My mind spins as I stare at the ceiling of what looks like my ATC condo. As I sit up, I see brown knees instead of the blue ones I’ve spent the last two weeks looking at. I shake out the cobwebs from my thoughts, rub the crust out of my eyes, and ruffle my hair because it feels good.

  “That switch is a mind job. Ho-ly. I can’t say that the time-of-day shift is helping either.” I step into my condo’s amazing shower and get the full-body car-wash treatment and revel in the almost too hot modern convenience that anchors me firmly in a London state of mind.

  “I need to find a way to re-create that in Alaris Eternum. Not like I need the confusion, though.” Blarg. I walk to my holo-dresser and shuffle through the clothes that I own. Most people paper-doll themselves in a mirror, but that triggers a dissonance reaction that makes me vomit and woozy for a few hours. Instead, I go through a virtual closet and the clothes I pick appear when I open my closet door. I don’t dive too deep on why this works and why the paper-doll doesn’t because it works and I don’t want to break it.

  /Ophelia, good morning. My appointment says four hours, I assume an hour for makeup and hair prior?/

  \Correct, Selena. I’m taking breakfast in the Executive lounge in an hour if you want to join me.\

  /See you then./ I reply, excited to enjoy Executive perks again. Now I have to plan two outfits though. Ugh. Since I had already planned an Orion Gaming jersey crop (since they like my midriff showing for add space, the shills) and yoga pants with some designer sneaks, I pick a fun sundress and an overlarge hat with some sparkly flats to go to breakfast in. I look good enough to accompany, but not enough to belong on my own. Perfect.

  “Selena, that hat is absolutely absurd. I love it.” Ophelia walks over as I exit the elevator to the executive lounge. “Oh, the whole outfit is darling. I never see you in dresses, and I’ll say that you are memorable in them.”

  Is she flirting with me? No, can’t be that, she’s just thinking of a press or media opportunity to put me in a dress. That seems like her.

  “I see you are dressed for a meeting. I hope that things go well.”

  “This? Well, yes. I have a sponsor meeting with several of my girls and this is my power suit. I detest changing my outfit in my office, so I don’t. My assistant will be monitoring your event while I focus on the money.

  Breakfast is complete to order: anything you want. I ask for a ham-steak and eggs with applesauce pancakes. Ophelia takes a salmon benedict over bruschetta instead of English muffin. The chef commended my pancake choice and I puff with accomplishment as I see Ophelia’s eyes flash with jealousy. She grumbles all the way down to the event space where my interview and shoot is taking place.

  “I’m sure he’s just happy to make something new.” I assure my boss.

  “No! I change my order every time, and I never get an accolade for my choice! See if I ever invite you again.”

  “Nooooooooo.” I whine and she cackles maliciously.

  “Go get changed, Kavita is due to log in in a few minutes.”

  I know the handles of my FoF team-mates, but to hell if we’ve ever shared first names. That’s not what insular gamers do.

  I do as I’m told and change into my ‘gamer gear’, aka the revealing shit that the boys want me to wear. I go to wardrobe to find a logo windbreaker and throw it over my look and see that I like the covered, not covered vibe better than the naked arms and midriff look.

  I get to makeup and see an Indian woman, skinny, tall with a fuck off frown staring at the cosmetic mirror at me. “Whoah, chica, put away those weaponized eyebrows.”

  “I’d accuse you of being racist, but you are almost as brown as I am. Who the fuck are you?”

  “You greet your team with that mouth?”

  “I don’t know you from a whole in the wall.”

  “I bet you say that about a lot of things, puta.” I growl at her.

  “Holyshit, Zhansta?”

  “Yeah, new world, who dis?”

  “You wouldn’t play mid if you didn’t fucking play mid.”

  No fucking way!! “Choppah?!”

  “Yes!”

