11. Parley

The Vogues choose the setting. I recognize the city. It is different in many ways, and yet it is unmistakably the same Seoul with taller buildings and fewer windows. This time, the city is not bent to fit the balancing demands of a Bank It! arena. The wide-open rooftop we stand on has no conveniently-placed cover. There is nowhere to hide.

“So.” Barley stares unblinking. I would assume her facerec’s disabled, except for the flare in her nostrils. In truth, her facerec’s better than ever. When she speaks, the word comes out crisp, carried through Ranzio tech in a Volpe headset. “Parley.”

I stand by as instructed. Barley was clear about how this would go. She insisted on doing the talking. We didn’t put up much of a fight, me and Sonnet. More surprised than anything. Now I’m breathing in four-counts to keep conscious while the world presses in around me like wet cement neck-deep. My ears buzz and my teeth make ruts in my cheek. I worry they see through me, through the layered masks of Naturata to the sweaty, reddened flesh beneath.

They don’t see, though. They cannot. Here the weaknesses of Quinn are invisible. I am Google, and Google is a rock, brilliant and hard like the quartz along the old Gunpowder River.

“We can keep this brief.” Harrident’s accent is neutral and completely ambiguous. Maybe someone with a better ear could pick out some regional quirks. I can’t even place their voice on a continent. It’s not robotic, though; not in the old stilted text-to-speech way or the modern hyperhuman way of Angela’s cadence. There’s one theory down. Harrident continues. “We would like to extend a truce. Through the next match, and perhaps further, depending on our fortunes.”

“Truce breaks the rules,” Barley growls.

“Yes, it does. You will report us to the Broadcast Recreation Corps, then?”

“Fucking right.” Sonnet. Barley raises a hand to stop him, though her eyes don’t leave Harrident. Behind their leader, the other bluecoats exchange a look of amusement.

“You do not believe we will,” says Barley, “Why?”

“Perhaps you will see it as a way to return our favor.”

“Explain.”

“The garage. Do we need to say more? Or would you rather us leave it there and keep details off the record?” Harrident’s arms cross. Sonnet opens his mouth. I give him a look and it closes.

“This is a private meeting.” Barley frowns.

“Naturally. Still, everything leaves traces.”

“The garage.” Barley takes a step forward. “Tell me.” The pressure mounts. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

“The game before last, we engaged twice. The first time, you were eliminated. The second time was in the garage, where your maven eliminated the three of us alone.”

“First fight was an ambush,” Barley points out.

“We believe performances on both sides were in-line with expectations, considering we prevailed in each engagement in the match prior as well. The garage conflict was an aberration, however.”

“Sore losers,” Sonnet does not resist saying, though it earns another hand from Barley.

“My team does not cheat.”

Harrident smiles. “If you believed that, you would not have taken this meeting.”

Sonnet’s words I can barely make out. Every sound travels through thick water to reach my ears. His voice is distant, as if he were talking in meatspace a room away. “And if you thought we cheated,” he says, “you’d have called us up before last game.”

“We had to be certain,” says Harrident.

“You avoided us.” Barley sounds untroubled. I would like to share her confidence. Maybe I could, if my lungs could hold air. The harder I gasp, the less they swallow. I am sinking in place. “You learned nothing.”

“Didn’t we?”

“Right,” Sonnet asides loudly to Barley, “they did learn to stay out of our way.”

“Be serious,” In Harrident’s voice I hear Pops’ condescenscion. “The Tough Shells are a top-32 team at best. You are not better than Dissun’s Power Houses or Engimo’s Speed Demons. You will be fortunate if they do not reach the same conclusions we have. Go on, tell us again how we are mistaken.” I think Harrident’s looking at me, their fractaled pink pupils glowing through a haze.

Barley’s next words I can’t make out. Flecks of black and red scatter across my vision. They spill into the shadowed folds of the Vogues’ airy blue uniforms. My eyes are portholes migrating ever further from my brain. I have forgotten the controls to my body. I fall in no direction.

“Get up.”

“Oh, fuck.”

“Google. Get up.”

“You don’t think—”

“No. Their face.”

“. . . Yeah. Some twitching. Still, could be a seizure or—”

“I’m OK,” I say. I sit up. My back protests. I’m sore from my stiff neck down to my tailbone. In a lower voice, I say, “Ignore me. Go on with the meeting.”

“There is no meeting,” Sonnet’s shouting hurts my head, “The Vogues left twenty minutes ago.”

I look around. We are still in Seoul. “No, I was standing right here. . .”

“You fell,” Barley says.

