“You’re kidding, right?”

Rick was adamant in the face of his boss’s skepticism. “Not the kidding type, no.”

Hector raised his hand as if to stop him, but Rick ignored it. “Have you already found another substitute, or are you still into this deep, and without a fighter?”

Hector tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. His voice was quiet with the low tone of menace. “No substitute, no.”

“So what I’m saying—”

“Yeah.” Hector wore the look of a killer, and a chill ran up Rick’s spine.

“Yeah?” Rick asked.

“You know how to get to the basement.” Hector’s tone was still low and menacing. Every hint of friendliness was gone.

Rick nodded and stepped toward the door.

“Rick?” Hector asked.

Rick turned. “Yeah?”

“This is it, you know. I don’t let anyone waste my time. He paused, as if to let his words sink in, then continued. “You’ve wasted my time once already. Don’t do it again.”

Rick took a deep breath. “I won’t.” His heart fluttered, and his ribs hurt. He tried to hide his wince. He had nothing more than a hunch that his damaged implant would disable his conditioning. What if he was wrong? Losing a job was one thing, and bad enough, but the look in Hector’s eyes made him wonder, not for the first time, if his boss might be a highly functional sociopath. He shook his head, and the feeling dissipated the farther he got from the office.

Hector must have cleared Rick for the lock. His boss already had his fingerprints as part of the security protocol for his package running work, and this time, his fingerprint was enough to get him inside the simulation room alone.

Dim lights came up automatically, and he bee-lined it for the chair. No more fucking around. Either this works or it doesn’t.

As with his rig at home, the cable was a tight fit, but he got it to work. Before it took him under, Alex’s voice rose from everywhere and nowhere inside the room.

“Whoa. Hector just told me you’re back. What—”

Darkness took him.

When his vision returned, he once more stood at the mouth of the cave. He spun, half expecting Alex to sneak up on him again. I don’t have time for pranks.

Instead, it took longer than last time for his trainer to materialize, and for the first time, he got a view of what it looked like when a new player entered the game environment. She shimmered into existence in what seemed an update to the teleportation technology of an old science fiction franchise he’d liked as a child, though unlike in the show, Alex’s arrival was completely silent.

As soon as she was solid, he rushed her. His fist glanced off something invisible before it reached its target.

“Whoa, what the fuck?” She stepped back. “You can’t just attack someone the moment they enter the game.”

Rick smiled. He felt fine. He’d had no way to know his strike wouldn’t land. He’d fully committed to violence. And yet, none of it seemed quite real, so his heart rate was fine. His balance remained normal; his is eyes stayed clear and dry. The look on Alex’s face made it clear she begged for an explanation.

“I needed to know right away,” he said. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Fuuuuucking weirdo.” She wore a wide smile, as though his strange behavior fascinated her as much as it annoyed her.

Rick took a deep breath. “I’m ready. I’m not gonna… you know.”

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She nodded. “All right, then. This way.”

Wow. She’s adaptable… just sorta rolls with the punches. He followed, trying to avoid thinking about how her hips swayed as she walked in front of him.

He glanced around as they advanced, searching for ambushes. The landscape was still forest, but it wasn’t exactly the same as last time. “The map changes?”

She didn’t look back. “Yeah, but only the details. Biomes remain roughly where they are, and some landmarks never change.” She pointed through the trees as they reached a relative clearing within the woods. “See that scooped out mountain? They call it Snaggletooth. You can’t get there, but it’s always in the distance and it’s always practically dead-on north-northwest. That’s one way players stay oriented toward the center of the map.”

“What’s at the center of the map?”

“Victory, and…” She chuckled. “You’ll see.”

The way she said it reminded him of the last time she’d said those words, of something from their last session. “When I tried to run, I wasn’t able to make it all the way to the bots at first. There was this… green bar?”

“Stamina.”

“But I wasn’t even winded.”

Alex sighed and turned, facing him for the first time since they’d begun walking. “This is a last-man-standing, no holds barred fighting game. Did you get that last part?”

