Mum and I stared at each other in shock for a good half minute. The knock came again.

"Are you expecting someone?" Mum hissed.

I shook my head. "I don't think so."

She got up and went to the door, peering through the peephole, then turned back to me. "Some bird in a RAF uniform. There's a posh car waiting out front, too."

I blinked. This had to have something to do with my invitation to compete at the eSports tournament, surely. But I had no idea what. I shrugged. "Well, let her in, Mum. Can't leave an officer of His Majesty's Royal Air Force standing on our doorstep, can we?"

Mum undid the latch and swung the door open. The sun was rising across the street and dazzled my eyes, so I didn't get a good look at her until the woman had stepped inside and my Mum had closed the door behind her. She was totally gorgeous. Chestnut hair and curls cascading off her head. Her uniform curved in all the right places. Probably ten years older than me and even if I’d not been in a wheelchair, I’d have no chance with her, but a fellow can look, can’t he?

She held her cap under her arm as she looked around our kitchen. She saw me and her smile didn't even falter as she took a step forward, offering her hand.

"Mr. Trevelyan? I'm Flight Lieutenant Carter."

I reached up and shook her hand. "Pleased to meet you. Sorry for not getting up," I said, gesturing at my chair.

She nodded. "Understood. Mr. Trevelyan, I'm here to escort you to RAF Brize Norton for your transport."

I blinked. "Wait, what?"

Flight Lieutenant Carter turned to my mum. "You'll be Mrs. Trevelyan, then?"

“It’s Mrs. Higgins now," Mum said. "But I'm his mum, right enough.”

"I understand your son is underage, and ordinarily we would like to have a parent or guardian accompany him on a trip like this, but this is a matter of not just national, but worldwide security.”

Mum shook her head. "Colin? National security?”

“Has he explained to you about this tournament?"

“A bit." My mum shook herself, clearly trying to regain her composure. "You like a cuppa?"

"Yes, certainly, Mrs. Higgins."

"Well, pull up a chair then," Mum gestured at the empty seat at our table while she went and fetched down a clean mug from the cupboard. Moments later, she poured the flight lieutenant a steaming cup of tea.

Carter wrapped her long, pale fingers around the mug. I found I was staring at her face, looked away, and found I was staring at her chest instead. That wasn't any better, so I returned to her face. She had truly piercing blue eyes and an intent look as she studied me.

"Mr. Trevelyan.”

“Um, just Colin," I said. It sucked having a gorgeous older woman calling me Mr. Trevelyan. It made me feel like I was back in short pants and the teacher was scolding me in class.

"Colin, then," Carter's face softened as she studied me. "We received notice that you had accepted the invitation. I take it you're packed and ready to go?"

"I am," I said. "My bags are just in there."

She started to get up, but Mum shook her head. "I'll fetch 'em," she said, and stepped through the bead curtain into the sitting room.

Carter looked me over. "What kind of accommodations do you need?" she asked bluntly.

I was taken aback. I wasn't used to people asking me such questions outright.

"Sorry, what?"

"I want to make sure that we've taken your needs into account. I'm afraid the Royal Air Force doesn't do much in the way of handicap accessibility," she gestured at my wheelchair.

"Oh, right.” I cleared my throat. "My injury’s in L3, that's the lower lumbar," I added at the characteristic blank look on her face, "means I've got use of my upper body, as you can see." I demonstrated by picking up my mug and taking a sip. "I've got some ability to hold myself up and feeling in my upper thighs and pelvis."

Somehow my words caught up to me after I'd spoken, and I found myself blushing horribly. I thought about assuring her that even if I did have feeling in my pelvis, I wasn't trying to come on to her. Then decided that I was being an awkward, socially inept gamer, and she'd never have thought I was coming on to her in the first place unless I said something so horribly awkward. The silence stretch for far too long.

Mum came back carrying my bags. "I'll just set these on the step," she said, and opened the door.

Flight Lieutenant Carter glanced at her watch. "I'm afraid we're on a tight schedule. I'll need to get us moving shortly."

That's when my stepdad poked his head into the room. I hadn't even heard him coming down the stairs. He stared around from me to Flight Lieutenant Carter to my mum as she came back inside. His face fell. "She here questioning you about your internet searches?" he asked.

"What?" Flight Lieutenant Carter asked.