“I nearly pinged your emergency contact,” Sonnet adds, “by the way, Barley, you should really have one of those yourself.”

“Can you stand?” Concern across Barley’s face, maybe the first emotion I’ve seen there. I nod and cautiously make my way to my feet.

“I guess so.”

“Good,” she says, “We need to talk.”

“Nothing to talk about.” Sonnet does not sound himself. He sounds afraid. “Look, I agreed to go along with the meeting and see how it played out. But it’s gone too far. We’re out of our depth.”

“They had nothing,” Barley says, “only a story.”

“A story that could get a lot of play on the net if we’re not careful.”

“Sorry,” I interject, “what story?”

“You didn’t get that part? Huh, I guess you were out for a while before you hit the ground. Anyway, Harrident said you waved a wand and turned their grenades into useless shit. Said your aim was fishy too.”

“Oh, God.” I want to bury my face in my hands. I cannot; there is a world in the way, so I tuck my chin into my chest instead.

“Google, listen to me.” Barley. A soothing voice, despite its bluntness. Her steadiness is reassuring. “We need to hear from you before we make a decision.” She looks at Sonnet. “As a team.”

“Tell us you didn’t do it,” Sonnet says.

I turn my head up. “I didn’t cheat. I don’t know what happened.”

“But something did,” Sonnet goads me on.

I answer with honesty, because I cannot manage a lie. “Yes. Something like what they’re saying. A break in the game.”

“You did not tell us.” Barley is not accusatory. She is stating a fact. Still, she avoids my gaze, and I hers.

“No. I couldn’t. I didn’t even know if it was real.” Naturata cannot translate tears. Instead it might show some distortion around the runnels, where it cannot parse the streaming as a movement of flesh.

“Fuck me, I’m going to lose every fan over this. And obviously the tournament.”

“You were right, Sonnet. Edmondo needs to know.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’ve been saying.”

Finally, she looks at me. “But he doesn’t need to know everything.”

---

My stomach crawls up my throat and spatters into the toilet. I choke and cough up everything in me. The slurry is gray and homogenous. I have not been eating well. The game overrides every other need. I would laugh at that sentiment now, if I could get anything out of my mouth besides mess. I heave up what feels like the last of it, then scrape my face with a towel. In a way, I’m grateful for the distraction. I cannot be alone with myself, not right now. Soon I am back in the bleed, unable to remember the passage from bathroom to headroom. Sonnet and Barley had said five minutes. My interface says it’s been seven. Not like me. None of this is like me.

The invite comes through. A growing welt above my ear throbs against my headset. My neck pops. I take a conscious breath, and I accept the invite.

Edmondo sits behind his desk. Today his window overlooks a beach, a long strip of sand going on for miles unbroken and miraculously free of high-rise condominiums. He crosses his legs and fingers. He does not know why we’re calling.

“Tough Shells! A welcome sight, I might say, if warranted by the occasion.”

“The Vogues came to parley.” Barley stands tall at the edge of Edmondo’s desk. Next to her, all of his accoutrements appear tiny.

Even seated, Edmondo reels. He recovers quick, clearing his throat and straightening his tie. Before he can get a word in, Barley continues.

“We took the meeting. My call.”

“Of all the—”

“They accused us of cheating in round three. They also implied—”

“Stop talking now.” Edmondo is pale. That look on his face, it’s not surprise, not shock. It’s fear.

The office dissolves around us. Edmondo’s hands move in swift, intricate patterns, partially obscured by the desk until that dissolves too. What remains is red.

“Take the call,” he says. A new invite comes through from a hidden address. I accept, and after a microsecond stutter, nothing has changed. Edmondo sighs. “This should be more secure. I don’t believe anyone can watch us here. At this moment, we sit in an encrypted lobby reserved for Calliope Cambria’s private business calls.”

Edmondo raises the back of his invisible chair. “Now, tell me exactly what happened. Word-for-word, if you please.”

Barley recounts the talk. She doesn’t leave out a word until coming to the Vogues’ departure. Edmondo listens intently. He raises and furrows an eyebrow several times. Bullshit. I saw that look, before he drew his mask back on. He knows. Maybe he’s known all along.

“I understand you made no deal, then?” Edmondo rubs his wrists. “It should go without saying that you are to bring these matters to me first. This secret rendezvous is an appalling breach of Ranzio protocol and MultiCo regulation. After this season, you are done. Do you understand?” He pauses to let his words sink in. “I will say, however, that refusing the Vogues’ pact makes the whole situation marginally less catastrophic. In the event none of this rotten affair breaches into the public, I expect you Tough Shells will be able to finish out your season in relative peace.”

