Chapter 21: Roles

They didn’t make many romantic comedies during my formative years. I remembered them from theaters when I was a little kid, and Netflix had picked up the slack in the last few years. During my teens and early twenties, though, the most crucial juncture for my development, I’d been deprived of a vital genre’s worth of cliches.

Maybe the deficiency explained my deficiencies.

With that said, I knew enough about my role in such a movie. Genre demanded I show up unannounced at the apartment to find Lena either gone or embroiled in a comedic – to the audience – misunderstanding.

On second thought, maybe the lack of romantic comedies explained how I’d ever managed to get a date.

Instead of doing that, I left Matt at the railing over the drainage ditch and jogged to the nearest place I could think of to sit down and peck out a text. I didn’t want to try to mend fences over the phone. If I tried to do it in a text one-handed as I walked, though, the grammar and spelling would give Lena so much ammunition she’d have to fire off insults just to avoid a powder explosion.

I’d planned to hit up the outdoor seating at the nearest Starbucks, but when I got to the intersection where I expected it, I found it had been replaced by a place called Next Level Burger. I checked it on my phone and winced. Vegan burgers. Despite the restaurant’s fast foody trappings, its orange plastic siding and white metal frame, I knew a meal here would be too rich for my bank account.

Starbucks would’ve been, too, at the moment, but no one in the world feels guilty about using their empty chairs.

I rifled through all my pockets, but I’d used the last of my petty cash on the book occupying the mesh inside my parka. If I bought something to eat, I’d have to pay with card. Credit, not debit. I’d lined up enough gig work, especially one agonizing web design job I’d weaseled into with half the certifications the client expected, to pay bills at the end of the month. All this prowling neighborhoods for Third Eye had led to eating out, though, which left me with an empty warchest.

Was I either confident or socially awkward enough to sit outside without ordering? Nope, but I was, at the moment, poor enough.

If paying customers decided to brave the cold to sit outside, I’d decamp.

I took a step forward. Then I remembered the restaurant was across Evans. The street was named for a mountain and so were half the SUVs ripping down it; the other half were named for whole ranges, which fit their sizes better. If I tried to cross without looking both ways like I apparently had Downing, all my other concerns would rapidly lose importance.

I checked the walk signal. Red hand. Of doom? The thought popped into my head, a reminder of the Dungeons and Dragons module and, by extension, of the tabletop role-playing session Lena and I were supposed to attend tomorrow night. It wouldn’t be D&D, certainly not a canned module, but my mind worked on this kind of free association.

How awkward would the session be? More each second I waited to text her.

Also, judging by the Denalis and Atlases and Sierras a meter from my face, yes. The red hand in front of me very much had portended doom.

I hit the walk button, and after a few more presses, the stoplight paid attention to it. Another two SUVs ignored the red light, then the rest of the herd abided with their bumpers halfway over the crosswalk. I felt the resentment of their drivers as intensely as the heat of their engines. Both growled at me as I sprinted past.

I tested the first orange plastic bench with my foot. Ever since I’d almost tried to sit on a Third Eye-only seat at a bus stop, I gave benches the side-eye. This one felt solid enough. I sat.

I took my phone out and frowned. I had a text. Had I left the phone on mute this whole time? Sure hadn’t muted Third Eye’s sound effects during Matt’s invasion.

I tapped to my messages. My frown became a grimace. Lena.

‘Hey Cam. I feel shitty for how that went down,’ she’d texted. ‘Come home already will you?’

My throat constricted.

It wasn’t quite another apology, but it came a damn sight closer than I’d deemed possible. I pictured Lena pacing the apartment with her phone gripped so tightly she risked cracking it, shoulders hunched, scowling, raging at what a dick I’d been. And then –

Then what? I didn’t know what her expression would look like when she decided to send this.

I worried it would look like what I’d seen in the doorway of our bedroom.

Worried, especially, because the text had come in twenty minutes ago.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

I tried to place it in my personal timeline. I didn’t think I’d been mid-fight twenty minutes ago, but maybe I’d heard the sound of Water and blocked everything else out?

‘I’ll be home asap,’ I sent. Even sitting down and typing with both hands, I accepted shortcuts on the phone I never would’ve on a keyboard. ‘Sorry for not responding. Plz dont laugh but I got in a fight.’

An excuse I didn’t really deserve? Perhaps. A provocative way of describing my exchange with Matt? Maybe. Implying I’d accomplished more in the fight than getting my ass kicked? For sure. Sue me.

I couldn’t expect an instant response after I’d waited so long to send mine. So there was no excuse for me to stare at the unmoving list of my texts for a solid minute.

