CHAPTER 02 — LOSER
Twelve hours later, Austin Flint was in the studio, hot lights bathing him from above. The VR goggles banded tight around his face afforded him no view of the seventy-thousand people staring at him. But then most of those people weren’t physically present anyway. Even so, their jeering reverberated through the room like a packed stadium.
“Cripp-led fag-got!” Clap, clap, clap-clap-clap…
“Cripp-led fag-got!” Clap, clap, clap-clap-clap…
The haptic controller cord jerked as he wiped a hand across his sweat soaked forehead. A voice a few feet away broke through the jeers.
“Tough cuh— cuh— crowd, eh Austin?” Dexter Vardock said.
Flint’s jaw tightened. The voice was lispy and nasally, like every word had to struggle past congestion, it still carried a great deal of arrogance. Though blocked by the VR goggles, Flint could sense the bastard sneering at him.
“They chanted ‘stuttering bitch-tits’ at me last week,” Vardock said. “Don’t let ‘em get inside your huh- huh- head.”
As a pro Battle Smite player for over a decade, Flint expected no less from a playoff audience. Jeers and cheers were part of the game. Always had been. “The randos are fine. It’s your annoying squeak that’s giving me a headache.”
“No need to be nasty,” Vardock said. “Just looking out for you, is all. Don’t want you paying another fine this year.”
Flint ground his teeth. The memory of chucking his VR goggles across the room after last year’s semifinals loss came flooding back. Not his proudest moment. But the anger then was more to do with Vardock’s cheating and nothing about the idiots in the virtual crowd.
“I mean, they cuh- cuh- call me fat shit, too, and you never see me Bobby Knight-style a chair at a reporter,” Vardock said.
“It was a headset, not a chair, moron,” Flint snapped. “And you are a fat shit.”
Not a mature response. But shit-talking in video games was as much a tradition as crowd heckling.
Vardock gave a tisk-tisk sound. “So much anger for a man with so little tuh— talent.”
Flint’s grip tightened on the controller. Did he really have to lose on-purpose to this asshole? “Even if you win, you’re still a fucking troll.”
“A troll, huh?” Vardock replied with edge. Call him fat, make fun of his lisp, he didn’t care. But call him a troll? That was a button to press when you really wanted to piss off the dickhead.
“That’s right,” Flint said. “A fat, sloppy troll. Now shut up and play.”
The display inside the goggles lit-up as the game initialized. A virtual gladiator pit came into existence. At either end of the sanded arena were tunnels. The crowd, seeing it on-stream, roared their approval, their avatars appearing in seats throughout the stadium.
“Ladies and gentleman!” the announcer bellowed. “Welcome to the Grand Finals of the Battle Smite Pro Circuit.”
Flint settled into his seat, preparing himself for the distasteful task ahead. Taking a fall didn’t come natural to him. He would have to put up enough of fight to be convincing without actually winning.
In his headset, the morons in the audience continued shrieking. A character selection screen materialized.
“Introducing our competitors… first, a seasoned veteran of the Pro Circuit, with two championship titles to his name…”
He selected a character. In the virtual arena, a soldier with the lower body of a horse emerged from the tunnel. The hero, Centaurian Warlord, raised a massive greatsword in the air.
“I give you… Flintlock!” the announcer yelled.
The boos were so violent, Flint’s teeth rattled in his skull. Oh, well, he thought. Better to be booed than called a crippled faggot.
“And in the opposite tunnel,” the announcer continued. “The Battle Smite Pro Circuit season 17 defending champion... a man with more titles than any player in history... I give you... VARDOCK DA KING!”
The resultant cheers could’ve flattened a real stadium. But that wasn’t what bothered Flint. Emerging from the tunnel opposite the Centaurion was a character in frizzy green hair and face paint. He hopped out on the sand, bouncing from one leg to the other on giant red shoes, laughing like a lunatic and clutching a pair of rattling moroccos.
Flint balked. “Clownie Moroccos?” he said. “You’re playing Clownie fucking Moroccos in the grand finals?”
Vardock said nothing. But Flint could sense the smug grin on the bastard. The only reason someone would play such a useless, meme character was to troll the match. That, and to humiliate your opponent. Anyone who lost a round to Clownie Moroccos would never hear the end of it.
Flint tried to control his rising anger. Not only did he have to throw the match to a hated rival. He had to lose to the worst hero in the game.
“I don’t like being called a troll,” Vardock said flatly. “But you already knew that.”
Flint squeezed his haptic controllers. He had to lose the match on-purpose, not let the scumbag get under his skin. So with great restraint, he held back the curses he wanted to let fly.
The crowd was loving the selection. Their raucous cheering as the stupid clown hopped around the starting circle was deafening.
