Chapter 11

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The next location was strikingly different from the ones I had seen before. It was a mess. A lot of tables were arranged without any logic, things scattered around, and some half-empty boxes lying around in the corners. Jackets and other outerwear were piled on the big leather couch.

But there was something here, too, that caught my eye immediately. On each of the many tables was a twenty-seven-inch Arcus gaming monoblock. A best-in-class product that had been on the market for only two months. Each of these computers cost at least nine thousand francs, and there were at least a dozen of them here! The peripherals were not inferior to the hardware: mechanical keyboards and nine-button gaming mice from a well-known manufacturer, and high-end stereo headsets hung on the backs of ergonomic chairs.

In this hall, which was far from small and could have held half a basketball court, they were waiting for us, just as the boss had said.

"Hello, men," Ten Daas greeted the occupants of the room.

Trying to stay behind the boss, I looked around at the large group of guys who had arranged themselves as they pleased-some standing, some sitting, some sprawled out on the numerous poufs. If the forums don't lie, we're looking at a full gang of biker "Goons," all fifteen of them. I'd seen a lot of them before, either entering the restaurant or crossing paths with them on the street, but there were some unfamiliar faces, too.

"Hongi."

"Hello."

"Aloha!"

Somehow, completely at variance, the bikers responded to this greeting. As we walked here, I'd come to believe that Daas was, among other things, the secret head of the gang. But now, when I saw them greet him, that confidence evaporated like an illusory haze. That's no way to greet a leader or a chief. It's a way to greet a good acquaintance whom one respects, but to whom one certainly does not obey.

I limited myself to nodding at Meck and Anton, with them at least a little, but I communicated.

"Somebody already knows this guy," Daas took a step to the side and pointed at me. "His name is Utis, and he works for me. And yes, he's the player who beat the Runner."

A lot of interested stares converged on me, but only one of the bikers came up and held out his hand. He was about two years older than me, tall, strong but not overweight, and his tight black T-shirt accentuated his muscularity. His eyes are open and assessing, his hair is casual, his dark, slightly frizzy hair is disheveled, and his cheeks are covered with about five days' worth of stubble, which makes him look more grown-up.

"Rick Deckart. Runner to boot," he introduces himself, holding out his palm to me.

There was a look of bewilderment in his eyes. He seemed to have the wrong idea about me, and now he's in a bit of shock: "How could I lose to him?" And it's a little frustrating.

"Utis Irzhec. CapNemo," I shake his hand.

"Well," Daas looked around the room, clearly dissatisfied. "I told you to prepare the seats. What the..." He points to the mess. "Oh, well... You can't be changed."

Having said that, the boss clears one of the chairs and beckons me over.

"Sit down," he invites me to one of the tables.

Trying not to show my excitement, I sit down in a chair.

"Get comfortable and turn on the computer," Daas says, leaning toward me. And then, turning to Rick raises his voice. "I don't get it. Is that what I want, everything? Didn't you want a rematch? What are you standing there for? You want a special invitation?"

From the corner of my eye, I see Deckart take a seat three tables away from me. It takes a few seconds to boot up the computer I've been allocated. I move my chair as I am used to, and put my palms down on the keyboard and flat clicker. Immediately I feel a little discomfort, and a belated thought occurs to me that I should have brought my equipment. But there's nothing I can do about it, it's my fault. The fight is hard enough as it is, and what's more the flat clicker is not so good in your hand. However, the keyboard is ok, even more than ok, I'll have a closer look at this model and maybe I'll replace mine with the same one. But the headset is definitely much better than mine, it fits on my head as if it was made for me.

"So, you ready?" The boss hovered over me.

"No, of course not!" I look at him with bewilderment. "I need to get used to the place and the equipment."

"Can't you just sit down and play?" Daas wondered at my words.

"Ten!" Rick speaks from his seat to my boss. "The guy's right. He needs time."

"Ahem," Daas hesitates for a moment, and then says. "Is fifteen minutes enough time?" It's not enough, of course, but he's opening the restaurant at twelve, so that's a big concession on his part, so I nod. "Well, I'll just get some things ready..." He said that, and then he walked away from me.