“Who knows?” I can’t stop myself from saying.

He pretends not to hear, keeping his eyes on Barley. “What will happen now is this: you will continue as before, as if nothing has changed. No one is to mention this incident. If a leak does occur, and the press catch wind before Ranzio, you are to deny everything. You will say you have done nothing in breach of the Broadcast Recreation Corps.”

“We haven’t,” says Sonnet, “That’s not a cover, it’s the actual truth.”

Edmondo ignores him too. “Should irrefutable proof of a suspicious event come to light, you will maintain that it was a quirk in the system. A glitch, that’s all.”

“How could there be evidence?” Sonnet sidles up and leans over the desk, putting himself in Edmondo’s face. “Nothing fucking happened, right?”

“Barley, as captain, I expect you to keep your team in line. Insolence from any member reflects poorly on your leadership, I’m sorry to say.”

Barley grunts in a way that could be construed as affirmation. She leaves Sonnet be.

“We have already occupied this room for too long,” says Edmondo, “Your current instructions will suffice for now. Angela will provide more sophisticated contingencies. I trust you all bear a sufficiently thorough understanding of the situation.”

The call ends. Barley opens a new one immediately.

“What was that?” Fury wracks Sonnet. His narrow shoulders heave. “Treating us like we’re guilty. . .”

“He knew,” Barley says. Validation enters my mostly sour cocktail of emotions.

“Do you think it’s him?” I ask. Sonnet looks at me like I’m deranged.

“No way,” he says, “Edmondo doesn’t care that much. He’s a babysitter.”

“Then maybe someone else at Ranzio,” I suggest. Edmondo knows more than he let on.

“You’re eager to pin the blame on someone,” Sonnet shakes a finger at me, “It was your play, in the garage. And you know your tech better than us. Why are we supposed to trust you again?”

“Enough, Sonnet.” Barley moves between us. Normally I hate it when she backs me up. Today, I’ll make an exception. “Think. Edmondo knew. We can assume he has known for weeks. Ranzio has taken no action against Google, or you, or me.”

“Whatever happened, they’ve ruled out us cheating,” I think aloud.

“So you’re saying we can trust each other, right?” Sonnet pauses, as if contemplating an answer to his own question. “Small problem. One of us has been lying since October. OK, so maybe Google didn’t cheat. Doesn’t mean we’re all good.”

“Would you have told us, Sonnet?” Deliberate or not, Barley hunches so that she’s not looking down at him.

“Doesn’t matter. We’re not talking about a made-up ‘what if.’ We’re talking about what Google actually did. Hey, maybe if we tell Edmondo now, he’ll give you and me a pass. He’ll find out anyway. I mean, you can’t seriously think there’s any privacy in that Ranzio headroom, Barley.”

“I am taking precautions. These conversations are our own.”

“Great, whatever the fuck that means. Don’t think you’re not suspicious too. Disappearing like that, no heads-up. What do we even know about you, other than you’re a pain in—”

“I’m sorry,” I say, because I cannot watch the dream slip away, “I should have told you. We need trust.” —to function as a team, I do not say, considering the outlook. Shouldn’t have said that much. I can see Sonnet’s neurons lighting up as he fills in the rest.

“Ah, yeah, because we’ve got a long career ahead of us. Seriously, what’s trust good for now? You heard the man. We’re done.” His voice is still angry, but tired, too, like ash flaking from a dying fire. “What else is there to say?”

I don’t know.

“The World Tourney goes on,” Barley says, “Take the rest of the day off. Tomorrow, scrimmages start at ten.”

---

I should not be alone. I would like to say that I call Rahmat when the other Tough Shells go offline, or maybe that I go see my dad. Again, I am compelled to honesty, though there are many stories I’d rather tell at this point. Cut to the rivals-to-lovers-to-enemies yarn currently unspooling between Indemne and LadyLuck of the Holtow Adjusters. Rewind to the childhood of Engimo CEO Ichikawa Natsume and watch ambition dawn in her heart as she watches the wetlands dragonflies and wishes she could see as much as they do.

Here is a compromise: I will not go into detail about what I do with the box cutter I should have discarded long ago. I will not number the hours spent curled on the floor of my shower beneath a spigot that stopped steaming well before my skin pruned. I will not explore the potential endings to this story that went through my head, because ultimately alternatives are a lie; there is what happens and what doesn’t.

See, that is honesty. Honesty is not the same as truth. I can’t give you truth. Don’t know if it’s out there, under all the noise. Or maybe it is the noise.

I have deviated enough.