“Var-dock! Var-dock! Var-dock!”
This medicine better work, Zeeke, Flint thought. You’re gunna take every fucking drop of it.
##
Two hours later, Flint went through a hatchway into a small locker room. On a microLED screen above the small row of lockers, Vardock was hoisting the trophy in front of thousands of virtual fans. The crowd was chanting furiously the words Vardock had given the FleetTV reporter a few minutes ago when asked about his feelings on the match.
“Easy game, easy life!
“Easy game, easy life!”
Flint’s face reddned as he tore off the VR goggles draped over his neck and pitched them at the screen. It went wide, hitting the nearby bulkhead and exploding into plastic chunks. “Fucking assholes.”
The opposite hatch opened and a man in a Fleet Recreation Board pressure suit poked his head in. The man eyed the broken headset, then Flint with raised brow. “Everything okay, Austin?”
Flint’s face burned with embarrassment. “Yeah, Jerry. I’m fine.”
“Tough loss. You played well, though.”
That was a lie. Flint got shit-stomped, and he knew it. “Thanks,” he grumbled.
“You have visitors,” Jerry said.
Flint gritted his teeth. “I’ll talk to the reporters outside. I don’t want them in here.”
But Jerry had already moved to admit them. Except the people that entered weren’t reporters. There were three of them. A hunched-over frail-looking man with glasses, an attractive women about his age, and a young man who looked exactly like Flint save for the oxygen prongs in his nose. All wore lanyards with studio passes over T-shirts with an image of Flint in his VR goggles.
“The fuck was that shit-show, little bro?” Zeeke said. “Losing to Clownie fucking Moroccos in the first round?”
Flint grimaced as his brother slapped him on his back. He was about to tell Zeeke to fuck off but Esmeralda wrapped her arms around him and near-choked him with a hug.
“Don’t listen to him, Austin,” she said, squeezing him. “You tried your best. That’s all that matters.”
No I didn’t, is what he wanted to say. But Esse put a positive spin on everything, and there was no arguing with the girl. Plus he was enjoying having his head between her massive rack and didn’t want to end the experience by speaking.
“Bullshit he did,” Zeeke said. “I’ve never seen you miss so many skill-shots in your life. What was that Death Charge in round three about? Shit was so off-target, I could’ve sworn Geb was playing for you.”
Uncle Geb smiled. “That’s a low blow right there... comparing someone’s Centaurion to mine.”
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From over Esse’s back, Flint gave Zeeke the middle finger. She let him go a second later. “What are you all doing here? Couldn’t watch from the cabin?”
“Your brother wanted to come see you hold the trophy in-person,” Geb said.
“Or at least give Vardock an ass-whooping,” Zeeke said.
Flint snorted. The way his brother looked all emaciated and carrying around an oxygen concentrator made him skeptical whether the once-junior league boxing champion could throw a punch anymore. “Yeah, well, sorry to disappoint you about the trophy. Fat boy is still out on the stage, though, if you wanna pay him a visit.”
“We’ll pass,” Geb said. “Doctor Reddy called on the way here. Zeeke’s blood counts are low again and he needs a transfusion.”
“Another one?” Flint said. “You just had one last week.
Zeeke shrugged. “Who cares? My counts are always low. I ain’t getting another transfusion.”
“Yes you are,” Flint and Esmeralda said almost at once.
Zeeke grinned. “Nope. I’m giving my bag away.”
“You what?” Flint said, glancing from Zeeke to his uncle. “Please tell me he’s trolling.”
“He doesn’t like using up the blood supply,” Geb said flatly. “He wants to tell Reddy to give his red cell unit to one of the anemic kids in the pediatric bay.”
Flint glared at his brother. “You dumb shit, there’s probably hardly any of those artificial cells left.”
“Exactly why it should go to someone who really needs it,” Zeeke said.
“You really need it,” Esmeralda said.
“No I don’t.”
“Stop being an idiot,” Flint said. “You’re going to the med bay and getting that transfusion.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. And later this week, you’re gunna start those Decel infusions.”
“There’s none available,” Geb said. “Reddy put us on a waiting list, though.”
“Oh there’s some available,” Flint said.
The three stared at him.
“How do you know?” Esmeralda asked.
“Cause I got some,” he said.
Geb looked skeptical. “You got some, huh? From where?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“That’s great news,” Esmeralda said. “Isn’t it, Zeeke?”
Zeeke was checking something on his hand terminal and clearly not paying attention. “What?”
“Your brother got you one of those cancer drugs Dr. Reddy was talking about,” Geb said. “The ones we thought weren’t available.”
Zeeke frowned at his brother. “You didn’t get ripped-off on knock-off black market shit, did you?”