I found the Battle Arena of Avalon icon on my desktop quickly. I started the game, entered my backup login, and after the main menu loaded, I wondered for a while. As far as I understood, I would be playing against the Runner, which was undoubtedly interesting. But in what format would the duel take place? Neither he nor I have a side-by-side played team, which means the fight will be one-on-one. But the BAA isn't designed for that kind of dueling. No, technically it is possible to play this way, the training mode of the game allows you to play both with bots and with your friends, duels of this kind are not reflected either in the rating or in the statistics. But this game has too big maps for one-on-one combat to make any sense. Although... There are a couple of exceptions, these are the two oldest training arenas, and these are the two where beginners get their first taste of the game. These maps are only available in training game mode and are only a quarter the size of normal maps.

While I was thinking about it, I sent a friend request to the Runner, accompanied by a brief explanation that this was my backup nickname. To be honest, I was reluctant to enter the password to my main account on an unfamiliar computer, who knows what kind of software was on here. I don't think any of the Goons would steal my account, but what if they had ten viral Trojans lurking around on every computer? I don't know how bikers feel about the security of their network.

Autumn Woods or Abandoned Depot? - comes a message to me from Runner to Boot. These are the two maps I've been pondering just now, which means he and I are thinking in the same direction.

Your rematch, your choice, I type back.

It's not that I was so noble in giving the choice to my opponent, it's just that both of these maps were studied up and down by me years ago. Yes, the Forest was a more open arena, which seemed to give the sniper an advantage. But I liked "The Depot" better because of its specifics, it had some great shooting straight lines and lots of covers. Also, I think Rick would choose the Depot as the outwardly more comfortable map for an assault rifleman. That is, giving the choice to his opponent, in fact, left him no choice at all.

Well... Stop!

Why did I think he would play as a Stormtrooper? Yes, his profile lists Tyra as his favorite weapon, and the most used class is Stormtrooper. But that doesn't mean he'll play it instead of someone else. I would play against a Sniper in one-on-one, I would take a Jaeger. We did not stipulate any restrictions on the classes, so anything can be. But that also means there are no restrictions on me in that regard. Maybe really play not a Sniper, and, for example, an Engineer? Perhaps it's this class will allow me to neutralize the opponent's advantage in the reaction as much as possible. Mines, grenade launcher, lots of smoke grenades, force field - all these features of the Engineer will benefit me.

Not that I expect to win; he plays better than me, and my injury was not to be forgotten. And he wouldn't fall for my trick of shooting him in the barrel of his gun a second time, that's for sure. But I can lose immediately and without a chance, or I can give such a fight that the opponent would remember, despite his victory.

Basically, what I need is not to win, but to get Deckart interested in me enough so that he not only wants a rematch, as he does now but allows me to watch his game from the sidelines and maybe give me some advice on improving my skill. This could also be accomplished by losing handsomely.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Attention!" Daas raises his voice. "All who wish to watch the fight do so from here."

While I was warming up, my boss moved two tables to the middle of the room, set up monoblocks on them, and apparently put them online. He'd set up some sort of viewing area.

Two screens, one will broadcast from Rick's face, and the other will have a view from Utis. During the match, complete silence must be observed, and no one must approach the players or tell them anything. Whoever doesn't agree or doesn't want to watch, get out..." None of the Goons left after these words of the boss. Which surprised me; I didn't think the bikers would be interested in watching, as Meck said, 'peeu-peeu-peeu'. "Whoever doesn't want to stand, there are plenty of chairs, so get your asses in there."

Having made a such suggestion, Daas approached me.

"You will create the game. Put these nicknames in "friends" and put them as observers when selecting a map."

The BAA allowed us to add spectators to the game in training mode, who had no influence on the gameplay but could watch the fight.

"Have you played before?" Such an extensive knowledge of gaming nuances leads me to this question.

"A long time ago, back at the alpha test," Daas mentions as something insignificant and not worthy of attention.

Oh, wow! What a twist! But I don't think the boss is playing now, because I've never seen him at his computer, and he's always busy with something. Nevertheless, for the umpteenth time, the boss managed to surprise me.

