Chapter 1: Facing Failure

I kicked my shoes off as I trotted through my mess of an apartment, I had abandoned it in haste as I rushed out the door not three days earlier. As I entered the kitchen dining room combo, the haphazardly stacked semi-washed dishes that lined the sink counter caught my attention; crusty food long dried. I wasn’t in the mood for cleaning, so they could wait.

I was not well versed in failure. Whenever I came across an obstacle, I often either succeeded outright, or practiced until I did. But after hours of blood-pounding adrenaline fueled gaming last night, I finally met that long elusive failure. There were to be no second chances this time. Finally, after years of practice, I made it to the finals in Fate Online’s yearly tournament; only to lose.

Out of all the VRMMO’s released in the past few years, FO had been on top. And after years teetering on the edge of Amatuer-Pro in a half dozen different VRMMO’s, I finally made the push to pro in FO. Alongside a few friends I made from other competitive games, we formed Invictia, a team that quickly climbed the ranks of FO.

The culmination of my team's hard work was a chance at total victory; first place. We’d been the favorites in our half of the bracket, sweeping most of the teams in the primary format, Player versus Player, 5 on 5.

Sighing loudly, I plopped down onto my bed, disrupting the layers of clothes that were previously neatly folded. With a gesture I opened my homes built in Personal Holographic Computer, which I called Piece.

After a crushing defeat, perhaps it was not the best morale boosting exercise to browse public forums discussing the match, but I needed to know what people were saying.

Opening a post in the FO official forum page, I glanced at the current most popular comment.

FOPvPGodxX: Overall, a pretty solid showing from both sides, Invictia making it this far after forming so recently was pretty incredible! However, I think they might have been able to take the W if they had a different main DPS. Locke just seemed a little too aggressive, and didn’t seem to take his teammates into account as much as he should have.

I frowned, finding it strange that I had been called out in such a fashion. The commenter hadn’t even mentioned anything about our opposition, and nothing about how Invictia played besides my apparent failing.

I brushed it off, despite being the most popular comment of the post, surely it was a one off comment. But after browsing through the same post for a few minutes, reading replies to FOPvPGodxX’s comment, as well as other independent comments, many of them shared the same sentiment. If I played better, the outcome might have been different.

“Please call Frenzy, Piece” I asked my AI assistant. Perhaps one of my teammates could clear this up. Our post loss discussion had been brief, and we all agreed it would be better to let everyone cool down before we reviewed the game.

“What's up man?” Frenzy said, his rusty voice grating slightly.

“Have you seen the posts about our game…? Have you read the comments?” I asked.

A pause came from the other end of the call, the muttering of others besides Frenzy's distinct voice picking up on the microphone.

“Yea.. I have, we’ve actually been talking about the whole situation for a couple hours now, don’t think it’s your fault though.” he said, a hint of unease tainting his attempt at reassurance.

“We?” I asked

It was pretty obvious by we he meant the other members of our team, but I wanted to hear it from his lips.

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Why were they having the post-game discussion without me?

“Honestly man, we just don’t know if our current roster is a good fit for your playstyle, and we think it might be best if we parted ways.” Frenzy said.

It took me a moment to respond, the absurdness of it making no sense to me. We all played together for years now, why would they decide to take such a drastic action now? Sure, maybe the finals didn’t go well, but our team had been tearing up the competition for a couple months now. Something else was happening, and I would find out what it was.

“What's going on Frenzy, why are you doing this?” I asked, some steel entering my voice.

“I’m just gonna come clean man, we received an offer.” he sighed, as if that somehow explained everything.

“And?”

“Look Locke, they offered us a sponsorship worth a lot of money, with one caveat; we needed to exclude you. The sponsors don’t approve of your attitude, man, the way you play. We didn’t want this Locke, but this could mean new opportunities for us, man!”

“That's really messed up Frenzy” I said, making the end call gesture, before he could offer a response.

After the loss, I didn’t need to deal with something like this, I should have been able to depend on my friends.

After such a short but intense time in the spotlight, people would find out what happened. There would be no opportunity for me to join any meaningful organization, as it was likely not many would be willing to take the “risk” I apparently represented.

Glancing at the notification bar of the hologram, a pair of messages caught my attention. Opening them, I assumed they would be official notices of my severance from the team. But only one of them was, the other one was a short message from my father.

“Locke, it's been a while since we've spoken. I’m sorry about the loss, but perhaps it's time to put your degree to good use; get a real job.”

Short and sweet I thought.

Maybe he was right though, I really had given the pro-gaming scene an honest shot. Perhaps - If I was lucky, which currently did not seem like a recurring theme in my life right now- I could find some organization to offer me a contract. But it certainly would not be a well paying one, and my team would likely consist entirely of strangers.

“Piece, can you bring up jobs that my degree is applicable to? Sort by experience required as well, if you will.”

“Of course, Sir” A robotic female voice rang out from a speaker on the opposite side of my room.

Computer science with a focus on game design was the degree I earned from a nameless online college, but with my dream of becoming a pro gamer, I never really got around to finding a job that used the degree.

“Your results sir,” Piece said.

Browsing through the list, I realized I should have set a parameter for pay. More than a few of the results were very, very low pay, likely meant as advertisements for internships.

As I began to speak up about the correction to the filter for the job applications, my eyes caught on one that seemed interesting.

Project Daedalus

The requirements for the job were a four year degree, and simply, “The desire to improve”. I rolled my eyes. Wondering what Indie developer thought up this masterpiece, I located the author of the ad.

Oculus

“Piece, is this the real Oculus? The AI company?” I asked, nearly choking on the water I had been drinking.

“Indeed it is, Locke” Piece said, after a small delay. My eyes narrowed imperceptibly, Pierce never called me by my name. It was also extremely strange that a company revered for their groundbreaking study in artificial intelligence was developing what seemed to be a video game. Why else would they have a need for someone with a degree in game design?

“Uhm, Alright. Would you apply another filter to the list excluding low paying jobs, and jobs that might be internships.” I said.

“Oh! Also, would you apply to Project Daedalus for me.” I asked, before Piece could reply.

“Of course Sir.”

“That it, thanks Piece”.

I yawned, glancing at the digital time on the hologram.

“Already past midnight,” I muttered.

Pushing the remaining clothes off my bed, I went to sleep.