“I didn’t,” Flint said. “But you have to stay alive long enough to get it. So get your ass to the med bay for that transfusion.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Geb said, checking his own hand terminal. “We best get there before the night rush starts.”
Zeeke heaved a sigh. “Fine…”
The two men left him and Esmeralda alone.
“Walk me home?” she said.
##
The four housing pods were attached at a central bridge amidships. Getting from one to the other involved long treks along narrow corridors and multidirectional elevators cutting through the housing pods. What would’ve been a short trek up a small flight of stairs for Esmeralda turned into a five minute wait for one of the auxiliary elevators.
Flint wore a sweatshirt with a hood drawn over his head. He didn’t feel like signing autographs tonight.
“How do you feel about that?” Esmeralda asked.
“About what?”
She pointed at an ad kiosk nearby. On it, a medieval-looking bald dude running at a long-robed woman channeling a fireball in her hands. The sorceress was highly attractive and wore far too few articles of clothing to be practical in a fight. The title over the image read: FOUR KINGDOMS. ULTRA-REALISTIC MMORPG. Coming in 06 days 12 hours 32 minutes.
He frowned. It was a game he with which he was all-too-familiar. And up until a month ago, when the first ads appeared, he thought had long since cancelled development. What? The game?”
“Yes, the game.”
“Why would I have feelings about it?”
“Didn’t your mom and dad come up with the original design?”
“Well… yeah,” he said. “That was a long time ago, though. I’m sure it’s changed in the last twenty years.”
“It’s an MMORPG,” she said. “What does that mean?”
“Massive multi-player online role-playing game.”
She raised a brow. “Which means...?”
“Basically a simulation where losers escape their garbage lives to live in a fantasy world.”
She frowned. “Do you think people really need a new video game?”
“Need? No. Want? Yes. People are sick of playing the same five games.”
The door chimed and shuttered open, revealing a carriage turned slightly askew on its axis. The seal-beam light at the top was flickering bad enough to give someone a grand mal seizure. They got in and she hit the button for the third deck concourse. The carriage jerked and rotated, moving sideways and upwards.
“If people cared less about gaming, we could solve more of our problems,” she said. “Like building a new hydroponics lab and fixing our food production issues.”
“If those things could be fixed, they would have.”
“My point is why create a fantasy world to escape real world problems?”
“You just answered your own question.”
The doors opened onto a concourse and they exited. Pods of empty storefronts came into view along either side of them. The pods were mostly bolted shut, heavy bars of steel drawn over their hatchways.
Flint glanced at the empty C-stores. One of them, Fleet Planting Supply and Co. had been shuttered as long as he could remember. A poster was visible through the reinforced grimy window. A man in a fleet pressure suit was using a backhoe on a plot of soil, two women in the background watering a garden. Above them was the huge band of artificial sky and sunlight recognizable to everyone as the Arbolisk—a solarium and greenhouse that was shut down a decade earlier due to an irreparable problem with the air filtration system. The inability to grow food had been on of the main drivers of the worsening food shortage.
“Excuse me, sir? Spare a few Scrip for the poor?”
Flint turned to see a man sitting against the bulkhead. The emaciated beggar wore a torn pressure suit and was holding out a hand terminal. On the screen of the terminal was a bar code.
Esmeralda pulled out her terminal and waved it by his. A soft “ca-ching” sound verified the small transfer of funds.
“Bless you, miss,” the man said, grinning at them with shit-colored teeth.
Flint scowled as they moved away, passing a row of more beggars. He never gave money to these filthy panhandlers. Esmeralda, on the other hand, did it regularly. Despite having far less money than him.
They passed the end of the walkway by the liquor store and he glanced inside. It had been shuttered five years ago after its entire stock was depleted and the ship had gone essentially dry, save for the illegal manufacture of moonshine in the Lower Deck. Despite being closed, there were huge dent marks in the reinforced glass from would-be thieves wanting to verify the absence of inventory.
“Have you ever heard of the Mayflower?” Esmeralda asked.
“No.”
“The ship the first pilgrims traveled to America on.”
“Oh yeah?”
“They faced many challenges on their journey too. Starvation, disease, strange environments…”
Flint was pretty sure the pilgrims didn’t spend fifty years living above radioactive generators and moving one-tenth the speed of light.
“They had all kinds of issues when they first got there,” she said. “I mean it’s going to be challenging for us, even after we get to New World. Can you imagine? There’s already a whole group of people building a new civilization there…” And she droned on at length.
They came into a new quarter feeding the various pods on Deck Three. Stairwells were spaced every few feet, winding through towering, obelisk-shaped towers where living quarters were stacked in rows of three atop each other. Unlike the Lower deck, it was well-lit, with most of the illumination from closet-sized living quarters bathing the walkway with light. In the common area, a 300-foot television fanned out of the ceiling. The current broadcast was the nightly Fleet News.