  “Fuck me, can I hug you?” I ask. She doesn’t reply and just wraps her lanky brown arms around me. My sausage mitts dig into her back and squeeze. “is it bad that you’re my favorite teammate even though you’re a bitch?”

  She scoffs and head-butts me. “Same to you, asshole.” We scowl at each other for a minute before laughing and hugging again. I rub my head and chuckle even though it hurt.

  “Are we going to have a problem?” Ophelia’s assistant asks.

  “Us? Hell no. Choppah and me are tight. We’ve just never met each other before.”

  “She’s right. Talk to us with our handles. I’m not used to reggo names yet. Are we going to get coaching for this model stuff?”

  “Yeah, don’t suck and smile pretty you corpo shill.” I chuckle at her surprise, “Nah, they coach us and the camera guy is super professional.”

  “While Zhantsa is not wrong, we’re not asking you to pose like fashion models. But you still have to sit down and let our hair and makeup team take care of you first,” Professional assistant lady chastises.

  Choppah looks at me for too long and then looks back to Ophelia’s assistant. “Okay, sure. But Zanny is showing me around the ATC after we’re done.”

  The fool photographer just asks us to interact while he takes pictures of us. We start with chatting about good plays, but then her snark comes in, then my desire to control responds, and then we’re shouting at each other about other games and completely off course when we both notice that the entire studio is silent.

  “Are you two sure you’re team-mates?”

  “Yeah, sure. Just because we don’t agree all of the time, doesn’t mean I don’t have her back. Especially when she sucks,” Kavita snipes.

  “I will steal your jungle camps you piece of shit.” The brown turd just laughs at me.

  We perform like the corporate monkeys that we are, posing as requested and adding a bit of tension of our own via discord and conflict energy. An hour passes and when the assistant and the photographer release us, the conflict releases from Choppah’s face.

  “I don’t know how you two will survive the interview, but we’re due in the Synch space with your interviewer.” She walks toward the gaming lab I played my tournaments in and I follow.

  “And that means?” Choppah asks.

  “We’re in an accelerated time space, but a few moments after they shut the door to the room, we will be on Earth time at a regular speed. It’s how I participate in live tournaments and try new games that haven’t invested in immersive gear support yet.”

  She nods, “Makes more sense why that gear was required for the team, so we could scrim in accelerated time.”

  The former game lab is now arranged as a cozy lounge with two chairs on one side and a projection of a woman in a chair on the other. Interesting, I bet they will splice the feed in production to make both sides look real and as though we were all in the same room.

  It takes a few minutes, but the projection of our interview begins moving and the audio feed cuts in. “Can you two hear and see me?”

  “Yes ma’am” I say.

  “It’s a bit weird that you’re only three quarters opaque. Can we push the alpha to ten percent or less?” Choppah turns to Ophelia’s assistant, who walks over to the wall and taps on a screen that appears. A few seconds later the woman across from us looks more like a person than a scifi hologram.

  “Much better, thank you.”

  “Excellent. Are you two ready to start? I’ll introduce us to the audience and then start asking some questions. Answer as completely as you feel comfortable with.” Kavita and I both nod.

  “Good afternoon ladies and lady enthusiasts.” She waggles her eyebrows a moment before continuing. “I’m Sasha Corvin and I’m here with two members of the all-women semi-finalist team in the most recent Fathom of Fates tournament, Kavita ‘Choppah’ Chopra, and Selena ‘Zhantsa’ Campbell. Welcome to the show ladies.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Same.” I roll my eyes at Kavita and I hope the camera can see it.

  “We’ll start with the nicknames, or gaming handles. How’d you get them?”

  I look at my teammate and gesture for her to start and she shrugs. “I started playing video games competitively with first person shooters that had squad vehicles. I was pretty good at stunt driving while shooting, so it became my role. Then one day, one of my teammates says ‘Get to the Choppah’ in a bad Austrian accent, and it stuck. I also think he never heard my last name correctly, so there’s that.”

