed’s split between tech news, Bank It! news, and big news in general. Tech’s pretty quiet right now. Vaiiya had another demo for their new security chip’s productivity features, which are supposedly better than pills and don’t come with all the nasty side effects. Online sentiment seems unimpressed. Can’t say I’m surprised. The diminishing returns of chip specs over the past few years are well-documented. I keep scrolling, letting the blue light bore a hole in my frontal lobe.

A lot of people died in Nebraska today. They’re saying somewhere around three hundred. The stock boards give 1:4 odds on if we’ll ever find out why. Probably not a tornado storm, then. More likely an infrastructure collapse or factional bloodletting. Better news on the Bank It! front. Looks like we were spared the cycle. People are still talking about a big game from last week, which means no one is talking about the Tough Shells’ crushing defeat. No, as usual, all eyes are on the Overdogs.

Last week, the Overdogs won their game with a twenty-k lead. The Hellions qualified too, albeit with a mere thirty-two hundred over third place, but no one cares about them. Audiences love the Overdogs, especially with this year’s all-star lineup. I never thought we had a chance in hell of beating them. Wouldn’t need to. Hitching a ride on their coattails to the finals would be enough. Now that my time isn’t wholly consumed by training, I might get around to watching the recording of their game.

Maybe this will soften Edmondo. Not that he’s the one who needs convincing. As much as he puffs himself up, he’s nothing more than a go-between. Really it’s up to Calliope Cambria, the CEO of Ranzio and the woman who’s probably going to decide my fate on a whim. People like her shape livelihoods on a day-to-day basis. For her, choosing whether to keep The Tough Shells on is a drop in the bucket. It’s not a position I can fathom.

When I dig deeper, I start to see a few threads on our match. I tug on these threads, see what gives. Not much, it turns out. The conversations are too dry and nitty-gritty for me, and I’ve got a high “dry and nitty-gritty” tolerance. Practically everyone in the world tunes into the championship match. Any casual fan at least keeps up with the last round of semis. At this point in the season, though, and especially for games that don’t feature popular teams like the Overdogs, discussion is dominated by the fanatics. People critiquing movement technique, adjusting their bets, cheering on a team they have some personal connection to or hurling insults at perceived rivals. No one’s saying the game was boring, at least. Maybe that’ll save us.

I keep scrolling until it hurts to keep my eyes open as much as it does to close them. My body drifts into fits of being unconscious. When I wake for good 6 hours later, my head still feels battered. My body’s got juice again, though, and that’s enough. With oats in the microwave for a quick breakfast, I check my phone again. Another call from Pops. He’s up early. I sigh and start looking for a matching pair of socks.

---

The air is still cool when I stroll up to Pops’ garden. My father spades dirt around a transplanted foxtail fern. The pale palms of his dark leathered hands, battered by years in the Trentila greenblocks, fold the soil and press it back into the earth. He doesn’t notice me until I unlatch the fence and let myself into his sanctuary.

“Morning,” I say.

He looks up at me. “You squinting,” he says, “Ain’t got much sun lately, huh?”

“Nope,” I say.

“Can’t be good for you.” Pops stabs his spade into the soil. He groans as slowly, with one hand on the fence and the other on his knee, he pulls himself into a standing position. “I don’t mean just the vitamins, either. Can’t be good for your soul.”

“Come on,” I say, doing my part to pretend we haven’t had this conversation a hundred times before, “you don’t believe in all that. That’s Mama talking.”

“Well, maybe she was right.” He leans in on his cane, looks me in the eye, and I understand. He saw the game last night, or at least he heard about the results. I look away. “I’m sorry, kiddo. I know that game was important to you.” He opens his arms, and I accept the invitation.

“Yeah,” I mumble into his salty navy-blue jersey, “Yeah, it was.”

Pops makes breakfast. Scrapple with eggs from the chickens out back. My eyes widen after the first bite of grease-saturated egg. I try to take it slow, otherwise he’ll chide me for starving myself at home.

“What do you think?” he asks.

“Delicious,” I say, dabbing grease off my chin with a microfiber cloth.

“Not many people eat this good, these days,” Pops says. He’s right. The meat alone would make this a luxury meal a little farther down the East Coast, never mind anywhere in the southern hemisphere. A benefit of life in proximity to the Pennsylvania Dutch. We finish the meal in silence. It’s comfortable. Pops keeps the door to the garden open so we can hear the windchimes tinkle. Sometimes I envy this life. The boring, dirty substance of it. Old folks like to say my generation’s fallen out of the world. That we’ve abandoned something real for Naturata. Maybe they’ve got a point. Of course, they’re the ones who made “the real” nigh unlivable. Funny how that works.

“I better get going,” I tell Pops, “Need to head out now if I want to make the next light rail.”

“So,” he says, taking our plates to the sink, “What happens next?”

“I dunno.” I try to make the accompanying shrug feel like a casual gesture rather than an acceptance of defeat.

“Well, keep me in the loop.” Pops heads back out to the garden while I move for the gate. Spade in hand, he sets about uncovering a carrot as wide as his fist. “Be good, Quinn.”

---

When I slip back into the bleed, the UI bombards me with notifications. News snippets covering the games last night, frantic DMs from Sonnet and Barley, something about a firmware update. Another notification cuts clear through the rest of the noise. A message from Edmondo. Though it’s text-only, I can imagine the words falling curt out of his mouth: “Contract renewed. Last shot.”