The train into the city was nearly empty, since Rick was basically reverse-commuting. The trains going the other way were likely packed.

His fight with Kristina stayed with him more tenaciously than the eggs had. The beers had helped calm his nerves, but he already had to piss, and he didn’t savor the idea of relieving himself in the alley outside Alex’s warehouse in the mid-afternoon sunlight.

He stopped by a coffee shop for a muffin and, once he had the receipt, gained access to their restroom before trekking the two blocks to Alex’s place.

Her building looked different in the daylight, somehow more real. It squatted atop a quarter of the large city block, dominating the rest of the shops, some of which sported bars on the windows.

Big place for one woman. It hadn’t occurred to him before. And who makes enough money to abandon an SR rig at their ex-girlfriend’s house?

He didn’t have the energy to think about it. He needed to win, and she’d convinced him she needed it too.

Once he was inside, the lack of windows and the harsh fluorescent lights made him forget the daylight outside. Out of curiosity, he tried to open the two doors he passed on his way to the SR room, but they were locked.

“Don’t,” she said after his second try.

He nodded and looked for cameras, but didn’t see them.

When he entered the SR room and closed the door, she said, “This is a tourney qualifier. Know what that means?”

“It means I have to win or we’re fucked?”

“Yes, but it also means you’ll finally be able to take some of you boosts and skills with you, depending on how you rank.”

“I get permanents in the qualifiers?”

“Yup. You can choose one boost or skill from anything you collect in the qualifiers, but you can keep between one to five boosts or skills if you place in the tournament.”

“One to five?”

“If you place tenth down to seventh, you get to keep one. For sixth or fifth, you keep three. For fourth through second, you take four. The only way to take five into the next rank is by placing first. Every rank has a higher chance of multiple-boost loot and better techniques.”

Rick nodded. “Once you earn a permanent?”

“You keep it unless you want to ditch it for something else,” she said. “I’d advise against that, though, since the sheer number of techniques and skills you have will help you defeat more obstacles and counter more types of fighters.”

Rick had read about the skill and boost progression, but had found it confusing. “What about the discipline trees?”

Alex sighed. “Yeah, you can do that. Lots of people do, but I wouldn’t ever spec your avatar so heavily in one school or family of techniques. It’s dangerous, and you saw Esposito was quite the fight-punk.”

He tilted his head to the side. “A what, now?”

“Fight-punk? Some of the best fighters in the game right now—Eezel, Portos, Candelia—they’re all mixed fighters who’ve abandoned the trees for flexibility’s sake. I gotta say, I’m in that camp, which is why I never brought up the discipline trees.”

“Because you don’t use them?”

“Because I don’t know them,” she said. “I know the theory, and I’ve read as much as I can about it, but I have no idea how to advise anyone about how to choose a discipline tree. Besides that, Dokutan regularly changes up the benefits you’d get from a certain discipline. You get used to a certain style that’s top tier one year, but then they overcorrect, and the next year, you’re so nerfed you’re at a disadvantage.”

Dokutan, the developers of Ruckus Online and half a dozen other VR and SR games, had become a rather ad-prone company, and Rick had endured their garishly “edgy” ads for long enough to have grown tired of them. “I wish it wasn’t Dokutan,” he said as he sat in the SR array’s faux leather chair.

Alex laughed. “You’re always free to choose another company, but Dokutan’s got the most popular brawler out there. It’s not like the other companies are better.”

“Who are we to talk? We both work—okay, in my case, worked—for a psycho. Maybe you gotta be one to get ahead.”

There was silence except for the gentle sound of Alex’s breathing. “You really think that?”

“I don’t fuckin’ know.” He picked up the implant cable. “Anyone used this since I did?”

“Just you, baby.” Alex’s voice was mockingly sweet. “You’re going in half an hour early.”

“Better to be in and wait than not be able to get in later.” Rick grunted and tried to plug in, but winced at the first attempt.

“Your implant okay? It’s not supposed to be pai—”

“It’s fine.” He forced it in, and though it hurt, he kept the pain from showing on his face this time.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

She explained how the qualifiers would work. He’d compete randomly with one-hundred players and the top ten would qualify. The top ten players from fifty different qualifier matches would then compete in a free-for-all in the tournament match the following day.

Alex said, “Oh, you’re on your own, too. I can’t be an effective wingman without being able to track you, and I can’t do that without tripping anti-cheat code. They track this shit pretty closely in competition.”

He nodded but began to fade from his body before he could verbally acknowledge what she’d said.

In fewer than ten seconds, everything went black.

***************************************************

Rick existed in a void without gravity, though maybe that wasn’t true, since his clothing sat on his body perfectly fine. Or was he wearing clothing? Maybe he was naked in the dark. He shifted his leg and felt the denim ride over his skin. Definitely not naked.

How long had he been here? He’d called for the red balloon, but it hadn’t come. That felt like ages ago.

Panic rose in his chest. He tried to breathe through it, but his breath was all he had. There was no solid ground beneath, and no way to know if he was up or down. Dizziness overtook him, making him nauseous. “Alex? Can you help me out? I’m stuck.” He grunted as another wave of nausea struck him.

Then, the lights came up, slowly at first, creating a grey, unremarkable expanse. It was enough to allow him some semblance of orientation, which quelled the dizziness and nausea. Gradually, the outer edges of the expanse took on stony features. The light began to dim, and he clenched his fists, afraid of losing his senses again. Instead, he descended into a room he recognized, though not at first.

