Gamer Army Read online

  “Kid, are you serious?!” Dad patted Rogan on the back. “That’s awesome!”

  Mom wrapped Rogan in a big hug. She had finished what she was working on and heard most of what Rogan said about the contest. “RoRo! This is wonderful! We have to celebrate!”

  Later that night, Rogan’s family enjoyed pizza and soda as they chatted excitedly about the contest, and his parents went over the fine print of the contracts and liability waivers that had been sent to Rogan’s inbox.

  Rogan’s mom put down the tablet. “It all looks legitimate. Of course, I’ll be making some calls tomorrow with more questions. But I guess my biggest concern is this vague language in paragraph seventeen, subsection C, which talks about how parents will have relatively little contact with their children during the contest.”

  Rogan was about to point out that they rarely hung out a ton anyway when his father spoke up.

  “That’s just because they need to maintain secrecy so there aren’t too many spoilers for the reality show. Subsection D lists emergency contact numbers and makes it pretty clear we can get in touch with Rogan if there is any serious problem.” He chuckled. “Wow. The William J. Culum. Atomic Frontiers: Ride Technology into the Future.”

  Mom frowned. “You’d be so far away, RoRo. The first time away on your own. Are you sure you’re ready?”

  Rogan rolled his eyes. Was he ready? He was twelve, not two! And he’d been on his own plenty of times when his parents were busy in digi-space. He had his own apartment. Practically.

  “Yes!” Rogan said, a little too loudly. “Yes, I’m ready for this. Please. This is a gamer’s dream. I was born for this.”

  Dad laughed. “Rogan, you are absolutely my son. I would have given anything for a chance like this when I was your age. Heck, I wish I could be in this tournament now. Don’t worry, buddy. We just need to check on a few things, but I think this will work out.”

  “Really?” Rogan’s insides leapt like Mario on a springboard.

  “Really!” Dad said.

  “Probably,” said Mom.

  “Most likely,” Dad said.

  “Thank you!” said Rogan. “Thank you so much!”

  Mom checked her tablet. “It’s getting late. I need to meet with some Korean activists in Virtual City, and you should get to bed. More about this in the morning. Brush your teeth, and don’t forget to run your updates.”

  Rogan went off to get ready for bed, though he doubted he’d be able to sleep. He washed his face. Then he reached behind his right ear and pulled back the synthflesh cap to reveal the data port into which he plugged the cable from the maintenance module. Software updates for his neural electrical stimulation implant ran automatically while he brushed his teeth. Fortunately, the maintenance module connected to the hypernet so he could still run his updates while away at the contest. Since the implant had been installed, he hadn’t had a single seizure like the ones he used to get. The device worked far better than the old primitive drugs, but his doctor always said keeping the software up to date was essential.

  After about thirty seconds, the red light on the module switched to green, letting him know he could disconnect and close up. He pulled the data cable out of the port in his head with a slight scrape-click, spit, rinsed, put his toothbrush away, and was ready for bed.

  Rogan returned to his room, his IRL room, and lay against a pile of pillows on his bed under his Call of Duty: Alien Wars poster. He tried playing a quick round of Castle Crushers on his tablet, but couldn’t concentrate. He gave up after too many of his catapult shots sailed too far.

  He set the tablet down on his chest and closed his eyes. All he could do was replay the events of the day in his mind over and over. Had all of that really happened? Had William Culum really showed up at his apartment door? Was he really invited to the best video game contest in history?

  It was all so incredible. If he won this, nobody could ever ignore him again.

  Rogan had just begun to drift toward sleep when his tablet pinged with an incoming message. He picked it up and tapped in.

  Shaylyn: Guess what I just did!!!

  Ugh. The last thing he wanted was his worst video game enemy cutting in on his perfect night, to brag about some cool thing her new level had unlocked. Well, this time, Rogan would be the one bragging. He laughed. She’d freak when she heard his awesome news.

  I have something to tell YOU, he started typing, just before her next message popped up.

  Shaylyn: I’m heading to the Laser Viper Final Challenge! Quarter of a million bucks and one million game credits! All mine!