"Boy been getting up to something he oughtn’t? We like to let him have the streaming as an outlet, seeing as he can't get out and play sports. But if he's been looking at ought he shouldn't, we'll put a stop on it."

"No, Mr. Higgins, nothing of the sort. Your stepson has been invited to participate in an extremely important event, and I'm here to help escort him to that event."

My stepdad blinked. He turned to my mum, who nodded.

"That's right, Malcolm. Colin's been invited to participate in an e-sports tournament for a chance at winning a trip to the reality engine."

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

His eyes went wide in his big, placid face. "The reality engine?" he breathed. "No way. No fucking way."

"Malcolm," Mum scolded.

"Sorry, dear. I just mean, for what? For playing games?"

"He has exactly the sort of expertise that's needed at this moment in history," Flight Lieutenant Carter said. "Whether he makes it or not is another matter, but it's considered a matter of national—nay, international importance that he be given the chance. If you'll excuse me, we really need to be going."

Mum and Flight Lieutenant Carter maneuvered my chair out of the house. It was the collapsible sort, folding for easy transport. I levered myself into the car and watched as Mum and Flight Lieutenant Carter loaded the chair and my luggage into the boot of the car. Mum leaned in and gave me an embarrassing peck on my cheek.

"You do us proud, Colin."

"I'll do my best, Mum."

There were tears in her eyes, though I don't think she meant me to see. She blinked and stood back from the door. Flight Lieutenant Carter closed it and got into the driver's seat. Seconds later we were pulling away from a council row house I'd lived in most of my life.

I said nothing as we drove through the estate and then past the skate park where one stupid stunt three years ago had cost me my legs and my hopes for the future in less time than I liked to think. We were soon out of the city and heading south.

"We have one more stop to make," Flight Lieutenant Carter said, “collecting another young man nearby.”

"Oh?"

"Yes, he's apparently hot stuff in the Fortnite world."

I snorted. "Fortnite? Really?"

Flight Lieutenant Carter shrugged. "That's what I'm told. Me, I'm more a Microsoft Flight Simulator kind of gal myself, but to each his own, I suppose."

The Fortnite kid was younger than me. He was fourteen and his mother was blubbering as Flight Lieutenant Carter maneuvered him into the back seat next to me, leaving behind a dismal block of council flats. He looked me over, shook his head, and stared out the window. He had short cropped blonde hair and a snub nose. Say nothing of the attitude.

"What's your game then?" he asked me when we were on the road again. "Minecraft?"

"I don't have one specialty," I said. "I'm a speed runner, and exploiter. I do a lot of streaming. Handle’s the ColinTrev.”

He shook his head. "Never heard of you, but I don't do that speed runner shit. It's all well and good to compete against computer programs, but if you're not taking on other blokes, it’s really not gaming, innit?”

I decided to let it slide. I'd been a hothead at that age, bitter about my accident and determined to prove myself. I'd had a really nasty run of gaming myself then. The sort where I got banned from two different games for trash talking in lobbies.

That was when I got into exploits. Nobody complained when you clipped through walls in single-person games, but teabag the wrong punk and you risked losing your whole account.

It was near noon by the time we arrived at the RAF Station. Flight Lieutenant Carter was waved through the gates with a quick look at her credentials, and we drove straight to a hangar off of one of the airstrips.

Outside the hangar was an enormous C-17 with the loading ramp down. It was way bigger in real life than on the telly. Its wings drooped down to either side, weighed down with the enormous engines, its body squat and heavy.

A dozen or so people milled around on the tarmac. From the look, they were fellow gamers. There was a girl a little older than me with stark black hair in two pigtails and a choker collar around her neck paired with a bright pink miniskirt. A couple more guys in their mid-twenties, and then, of all things, an old lady, probably forty or more, with her hair up in a bun and a pantsuit that looked like it was left over from the nineties when my Mum was a girl. Maybe she was one of our handlers.

Carter stopped the car, and Fortnite Kid hopped out. He grabbed his bags and set off for the ramp without a backward look. Carter came over to my door. She set up my chair and I pulled myself into it.

An airman came over and grabbed the handles on my chair. I wanted to protest but the ramp looked intimidating. Another took my bags but I held on to the backpack. I winced as the chair bounced up the bumpy ramp.

