Chapter 32: A Completely Different Level

I know what you’re thinking: “He’s beginning to believe.”

No?

I know it’s before our time, people, but this isn’t exactly an obscure reference. Lena definitely would’ve thought it. Or if she didn’t, it would be because it was too obvious.

I mean, if she wasn’t thinking I was an idiot who’d just decided to humiliate himself even worse than he already had by losing a game of catch with a little girl.

There was a tiny chance that wasn’t what I was doing, though. Not Lena-sized, or even full Albie-sized. Certainly not Marroll-sized!

I figured my chance was about the size of Albie’s hands.

I drew my own back, popped them forward.

She cupped her fingers and flicked them to my right.

I mirrored her motion and stopped with my fingers miming a catch. Invisible Plastic clutching an invisible ball.

The fingers of the hand I’d previously held my phone in.

“Whoa,” Lena said. “Did you just get crazy lucky, or what?”

“Nope,” Albie said. “Cam gets it!”

“You went easy on me there,” I said.

She nudged the grass with her boot. “Maybe.”

“That’s kinda embarrassing,” I said.

“Sorry.”

“No worries. It’s cool if we don’t do that anymore, though, right?”

Lena frowned, but then she looked at Albie, sighed, and nodded.

Because Albie was practically glowing at my question. “Mmhm!”

I shot a glance at the angle of Lena’s phone, the motion of my hand, and the position of Albie’s.

Then I wound up and threw the fastball I’d pretended to the first time.

I couldn’t see the Wood ball or either of our Plastic mitts, and since my phone was propped in the grass, I had to be imagining the sound of the Air. I could see Albie’s hand movements, though.

And now, I had two hands to respond to them.

Her eyes widened at the speed and she actually had to move her whole arm, not just her fingers, to keep the ball from sailing past. She tossed it back with the most artless lob I’d seen her attempt.

I caught it with one hand and hurled it in a corkscrew with the other.

Albie adjusted to my speed and returned the volley with the confidence she’d shown earlier. Fingers curling here and straightening there, and I could actually understand why she did each motion.

Which meant I could predict where to put my hands, not just to mirror her movements but to spin the ball around me once, twice, thrice, and back. What I’d tried to do before, but now it worked.

Albie caught the ball and didn’t instantly launch it again. Her eyes were almost as wide as her grin. “This is the best.”

I gave her a single nod. If I let myself think about talking I would lose track of the ball’s position.

Lena had leaned further forward with each exchange, her eyes glued to her phone screen. No complaints about me playing too hard now. Not even any cheers, for either of us.

Marroll yawned and bumped his nose into her leg. She reached over to scratch him without so much as blinking.

Albie shifted from one foot to another.

I didn’t pay attention to any of it.

Only her hands mattered. She went through a complicated dance of finger movements and I realized, no, I couldn’t understand what she was trying to do –

Yes I could.

She was trying to fake me out.

I matched her grin and she took hers up another notch.

Finally, she gave a one-finger flick like she was miming a pool cue.

I snapped my hands together and burst them apart.

Albie shifted her grip abruptly and slid one foot back. Actually blocking, not just catching.

“This is nuts,” Lena said. She glanced at me. “Point to Cam. Even if he’s obviously cheating. Somehow. Did you buy, like, smart contacts Sunday morning?”

“I don’t think that would work,” I said. “Although if it did, it would be super cool with Third Eye.”

Albie reached down and curled her hand so her Plastic would scoop the ball off the ground.

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“Then what are you even doing?” Lena asked.

“Watching her hands.” I spread my fingers and wiggled them in the air, keeping my Plastic selected. “I need both hands more than I need to see the ball. This is what ShakeProtocol and LikeItsNinetyNine had to learn to do while they were filming.”

“What?” Lena shook her head. “No they didn’t.”

I frowned. “Huh?”

“Shake was piping from his phone to his TV. It was even in the background of the video. The two of them talked about how to set it up in the text chat between their videos.”

“... Oh.”

“Ready?” Albie called.

No, I thought, but as before, she was more shouting a warning than asking a question.

Good thing. If I’d had another moment to dwell on how the whole intellectual underpinning for my plan was rotten, I would’ve panicked and screwed up my catch.

Instead I snagged it and flipped the ball back at a high angle. Albie wiggled her fingers upwards and brought it down like a dunk. No doubt Erin, basketball fan that she was, would’ve approved.

Me, I goaltended. I snapped my hand flat to slide my invisible Plastic below the ball and bounced it sideways. Albie had to shift to the side to correct her angle, which felt like an achievement until I realized I only knew how to watch her hands, not her larger motions. I had no idea where the ball landed from her return.

Lena left no doubt it had. “Another point to Albie. Nice going, kiddo.”

Albie covered her mouth. “Thanks, Lena.”

“Hold up a sec, Albie,” I said. “I need my phone to see where the ball is, okay?”

“Sure!”

“I dunno,” Lena said. “Maybe the phone’s out of play.”