Over the next week, we’re treated to radio silence from Ranzio. Nothing from the Vogues either. Barley doubles the length of our practice sessions, and I don’t hear Sonnet complain once. I don’t say anything either. We play well. Better than before, maybe. No small talk. Nothing that might lead us near sensitive or dangerous subjects. Sonnet does not talk to me when he can help it. For now, the game is all we have in common.

We’re summoned by Angela. She dances around us and spouts pleasantries as if nothing has changed. From her we learn of our media obligations before the next match. Sonnet and I get a minor appearance each outside of team outings. The lion’s share of solo opportunities go to Barley, who apparently has Angela enthralled. One in particular surprises me: a spot on Cashout Guru, where I had my first interview. When I bring this up to Angela, heavily implying the booking might seem desperate, she laughs me off.

“Oh, of course you haven’t been keeping up, with all the work we put you through,” she says, “Cashout Guru’s popularity has surged faster than your own, and that’s no mark against you. In fact, your early appearance on the show is a big reason for its virality, and the people over there know that. Flippo—the host—knows that. You know, lots of people are saying there hasn’t been such a favored team of underdogs since the ‘93 Firebrands. Anyway, I have a sweet deal arranged. A hold on all Bank It! content for the week to give Barley the spotlight she deserves, and we’ll have the questions provided in advance.”

“That’s great, then,” I say. Truthfully, I don’t care much. When I’m not occupied with concerns of how I survive beyond this season, my sights are on the match ahead, and how we survive this next month. We are among legends now. If we’re going to reach the finals, all this drama and conspiracy amounts to petty distractions we cannot afford. The Overdogs alone should terrify us. Skillish is indisputably the best zephyr the game’s ever seen, and while Proc and OppenHyper don’t boast the same raw stats, their teamplay is unrivaled. Their placement in the final round is almost certain. We only need to take second.

The competition, then, comes down to ourselves, the Vogues, and the Adjusters. Our strategy talks have not been so productive lately. Sonnet makes perfunctory comments while Barley runs through information we’ve already absorbed thoroughly. I do what I can to stay spirited in the face of seeming resignation. I want to talk, though I am in no position to pry. I wonder, fleetingly, if Ranzio would fly me in, and Sonnet too. Maybe a meatspace heart-to-heart could set things closer to right. Maybe what’s lacking is the medium.

No, I cannot ask any favors. I have spent my leverage. Now is the time to give Edmondo what he wants and ask nothing in return. Maybe I can scrounge enough currency with him to buy another chance, another “last shot” season. I’ll be lucky if I can keep my job.

Sometime after answering Angela’s summons, I trade shots with a pair of mavens atop a hurtling monorail. The more battered one dives off the locomotive and reaches safety with a splash. Their cockier friend keeps firing wide with the same AKM I carry. Sonnet steals the kill from behind. He punches the dead man’s totem so it launches into the crevices of a western-themed mineshaft far below. We stay on the rail until its next stop, where Barley waits with a cashout station half-deposited at the gateway to an amusement park half-sunk in marsh.

I don’t go outside anymore. I tell Rahmat I am busy with the game, and she says she understands, though she still checks in with emoji-laden messages daily. Pops has given up, I think.

So be it. I’ll lose them both before I lose the Tough Shells.

Barley drops a dome to shield us from an incoming stalwart RPG. It also serves to frustrate a rear ambush from a pack of zephyrs. Sonnet packs the station with breach charges. I slap a gas mine on the side, then follow him to a box office where we can take cover. Barley hurdles the countertop behind me. Outside, three stalwarts clear the pavement. Two put up mesh shields while the third goes for a steal.

“They play like the Adjusters,” Barley says, “Learn from them.”

One totes a sledgehammer, just like Indemne. Close quarters combat’s a no-go unless we prepare accordingly. As we’ve practiced, Sonnet opens with a flashbang. Then he detonates the breach charges, which also trigger my mines. It’s not enough to melt the stalwart’s health pool before he can manage a steal. It doesn’t need to be. We have time to steal back, and this way, he commits. He sits in the toxic air for the last two seconds he needs to complete the steal, and it kills him. His allies are wise enough to spread out. Sonnet catches up to the one with the sledgehammer. He swings in wide, blind arcs. Sonnet keeps to his back and finally, after enough knives to fill a chef’s block, he falls. The other manages to recover and sprays cover fire with an M60.

