“The . . .” The guard blinked, scanning their IDs and then reading something off his djinni. “You’re late,” he said.
“The train was delayed,” said Sahara.
“The competitor entrance is on the other side,” he said, gesturing down the length of the building, but Anja cut him off.
“You already said we were late!” she shouted. “Just let us in!”
“I’m sending a message to your handlers,” said the guard, opening the door. “Turn right when you get inside, and look for someone in a red jacket.”
“Thank you!” said Marisa, as Sahara shoved everyone through the door. They sprinted down the hall, and saw a woman in a red jacket beckoning them to the far end. Marisa was completely out of breath by the time they reached her.
“You’re late,” the woman snapped.
“Train,” Marisa gasped.
“Follow me.” They followed the woman through another short hallway, and into a waiting room where a swarm of makeup artists were frantically dabbing powder on the faces of the other five teams. The woman called out to the nearest makeup tech, “These five too, as quick as you can.”
“I don’t wear makeup,” Fang mumbled.
“It’s for the stage,” said Sahara. Her eyes were fierce and eager. “The lights will wash us out, so we need makeup to look normal.”
“I don’t need makeup to look normal,” said Fang, even softer than before.
“It’s just a stage thing,” said Sahara with a snarl. “Get over it!”
“This is it,” said Jaya. “We’re really here. This is really happening.”
“Unless Chaewon stops it,” said Marisa.
The makeup tech came and started working on their faces, using a biomimetic powder that adapted its own color to match their different skin tones. Fang let her work, but obviously didn’t enjoy it.
Three people in red jackets started guiding the players out into a waiting area behind the stage. The one who’d met them first came back. “You five stay at the end of the line, and wait for the signal from the stage manager.”
“Is there a problem?” asked Marisa.
“Only if you don’t do what I tell you,” said the woman, and moved on to wrangle more of the crowd. The girls got into the back of the line, and stood in the dark behind a curtain while the crowd filed into their seats. Exactly on time, a booming voice announced the beginning of the event, and introduced Su-Yun Kho. The conference center erupted in applause.
“I think I’m going to pee myself,” said Marisa.
“Is everyone ready for some Overworld?” shouted Su-Yun. The crowd went wild, and she introduced the day’s bracket, with each team running out from behind the curtain as their names were read. “For our first match today, we have the Pixel Pwnies playing for ZooMorrow, and Rick Stranger and Stranger’s Rangers playing for Vision Mobile.”
“That is a crazy long name,” said Anja. “Is that a reference to something I’m supposed to know?”
“Nothing I recognize,” said Marisa.
Anja shrugged. “Americans are weird.”
“For our second match,” said Su-Yun, “the mighty Cereal Killers, playing for Du/Lin Energy, and the up-and-coming Get Rekt Nerd, playing for Zhang.”
“Get Rekt Nerd aren’t up and coming,” said Fang. “They’re the best team in Nigeria, which pretty much makes them the best team in Africa.”
“It’s a joke,” said Marisa.
They shuffled closer to the curtain as each team ran out onto the stage. Soon it was only them and the Thunderbolts.
“Wait a minute,” said Sahara. “There should be another team here. Aren’t there four matches today?”
“For our third match,” said Su-Yun Kho, “I have some very bad news. MotherBunny, who were supposed to have a bye, have made the decision to excuse themselves from the tournament for personal reasons.”
“Tā mā de,” said Fang.
“‘Personal reasons,’” said Anja. “Getting your legs broken by a paramilitary thug is a ‘personal reason,’ apparently.”
“There’s no way Su-Yun knows about that,” said Sahara. “She wouldn’t be a part of this if she knew.”
“But now!” said Su-Yun. “Our final match of the day! Please allow me to introduce the Thunderbolts, playing for Johara!” The Thunderbolts ran through the curtain, one of the youngest teams at the tournament, and one of the only all-male teams as well. Marisa couldn’t see what was happening, so she blinked into her streaming app and connected to the vidcast feed. Su-Yun put her arm around KneeCap, the Thunderbolt General. “Are you ready?”
