Chapter 11

On the way to the library, there was snow on the ground, and more coming down at a steady clip. Four hours of Dewey Decimal System did not improve matters: huge, fat, lazy chunks of snow too large to be called flakes, coating the earth in white, piling up even in the intersections.

James called the arena. The afternoon performance was canceled because the band bus was stuck in a ditch thirty miles south of Newark. No doubt Tokyo Sunrise was a write off as well.

Snow day.

Two hours of it was spent on the fifteen minute trip home. When the radio started talking instead of singing, James turned it off. The best time to work on a project was downtime between other things. Sometimes the pressure of a blank screen staring him in the face disrupted the creative process. Two hours brainstorming in the car was worth a good amount of actual writing.

By the time he got home, two more inches of snow had fallen. The city ground completely to a halt. Most of the plows were still mothballed. It would be morning at least before the side streets like his were cleared.

2:17 PM. Time to get a ton of writing done. And since the business plan was finished, no work projects loomed. James sat at the computer, rubbed his hands together and began to type.

In writing, James was a believer in organic situations. Rather than exhaustively plotting the direction of the story, he tried to bring characters vividly to life and then just throw them into situations, creating a story through interactions. Believable characters with real motivations were the essence of good storytelling; no random plot devices flying out of left field because the author was shepherding things too much. But the organic style came with its own difficulties. Because the characters were in control, the stories never seemed to go where James expected, and many sat half-finished for years, all direction lost.

Today's story felt good. The situation was interesting and the personalities were coming to life. James valued characters with eccentricities. A good-looking, intelligent, affluent and likeable hero, who always knew by the end that Colonel Mustard did it in the Study with the Letter Opener, was never going to have a real personality. The character might achieve popularity through wish fulfillment, but authenticity was more important.

Then again, maybe that unwillingness to compromise principles for success was what left James working four jobs and writing more business plans than stories. Put in those terms, it sounded like failure.

Proud failure, at least.

At twenty minutes to four, James sat back and stretched, the growl in his stomach attesting to having skipped lunch. He pawed through the fridge for something that wasn't long past the expiry date. The first item to satisfy that rather strict condition was a tub of strawberry yogurt that he ate while leaning against the kitchen counter; the room was too small for a table.

He had accomplished a lot. Eight pages was as much as he normally wrote in a week. It might not hurt to relax for a while.

Shattered Land ho.

James came into the world exactly the way he had left it, on his back on the hill. Apparently the park was a designated rest zone, not requiring transport to an inn for the next login. He took a deep breath of air laden with the scent of flowers and leaves, and immediately spewed it back out as his phone began to beep. Whoever was calling, it was as if they had been staring at their phone, waiting for him to log in.

A vidcall. James held the phone up hesitantly. "Casey?"

"Heya Prez!" A brilliant grin and equally brilliant shock of golden hair greeted him with a salute. "Dang, y'all like cuttin it close. Was startin to think ya weren't gonna make it."

"Make it?"

"For the tournament! Start headin here 'n I'll get ya signed up. Hurry dude!"

Casey hung up before James even had a chance to ask where here was, or why on earth he was signing up. After poking at the phone for fifteen seconds, he managed to call back for directions.

As soon as James sighted the destination, he knew he was in trouble.

It was the Colosseum. Not a colosseum. The Colosseum, straight out of Rome. It sundered the sky, a jagged stone curtain 150 feet high at the peak, crumbling in places and all the more imposing for it.  His first absurd thought was to wonder if it constituted some sort of trademark violation; his second was that there weren't many team events likely to be held inside that he would want to be involved in.

A crowd of people was gathering by the main entrance. Before James got there, someone seized his arm in an iron grip.

"What the—?"

James was suddenly being pulled along, so quickly that he had to break into a jog, but he couldn't see who was pulling. It was like a censorship mosaic inside his retina. He let the analytical part of his brain vanish, focusing on the part that would only feel.

"Jaleet?"