I didn't have time to think about the new side of Ten Daas's personality right now, alas, so after loading the map with the bots again, I did one more run-through.

Playing in the Woods.

Okay, so Deckart has made up his mind, and his choice comes as a bit of a surprise to me. What did he have in mind by choosing a map that looks more suited to the Sniper? Has he studied the arenas after all and figured out the hidden nuances of the various maps? Then that takes almost my only advantage out of my hands, which is undoubtedly bad and requires a new strategy. Or is this about something else? Maybe he wants to show that he can easily beat me with my own class, i.e., pick a Sniper! An assumption not devoid of logic...

"The training is over," Ten Daas proclaims. "The battle is fought until the opponent is destroyed, and all other conditions for victory are ignored. Begin!"

Kronos, how quickly time flew by!

I select the training mode, then the map, and throw the invitation to the Runner, as well as those nicknames dictated by the boss. Then I block the empty slots so that the system does not fill them with bots, and sort the teams. It turns out there are two sides, each with one active player and one observer.

Now I have to choose which class I'm going to play. The trick is that players don't know which class the opponent has chosen until they meet him in battle. And maybe that's my chance.

Done.

My choice was the Engineer. It would be much harder for Rick to dodge the blast than it would be to get out of the path of a normal shot.

Autumn Wood is a pseudo-symmetrical map, with farm buildings in two corners and a mixed forest in which both deciduous and coniferous trees can be found equally in the rest of the space. Despite the abundance of vegetation, there are few bushes and tall grass in this arena. The forest is also crisscrossed by several trails and glades, which allow you to detect the enemy at a long distance if you have the time to take the right position for surveillance.

I preferred a maximum number of directional mines with motion detectors in my ammunition, choosing them at the expense of radio-fuzed supplies. I loaded the grenade launcher with fragments, and my second weapon of choice was a twelve-shot, nine-millimeter Krol. It was about half the killing power of the Cougar, but twice the rate of fire. If it came down to this gun, however, I was probably already guaranteed to lose. I filled the remaining slots with smoke grenades...

3

2

1

Fight! The system announces.

Unlike the recent Diamond League match, I'm not overwhelmed with emotion. I am calm.

Too bad... I got thrown into the northeast corner. It's definitely not the best option. It's a little harder to mine the approaches on this side, but since that's how it turned out, what can you do? Reloading the map would be an admission of defeat.

I have several ways to win. The first is to create a massive mine trap and lure your opponent into it. If successful, it is an immediate win. But this is what is called going all-in. As soon as my opponent notices me, that is the first thing he will think of. But it is not so difficult to come up with a counter-strategy for such tactics. There is another possibility: to place mines at the maximum distance from each other, to take a favorable position, and when the mine goes off cover the area next to the explosion with a grenade launcher salvo. There is a third option, I call it "corridor of death. This is when a particular route is mined tightly and then the enemy is lured into it. This strategy is bad because since I play alone, I have to act as bait. And that's bad, because Runner shoots just great, and even the kinetic shield doesn't help me much.

Since the second option almost guaranteed a more protracted duel and left the maximum number of possibilities in case something went wrong, I'm staying with it.

Besides, I don't know who Deckart is playing for yet. I don't think he chose to play a jetpack Stormtrooper. On this map, the jetpack heavily de-masked its owner. That is, if he did take a Stormtrooper, he's in armor instead of a jetpack. And he will not be able to fly over the mines. However, this does not mean that he is not able to just see them and bypass them. It all depends on his observation as well as on my skill as a miner.

The easiest way to mine a farm building is to get into it, but you also have to get the enemy to enter it. And here everything is made of planks, which are easily shot through, not just with a Tyra, but even with my pistol. Besides, it's too obvious.

I was in a hurry to plant the mines because I had to cover as much ground as possible before the Runner got to my part of the forest. When I set the last one, I looked at the timer; it showed thirty-seven seconds from the start of the game.

Something is wrong here.

The enemy must have shown up or somehow revealed themselves much earlier. I certainly didn't expect to be allowed to mine the main paths in peace, without any opposition. But no one stood in my way.

Where was I wrong?

What's the trick?