“Y-yes,” said the boy, obviously too nervous to think with Su-Yun’s arm around his shoulder.
“You know who you’re playing against, right?” The expression on Su-Yun’s face was impish, delighting in dragging out the announcement.
“Um, yeah,” said the boy.
“How many of you saw that video from Saturday night?” asked Su-Yun. “The team that jumped off the seventy-fifth floor of this very building, and rode some nulis all the way down?” The crowd roared in approval, and Sahara clenched her fist in victory.
“Yes!” she said.
“Are you ready,” said Su-Yun, “for the craziest team in the tournament: the unpredictable Cherry Dogs!”
Sahara frowned at the sudden label of “craziest,” but the stage manager hissed at them to go, and Sahara pasted on a smile and led the way through the curtain, striding across the stage like she owned it. The lights were bright, and the crowd was screaming, and Marisa felt like her heart was going to explode from excitement.
Su-Yun bowed to Sahara, then took her by the hand and pulled her closer to the floating microphone nuli. “This is Sahara Cowan, the Cherry Dog General. Tell me, Sahara: Whose idea was that insane dive? Yours?”
“That was all KT Sigan,” said Sahara, shining her perfect beauty-queen smile on the audience. “We can’t thank them enough for their dedication to this cause, and when they contacted us about this incredible stunt we couldn’t help but say yes.”
“I love you,” said Fang, and then immediately turned bright red, her eyes wide open in horror.
“I don’t think she meant to say that out loud,” whispered Anja.
“Okay!” said Su-Yun, glancing at Fang uncertainly and then looking back at the audience. “Well. Sahara—all the Cherry Dogs—all the players we have today: Are you ready to rock this thing?”
“Bring it on,” said Sahara.
“Let’s play some Overworld!” shouted Su-Yun, and the crowd roared, and the red jacket brigade started pointing the players toward their VR chairs. Marisa followed her team, trying to stay calm, and couldn’t help but notice one face on the far side of the stage, staring at them with unmasked hatred: Chaewon. Marisa avoided eye contact, but Anja waved at her cheerfully.
“We’re up against Get Rekt Nerd,” Sahara whispered, picking up the cable for her VR chair. “That sucks.”
“We’re playing the Thunderbolts,” said Marisa.
“I mean for the vidcasts,” said Sahara. “Our game and theirs are streaming at the same time, and then the two American teams will be later by themselves. We want people to watch us.”
“We’re the famous nuli dive team,” said Jaya. “Who’s not going to watch us?”
“You want to stay famous?” asked Anja. “Play crazy.” She plugged her cable into the back of her neck, and sat down in the reclined VR chair. Her eyes were already zoned out, but she thrust one fist defiantly in the air. “Cherry Dogs forever!”
“She’s right,” said Sahara. “We have to win, but we have to win flashy.”
“What’s our strategy?” asked Marisa.
“Log in first,” said Sahara. “Sigan’s probably monitoring everything we say in-game, but at least the Thunderbolts won’t hear us.”
Marisa slid the cable into the back of her neck, and settled in the VR chair. It was so much nicer than the ones she’d used in gaming cafes, and of course miles ahead of he
r bed, where she lay down when she played at home.
A message popped up from Bao: Good luck. I’m watching from a sports bar down the street.
Thanks, sent Marisa. We’ll need it.
You’ll destroy them, sent Bao.
Marisa smiled, and blinked, and entered Overworld.
“All right,” said Sahara, standing in their team lobby. “Everyone’s here.” Even on the private server, they had access to their own game accounts, mirrored from the Overworld network, which meant they had their own lobby and their personalized collection of avatars and costumes. Marisa chose an old one from her library, a kind of schoolgirl uniform with a pleated miniskirt. She didn’t wear it often, but against an all-male team it couldn’t hurt to offer a little extra distraction. It looked like the others had chosen the same strategy: Sahara wore the thigh-high slit version of her classic tight red dress, Jaya was in a flowing, diaphanous gown that showed plenty of cleavage, and Anja had gone all in with an avatar that looked like a dark blue bodysuit, with all the feminine curves but none of the exterior features that would make it into actual nudity.
