Chapter 28: Magnificence

I’d seen plenty of wonders and terrors in the past month. A game that made me question reality. A monster that terrified me beyond sanity. Distorted spaces, fire from thin air, impossible objects, lurking menaces.

Despite everything, Miguel’s TV continued to amaze me.

I maintained a strict hierarchy of needs. The most expensive thing I owned was my computer. The second, my computer chair. The third – even though I’d bought it secondhand – was my parka.

Miguel had arranged his priorities differently. His television had to be his biggest purchase after his car, and it looked about the same size.

I’m not saying I’d have made the same decision if I’d had a high-paying job in computer security.

I’m just saying that when I stood in front of the thing, I got where he was coming from.

In this case, the kitchen, with a bowl of popcorn in one hand and a platter of nachos and dip in the other. He set both down on his glass coffee table. To my surprise, his ashtray was already gone. He must’ve moved it in advance, knowing how many snacks he planned to bring. Too bad. I didn’t miss the ashes, much less the smoke from when he actually lit up a cigarette, but the squirrel design of the ashtray itself was a cute touch of personality in a living room that could get excessively sterile if left to its own devices.

I eyed the snacks. “How long is the edited version of the video? From what we’ve read, we should try to keep it under a half hour for viewer retention.”

“Even if it were five minutes,” Miguel said, “we should still enjoy it properly.” He jabbed a nacho into the dip and held it up for a toast.

“Here here,” Zhizhi said, responding with a nacho of her own. “The edited version’s twenty five minutes long. I did mock up an uncut version of the match, too. Something we could offer as a member’s reward, maybe?”

“That sounds... good?” Lena turned and blinked at me.

“Sure, I guess,” I said. “If we’re going to start offering extra videos, we have to pick up the pace of production.”

“I’ve got a few other ideas about that,” Zhizhi said. “We’ve still never really filmed a proper expedition that we can share with people. That was the original deal, remember?”

I winced.

“I get why you haven’t wanted to do it,” she said. “I certainly don’t want to go anywhere like the construction site again. In a way, though, an expedition video would also serve as a tutorial, right? People would be interested in how you go about looking for Materials. And you could lead them to do it safely.”

Slowly, I nodded. “That makes sense.”

Lena looked as lost as I felt. A little less embarrassed, though. It seemed like Zhizhi had put more thought into growing the channel than we had.

I’m sure Benji would’ve had a field day with that revelation. Good thing he hadn’t come with us.

“Something to consider for the future,” Miguel said. “For now, let’s enjoy what we already have.”

“Sorry,” Zhizhi said. “I’m getting ahead of myself, I know. This one came out –”

Miguel cut her off. “Ah, spoilers.”

She shook her head. “Spoilsport, more like.”

He spread his palms. “Why don’t we all sit down and give it a look?”

“Wait,” Lena said, “have you already seen the video, Miguel?”

“You didn’t exactly wing your way down here,” he said.

She toed one of the legs of the coffee table. “We had things we needed to finish up.”

“No objection, merely an explanation.” He clapped. “Enough. Sit. I haven’t had the pleasure on the big screen just yet.”

I wanted to say he’d already seen this in person, but really, he’d seen the Third Eye version through a laptop screen. Besides, I was half convinced his TV had a better resolution than real life.

Lena flopped onto Miguel’s plush black couch and propped Bernie on her lap. I took the next seat, Zhizhi the one after that, and Miguel the other end. Unlike the benches on the light rail, this couch could’ve accommodated a couple more people without feeling crowded. Nonetheless, we ended up with a pair at either end.

“Erin couldn’t make it this time?” I asked.

“I thought it only fair for the two of you to look over the video before any audience members,” Miguel said. “If you’d like to wait, I could always send an invitation –”

“Let’s just watch already,” Lena said.

“By all means.”

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The last time, Miguel had done some wizardry to connect a phone to his TV. That video had been uploaded, though, so all we had to do was tap a link.

This evening, while he worked the screen with his phone, Zhizhi took out a wireless mouse. Her laptop occupied a TV tray next to the screen. A cable snaked between the two devices. She’d apparently queued up her video editing software in advance. Once her desktop had been cloned to the TV, all she had to do was click play.

The lights dimmed around us – something else Miguel controlled through his phone, I supposed – and he exchanged control for a handful of popcorn. He and Zhizhi each took some and passed the bowl down to Lena and I. I grabbed my handful and nudged her so she could get some without having to displace Bernie.

Maybe it was for the best that I wasn’t in the middle of passing a bowl of popcorn around, because I started when light flooded the room.

It came from the Lena on screen, resplendent in her flames, her head tilted back and a smirk on her lips. “I know what you’re thinking, folks,” she said. “Why do I want to learn about Earth? I know because I’m wondering myself. It’s never going to be as awesome as Fire. Look on the bright side, though: since our special guest and I are going to have a match for your entertainment, you’ll get to see the best of both! I’m sure we’ll learn something along the way.”

