JoshuaCole374
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Chapter 35: Games We Play
🕑 Added 2023-10-04 12:15:00 +0000 UTCI thrust my hand forward. Air and Water curled together and rippled before me, moving, changing – cutting. It didn’t matter how big the monster was, how tough its hide. An attack like that was how industrial diamonds were shaped.
It wasn’t sufficient to say that I’d already won; the only question had ever been my willingness to use such power against another living thing.
“You already used Maelstrom Cut,” Miguel said.
I blinked at my cards. I had, in fact, turned my ultimate technique face-down. Without a way to refresh it, I couldn’t use it again until the end of the adventure. “Shit. My bad. I guess I’ll...”
I studied the table. My miniature, Lena’s, and our co-host Yvonne’s all clustered in one zone, along with the snake-like monster I’d expected to bisect with my ultimate. The figure belonging to Big Charlie, our other host, was a zone away and surrounded by – what were the unpainted miniatures representing in this scene? Cultists? Zombies?
I tapped my cards. “I probably shouldn’t have blown that in the first scene, huh?”
Miguel, the bottom half of his face hidden behind his gamemaster’s screen, said nothing.
“Fine. Clouded Waters.” I pushed one of my basic cards forward and rolled my dice. Decent result.
Yvonne and Big Charlie exchanged glances.
“I see,” Miguel said. I heard him scribble something behind the screen. “Maybe the second time will be the charm, where status effects are concerned. Meanwhile, the deep ones try to pull Otella under the water.”
Deep ones. Fish people. Right. That’s what Big Charlie’s character was being mobbed by.
Miguel reached around the screen to roll his dice. Big Charlie winced at the result and slid his character into an even less favorable zone.
“Lena?” Miguel asked.
Her eyes snapped up at the sound of her name. She pushed her phone away. Checking on the status of our video? We’d sent the wiki team my footage, Lena’s, and, to my surprise, Zhizhi’s. I figured she’d only filmed me to convince herself I wasn’t going to kidnap Albie, but nope. She really did send the file. Once the wiki team edited the video, we would upload it to YouTube, Erin would post the Reactions page on the wiki, and we’d link the two.
From what they’d said, the editing wouldn’t be done until tomorrow. Nonetheless, Lena and I both checked at every break.
And sometimes when we didn’t have a break. Lena scanned the table. “I’ll, uh. Can I hold my action in this? I can’t.”
Miguel looked between us. “I think maybe it’s time we stopped for a bit.”
“In the middle of a scene?” Lena shook her head. “It’s okay. I’ll dial in.”
“We both will,” I said.
“And yet,” Miguel said, “I need a smoke, so you’ll dial in without a gamemaster. Unless our hosts have changed their minds about me indulging in their garage?”
“Nope,” Yvonne said. She and Big Charlie hosted our weekly game, in part because they rented a property big enough to have a garage. Miguel might be the game master, but the house rules belonged to the hosts.
He shrugged. “You see how it is?”
“I thought you were trying to quit,” Yvonne said.
“Well.” He took a cigarette out and tapped it on the side of the table. “Trying.”
He stood up and walked to the door.
“How about we whip up a quick dinner,” Big Charlie said. The other reason the couple hosted was because they were short order cooks. Lena, Miguel and I were not about to pass up restaurant-quality food.
“That would be awesome,” Lena said. “We’ll get our heads in the game, promise.”
“Do you two want some help?” I asked the hosts.
Yvonne looked over her glasses. “When you learn to cook, maybe.”
She and Big Charlie headed for the house, Miguel for the backyard. He paused in the doorway. “Why don’t you guys join me?”
“And get smoke all over me?” Lena asked. “Pass.”
“I’ll wait to light up.”
My eyebrows rose.
Lena hung her head. “We really fucked up the game, huh?”
“Is it so bad that I want to talk to my friends?” Miguel waved his unlit cigarette. He watched us watch it. “You really did.”
“Ugh.” I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “Sorry, man. We’ve got... a lot of shit going on.”
“I can tell. The question is, which is it?” He stepped outside.
Lena and I remained seated.
What part of – everything – did Miguel mean? Distractions piled on and merged with each other. The video; had we done a good enough job? Could anyone? Third Eye’s future. Getting Lena a Reactant. Getting more for both of us. Albie’s secrets. Lena’s reaction to Albie.