“Oh come on,” said Fang, who was wearing her favorite “ragged assassin” costume. “What are we, the T&A Team now?”
“Every little bit helps,” said Sahara. “We only have a moment before the countdown starts, so we need to plan quickly: I say we go for a double Sniper build on the roof, with Jaya and me heavy on the crowd control.”
“I like it,” said Anja. “Mari, let’s take Flankers, so we can stay mobile and concentrate our fire.”
“Ándale,” said Marisa.
“No,” said Fang. “You want to concentrate fire, and you want to surprise the other team? Let’s use the Feather Fall build.”
“What?” asked Sahara. “You mean that gimmicky stealth build we played against last week?”
“Exactly,” said Fang. “They don’t know us, and they probably don’t know Seoul Draft. Even if they ran across the Feather Fall trick while practicing, like we did, they won’t be expecting it from this weirdo American team that came out of nowhere.”
“If they’ve run across it at all, we’re dead,” said Jaya. “If they see the trick coming, it’s too easy to stop.”
“It’s worth the risk,” said Anja. “They’re a good team, and we’re tired and undertrained. It’s not as if we have a better shot with a more traditional loadout.”
Sahara considered for a moment, interrupted by a five-second countdown: the first phase of the draft was about to start. “Okay,” she said, “we’ll try it. This only works if they don’t bring any anti-stealth, so—” The timer finished counting down, and suddenly their team lobby disappeared, replaced by the powerset selection lobby. Another timer appeared in the corner, counting down from two minutes. “Heartbeat, wait for wave two,” said Sahara quickly, switching over to call signs. “If we get lucky and their first-phase picks have no anti-stealth, Heartbeat will spec as a Spotter with Air Buff; if they do bring Stealth, Heartbeat goes for ranged damage and we play double Sniper.”
“Got it,” said Marisa. The girls picked their powersets, finishing just before the timer ended, and they looked at the display to see what the Thunderbolts had chosen.
“Double Tank,” said Fang. “Their General and their Guard both have huge defense.”
“But nobody has stealth detection,” said Sahara. She smiled hungrily. “We can do it. Heartbeat, take Air Buff and . . . Ice Control. We can’t kill their center line, but we can freeze them in place and kill everyone else. Fan out and play normal, and move on my signal.”
Marisa chose her powersets, and when the timer finished they saw that the enemy Sniper’s powersets were just standard stuff, with no surprises. They waited for the final countdown while the map loaded, and then suddenly it appeared around them: dark metal walls, pipes on the ceiling, and bright red lights that flashed in the shadows. It was the Research Lab—the same layout as every other map, as always, but themed to look like a secret government laboratory, swarming with escaped, plague-ridden zombies. Anja started running, her blue skin flashing purple in the warning lights, and Marisa followed—down the hall, up the stairs, and onto the roof, where they got to work immediately killing zombies and racking up cash. Marisa, as the Spotter, kept her eye out for the enemy, and soon enough saw them on the far side of a wide ravine—it was a street in the medieval city map, and a tree-lined path in the forest map, but here it was a jagged hole blasted into the laboratory, exposing the main hall below. Sahara and Jaya were already down there, leading their AI minions and trading casual shots with the enemy agents—nothing serious, just probing their defenses, watching to see how they would react. Far below them, in the sewer level, Fang would be prowling through the darkened substructure killing zombies and hunting the enemy Jungler.
The Thunderbolts played aggressively, pushing hard against the Cherry Dog turrets, and leading charges against their defenses. They even made an early run against the vault, trying to steal their money, but Fang attacked from behind and almost killed one before he trapped her in a patch of sticky webbing and made his escape. By about eight minutes into the match they’d managed to gain slightly more ground than normal, with only a handful of lag issues, but then Anja killed a superzombie and raised the last bit of money they needed for their stealth kits.
“Everyone grab a kit,” said Sahara, her voice crackling over the in-game radio. “Be discreet about it, so they don’t know what you bought, and then Yīnyĭng, you go and sit on their vault—don’t attack, stay invisible, and watch their total. As soon as it drops low, right after they spend it all on something big and expensive, you give the word and the rest of us will go dark and race to the roof. That’ll give us as much time as possible before they can buy some stealth goggles and fight back.”