I hadn't been on an airplane since the trip we made to Ireland when I was a kid, back when I still had my legs, and that was a cheap discount airline, the sort where you pay for your bags separate. Most of what I remember from that experience was the fight my Mum had had with the boarding lady over whether her handbag was too big to count as a personal item.

It had, however, been significantly more luxurious than this. The inside of the C-17's cargo bay a huge empty void, all metal and straps. Some of the bulkhead was covered in nets hung from the ceiling made of inch-wide webbing. There were eight people aboard already, and they'd pulled down jump seats from the walls, simple grey affairs that looked ridiculously uncomfortable. The floor of the airplane was even worse, covered in rollers, slots and tiedown pockets. It jarred my back as the airmen wheeled me down the hold. The man muttered an apology.

Halfway down the cargo hold, he came to such an abrupt stop that I dropped my bag. A girl sat in one of the uncomfortable-looking seats in front of me. She reached down and handed my my bag as the airmen busied themselves strapping down my chair.

"Thanks," I said. The girl looked me over.

“You alright?”

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “Is this flight direct, or...”

She shook her head. “I think so. I really don’t know. Sorry, I didn't get my details until three days ago."

I laughed. "Three days? Try five hours."

"Really?" She blinked at me. "I'm from Team Harmony. We’ve been working toward this for months now.”

I recognized that name, the biggest eSports organization in Europe. They’d sponsored pro teams across a number of different games. "Awesome," I said. "What's your game?"

"Veilfire.” She was wearing a Team Harmony sports jersey in purple and orange. I guessed she was in her early twenties, with brown hair falling across her face.

I whistled. It was the new, hot game, having attracted a couple hundred million players in the last eight months. I'd heard about a big Veilfire tournament being held in Poland a few weeks back, but the game didn't have a PvE mode, so I'd never looked into it. Wall-hacks and exploits were cheating in PvP.

"Name's Amber," she said. "How about you?"

"I'm Colin," I said. "I do exploits."

She blinked. "Wait, are you Colin Trev?"

"I am.” I said. My heart sped up. A cute pro eSports player knew who I was!

"I watched your speedrun of Hammer Fortress 3. Thought it was some good shit. Thought you were older, too.”

That was a stream I'd done six months ago. Not my best work, but it had gone viral on YouTube. I grinned. "Glad you enjoyed it."

“I didn't know they were inviting exploiters,” she said. "I'll be meeting the rest of my crew once we get to Vegas. How about you?"

"I really have no idea," I said. "I only got the message from Captain Williams this morning, like I said."

"Captain Williams?" She seemed puzzled. "Who's that? Flight Captain Williams? I thought our flight captain was..."

I shook my head. "No, from the reality engine. The one who's been breaking shit on Earth’s behalf."

"Oh." Realization floated her face, and then she frowned. "He called you directly? Why?"

“It was a recording, not a real call,” I said, feeling awkward about the whole thing.

"And this morning? The rest of us have been working on our slots for weeks now. My team had to beat out a bunch of others to win this at the Katowice tournament last month."

"Yeah, I heard about that tournament.” I hadn't realized that a slot at this event was on the line there. Apparently I'd missed out on more than I thought. I probably shouldn't have muted so much of my social media.

Now I pulled out my phone. "I'm gonna let my Mum know we're taking off now," I said. Amber turned back to her own devices.

I sent Mum a quick text, then opened my Discord and checked my channel. I had hundreds of messages and dozens of new members waiting to be approved. I quickly promoted two of my most trusted followers to mods and sent them quick messages asking them to keep an eye on things. then posted a selfie of me on the plane. Then I wondered whether perhaps I shouldn't, but nobody had told me not to, so I thought I was good.

A moment later, a man in uniform appeared up the ramp. As he did, it closed up behind him. He shouted over the noise as the engines picked up their tempo.

"Welcome, gamers," he called. "We're pleased to have you aboard. Next stop is Vegas. I'm afraid that we are not up to the luxurious standards of civilian air travel, but on the plus side, this is footed by the taxpayers.”

That got a bit of a laugh out of everyone.

"We will feed you, unfortunately, military rations, same as my crew and I will be eating. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. Hope you brought your headphones, this beast gets loud. See you in Vegas!”

We all cheered. As the plane taxied onto the runway, I wondered just what I'd gotten myself into.