Above all, Albie’s face just before she drove away.
Whatever he might say, Miguel couldn’t know most of that. It spoke to how many times he’d surprised us over the years that I still wanted to know if he’d guessed some of it.
I glanced at Lena. “We’ll never find out what he meant if we don’t follow.”
“And if we wait too long?” She mimed puffing on a cigarette.
We grabbed our coats and joined him in the yard.
Miguel stood with his back to us, looking up at where the stars would’ve been if clouds hadn’t covered them. “The way I see it – and my insight is never wrong – you’re afflicted in one of two ways.”
“Here we go,” Lena muttered.
“Either the two of you have gotten embroiled in some romantic drama –”
“Come on, man,” I said.
“Drama?” Lena laughed. “Couldn’t be us. It doesn’t bother me at all when Cam picks up girls in front of me.”
“Exactly.” I furrowed my brow. “Wait, what?”
“Hey, Miss.” I really hoped Lena’s impression of my voice sucked. I didn’t sound that slimy. Right? “Why don’t you send me some useless footage that will never show up in my YouTube video? All I need is your number and your name.”
“You think that’s what I was doing with Zhizhi?”
Lena glared anywhere except at me. “You memorize her number, too?”
“I was trying,” I said, “to make sure we didn’t look like kidnappers.”
All the aggression slipped off her. “... Oh.”
I touched her shoulder. “Didn’t you notice she was weirded out by us playing with Albie?”
She looked at my hand, then away again. “I don’t pay a lot of attention to the moods of random-ass joggers.”
“Kidnappers, eh?” Miguel turned to face us. “I can tell you have a story you simply must tell me. Some time. Alas, as Cameron didn’t appear to realize how deep in his mouth he’d placed his foot this time, I can’t imagine that’s all that has the two of you not paying attention to my game.”
Lena whirled on him. “So what’s your other theory, genius?”
“You’ve gotten sucked into a new game,” he said, “and are now no-lifing it.”
Lena hugged her arms. I folded mine.
“This, neither denies.” Miguel snorted. “Perhaps you’re in the Third Eye beta?”
I wondered what would happen if we introduced him to Erin. They could do those dumb mental battles you get in anime or the Robert Downey Jr. Holmes movies. “How’d you know?”
He smirked just long enough to annoy me. “You both tweeted about it.”
“No way,” I said. “I haven’t touched my public-facing socials in... a while.”
Lena nodded. “I only signed up to follow cat pictures.”
“Wise,” Miguel said, “but in fact, we all three did. It was part of what you agreed to permit the app access to.”
Location data, camera access. Access to our social media apps, too? What else had we signed away when we clicked through Third Eye’s seemingly boilerplate EULA?
More importantly –
“You were a Third Eye backer?” I asked.
“For my sins,” Miguel said.
“Oh, shit, man! That’s awesome.”
Lena grabbed his hand. “We should team up!”
“Would it were so.” He smiled down at Lena, then, gently, one at a time, began to pull her fingers away. “The truth is, I never actually got the chance to play.”
“You ended up in the bottom 1%,” I said.
“I was busy the day the beta started, so I never signed in.” He patted Lena’s hand and stepped away. “The first time I turned the app on, I saw a message saying what percentage would be kicked, then a message I was among their number. Not a great first impression, but the UI was so shit, I didn’t think I was missing much.”
“Still,” Lena said, “that really sucks.”
Miguel shrugged. “They didn’t promise any kind of beta or early access in the Kickstarter, so I have no room to complain.”
“Hopefully the beta won’t run that long,” I said.
“From what I’ve read,” Miguel said, “I’m not sure I wish to rejoin. The AR aspect was never what drew me in, and that’s all anyone talks about.”
I wished he didn’t have a point. I’d gotten so caught up in what we could do in Third Eye, I’d lost track of how far it diverged from what I hoped the game would be. “Maybe they’re saving the ARG stuff for full release. You can’t exactly run the same mystery twice.”
“I wonder. The truth is, I do not feel like I’m particularly impaired in playing the part I wanted to. If anything, the players who haven’t been ‘kicked out’ are ignoring it. Have you seen the state of the wiki?” He waved his unlit cigarette. “Disgraceful. A bunch of empty numbers.”