It was the theater where he’d fought the kabuki warrior, the theater where he’d met a man named Ditto. It was the theater he’d found right before…

Oh God, is Kris okay? Is this a premonition?

Two fighters danced a glorious dance across the stage like silent ballerinas, flashing fists and feet gracefully, occasionally knocking their partners down.

The crowd was on its feet cheering, too, each man or woman standing in front of a self-folding theater seat, though he heard nothing at all, as if he were deaf, though he heard his own breathing. Gently, Rick drifted above an inexplicably empty seat near the front, then descended into it. He sighed as the nylon upholstery grazed his back and smiled at the sensation of his full weight on the chair. “That’s good.” He felt unnaturally relaxed. Distantly, somewhere in his mind, anxiety about his wife pricked the bubble of his contentment, but it was remote and unimportant.

When he glanced down at his body in the strangely muted theater, fighter’s trunks and a stretchy fitness shirt that hugged his avatar’s body had replaced his normal street clothes. As the audience cheered and gyrated all around him, he remained oddly cut off from even the sound of their movements.

He stood, and as he rose to his full height, whatever mysterious force had muted the crowd disappeared. In a rush of energy and powerful sound, the cacophony washed over him like a tornado.

It disoriented him at first, but he remained on his feet. Shortly after, the announcer’s disembodied voice rang out.

Victory!

A new challenger appears!

The standing crowd stepped away, giving him space, their expectant eyes turning inward on him like the fold of a wave coming to shore but not yet cresting.

He hung his head and sighed. He would do what was required. Yet, as he approached the stage, the roar of the crowd died, and as he took another step, it disappeared entirely, leaving him alone with only one man.

Ditto sat on a stool in the center of the stage.

Rick nodded, and the man wearing the kung fu gi bowed.

“I wondered if I’d see you again.” Anxiety took hold in Rick’s chest and stomach. “Is my wife okay?”

The man turned his eyes up into his head, then returned his gaze back to Rick. “Kristina-Anne Prophet has not left your apartment. She’s been active all day.”

“Okay,” Rick said. “Weird that you can track that. Why am I here?”

The man shifted his legs, placing his right over his left. “How were you unable to defeat Santino Esposito?”

Rick shrugged. “Just not good enough, I guess.”

Ditto uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. “Ah, but you are good enough, Rick Prophet.”

“The fight record says different.” Rick crossed his arms.

The bot slowly nodded. “The fight record?” He squinted. “You can’t hide from me, though there is something I haven’t been able to determine yet.”

“Oh?”

“You were rehabilitated subsequent to a murder conviction. You shouldn’t be able to fight at all.”

Rick’s posture stiffened.

“You’ve paid your debt to society. Technically, you’re free to do whatever you have the means to do, and playing an SR game—even a violent one—isn’t illegal.”

Rick didn’t move, didn’t relax. He waited.

“However, you’re the first convict on file who has ever violated the parameters of his or her conditioning. Do you not find that… strange?”

Rick let his breath out in a long, slow stream, using the time to contemplate a response. “I do.”

Ditto raised his eyebrows, as if he hadn’t expected such candor.

“It’s strange.” Rick let his arms drop to his sides and glanced around the room, as if the walls or the empty theater seats had answers. “And I can’t explain it. I think it has something to do with my implant.” He reached for his neck and rubbed the lip of the access port.

The bot in the kung fu gi pursed his lips and stroked the beard at his chin. “Why didn’t you defeat Santino Esposito? I assisted you and you—”

“Yeah, thanks for that.”

Rick’s ironic tone didn’t escape the weird bot. “Was that… an error?”

He sighed. “No, it’s not…” He narrowed his eyes. “But it made it a lot harder on me that I didn’t beat Esposito. That’s all.”

“Why did you fail—”

“Because I got word his higher-ups would kill him if he lost. I didn’t want to be responsible—”

“Yes. I understand now.” Ditto studied the floor, then raised his eyes. “But Mr. Esposito’s circumstances came about due to his own choices, and you had a powerful motivation to win.”

Rick sighed. “Yeah, well… We’ve all made bad decisions, right? Ten years ago, I killed a man, and it didn’t feel good. I didn’t want to be responsible for another man’s death.” He raised his hands to stop Ditto from cutting him off. “But he wouldn’t listen, and in the end, I did try to beat him.”

Ditto held his chin and stared into the middle distance for an uncomfortable amount of time, not moving a muscle except for the slow rise and fall of his chest. Rick glanced about the room until he found a stool—the vacant partner and identical twin to the one on which Ditto sat. He pulled it toward himself, then sat, then drummed his fingers on his thigh.

Ditto raised his head. “Your wife is troubled, Mr.—”

“Rick,” he said. “My name is Rick.”

“Your wife is troubled, Rick.”

“Yeah?”

“Does that not trouble you?”

“Who the fuck are you, Ditto? The bots don’t talk much, and they sure as hell don’t know about my prison record or my wife.”

Ditto’s otherwise blank face slipped into the most subtle smile and he winked. “Is that not strange?”

Before Rick could answer, Ditto said, “Your match starts soon and your companion is quite anxious.”

“My what?”

“Your companion. The broken woman.”

“Alex?”

Ditto nodded. “Close your eyes.”

Rick’s eyelids became too heavy to keep open, and his mind drifted along the edge of an urgent thought, but he lost it as he fell into the blackness.