It’s not the same light machine gun LadyLuck uses, and he’s not nearly as accurate, but it’s a decent simulation. I treat him as if he were dangerous, sticking to cover as I move for a mid-range vantage. Barley cooks a frag and tosses it his way. I open fire, which gets him to drop the gun in favor of his shield. But the grenade’s already fallen behind him, and when it detonates, it shatters the wall of light and takes a sizable chunk of his HP with it. He swaps back to the M60. It’s futile. At this point and at our current range, a maven with an assault rifle’s going to win the damage numbers game ninety-nine percent of the time. He coins, and that seals the wipe. We move on to the final round of this unranked public tourney, along with the team whose mavens sensibly bowed out of our monorail battle and began a quiet deposit in the mouth of a cavernous flume ride, at the edge of a precipice where hollow logs plunge into stagnant green waters. Two of them disconnect before the last round’s over, perhaps not seeing the point in ruining their kill-death ratios against the blades, bombs, and bullets of the fearsome Tough Shells.

The game itself is not noteworthy, yet it will stick in my head as well as any World Tourney match, probably because it is the last round we play before Barley goes off to her promo spot on Cashout Guru.

“Welcome to the show, Barley,” says Flippo, with me and Angela and Sonnet watching from behind a cadre of shutterbugs. He sits across from Barley in a faux recording room. The space is cramped with trinkets and packaged products with their logos positioned toward the cameras. The man himself has not avoided these drastic changes. Flippo has replaced his suit with a tie-dyed v-neck. Gelled multicolor shocks of hair prong his formerly barren head. Enormous effort has gone into making Cashout Guru a more amateurish production. It works, I’m loath to admit. He’s pivoted his posturing to a more tenable angle. Though it was automatically tailored to his dimensions, the suit fit poorly. Nauseating tie-dye, on the other hand, is a perfect fit.

“What a journey, right?” he says, reclining in his headroom chair, the one piece of furniture spared over the course of Cashout Guru’s development, “You might remember, your teammate Google was here with us about five months ago. A lot has changed since then. I mean, let’s face it, the Tough Shells were nobodies going into this season. Now you’re a week away from tussling with the Overdogs for a spot in the finals. What’s going through your head?”

“It is an honor to come this far.” Barley doesn’t change her expression. A note from Angela. Apparently, Barley’s blank face has become a foundational meme in her dedicated fandom. I don’t think she’d be particularly expressive either way.

“Yeah, and how does that make you feel? Come on, Barley, you can’t fool us. We all know you’re a softie, under that ‘tough shell.’ Am I right, dough wranglers?” A button on Flippo’s tabletop squawks and glows green. “Yep, chat’s with me on this one. I mean, you don’t have to say anything you don’t want—”

“That is alright, Flippo,” she interrupts, “I am trying to be more forthcoming.” Angela pumps a fist. Just as rehearsed, then. “The truth is I feel proud. I am proud of myself, for achieving things my parents could never have dreamed. I am proud of my team, for stepping up to every challenge and growing with me. I am proud of my sponsor, Ranzio, for encouraging that growth, and for giving us a second chance. You were right. Last year, we were nothing. We have changed. Today, we are a force the arena has never seen.”

“Big words,” says Flippo, widening his eyes theatrically, “but you might have a point. These last few rounds of play, we’ve seen you tear through big-name teams like the Speed Demons and the Power Houses.”

“The Overdogs are next. ‘Champion’ is a title they have sat on for far too long.”

“Whew, anyone else sweating? You’re kinda scary, Barley, has anyone told you that? Oh, I guess that’s a foreign concept to you, huh? Being scared.”

Barley shakes her head. Angela teeters toward the recording room facade. She is giddy.

“Any good contestant fears,” says Barley, and Angela’s lips move with hers. “I fear every opponent in the World Tourney. I recognize their danger. Fear fuels us. It pushes us to be better, so that we can face those we fear and overcome them. To win is to teach others dread and lighten our own.”

“Damn, you’re not wrong. Heavy stuff.”

“I am a captain. It is our job to consider the ‘heavy stuff.’” Barley’s eye twitches. I’m not convinced that was in the script.

“Oh, totally,” says Flippo, “Now, do you mind if we talk about something on the positive side?”

Again, her eye twitches. “Go on.”

“There’s something I like to ask everyone who comes on the show, just to get more of an idea where you’re coming from. And that is, who inspires you?”

Barley doesn’t respond right away. Her eye twitches twice, and there’s a subtle waver in her lip. I have not seen this before. I do not understand immediately. I do after a few more seconds pass with no response. Barley is agitated. Angela leans forward, jamming two thumbs up where Barley could see them, if she were looking anywhere besides Flippo.

“Ariad,” she answers finally, and there is silence after the room gasps.