“…We just have to love each other,” Esmeralda continued. “To care for each other. A rising tide lifts all boats, that’s what my father always said. And when we get to New World, they’ll have to share with us because we depleted our resources. And in return we’ll have to work…”
“Uh huh,” Flint said, not paying attention. On the TV, the Fleet News had gone to commercial and a new advertisement was starting:
A man in a business suit entered the frame. Well-dressed and tan. Behind him was the image of a large cliff side flanked by oceans and whitecaps. It looked like a exotic paradise.
“The Star Ark will be arriving on New World soon,” the man said, holding his arms out. “The New World Settlement Corporation wants to ensure your family has a slice of heaven waiting for you.”
The guy looked like a sleaze ball. The surroundings were pretty enough. Images of picturesque cliff sides with rolling green hills and white sand beaches appeared. In most frames there was a bevy of development house and construction drones erecting façades around them. A caption in the lower right-hand corner of the screen said: Latest Transmitted Footage. When the man came back into view, his arm was around a pretty dark-skinned model in a bathing suit. “Be sure to place your down payment today. Prices in the Ansari Basin and Capricorn Hill are at historically low prices.”
Flint frowned. “Historically low” was a spurious claim for something that wasn’t built yet.
The image panned out to reveal a group of kids and adults. The man stopped in front of the group and smiled as though a giant family picture was about to be taken. A FleetNET web address flashed across the bottom of the screen.
“We here on New World can’t wait to meet you, Arksmen! Visit our FleetNET webpage today for listings.”
“It’s so beautiful,” Esmeralda said.
“So beautiful it’s probably fake,” he said. “Maybe they just digitally design all this somewhere on the ship, and there really isn’t a New World.”
She giggled. “There are crazy people that believe that. But if that was true, how would I have met Tommy?”
Flint frowned. Tommy was Esmeralda’s long-distance boyfriend. They’d met on the FleetNET a few years ago as part of some penpal system that matched Star Ark passengers with citizens of New World. The two had developed a close friendship, and at some point decided it was something more. This despite the fact they still lived trillions of miles away from each other. Literally. “Oh yeah. Forgot about Tommy.”
On the big screen, the news came back from commercial with an annoying jingle. Much to Flint’s dismay, the first story was accompanied by an image of Vardock. The fat man was dancing around on the studio like an idiot hoisting the Battle Smite trophy.
Flint’s body tensed. He would be seeing a lot of these clips in the coming weeks. “Showboating asshole.”
“What?” she said.
“Nothing.”
They went down the ramp leading to a bifurcation in the path—one side leading to an elevator for the middle decks, the other to a ramp toward a security kiosk outside the vault to the Lower Deck.
“Well this is me,” Esmeralda said. She kissed him on the cheek and headed for the elevator.
“See you,” he said, wheeling himself toward the ramp.
A security guard outside the vaulted door barely seemed to notice him. Just another cripple headed back home to the Lower Deck, she probably figured. Her expression shifted as he drew closer.
“Do I know you?” she asked.
“No,” Flint said.
She leaned forward lifting her glasses. “Hey, you’re Flintlock!” she gasped. “You’re the best Centurion player I ever seen.”
“Thanks,” he mumbled.
“Too bad about tonight though,” she said, looking him up and down. “You look different on-stream.”
Less crippled you mean? He wanted to ask. But that wasn’t polite.
“Why you headed into the Lower Deck?”
Oh just going to pick up the millions of Scrip I made from throwing the match. “My girlfriend lives here.”
Her brows peaked. “Really?”
“No. I’m signing autographs at the orphanage.”
She raised an eyebrow and studied him. Almost as though she thought he’d given a foolish reason to expose himself to radiation and crime. But the guard’s job was to keep the Lowers out of the Upper Decks. Fools who wanted to visit the Lower Deck could come and go as they pleased.
“Well, if you’re sure…” the guard said.
“I am.”
She reached down to where Flint knew the button for the door seal was located. She paused halfway, concern lighting her face.
“Problem?” he asked.
She was frozen staring over his shoulder. He turned around.
Two men wearing holstered pistols and the blue armor of the Fleet Police approached.
“Austin Flint?” the lead officer said.
Flint’s heart dropped. “Yes?”
The officers’ loud mag-boots halted an inch from his wheelchair. They exchanged frowns. Almost like they were deciding how to extricate a cripple from a wheelchair without overdoing it.
“You’ll need to come with us,” one finally said.
He glanced between the two men, swallowing. “What’s this about?”
“You’re under arrest for match-fixing.”