He squinted one eye. All fighting was a game of sorts. At the very least, it was a contest.

“Game.” She frowned. “Look, you’ve made it clear you’re definitely not a fighter, but if you were, that would make for a nice base level of knowledge for a game like this. But it’s not everything. There are a ton of other things more peculiar to games than to real-world fights.”

“What kinds of things?”

“Stamina, for one. Strength. Speed.” She shook her head. “Haven’t you noticed your body’s different here?”

He glanced at himself. He was leaner than usual, and not insignificantly larger. Where his skin was visible, lines of muscle rippled beneath it. “Holy fuck. I’m ripped!”

She laughed. “You don’t think I look like this”—she waved her finger around in the air—“out there, do you?”

There were no mirrors, or any way for him to check out what he looked like. “Does my face—”

“The game automatically builds a rough simulation of your physical appearance—slightly enhanced, as you’ve seen—but you can change that in settings.”

“How do I—”

“I…” she studied the ground. “I don’t think you should.” She looked back up at him. “I mean, you look like a killer.” She cast him a nervous smile. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Is she…

“Right. There’s no point now, anyway.” He frowned. “Hector seemed—”

A knowing look came over her face. “He can be…”

“Yeah.” She chuckled again.

Alex pulled at the leaf of a fern, rolling the edge gently back and forth. “You really think you can do it this time?”

It was his turn to look down. “Can’t afford not to.”

With that, she turned and continued walking. He followed.

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

The first bot they encountered was different from the two he’d seen before. Another male fighter, he was much larger, and this one didn’t hide in the bushes. Instead, he paced back and forth within the clearing that loomed ahead of them.

Alex frowned. “This will be a bigger challenge than the two before. I’m not sure we’re ready. I’ve got some accumulated perms, but you’re practically a newborn.”

“Come again?”

“Defenseless.” She pointed. “That’s not a mini-boss, but it’s damned near. Should have some great gear and get you your first boosts, but your stats are…” She winced. “He’s gonna throw some really difficult attacks, and look at his build.” She pointed. “He’s a big’un, and yeah, looks can be deceiving when it comes to actual players, but the bots are pretty transparent. If they’re big and beefy like that, they tend to be grapplers.”

“I can deal with grapplers,” he said.

She shook her head. “In real life, maybe, but I already told you—this is a game. Your stats and skills are rock bottom. You have a few basic strikes and not a lot else.”

“But—”

“No buts. Your stamina is miniscule. He’s gonna run you down and trample you, and then you’re back at the cave.” She rolled her eyes. “I mean, you wanna die and waste our training time, go ahead, but I’m your trainer. I’m good, but not if you’re not gonna listen.”

He sighed. “I’ve been told I’m”—he frowned—“stubborn.”

“Oh?” she said with an exaggerated tone of surprise.

He laughed. Maybe Alex wasn’t so bad. “What do you suggest instead?”

She gripped her chin and looked toward the sky. “It’s weird we haven’t seen another enemy before now. That’s rare. I say we backtrack and try a different trail. Usually the less obvious ones lead to disaster or the sort of delay that gets you caught outside the shrinking field of play ring—”

“The what?”

“Remember when you asked about the shrinking ring last time?”

He nodded. “You laughed at me for asking.”

“It was a good question, to be fair, and it shows you didn’t jump into this without trying to learn something about it.”

“Okay,” he said.

She looked at him. “The less clear paths sometimes have big early rewards, but they’re also often dangerous, and they can catch you up, putting you in a position where the bots are too much to take out quickly, but you also don’t have time to go back and take one of the main trails to the center.”

He nodded. “Risk versus reward?”

“Yeah, and usually the main trails are the safest. I took us down the mains the last time, too, and it would have worked out if—”

“Yeah, I was there. I know what happened.”

She shook her head. “I’ve never seen anything—”

“I’m right here and I was there. You don’t have to run us through it again.”

“That’s fair.” She turned to face back the way they came. “We’ll try another path.”