He probably didn't pick up the Stormtrooper. Otherwise, he would have been chasing me through the woods a long time ago. Then what class is he in? Heavy infantry? No, not suitable, a Heavy Infantryman has a vanishingly small chance in one-on-one combat against a Sniper with a railgun. And he couldn't rule out the possibility of that being my choice. Medic? Not really, he only has one gun to fight, so he doesn't think I'm worthless enough to beat me with a medic. Rick Deckart certainly doesn't look like the kind of self-righteous idiot who would do something like that. That leaves me with only two options. The first one makes me smile involuntarily. And really funny, if he also took the Engineer and is now running on his half of the map and just as mines everything. From the outside, it probably looks like two crazy people running around. Poor spectators. But the second one...

That's it!

He picked up a Sniper.

A sniper with a railgun!

If he beats me, using my own main class to do it, then his rematch will be complete.

And that gives me a lot of chances! To do this, however, I would have to run through the woods again and remove the mines that had already been set, so that I could use them elsewhere. So I did. This part of the forest is not shot through from the enemy's respawn because of the slight elevation. This crease of terrain was specially designed by the developers so that on this small map you can not shoot from base to base.

My chance lies in the small number of good sniper positions on this map. Besides, I don't think that Runner is sitting at his base, it seemed not in his character, and the rematch is not for me, but him.

How would I act if I thought I was facing a sniper duel on this map? The best choice would be to go deep around one of the flanks, monitor the enemy base, and, if I was lucky, go into the rear.

Kronos! By the timing, if Rick decided to stick with this tactic, he'd already taken one of the positions. If I had guessed earlier that he would choose this class, the fight would have been over. I would have had time to mine the most convenient viewpoints by then, and he would have been blown up on the mines.

Now it's more complicated than that. If I return to the buildings, he will notice me, and with his accuracy, I will not survive the first shot of the railgun. So the way to my base is closed.

Hmmm.

Well, that's ok.

He's the one who needs to win, let him work.

To Tartarus my base, I don't need it. While he's trying to find me in a place where I'm long gone, I'll occupy his resp. And not just occupy it, but mine everything there so that the mouse can't get through, paying special attention to the traps on the best sniper positions.

If the victory conditions specify only destruction, then the game can go on for at least an hour. And I'm in no hurry.

Having detected no enemy mines on the approaches to his base, I am fully convinced that Deckart is playing Sniper.

When the timer showed two minutes and fifty-three seconds from the start of the game, I had already set the last mine and taken up position in the attic of the farmhouse, ready to fire a torrent of fragmentation grenades at any noise.

Three minutes and forty seconds.

I do not like duels in the BAA, all too protracted, for such entertainment have other games.

Four minutes.

Kaboom!!

There's a blow-up!

Right from my position in the dark depths of the attic, without going near the broken window, I fire a drum full of grenades toward the explosion.

The grenades will take three seconds to travel to the target, so I hope I've got my prejudice right and calculated the enemy's retreat. And if I'm wrong, the grenades will take him another mine!

After removing the grenade launcher, I run to the stairs.

It will all be determined soon!

Three...

Two...

A thin beam pierces my character as I'm getting ready to say "one" to myself.

It's a railgan mark.

An accurate shot through walls, blindly.

Damn Kronos?! How?!

You Lose!

Damn genius!

I calculated everything and...

Hardly keeping my composure, I take off my headset and put it on the table.

My ears were immediately struck by the loud hum of the spectator bikers, whom I'd already forgotten about as I immersed myself in the game. My fingernails dug into my palms, my fists clenched so tightly. I was ready to lose, but not like this.

"Total score: Rick one win, Utis one win!" Ten Daas proclaims.

So they decided to count that fight in Diamond as well.

Which means ...

"The next match will determine the winner of this duel! - And why am I not surprised?"

"I didn't think I'd hit him," the Runner says to me, shouting over the noise. "That was a lucky shot. Five HP left!!!"

If my gaze could scorch, Rick Deckart would immediately turn to a torch

"Do the players need time to rest?" Daas inquires.

"No."

"No!" And now I'm really angry...

Screw him, not a rematch! I won't let him win it back. The next fight will be mine!

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