There was a hard cut to Lena sprawled in the mud, blinking up at a gleaming Iron spear and a smirking, armored Matt.

Then the fiery Ashbird logo rippled across the screen. Zhizhi had put it together with another member of the wiki team who was studying graphic design.

I clamped my mouth shut to keep from chuckling, shot a glance at the real Lena, touched her wrist to steady her. Instead of fuming, though, or worse, shrinking in on herself, she laughed.

If that opening landed with her, it was going to drive the audience wild.

The logo burned away to show Lena, Matt and I standing in the park. We swapped greetings and introductions and squared up for the match. As much as I loved admiring Lena on screen, it always gave me a thrill to see myself, too. Props to Third Eye’s graphics and Zhizhi’s editing and whatever Miguel had done to let her use a Third Eye filter on her professional camera. I looked so much cooler than I’d felt when I was actually playing the referee.

Zhizhi had shot most of the match through a wide-angle lens, giving the whole thing a fighting game vibe. Mortal Kombat’s graphics never looked this good, though.

The editing cut back and forth between scenes from the match and the tutorial segments we’d filmed afterwards. Even though I knew, and hated, what was going to happen, I found myself tapping my foot every time the action paused for more talking.

At the same time, removed from Matt’s company, with the camera omitting the worst of his smirks, I started to get a sense of how he’d made it as a teacher. His explanations were clear, concise, and as to the point as the spears he liked to fight with.

Lena, meanwhile, was in full streamer mode. I’d admired at the time how quickly she buried her disappointment and put on her persona as The Magnificent Ashbird. Whenever the action cut away for her to deliver a joke or a quip or a clarification, she did it with a smile and a twinkle in her eye as bright as the flames that rippled around her.

I was pretty sure I couldn’t have pulled that off, so it was a good thing for my lines she’d managed to fool me in the moment.

It wasn’t just her doing a good job reading from a script, either. As usual, she’d ad-libbed more than a few lines. Some of her improvisation made it into the video.

We’d recorded a bit where Lena said, “People keep telling me about hub-ris, but my network is connected through ethernet.”

“Hubris,” said the me on screen, playing the straight man. “It’s Greek.”

Lena cocked her head. “Is Greek wireless faster or something?”

“You’re not pronouncing it right,” I said. “It means, ‘pride goeth before the fall.’”

“Good thing I’ve got wings, then!” She flexed them beautifully, which matched her grin.

Then a shot of me pinching my nose.

Back in the real world, all four of us on the couch laughed.

I didn’t think the joke was very good, but the editing and delivery saved it.

We’d recorded the bit after the match, but in the video, it was synced up with Lena winning the first round. Without that opening scene of her on her butt in the mud, it could have come across as arrogant, off-putting, but the audience knew she was going to get humbled in at least one round. Playing it at this point made it a callback, and it kept them guessing. They knew she was going to get humbled, but when and by how much?

More than that, Lena’s comically exaggerated bragging recontextualized Matt’s lessons. Sure, he never quite beat the rap of talking down to his audience. In the video, though, it just came across as part of the performance.

Honestly? It made me wonder how much of his usual persona was a performance. The only reason I wasn’t prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt was that I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to elicit the reactions he did.

As round two rolled on, we got more of Matt’s explanations, because he pulled off more moves successfully.

And of course, eventually, we got his wins.

Back in the real world, Lena hollered boos at the screen. Bernie hissed along in solidarity. But when I glanced over at them, Lena was smiling just as widely as when she’d watched herself win.

The video didn’t end with Lena’s defeat in the third round. It closed with a conclusion, which unlike all the out-of-order cuts along the way, was the actual last thing we’d filmed.

“So that’s Earth,” Matt said. “Or rather, that’s a taste of what I’ve found to do with it.”

“You sure taught me a thing or two,” Lena said.

“Likewise,” he said. “Of course, if we’d gone all the way to zero HP, you would’ve won.”

“Of course!” Lena flashed her victory sign. Then her expression turned serious and her wings drooped. “But if I underestimated your Reactant and what you could do with it, I wouldn’t deserve to.”

“We’re out here trying to teach you how to play Third Eye, distinguished guests,” I said. “But as you can see, we’re all learning this together.”

“A week ago,” Lena said, “I didn’t even know I could use Fire for electricity.”

“Be sure to check out our writeup on that on the Third Eye wiki, by the way,” I added. “It should be there by the time you’re seeing this.”

“Yeah!” She bobbed her head and flexed her wings. “And tune in next time, when I’ll definitely win something!”

“I’m so glad you learned a lesson about hubris, Ashbird,” I said.

Back in the moment, Lena snorted.

The video wound down with the usual calls for likes, comments, and subscriptions, as well as a special thank you to Matt for chipping in. When it finished, Miguel tapped his phone and the lights came back on.

Lena stood up immediately and set Bernie on the spot on the couch she’d just vacated.

I frowned up at her. What was this about?

She bowed her head and said, “Guys. I’m really sorry.”