“It’s great for the AR part of the game.” Lena jabbed her finger at him. “Sounds like you’re jealous.”
Miguel tried to fence his cigarette against her finger, but she snatched her hand away. He chuckled. “If you say so, I’ll try to believe it.”
“So what about Third Eye interests you?” I asked. “You wouldn’t have talked about it this much if you either didn’t care or were pissed about it.”
“Did you hear about the ‘physical signup bonus’?”
“Hear about it?” Lena batted the cigarette away. “I got one.”
Miguel’s eyebrow rose. He reached into his pocket for his lighter and raised the cigarette to his lips. Around it, he said, “Why don’t we play card games the rest of the night.”
“You don’t think we can get our shit together?” Lena asked. “Give us some credit, man. We appreciate you running the game. We want to give it our best shot.”
“And I am always delighted to be appreciated, especially by you.”
Lena backed up a step.
“However,” Miguel said, “I think right now the two of you should keep your minds focused on the game that you’re primarily playing. Or, perhaps, on finally solving the problems in your lives, but that’s too much to ask.”
“We’re not that bad,” I said.
Lena nodded. “We’re not!”
He turned away. “The game, then.”
“You think the amulets are the key to the ARG side?” I asked.
“They’re certainly a fascinating story, yeah?” His lighter flicked and a plume of smoke appeared over his head. “And the biggest mystery so far.”
“We freaked out about the one Lena got the first night, but it hasn’t really been relevant to the game since then.” I glanced at her. “Where did you even put it?”
“I left it hanging over my bed,” she said.
Miguel chuckled. “A dreamcatcher.”
“Heh, could be.” Lena smiled. “When I was a kid my parents got me an actual dreamcatcher. It was pretty cool. Although it didn’t seem to work.”
“And your amulet?” Miguel asked.
Her smile ebbed. “Doesn’t work either.”
“A pity.” He took a long drag on his cigarette, sighed, and knelt to stab it out on the sidewalk. He rose and offered Lena his hand. “I would not normally be so forward – not with you, anyway – but would you mind terribly if I came over tonight?”
“Mind? Well. I mean, we had to cancel our Netflix last year, so we’d have to skip straight to chill.” She looked away, which meant at me, and tried for a saucy smile. Abruptly, her shoulders stiffened. “Hey, what do you mean, ‘not with me?’ What’s wrong with me?”
“Not a thing,” Miguel said. “There are some people it would be unkind to flirt with. One must wait for them to flirt with you.”
I glared at him. Years ago, before I first introduced Lena to the group that became this group, before Big Charlie met Yvonne and when there was a Little Charlie so his nickname made sense, I’d warned Miguel that hitting on Lena, even as a joke, might make her uncomfortable. He’d sworn off it.
I figured Lena could more than take it these days, but Miguel had never been released from his oath. We were all big enough dorks to take that shit seriously.
Lena pressed her hands together. “I can’t even tell if you’re insulting me or complimenting me.”
“It’s better to think of me as an observer of the wonderful things in this world,” Miguel said. “You don’t complement the sunrise, it is itself.”
“And this,” I asked, “doesn’t count as hitting on her?”
He grinned. “Nope.”
I sighed. “Why do you really want to be invited over, Miguel?”
“I want to examine the amulet,” he said. “And if you’ll forgive me, there will be neither any Netflix – though we could use my password – nor any chill. I believe in a simple life, in which you don’t mix business and pleasure.”
“Bummer,” Lena said. I was pretty sure she just wanted to wind me up after the thing with Zhizhi.
Pretty sure.
More importantly, though, Miguel was a cybersecurity expert. I suspected he made more than the rest of our gaming group combined. “If this is business,” I said, “we can’t afford your rates.”
“Even pro bono business is business, Cameron.”
Lena frowned. “You’re worried my amulet is a cybersecurity issue?”
“It’s a mysterious object that someone thought was worth very expensively sending to the homes of a great many players around the world.” He flashed the kind of smile we usually saw looming over his gamemaster screen. Right before our characters regretted the life choices we’d made for them. “How are you not worried?”
