Chapter 26: Sorry For Your Loss
“Check your texts,” I said.
Lena grunted.
Instead of turning her computer chair my way, she kept clacking away at whatever she was working on.
I didn’t have to listen. I could glance over and watch her, because when we’d moved our desks to accommodate Benji’s bed, we’d lined them up side-by-side. She remained perched in her customary gargoyle stance, hunched over her mechanical keyboard with her nose pressed too close to her screen.
I held up my phone. “Miguel just messaged me that our video’s ready.”
Lena averted her eyes. “Good.”
“He asked us to come watch it on his big TV again,” I said. When we made our first video, Miguel had invited us, along with Erin, to a viewing session. Even though our production standards had improved with the next two videos, that first one still stuck in my mind as the most incredible. A lot of that came down to the caliber of his TV compared to our computer monitors.
“You should go,” Lena said.
I reached over to touch her hand.
She gave mine a half-pat, half-swat. “I need to finish this. It’s got a tight deadline.”
“Why didn’t you work on the stuff that had a deadline first?” I asked.
“Because I’m an idi –” She shook her head. “I guess I just got distracted.”
I pushed my chair back, stood up, and slid behind hers. My hands hovered over her shoulders. She shrugged and leaned back into my touch.
“I’ll help you knock out whatever you’re working on,” I said, “then we can go to Miguel’s together.”
“I appreciate it, seriously, but you’ve got your own shit going on. Just work on that.” Her voice started to rise, but as my hands worked on her shoulders, it trailed off. She added, “Or you could just keep doing that.”
So I kept doing that.
She tilted her head back and closed her eyes. After a moment, she started touch-typing again.
Over her shoulder, I read what she was working on. Looked like a review for an idle game. The dark side of her intermittent history of game reviews was that she had to tackle material like this sometimes.
Sucked for whoever made this one that they’d caught her attention when they had.
Although, saying that, I raised an eyebrow as I read over her shoulder. “Idleperium won’t excite you, won’t thrill you, won’t keep you up at night. But it’s not trying to. It wants to be a harmless time waster that activates your dopamine centers. As long as you don’t overspend on its cash shop, that’s exactly what it achieves.”
Lena stopped typing. “Oh sure, it sounds stupid when you say it that way.”
“I’ve got no room to talk, but is this a paid review? Speaking from experience, they’ll make you be more positive about the monetization.”
“It’s not paid for,” she said. “Sometimes I like watching little cartoon dudes get iron spears instead of bronze ones. Sue me.”
“I’m just not used to you enjoying the idle games you get stuck playing.”
“Call it... counterprogramming.”
I called it lucky for the developers of Idleperium that they’d gotten a review from Lena the day after her match with Matt.
“You know,” I said, “at first, you actually had me convinced that losing didn’t bother you.”
Lena had looked shocked as she staggered back from the Iron spear that had jabbed into her chest. But long before I rushed across the grass to her side, she’d said, “Twenty eight. I guess that’s GG.”
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Matt had said well played, they’d shaken on it, and Lena had plastered on her streamer’s smile for the rest of the video shoot.
I hadn’t believed at first that she could push past the loss so quickly, but by the time we wrapped up filming, I’d almost convinced myself. Hell. Almost stayed convinced until we got back to Benji’s car and she collapsed against the far window. When I reached out to her, she just grunted.
Quietly, I said, “You really don’t want to watch our video?”
“I’ve got to watch it before it goes up,” she said. “It’s my channel. Guess I’m not chomping at the bit to watch Matt pontificate about Earth in glorious HD, though.”
“You’re in luck,” I said. “I’m pretty sure Miguel’s TV is 4K, not HD.”
Something between a sniffle and to snort escaped Lena’s nose. “That’s even worse, and you know it.”
“I know two wrongs don’t make a right. But have you considered four wrongs?”
She cocked her head. It took her a moment, but at last, she said, “Because it’s four times the pixels?”