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Mine is way less interesting. I liked a character in that dark medieval kingdom show and I wanted to be a strong, bad bitch just like her. Every one of my mains on the games I play are a variant of that name.”

  “Speaking of other games, I’ve heard that neither of you got your start with Fathom of Fates and every ambitious young woman is probably wondering where you started and how you got here.”

  I look to Kavita to start again.

  “Not this time, princess, you tell them about Orion Gaming’s most talked about player.”

  I snort at that, “Why would I bring Darth Hampster into this?” Kavita scoffs and swats my arm. “She calls me princess because many of our team practices are scheduled around my other games. I’m lucky that the ATC exists so that I have time to practice and compete on several teams.

  “I started gaming as a way to bond with my dad. Mom and I always had shopping and food, but Dad didn’t want to think much after work, so he’d turn on his console and play some shooter games. I wanted to be good enough not to be a burden on co-op mode, so I started practicing when he was gone and after a month or so, I picked up the second controller, plopped down on the couch next to him and started playing.

  “I started branching out to competitive team games like Call of Conscription and Overlook in high school, but I never thought a girl could go pro until I saw one of my favorite Overlook players, Gen-lock, commentate a Fathoms tournament. It took me a while to get into MOBA gameplay, into college in fact. None of my engineering friends liked shooters that much, so I joined a Realm of Raidcraft raid team and oddly it was RoR that started my road to professional play. My junior year, we hit number ten in the world in small-group raiding and Orion Gaming took notice. They asked us if we played any other games and they invited me to try out for them. Ended up losing my spot on the RoR team when I signed up to alpha test Orion’s integrated implants because of scheduling conflicts, but it’s been worth it for the time I’ve gained.”

  “So what games do you compete in?”

  “Obviously FoF with Choppah, I placed fourth in the new auto-chess battler based on FoF—Fathoms of Tactics, fifth in an open call team in Sniper’s Folly, and Won the 3v3 tournament in RoR. I don’t think I’ll pursue a team in Folly, but the open call was fun and I’ll probably do it again next year.”

  “See! This is why I call her princess.” She changes to a falsetto voice to mock me, “I don’t know if I’ve got the time to add another game that I’m casually ranked in the top 10% as an amateur.” She kicks my leg lightly, “And here I am, playing just two games, only one of which I have a sponsor for! And yes, before you say anything I am a little jealous.”

  “I guess I should talk about me instead of sniping at Zhan. First, I grew up in a traditional Indian family, where my dad and mother were encouraged by their families to become doctors, and who were arranged to be married because they didn’t have time for a robust social life because of their career focused minds. Bring in little Kavita, who was punished with mandatory study time whenever I got less than an ‘A’, but always wanted to go hang out with other kids my age.

  “I snuck out to meet with them when I was in middle school and we went to an Arcade. My love affair with video games was born. My parents found out I wanted to be a professional gamer and chastised me that I was adding nothing to society with such desires. I showed them the clip of Gen-lock and the woman player on the Orion team and told them I would be helping women and gamers at large.

  “Once I was old enough to sign my own contracts, I walked out, signed with Orion and since we placed well this year, they asked me to upload into the ATC and try out for some other teams. I also play Call to Conscription, Fighter Kings, and a hand-held MOBA that’s popular in the Philippines and Indonesia.”

  “You’re getting your pro-gaming start just out of high school and you’re whining about me?” I glare at her. “You’re the motivational success story, not me. With a sponsorship and the ATC, I’ll be calling you princess soon.”

  “Yeah, whatever.” She turns away and I think I see an embarrassed blush on her cheeks. I smirk at Sasha and lean back in my chair.

  “Now I see why you two are known for your catty banter. Do you two butt heads often during your games?”

  “We argue pretty often during team discussions, but not so much during games. Though Choppa yells at everyone during games as our shot caller,” I say.