No wonder the man was untraceable. Jaleet had some sort of ability that, in a way, was opposite to the one James possessed; he was able to make himself into a non-significant presence, to the extent that even if he grabbed you and started hauling you off, you were only half aware of it.

"How did..." Jaleet began, then subsided. His expression was as blank as ever, but something moved in his eyes. "Perhaps ... yes. You may be useful."

"Useful?"

"We must hurry." Jaleet started off again, giving James no choice but to follow. "Your registration is being seen to by Miss Carter. We must be prepared to begin." He spoke with the carefully perfect diction of a non-native English speaker.

"Begin?"

"Yes."

Dealing with Casey and Jaleet was just like dealing with Donald; all James could do was repeat things until someone told him what the hell was going on.

"Begin what, for God's sake?"

"The tournament," Jaleet replied, concisely and uselessly. "Ah, we've arrived."

***

Casey met them in one of the underground team rooms, a small stone enclosure resembling a Neolithic office cubicle. She greeted James like a long-lost sibling, slapping him on the back and engaging him in a handgrip of the complex manshake variety.

"Awesome! Man, thought we were gonna miss signin up again. Thanks for showin, Prez."

At Casey's beaming and guileless appreciation, James discarded all thought that he had been tricked. These people were just completely hopeless at explaining anything.

"Question," he said.

"Yo!" Casey raised a hand like a child in elementary school, even though she was the one being questioned.

"Can you tell me exactly what we're about to do?"

Casey blinked. "Dintcha get my message?"

"I did."

"Oh. It was on there."  Casey recited it verbatim: "Laurentian CS 3v3 PvP Grand Prix All Brackets Satellite Qualifier."

"I recall."

"Cool, there ya go."

"No, that means nothing to me. Explain."

"Uhh ... like, which part..."

"All of it."

Casey scratched the back of her head, rubbed her chin, looked up into the corners of their cubicle as if the burning answers might be inscribed in a hidden niche, and finally shrugged.

"Allow me." Jaleet's voice was so dry that he was either struggling not to laugh or was as humorless as a hunk of rock. "Laurentian CS refers to the city-state of Laurentia. The tournament is regional, only open to Laurentian affiliates. PvP is the acronym for Player versus Player; 3v3 refers to teams of three against three. All Brackets means that there are no restrictions on entry. Lastly, this tournament is satellite to the Grand Prix championship. Performing well here may reward entry to further tournaments."

At last, an explanation so exhaustive it could have come straight out of a technical handbook. Yet something was still missing.

"Okay. One more question."

"Yo!" said Casey, looking greatly pleased to be of service.

"Teams of three players facing off against each other," James said. "Doing what?"

"We're tryin'a kill 'em, and they're tryin'a kill us."

No wonder Kanade wasn't here. They were already signed up, but it wasn't as if James was bound by chains. He could walk out or log off.

"Last question," James said. "No more after this, I promise."

"Yo-yo!"

"Is it to the death, or can we just knock them out or make them surrender?"

Casey cocked her head quizzically. James could almost read it right off of her face: Why would we want to do that?

"There is no rule which states that combat must be mortal," Jaleet said. "The objective is victory by any means."

"Okay." James looked at Casey, who by now was almost hopping from foot to foot in expectation. "I'm sort of a pacifist like Kanade. I prefer non-violent solutions. Do you know what I mean?"

"You don't like fightin...?"

"Yes."

"Oh..." Casey's shoulders slumped and her eyes turned toward the ground. Her emotions were constantly sprouting from every part of her body. "Dang ... Kana too..." She addressed a far corner of the floor. "It's so fun though ... but I don't wanna make people do stuff they don't like..."

James sighed. "I didn't say I won't join."

Her gaze was drawn back up to his face. "But..."

"My condition is that we do our best not to kill anybody. I realize that will probably hurt our chances. Is that alright?"

Instantly Casey was beaming again, blue eyes like shards of sky and smile like the sun coming out. "I don't care. I won't hit 'em too hard, so ya gotta come, 'kay?"

It was more Jaleet he was concerned about; the man had the look of a cold-blooded killer.