  Rogan’s sophisticated tablet was worth a lot of money—money that his parents probably wouldn’t be willing to spend again all too soon. That fact was the only thing that prevented him from smashing it into his wall at that moment. He had tried so hard to be rid of this girl, to beat her in game after game, to leave her in his digital dust. Shaylyn was the Bowser to his Mario, the Ganon to his Link, the Covenant to his Master Chief.

  Shaylyn: So what did you have to tell me?

  His head thudded back against the wall. He looked at his VR headset and gamer gloves on the stand by his bed. “Fine, then,” he said quietly to the universe. “Shaylyn and everybody else better bring it. Laser Viper is my game, and I will win this tournament. Ego sum maximus.”

  Two weeks later, Rogan and his family stood outside the house with a yellow self-driving robotaxi waiting in the driveway. Rogan had thought Mom and Dad might come with him to the airport. After all, it was the first time he’d ever been on a plane IRL.

  But Mom said Atomic Frontiers had arranged for an airline rep to greet him at the airport to help him get to his plane. “We want this to be an opportunity to practice independence, RoRo.”

  “I would have liked to get you to the plane myself,” Dad said. “But coming out of SeaTac, your flight will definitely be delayed,” he’d said. “Sorry, buddy, but I can’t miss this game licensing meeting.”

  Rogan took a half step back from the cab. “I really need—”

  Mom put her hands on Rogan’s shoulders and looked him deep in the eyes. “Anytime you want, use our family hypernet account and slip on your headset. You can be right at home in your apartment.” She smiled.

  And so with some goodbyes, good-lucks, and quick hugs, Rogan and his suitcase were loaded into the robocab.

  Please verify your prepaid destination is: Eagle Terminal, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

  “Yes,” Rogan answered the computer.

  Please fasten your seat belt for safety, and thank you for choosing Robotaxi of Seattle.

  The flight was late departing SeaTac, but after that, it all went smoothly, and after five plus hours wedged into a crowded aircraft with hundreds of other people who were also off in their own digi-space worlds, the plane bumped down on the runway at Dulles International.

  Rogan had been playing the newest Zelda game. Gaming on a plane wasn’t so great. To keep passengers from accidentally hitting one another, gamer gloves were prohibited on all flights, so Rogan was stuck using old-fashioned push-button controls. But the game was a reminder of the gift his mom had given him early that morning before he’d left home, and he reached into his pocket to squeeze the pendant that was “for courage and good luck.” It was a little shield from The Legend of Zelda, a red bird shape on a field of blue, and at the top, the three gold triangles of the Triforce. “Your father gave me that pendant when we first started dating. Once a gamer, always a gamer,” Mom had said. “Bring that shield back when you return with the championship.”

  Since he was a minor, a woman from the airline met him at the gate and escorted him to baggage claim, where Sophia Hahn waited for him, wearing a bright yellow dress with a pleated skirt that came to just below her knees and four oversized black buttons off center to her left side. She showed some papers to the airline rep. Her smile was almost as blindingly bright as her dress. “Rogan!” she squealed, bouncing a little with giddy happiness. She looked a littl
e older than her avatar, a not uncommon occurrence among adults in digi-space “It’s so good to see you in real life.”

  Xavier stepped up to join them and reached out to offer a handshake. “Good to see you again. My job is helping all the gamers in the tournament with whatever they need while they’re here,” he explained in a deep, even voice. “So don’t hesitate to come to me for anything.”

  “Thanks, Mr.…” Rogan struggled to remember the man’s last name.

  “Call me Xavier.” He almost smiled. “Or just X, my nickname since high school.”

  Rogan spotted his dad’s enormous battered blue suitcase making its way around the luggage return carousel.

  X followed his gaze. “This your bag? The blue one?” He was already reaching for the suitcase when Rogan nodded. “No problem,” X said. “I got it.”

  The suitcase was heavy, but X hoisted it like it was empty. He put it down next to a bright red roller bag with the double W wing logo for Wonder Woman. Whose was that?

  “There she is!” Sophia chirped.