Thankfully, the people eating inside the vegan burger joint had their backs to me. The only person who saw me was the bored-looking girl behind the counter. When I finally got tired of waiting, I glanced up at her and tried an apologetic smile for occupying one of her outside tables. Her expression didn’t change.

I hadn’t gotten a response, so I switched to my camera and swept it around. Either this intersection didn’t have any Materials or someone had gotten to them before me. Matt, maybe. I switched apps to confirm, but yeah, I’d left Third Eye running.

Why did the app seem to plant more Materials in residential areas than commercial? Had Third Eye Productions screwed up the algorithms that placed objects in the world?

Back to the camera while I thought about it. How subtle did the Materials get? Some of them looked ridiculous, but others fit in so well Lena and I had both passed over them and only noticed them on a second look. Maybe it was as simple as commercial blocks looking busier and hiding the “impossible objects” better.

My phone chimed and I ditched my speculation.

‘You???? A fight?’ Lena sent. ‘lol, but also if you’re not kidding are you ok?’

So much for plz dont laugh.

Trouble was, I found myself chuckling along with her. Ninety percent of my problem having a serious discussion about how Lena bothered me came down to ninety percent of what she did amusing me instead.

‘Im fine,’ I tapped out. I went to send the text. Hesitated. My chuckle deepened. Saturday morning cartoon villains would’ve envied it. I added, ‘the fight happened right by the hospital’

Where was the lie?

‘OMG’ Now that we had a back-and-forth going, her faster texting speed meant I got her answer in an instant, one sentence per text.

‘I’ll be there ASAP,’ she sent. ‘what is your room no?’

I laughed again, but I couldn’t leave her worrying. ‘Kidding’

‘You fucker! You just ghosted me + made up fight as excuse?’

Oops. ‘No did get in fight’

‘WTF are you ok or not?’

‘Fine,’ I sent. ‘It was a fight in 3rd Eye.’

For a moment, she didn’t respond. Then, in a flurry:

‘You found out how we can fight?

‘Oh hell yes.

‘Come home so I can kick your ass!’

I got the impression I’d lost the chance to catch her in an apologetic mood. Oh well. Worth.

I still wanted to hash things out, but that could wait until we could do it in person.

‘Actually,’ I sent, ‘check your HP’

She must have, because the next thing I got was: ‘Oh shit, I’m down to 889!’

She had a thousand maximum HP, compared to my ten. No wonder she’d considered feigning suffocation a joke. Forget the absurdity of a game hurting her real body, I hadn’t even come close to hurting her avatar.

On the other hand, a few seconds of suffocating and burning had done ten times as much damage to her as Matt’s explosions of Water and Stone had to me. How long would I have had to press the Plastic over her face before I got XP for it? And what about the way it smoked and curdled on contact with her? She hadn’t collected a Fire Reactant, she just had the flames that came with her character design. Would they have burned through the Plastic before she ran out of HP, or was it just a cosmetic effect?

Lena would want to test, I knew. The prospect made my stomach churn. Maybe it was for the best I hadn’t been able to afford a Next Level Burger.

Third Eye might be just a game, but that kind of attack felt too visceral, too real.

‘Im down to 0,’ I sent, ‘+ you cant fight back without a reactant so we cant really test much’

It cost MP to use my Reactant, not HP, so I probably could still test another seven attacks against her. Thankfully, I’d given her something else to latch onto.

‘You’re at 0 HP? So you lost?’

‘Didnt get a hit in’ I added a wincing emoji.

‘Shamefur dispray!’

I knew she meant it about me being shamed by my loss. I also knew social expectations were that I should tut at the fake-Japanese Engrish accent she was pretending to put on.

Too bad. We were back to trading memes and I couldn’t help but grin.

I sent, ‘We got to get you a reactant ASAP’

‘Agreed but why do you say that?’

‘bc until you can attack or heal you have to b our tank.’

Lena didn’t respond and I regretted sending the message. If I’d waited until I got home to tell her, I could have seen the look on her face.

Lena and I had met through games. We’d clicked in play before we’d said our first words to each other, before we’d swapped our first memes. We traded off playing support roles in cooperative games. The other two common roles, though, tanking and damage-dealing, we always divided the same way.

Lena was a natural at damage per second. She played quick, involved and aggressive no matter what. By contrast, I loved to tank, to absorb damage and get in the way of attacks on my allies. Also, to have enough HP to just sit there soaking up the enemies’ attacks without respawning.

Swapping those roles would go wrong. But hilariously wrong.

‘Oops,’ she sent. ‘Just deleted Third Eye.’

I laughed. ‘Im sure ill see that when I get home.’

A pause. Then she sent, ‘Come home soon.’

I reread the line and exhaled. I stood up and closed out of my messages.

Which sent my phone screen back to my camera.

Which almost blinded me.