But Jaleet just waved a hand. "I accept this condition."

"Yeah!" Casey jumped into the air with a fist raised like she had already won the tournament. "Wahoo!"

James scratched at his neck. "Don't get your hopes up. I can't fight or use magic. Maybe I can just run around screaming while you two finish them off."

"Just do what ya want, that's what I do," Casey said. "I'll give 'em such a whack on the head!"

"I will flank to attack unexpectedly," Jaleet said. "Do your best to survive until that time."

Nothing had even happened, but James was already grasping the strengths and gaping weaknesses of his team.

Asking them not to kill anyone was pure optimism. It was their own corpses he needed to worry about.

***

The expectation—thanks to a few too many Rome-era gladiator movies—was of a flat, open, sandy arena, but the environment was more complex than that. Stone pillars dotted the grounds in rows. Some of the paths between were recessed and flooded with water. Through mentalist sound-echo analysis, James was able to form a rough picture in his mind, pinpointing routes of attack and choke points for defense. Though useless in a hand-to-hand encounter, as a strategist, at least he wouldn't be a total hindrance.

If there was anyone to strategize with.

Jaleet had already skulked off somewhere, but Jaleet was cunning by nature. Casey was the problem. James tried to briefly explain where the opposition was located and what they were doing, but within half a sentence her eyes were glazing over like a student listening to the history of some ancient empire that she didn't give a crap about.

"There." James pointed, making an executive decision. "Go get 'em, tiger. No killing."

"Roger dodger!"

James monitored the entire conflict just by listening. Jaleet took out one enemy in the back ranks with a thump on the neck. Casey sprinted in at roughly the speed of sound and launched a well-aimed jump kick, hitting her target so hard that the clasp on his breastplate came undone and his armor flew off in all different directions like a comedy skit. That left one opponent, a short and conspicuously fragile looking kid in coke-bottle glasses who surrendered immediately. Given the age-18 restriction, the kid had either hacked the system or was a hereditary dwarf, probably present only because his friends needed a third—which sounded oddly familiar.

There hadn't even been time for James to determine the abilities of the enemy. They now simply had to wait in the team room for a tournament official to confirm their victory.

"Yahoooo!" Casey grabbed James and Jaleet around the shoulders, pulling them into a football style hug-slash-huddle. "That was soooo much fuuuuuun."

Sending a weakling flying into next week with a single kick didn't seem all that exhilarating, but if she was happy, James supposed that was good enough. "How many matches will there be?"

"At most, a further four if we remain victorious," Jaleet answered.

"This is sweeeet," Casey said, balling up her fists and squeezing her eyes shut. "Too bad there's no fans watchin."

"Are there supposed to be people in the stands?"

"There are no measures to prevent spectators from entering," Jaleet said, becoming more and more talkative. Maybe he was in a good mood because he'd knocked somebody out. "However, as this is a minor satellite tournament, there is a lack of interest."

"But if we get to the finals of the Grand Prix there'll be tons'a people!"

"One thing at a time," James said.

***

By the final round, realization had struck.

The assumption James had made that all the other teams were weak was unfair. If the majority of teams were around a certain level of ability, that level was normal by definition.

The ones that were abnormal were his own teammates. They were absurdly strong. Monstrous.

Three victories in a row were the work of mere seconds each. No member of the opposition lasted more than a single hit; several surrendered to avoid being crushed like insects. Doing it hampered by the no-kill restriction spoke to just how ludicrously Casey and Jaleet outstripped their opponents, and that was while fighting every battle two against three.

How many tournaments had Casey wanted to enter but had no one to join with? If not for registration requiring three people, she probably could have won every battle up to now by herself—though that wouldn't have satisfied her. The day's insight into Casey was that her true enjoyment came from celebration with her friends. James could not remember ever seeing a person look as happy as Casey did in the team huddles after the matches. She didn't even care that James wasn't doing a damn thing to help.

Jaleet was as much a mystery as ever. He was capable of holding a conversation when prompted, but he never mentioned anything about himself. He only addressed the specific matter at hand.