I nodded, then realized how useless that was when I was standing behind her. I squeezed her shoulders. “Exactly.”
“I don’t think that makes sense on any level, Cam.”
“You’re probably right,” I said. “Does it make you feel any better?”
She sighed. “Not really. Sorry.”
“It’s not like this is the first time you’ve lost a game,” I said. “I know I don’t put up much of a fight in most genres, but we’ve done enough FPS deathmatch where I came out ahead, and even strategy games sometimes. And against randos? Let’s face it. Neither of us are at the top of the leaderboards.”
“Which is fine,” she said, “until one of us is legit trying to get to the top of a game’s leaderboard.”
“That’s why you’re practicing.” Not that she’d gotten any further practice in since the match. Yesterday, she’d had the excuse of almost running out of MP by the time we were done filming. Today, she’d thrown herself into mundane work.
She’d still kept the Third Eye app open, though. I could feel the heat of her wings against my stomach as I stood behind her.
She said, “I would’ve beaten him.”
“If you fought to zero HP? Sure, even Matt admitted that. That’s even less reason to be upset, isn’t it?”
“Sure,” she said, while her tone said the opposite. She leaned forward, to the very edge of my fingertips, and hit the enter key to start a new paragraph in her review.
“Are you upset with Matt for beating you,” I asked, “or with yourself for losing, or with me for asking you to play by those rules?”
“Yes?” She hung her head. “I get it, okay? It was good for the video, and that’s why Zhizhi suggested it. She had her priorities straight. I shouldn’t be pissed at her.”
I agreed, but somehow I didn’t think saying so would make Lena feel better. I kept my mouth shut and concentrated on rubbing her shoulders. Plenty of tension to release in them.
“And I get why Matt went along with it,” she continued, “because why would he risk his XP by accepting a fair fight to zero HP instead of ambushing people? He’s trying to optimize his growth. Fair enough.”
I gave another useless nod.
“And –” More tension in her shoulders. She pressed her face to the monitor. I suspected she was clamping her jaw shut. Finally, she said, “I get why you went along with it.”
“Is it so awful that I’d like you to play safe?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Lena...”
She slipped away from my hands and spun her chair around so she could face me.
I met her eyes. “I’m not going to stop worrying you could get hurt.”
“Which is great and all,” she said, “but that’s fake safe. I’m not really going to get stronger by pretending that everyone – and everything – is going to play by whatever rules you and Zhizhi cook up.”
I knelt beside her chair and cupped her hands in mine. She almost stopped them from shaking before I touched them. “I know why getting stronger is so important to you, Lena. I agree with you. It’s our best chance to actually feel safe again.”
“I’m not going to get there by holding back.” She hung her head. “I’m not gonna get there at all if I let somebody like Matt rope me into dropping my guard over and over again because I’m so fucking cocky. I had him, Cam! Even with the stupid rules, and the stupid pauses, I had him. And instead of winning, I pranced around like an idiot and let him hit me.”
“What you did,” I said, “was entertain.”
She looked up sharply.
“Yesterday’s match wasn’t about getting stronger, Lena,” I said. “It wasn’t about payback.”
She shifted on her chair.“Maybe a lil’ bit about payback.”
“It was,” I said, “about making a good video. A great video. It was about keeping people watching, so that we can keep ourselves afloat and maybe even do some good down the line. I believe that’s what you did.”
“You don’t know that,” she said. “Not without seeing the finished product.”
I leaned forward.
She huffed a little sigh, then dipped her head down to give me a peck on the lips. “I know what you’re going to say.”
“That we should blow off Miguel’s invitation,” I whispered, “and enjoy the fact that Benji’s at work right now?”
I felt her smile, heard her laugh, and both came more easily than they had in a while. She wrapped her arms around my neck and sagged forward out of her chair. “And miss the chance to see The Magnificent Ashbird and her lovely assistant, OldCampaigner, in glorious 4K? Unthinkable.”