“I’m on it,” said Fang. They bought their stealth kits and went back to game as normal, still playing as nonconfrontationally as possible, waiting for Fang’s signal.
“Their Guard just came back to shop,” said Fang. “Get ready.”
“Everyone hide and go dark,” said Sahara. “Gather on the roof.”
Anja and Marisa hid behind a ventilation shaft, stealthed, and then ran out the other side. The enemy Sniper and Spotter didn’t notice them at all. Soon Sahara and Jaya joined them, and they moved into position. The Thunderbolts were just starting to look like they’d noticed the Cherry Dogs were gone.
“The vault is drained,” said Fang.
“Yīnyĭng, wait in the city for our second ambush,” said Sahara. “Everyone else: attack!”
The four of them dropped stealth and blitzed the enemy Sniper, using their four-to-one advantage to drop him almost instantly. The Spotter got a few hits in before realizing exactly how badly he was outnumbered, and then tried to run, but Marisa slowed him down with a freeze ray and they finished him off.
“The rest of their team is freaking out,” said Fang. “They’re running back to the nexus—looks like they’ve figured it out.”
“Gather close,” said Marisa, and then hit her team with the Feather Fall buff. They all jumped down through the ravine in the ceiling, letting the Thunderbolts run and focusing instead on the turrets, dropping two while the other team regrouped.
“That was good,” said Sahara. “Think we can get one more ambush?”
“We need to hit them close to home,” said Fang. “Stop them from farming any more gold, so they can’t buy anti-stealth goggles.”
“Don’t waste time, Yīnyĭng,” said Sahara. “If we spend all our time stopping them from earning gold, we’re not earning gold either. We do another ambush.”
“Fine,” said Fang, but Marisa could tell she wasn’t happy about it. They dropped back into stealth and set another ambush, but only dropped two enemy agents this time. The Thunderbolts recovered quickly, and within minutes the Cherry Dogs were on their back feet again.
“Great,” said Sahara. “We had one trick and we blew it—now we’re stuck with subpar powersets
in a straight-up fight.”
“I told you we needed to stop them from buying new gear,” said Fang.
“And I told you to stop complaining and do your job,” said Sahara.
Marisa opened a private channel to Fang: “I’m glad we finally have the old in-your-face Fang back again, but you need to be in Sahara’s face a little less.”
“She’s making bad calls,” said Fang.
“Just fight the Thunderbolts instead of each other,” said Marisa. “We have a—oh crap.” It was her turn to be ambushed, and the enemy attacked her viciously. She managed to keep Anja alive, but died in a sudden burst of lag that slowed her connection to an agonizing crawl. She didn’t even see herself die—one minute the game froze, and the next she was floating helplessly in black space, waiting to respawn.
They were going to lose; she could feel it. They needed a better strategy.
A thought occurred to Marisa: if the whole tournament was being played on private Sigan hardware, closed off to any internet connection, that meant that whoever was messing with the lag speed was directly connected to the same hardware. Could she find him? She blinked out of the VR interface and into her djinni’s file manager, looking for the local file system. She found it . . .
. . . it was Gamdog 4.1.
Marisa frowned, and looked more closely. The security was strong, but did the buffer overflow still work? She tried it, and got in.
“Santa vaca,” she breathed. “We’re inside the airgap.”
“Heartbeat!” yelled Sahara, and Marisa snapped to attention, blinking back into Overworld to find herself still floating in the blackness of death.
“I’m still dead?” she said. “Why haven’t I respawned by now?”
“You did,” snarled Sahara. “And then you stood there like a blowhole and got killed again when they raided our nexus!”
“Oh my gosh,” said Marisa, putting her hand over her mouth in shock. “I’m so sorry.”
“What in the hell were you doing!”
Marisa shook her head. “I was—”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Fang. Marisa saw that she and Anja were also dead, which meant Jaya was out there all by herself. “We’re going to lose in about ten seconds—they’re trashing our vault.”