  “Yeah, during games we don’t argue, that would ruin our gameplay. When she disagrees during a game our mid-laner goes off script for a moment or two and then joins us again soon after. Outside of games, though, I’m pretty sure our coach is tired of our shit.”

  “Can confirm, we are not his favorite people.” I nod.

  “I bet he would drop us in a heartbeat if we weren’t so good at the game. Corralling strong personalities is part of the job. And I don’t think you get this good at a game if you don’t have strong opinions about how you got that good.”

  “Do you think that’s a requirement or something you develop?” Sasha asks.

  I smirk at Kavita.

  “Don’t look at me like that, like you said, I earned my spot, even though I’m young.”

  “Sasha, I think it’s based on what drives you. If I like a game, I want to be good at it before I set it down. It just happens that my standard of ‘good’ is pretty high. Once my team got recognized in RoR, I realized that being recognized for being good not only makes the grind worth while, it makes the game that I already enjoy a little bit more fun. Hamster might be the only other gamer that I’ve met that has a similar philosophy.”

  “No wonder we butt head’s so much. I wanted to be a professional gamer once I found out that it was possible. I went looking for games I was good at, or picked up quickly and then committed to them, to grinding the skills like a nine to five. I do this so I can get paid to play video games, and now that I have a sponsor and more time in the ATC, I will find other games to do that with until I make enough to support myself with this job alone. My approach takes a strong personality and a double dose of stubborn and persistent.” She turns to me, “I still think you and Hamster are aliens.”

  “There you have it. There’s no one way to success, but the most common note is the Grind. It’s there, you have to do it, and they’ve found a way to stay interested while doing it. In our next segment, we’ll be talking to some professional e-sports casters and see how they get involved in gaming.”

  Sasha holds so still that I think the hologram is frozen, but then she turns to us. “We’ll be doing the next segment in the studio here, in about ten minutes. Thanks for joining us ladies, you two are entertaining together.” She winks at us before the projection cuts out.

  “She totally thinks we’re dating. I’m surprised she didn’t ask to be honest.”

  “WHAT?!”

  “Zhan, are you not running the chat feed on your HUD? They are shipping us hard.”

  I pull up chat and scroll up. “Oh gods, they are. Are you even queer?”

  “As a football bat. I’d ask if you are, but your fashion shoots are basically just a montage of your thirsty lesbian ass crushing on the other models.”

  I groan. “I thought the same thing, but Ophelia says they look good. Wait, I thought you didn’t recognize me when we met?”

  “I didn’t know the social media Latina was my team-mate Zhantsa, but your face is all over the place. That pinstripe ladyboss shoot you did was fire. Were you actually stepping on that guy or was it an illustration?”

  “It was real. He asked me out several times after that, before one of my friends kissed me to get him off my case.” I stand up out of the chair and stretch a little. “I’m a little hungry, want to grab a bite? I can answer any questions you have about the ATC you have. I have to go into the office for a bit later, but I just have to do it before tomorrow.”

  “Uh, yeah, cool. I could eat.”

  ***

  “It’s wild that we can just get a table like this on a whim.” Kavita looks out at the Thames from our café table and marvels at the lack of crowds.

  “Food isn’t something most people want to spend money on here. For me, I’d never be able to afford half the things I enjoy in the ATC, so I’m happy to spend a little extra for a meal that would be ten times pricier in actual London.”

  “What’s the exchange rate look like?”

  “It’s just the regional currency, so here it’s pounds, just much less expensive. I ask the construct to display USD and pounds on all prices because I grew up in the US.”

  “Why chose London? This can’t have been your only choice.”

  I blush before I answer, “Irish accents make my middles warm.”

  “Hah! That is ridiculous. I almost picked the one in Texas for the same reason.” She sips her drink then traces the glass rim in thought. “Is it hard to go back to real time after being here all day.”

  I let out a long breath. “Before I answer, what was your dissonance rating?”