I ignored her, picked it up, and checked the positioning of ball and Plastic both. After a quick pat to Marroll’s head, I set the phone back down and jogged to my spot. “Ready?”

Albie clapped to show she was.

I put it to the test with the fastest throw I could manage with a scooping motion. Not even close to fast enough, unlike her return, the product of a single finger motion on each of her hands. I barely snagged it.

The invisibility of the ball faded from my mind. Almost everything did.

The joggers in the distance, excised. Marroll, forgotten. Even Lena, put aside for the moment. My opponent being a little girl? Irrelevant. She’d earned that much and more.

If we were playing an online match, it wouldn’t matter that she was a child. I’d never even have known it – and I should know if anyone should.

OldCampaigner. A username I picked when I wasn’t much older than Albie looked, trying to seem cool to the 50-year-old strategy nerds I played Civilization and Starcraft against. It didn’t work until I learned the games, but once I did, only my level of play mattered.

That was the beauty of a game.

I threw faster and wilder, adopting angles I could never even try physically, and the ball whipped between us like a bullet. It was less catch than tennis. It was less tennis than PVP.

It felt way more intense than Matt’s invasion. If he’d tried to attack me as I was now, he would’ve gotten a sphere of Wood to the face before he had time to think of calling up Earth.

I wasn’t playing Third Eye “better” than I had.

I felt like I was, for the first time, truly playing it.

I scored a couple points and felt no need to rush back to my phone for the resets. I understood Albie’s hand movements so well, it almost seemed like I could see the Wood and Plastic flying between us, like I could hear and feel the Air.

But Albie was on a completely different level.

She scored three points to each of mine. While so much sweat dripped down my forehead I had to shake it out of my eyes at the handful of breaks I got, she only looked more excited, dancing and clapping whenever I hesitated to throw.

I kept up as long as I could, but finally, inevitably, one of her fastballs ripped past my Plastic.

I knew it would slam into my shoulder and I flinched.

“Good game,” I said, and despite all the reasons I shouldn't have, I meant it.

“Oh,” Lena said. She gulped back her next word.

I slogged over to my phone, scooped it up, and confirmed what I already knew.

My Plastic lay inert on the grass. The ball of Wood rolled away from where it had struck me.

And my HP were at 0/10.

Albie dashed to my side. “I’m sorry! Are you okay? I didn’t know you didn’t have hardly any HP!”

“Starting to think everybody’s got more than me,” I muttered. I ruffled her hair. “I’m fine, kiddo. You win this round, though. Thanks for showing me the ropes.”

“You were amazing, Albie,” Lena said. “You must be practicing super hard.”

“Yeah.” Albie wiped her hands on her sweatpants. “But this was a lot more fun than practicing alone.”

“It was,” I said. “I sure learned a lot more. Thank you, Albie. I mean it.”

She clasped her hands. At once fully serious, she inclined her head, hunched her shoulders, and breathed, “You’re welcome.”

Lena looked back and forth between us. She looked way too content for someone whose video shoot had been ruined for the day.

I patted Albie’s shoulder and stepped away.

She and Lena started chattering, but I didn’t pay attention to what they said. Marroll circled them for scratches and chipped in barks for emphasis. When he passed by me and looked up with those huge dark eyes of his, I offered him a pat.

I smiled at the scene. Briefly.

But when I scanned the park, I saw the mess I’d made. With my HP gone, I couldn’t finish the video. The wiki team I’d convinced to let Lena and I try this, disappointed. Whatever little bit I could do to help Third Eye thrive, pushed back a day.

And more than ever, I wanted Third Eye to thrive.

I wanted the feeling of the game back.

Hell. I couldn’t even clean up my damn Glass effectively. What if Albie stepped on it?

I could at least try to fix that mess.

“Be right back,” I said. I didn’t notice if they responded.

It was awkward since I could only see it through my phone and really needed both hands for the task, but I managed to get hold of my discarded Plastic and drape it over the pavement next to the broken Glass. Then I knelt and started picking up as many of the shards as I could find. I piled each onto the Plastic.

Suddenly, pain. I hissed and bit back a curse. Must’ve been an all-too-real sharp rock in with all the fake Glass, because my hand was bleeding. I clutched the cut until blood stopped oozing out and made a mental note to pour alcohol on it when Lena and I got home.

A small shadow fell over me.

Albie nudged some Glass with her boot. “That’s really nice of you.”

I looked up. “Gotta pick up our toys after we’re done playing, right?”

“Mmhm.” She watched me for a moment. Quietly, she said, “Lena says you’re trying to help everybody with your video.”

Hearing even Albie talk about the video gave me a headache. It wasn’t that I regretted playing with her – how could I, after I saw how delighted she’d been? After how much I’d learned?

I regretted being weak enough in Third Eye that a game of catch left me useless.

I said, “That’s the plan.”

“That’s a good thing.”

I scratched the back of my head. “Thanks.”

She held her hands out. “Don’t tell my big bro.”

I blinked up at her. “Tell him what?”

She nudged her hands against my phone. I turned its camera to her and saw that in Third Eye, she cupped a glowing crystalline vial.