  “Rogan?” At the familiar voice, he turned around to face Shaylyn Spero, in person at last. Her light brown hair sported a freshly dyed blue streak and was pulled back in a ponytail. She wore tan short pants and a T-shirt with a picture of the simple old Nintendo Entertainment System controller. Holding a Starbucks cup, she offered her free hand, smiling as if handshakes were normal, like any of this was normal, like they weren’t blood enemies in every game they’d ever played together. “You’re shorter than I expected,” Shaylyn said. “Not quite as big as your Laser Viper Ranger.”

  Rogan scrambled for a witty comeback. Why was it so hard to communicate face-to-face IRL? He knew that if they had been in digi-space right then, he would have returned fire with the perfect reply.

  Grudgingly, he shook Shaylyn’s hand, wishing his palms weren’t so clammy, wishing she wasn’t almost three inches taller than him.

  “You two know each other?” Sophia bubbled.

  Shaylyn smiled. “Rogan always tries to beat me when we play online.”

  “Tries?” Rogan forced a laugh. “Your little Flyer hasn’t taken down my Ranger since—”

  “Since the last two times we’ve battled! Boom! You were down. Then I dropped you off the cliff. Boom! Ranger busted into a hundred pieces on the rocks below.”

  “So you know each other very well!” Sophia said. “I love that spirit of competition. It’s going to make for great gaming and even better reality TV!”

  “Yeah,” Shay said. “We’re pretty much gamer BFFs.”

  What? They’d known each other for only two years, so they’d have to drop the last F. And despite her cool gamer shirt and the way she could be useful on his way to total game domination, the girl was annoying! They weren’t even Fs, certainly not BFs. They were more like Bitter Gaming Rivals. BGRs. Boogers.

  Sophia bounced on her toes and stretched her neck, looking around for something. In a moment her movie star smile reactivated, and she motioned to a boy with giant, expensive-looking headphones, sitting on a bench a little farther away behind his own suitcase. “You were the last one getting in,” she said to Rogan. “Our car should be waiting.”

  Headphones guy rolled his suitcase up to join them. He seemed to be trying really hard to look bored. He was way taller than Rogan, at least six inches taller than Shaylyn.

  “Beckett,” Sophia said. He didn’t change his expression or look at anyone. She laughed and tapped his shoulder. “Beckett?” He took off his headphones and locked his eyes on Rogan, sizing him up a little like the way Rogan’s dad sometimes looked over steaks in the grocery store. “Beckett Ewell is joining us from Atlanta. Beckett, this is Rogan Webber from Seattle.”

  “Hey.” Beckett cocked his head back in a reverse nod and slipped his cans back over his ears, already done with everyone.

  Shay shot Rogan a look like Who does this guy think he is?

  “This way.” Sophia led the group toward the exit.

  X carried Rogan’s and Shay’s suitcases, but Beckett clutched his tightly to his chest.

  A few minutes later, a driver pulled up in a huge black SUV. X sat up front, while Sophia and Shaylyn took seats in the middle. Rogan and Beckett had to climb all the way to the back row. Beckett sat down first, and instead of scooting across the bench to let Rogan flop down beside him, he placed himself right in the way on the passenger side, forcing Rogan to scramble over him.

  Rogan took his seat and buckled his seat belt, shaking his head. This was just the kind of crap that never happened in digi-space, the kind of petty awkwardness that made him wish he could log in forever and leave the so-called real world behind.

  Well, Beckett could be a jerk all he wanted. As soon as the game was on, Rogan would blaze right past him.

  The digital brochure for the Laser Viper Final Challenge said contestants would be living in dorms. It should have said “luxury hotel suite.” When they arrived at the Atomic Frontiers headquarters, Sophia and X led Rogan, Shaylyn, and Beckett through heavy double doors at the back of the big curved wall of a huge, horseshoe-shaped room. Three doors lined each arcing side of the horseshoe, and straight ahead, a movie-theater-sized screen dominated the one flat wall.

  The center of the room offered a big, round wood table surrounded by a poofy-looking circular sofa. Two other kids, a girl and boy, who looked their age too, lounged far apart from each other.