  “Less than ten percent, does that matter?” She seems confused but interested.

  “Yes, and I know because mine was over eighty percent.”

  I sit there and watch her process what I said. “I know there were warnings about high dissonance, but how does that really affect you?”

  Sighing heavily, I attempt to explain. “A dissonance of over 30% can start to create a persistent disorientation effect in real life. Many of my friends in here have ratings over 50% and need to lower their dissonance before Orion can ensure no long-term complications. As far as I know, I’m the only one over 75% that’s stabilized. Those that can’t at this level of dissonance get ejected and get put into a medical coma while the trauma to their minds are lessened. Only one other person has had lasting complications, as long as they were removed quickly.”

  “So, what, you can’t leave?”

  “Nope. I live here now. Permanent ATC resident. They moved me to London because they were the first country to adopt a digital citizenship law that could protect my status.”

  “Holyshit, that’s crazy. How are you so calm about this?” she seems to be getting angry. Is it at me or for me?

  “Eh, I’ve been dealt with openly and Orion does compensate me and pay the bills for sustaining my body while I’m stuck here, but I kind of don’t care. I love it here, and I haven’t once missed my life before this.” I don’t remember much of it, but I’m not going to say that.

  “Well damn, I guess that means I can’t ask you on a date in the real then.”

  I chuckle at that, “Nope, no real for me. Wait what? Are you having me on about the chat shipping us?”

  “No, but they did give me the courage to ask.”

  Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. What would Maddi think?

  /Maddi, are we dating?/

  \No. I like you, a lot. But I can’t commit while I’m still treating people with whom affection might help. I would still like to continue to be friends with occasional benefits though.\

  My heart hurts a little, but I was always aware that it was a long shot.

  /I would be happy if we keep walking the path we are on. I’ve been spinning it in my head for a bit, so thanks for clarifying./

  \See you tomorrow, Sellie.\

  “Did I ruin it? Or are you laughing at me on the inside because you hate me?”

  “What? No. Geez, can’t a girl sit in gay panic without inciting more gay panic?”

  “Pfft, no. That didn’t sound like a no.”

  I smile back at her. “It’s not. I just worry. About our team, about how often we fight, etcetera.”

  “We don’t have league play for another three months, and arguing with you in person was fun and kind of a turn on. Chat saw the sexual tension, so maybe that’s why we fight so much?”

  “You’re letting chat play therapist? Are you sick?” She chuckles at my accusation.

  “I also admire your play and you’re far prettier in person than whatever picture that is on your Discord.”

  “You are laying it on thick, chica. Do I have to get the waiter to turn the hose on you?”

  “No need for that, I’m already wet,” she says, in an over-the-top sultry voice

  “OH MY GOD. You did not just say that.” I burst out laughing and she joins me while I turn red as a tomato.

  We get our food shortly after and I turn the conversation back to her and what her plans are and if she plans to stay for long periods or log out everyday. Turns out she moved into a small studio with a fridge, a bathroom and a cook top and got the implants so that Orion would pay for half of her long-term immersion pod.

  “Those are good for a month, right? But they’re bad for your musculature.”

  “Right. I also can’t afford to keep it stocked for more than five days at a time, so my plan is to log, get some exercise and restock every three days or so. Do you even have to do any of that?”

  “Heh, yeah, kind of. I like have to eat and do regular life things in here now because I’m a resident, but for some reason the exercise thing isn’t working for me, so I just stay a little plump no matter what I do.”

  “I think you look good. Being rail skinny like me, or beefcake fit doesn’t make you inherently happier you know.”

  “Ugh, I know. And thank you, it just bothers me that I have no control. You should know though, that I do have some body image issues.”

  “That’s really hard to believe with as big as your socials are.”

  “That’s mostly Ophelia’s team, I think they’re all a secret sect of popularity wizards propping me up for their financial gain.”

  She laughs for a while about me saying ‘popularity wizards’ seriously.