Not that James minded. He was a loner himself most of the time. But that left the question of what had made Jaleet want to join in for the tournament—and of why he hung around Donald's unit in the first place, despite always running off to do his own thing, eternally beholden to no one.

"I just sorta noticed, but I like that shirt," Casey said, sitting on the ground with her back against one wall of the cubicle. "What's it say? Hagawhat? Hay-gay...?"

James looked down. He had forgotten to check the day's outfit, having been summoned to Casey's assistance without even a moment to orient. He was in slacks and a long-sleeved shirt, different from the other night, but endowed with the same logo of a metallic heart.

"Ha-ga-NAY no ko-ko-RO," James said.

"It's Japanese, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Nice! What's it mean?"

"It means ... unbreakable heart."

"So cool," Casey said, eyes wide. "Dang, I want one."

"An unbreakable heart?"

"No, duh! That shirt."

Before James could think of a suitable reply, an arena official motioned for them to follow.

Time for the last battle.

***

"I got one word for ya," Donald said. "Anti-climax."

"That's two words," James said. Technically, it was a compound word, but explaining would probably explode Donald's brain. For a renowned genius, certain things were beyond his grasp.

"Fuck man, whatever. I'm sayin, anti-climax. Are you sure those jokers were the second best team in this dump?"

"So it seems."

Donald had watched the finals along with a few other spectators, the first time James could remember being cheered for by anyone. Not a bad feeling. Though their grand victory was rapidly being disparaged into nothingness.

"That's a damn disgrace," Donald fumed. "A friggin disgrace. Holy Christ."

The final match had been no more notable than the previous four. It was The Casey and Jaleet Show starring Casey and Jaleet, with James in the role of supporting cast and uncredited extras in the roles of Defeated Enemy One, Two and Three. Less than five minutes had passed since leaving the arena and already James had forgotten their faces, if indeed he had seen them at all.

His swelling ego took a final lap of glory around his brain before acknowledging once again that he had contributed nothing to his team's success. At best, one or two opponents had hesitated slightly upon noticing James standing motionless out in the open. A daring trap—yes, exactly as planned.

"Where do these people get off even showin up? I'm sayin go home and don't register again till you train for a hundred years."

What Donald was really mad about was missing another opportunity to participate. Why he wouldn't have joined Casey before was an obvious question in retrospect. But as Donald had explained in great detail after the fact, almost all the tournaments were scheduled to start early in the day; Donald was thus rarely available due to the inhumane work hours to which he subjected himself; this virtual world was an unfair place in which only the psychologically damaged could find happiness (said by the person most responsible for designing it); etcetera ad infinitum. Jaleet had vanished into the ether and Casey had been called away by tournament officials, leaving only James with no viable excuse for sneaking away.

"Sorry guys," Casey said on return, saving James in the middle of another Marshian irrelevancy. "Paperwork sucks ... but it's so awesome, goin to the Grand Prix. Oh maaaaaan, I'm so pumped." She was almost vibrating at the molecular level.

"Grats on finally gettin it done," Donald said. "Although against these world class failures it ain't an accomplishment."

"Aww, thanks big D," Casey said, apparently finding a compliment in there somewhere. "Hey, let's throw a party 'n celebrate!"

"I never say no to beer and wings," Donald said, then rubbed one steel-plated hand against his chin. "But it's Wednesday, ain't it?"

Casey looked blank. "Uh huh."

"Don't you got practice?"

Casey's jaw dropped. "Oh, shit! I mean, dang. Dang!" She turned to dash off, then spun back toward James, light bulb almost visibly popping on. "Hey, uh, wanna come...?"

***

Through a large, double-paned window, James and Casey watched Kanade sing into a foam-covered microphone that dangled from the ceiling. When Kanade finished the take, she finally glanced out, then walked over and released the vacuum seal on the door.

"Oh, Casey. Nice of you to join me. I'm sorry you had to interrupt your..." Kanade's eyes traveled to James and gave him the once-over, then swung back. "...outing just for the sake of something like band