  Immediately, a cambot rolled up before the newcomers, a white elongated teardrop shape about a meter high, fat on the bottom just above its wheels and narrow at the top where the iris in its big black lens adjusted to zoom in on them like a giant alien eye. Rogan remembered what he’d read in the guidebook about the importance of all the contestants ignoring the cameras. He tried to look away, but it was tough because cameras were mounted on the walls and hanging from the ceilings, and kept spinning to face them.

  The place had been pretty quiet as they walked in, but now Sophia Hahn marched to the middle of the room, holding her hands up high and spinning grandly. “Home sweet home!” She motioned toward the new boy. “This is Takashi Endo from San Francisco. He’s one of the best healer viper mods in the world.”

  Takashi smiled and offered a little wave. “Great to meet you.”

  Sophia introduced the last girl. Her white Star Wars T-shirt was bright against her deep brown skin. “Here’s Jacqueline Sharpe from Cincinnati, Ohio.”

  “Hey, guys.” Jacqueline smoothed her shirt.

  Next Sophia introduced Rogan, Shaylyn, and Beckett. “We at Atomic Frontiers Gaming Division are thrilled to have you all here. Now Xavier’s going to show you to your rooms and let you know how everything will work while you’re with us. Then we’ll have a quick orientation in the game room.” She leaned forward, folding her hands over her knees. “Just wait until you see the fabulous game system—basically game arena— we have set up for you. But we want to get you back to your rooms tonight with plenty of time for you to prepare and rest, because tomorrow is the first round of the tournament.”

  An electric thrill coursed through Rogan. Video games were in his blood, and judging by the expressions and postures of the other contestants around him, they were just as eager to begin.

  X moved to the middle of the group. “As you know, this tournament will include three elimination rounds plus a championship. One gamer will be eliminated from each round. The final two will compete for the championship in the fourth game. A session may be followed immediately by another, or there might be big breaks between games. There may be little warning before it’s time to play. You’ll have to be ready and flexible. But you should prepare to spend a lot of time in these dorms.

  “We’ve told you that Atomic Frontiers plans to market the Laser Viper game by posting videos of this tournament as an online reality show. But to do that, they can’t have contestants uploading the results of every game round to the whole world. So you can keep any connected medical devices, but I’m going to have to ask you to hand
over your phones, your portable game systems, VR headsets, basically anything that can go online.” A lot of groans came from the gamers, but X only held out his hands. “I know. It’s a pain. But you all agreed to this when you signed your contracts to participate in this tournament. Everything will be returned to you when this is over.”

  After they had surrendered their devices, X showed them to the dorms. Each gamer was given an individual room with a twin-sized bed, a private bathroom with shower, and a door that locked and unlocked with a thumb press to the ID pad near the doorknob. The accommodations offered a lot of privacy, for which Rogan was grateful. He’d be able to download his implant updates without anyone else noticing.

  X handed out tablets. “These are about as locked down as they come. No social media. No audio or video calls. Even most news sites are blocked to keep you all focused on the games.”

  “If we let you spend all your time on your phones and tablets, it wouldn’t make for very interesting TV, now would it?” Sophia laughed.

  “What about texting home?” Jacqueline asked.

  Rogan had been wondering the same thing, but Beckett smirked like she was a weak little baby for asking the question.

  “Don’t worry!” Sophia cooed. “We’ll make sure you get plenty of time to vid call home. Trust me. This is going to be a great experience. All you have to worry about is gaming.”

  Beckett waved his Atomic Frontiers tablet around. “If we can’t text anyone or go online with these things, what are they even for?”

  “They’re mostly so Atomic Frontiers can keep in touch with you all,” X said. “They have your schedules, you can use them to order just about anything you want to eat or drink, and Sophia and I can send you messages if we need to. You can also reach any of us or each other, but remember that any texting to other gamers in the tournament is being monitored and may be used on the show. Questions?” Nobody had any. “Good. In your closets you’ll find your Laser Viper game suits. Please change into them, and meet me back here in the common area. Then we’ll go see the game room.”