by Deck Davis
“Just busy yourself with the sand dogs while I sort this out,” I told him.
As Dylan nocked arrows and let them fly at the sand dogs that were crawling down the dune, I picked up a dagger. This time I was able to lift it properly, and no messages appeared telling me that I didn’t have a proficiency. Not only could I now pick up a dagger after stealing a proficiency from Dylan, but my appearance had changed. Where before my arm had been grey and fuzzy, my forearms now had definition. The fuzziness had peeled back to reveal the skin of my arms, except that they were a shining pale, and looked almost like marble. Hmm. As well as taking a proficiency from my spirit-archer friend, I’d also taken on some of his appearance, too.
I smiled. I’d cracked it. As an abermorph, I would always start a battle without proficiencies. But if I could reach level one, which was always an easy matter in the early stages of a VBR, I’d be able to tool up. I wondered if I could use the skill on a team mate, or if it had to be on an enemy. That would be much easier.
With my dagger in hand, I approached Dylan. He had his back to me. When I was close enough, I lashed out and plunged the dagger into his back. A flash of red light gathered around my blade. My grin spread wider. A red flash meant a critical hit.
Dylan turned around. “Hey, what gives? I just lot half my HP.”
Without giving him a second to answer, I stabbed him again, this time in the belly. Dylan dropped to his knees, as if his legs had buckled.
“I thought you were fixing the code,” he said.
“You’ll believe anything,” I told him, and stabbed again, this time draining the tiny remaining scrap of HP from his meter.
“You back-stabbing motherfu-”
Dylan’s avatar began to fade before he could finish his curse. The edges of his body became translucent, and he soon disappeared entirely.
I quickly spoke a re-spawn command and brought him back into the desert. For the next few hours we stayed in the dunes. I tried out each skill in turn. With each use, I became happier and happier. Abermorph wasn’t without its draw backs, since I’d start a VBR weaponless, but I was starting to get an idea of just how powerful this avatar could be, if I played it right.
Chapter Fourteen
After leaving Drift Dunes, we left Dad’s studio and went into the living room of the main house. Dylan grabbed himself a bottle of Cool Blue from the refrigerator. I watched him, and I saw that he had a secret stash of them hidden behind a cheese wheel. He turned, and he tossed the bottle across the room. I caught it and popped the cap while Dylan grabbed himself another. While he drained the bottle dry, I saw a sulky look in his eyes.
“Cheer up,” I told him. “You didn’t know what an abermorph can do. And I sucker punched you, after all. You couldn’t have avoided it.”
“Sucker-stabbed me, more like. That was a low-down trick, Dirty Harry. Not what I’ve come to expect from a person with such high moral standards as yourself.”
I shrugged. “I guess after Bernli, I’m learning that morals don’t count for much in VBRs.” Then I gave him a smile. “Your aim is getting loads better.”
The sulkiness left his face for a second and broke into a grin. Then he seemed to bury the grin with much effort and fix his sulky expression again. “Yeah, yeah,” he said.
I activated the gel-display on the wall. The white paint was replaced by a blue hue. It was dark outside now, and the black of the night seemed to leak into the room through the windows, making the gel-blue glow even more. I felt it on my face.
“You can hit the hay if you want, dude,” I said. “I need to register for the New Eden qualifiers.”
“I thought you already did.”
“I registered my bard. But since it’s out of action, I need to register my abermorph.”
“Will you make the deadline?”
I nodded. “The solo qualifier is in ten days. The minimum requirement to enter is to be coal-rated, and I reckon I can work into the coal league before then. After that… Well, let’s just say I have high hopes for the abermorph.”
I accessed the mainnet menu. The pentagonal logo of the VBR Commission filled the gel screen and then gave way to the VBR’s main site. At the top was a menu listing options such as ‘Check leaderboards,’ ‘Latest Overseer Commission news,’ and other VBR-related tabs. At the end of the menu was a tab labeled ‘Enter New Eden VBR.’
Just as I was about to access it, a message filled the screen.
Message from Overseer Lucas [New Eden Overseer #3]
Greetings, VBR lovers! I write to you with great news! Given the overwhelming response to the grand battle royale ordered in honor of Overseer Sternbuck, I am delighted to tell you that all qualifying slots have been filled. As such, preliminary registrations have been disabled, and the qualifying rounds will take place tomorrow, February 3rd.
Tune in on your mainnets or try to snag tickets to the live event! This is not to be missed!
I flicked my wrist in an angry gesture, swiping the message away from the gel screen. Lucas’s words took a while to filter into my brain properly, since even seeing his name sent a red mist descending on me. All the qualifying slots had been filled? They were bringing the qualifiers forward? That meant…
“Does this mean you can’t enter?” asked Dylan.
I drained my bottle of cool blue. I held my hand out and felt Dylan pass his own bottle to me. I drained that too. My stomach felt warm as the alcohol hit it. “That’s exactly what it means,” I said. “The bastard has brought the qualifiers forward.”
~
I didn’t sleep much that night. I couldn’t help but think that Lucas had somehow known that my bard was injured and that if I wanted to compete in the New Eden VBR, I’d need a new one. That being the case, he’d used his overseer authority to announce that the qualifying slots had been filled. That meant there was no way I could get in. A grand VBR, the biggest ever, would be happening soon, and I’d be on the sidelines. There was no way for me to enter, no way for me to earn enough bits to replace the prot-layer generator on our house, and no chance for me to show Sera, Vorm, and Clyde what a mistake they’d made in screwing me over.
As I paced around in my bedroom, I eyed the crate of Cool Blues on my window sill. I’d taken them from the fridge, and, knowing I wouldn’t be able to sleep, I’d brought them to my room. I had a choice now. I could pop the first cap and drink myself into oblivion. That’d be a sure-fire way to forget everything, at least for the night. Tomorrow morning, though, it’d all come flooding back, and not only that, but I’d have a hangover to go with it. What would that solve? It certainly wouldn’t stave off the sting of betrayal I still felt from my old team’s actions.
And then a thought struck me. My old team. Team. There wasn’t just a solo VBR happening in New Eden; there was a team VBR along with it, and in a team VBR, only the team itself had to be registered. Individual players could be added and subtracted right up to the day of the event. There were always replacements leading up to a team VBR. People got sick, had emergencies. Replacements were always needed. Some fighters, like Rynk, made their living filling slots for teams who were temporarily a man down. That was my way into New Eden.
Filled with adrenaline, I left my room, hurried down the stairs, and walked into the living room. I clapped my hands, and a burst of pale, yellow light lit the room. “Hello, Harry,” said a computerized voice. “In the news today, the mayor of Kinohelm—”
“I thought I turned you off.”
“Bye, Harry,” said the voice, sulkily.
Damn. I felt bad. “Okay, buddy. Go ahead and tell me the news.”
While my computerized friend told me the latest happenings in Kinohelm, I got to work. The gel display on the walls had half-evaporated, so I spread some more, a smaller square than usual this time, and I loaded the mainnet. From here, I accessed the VBR recruitment site. This was where players could offer their services to teams who were a man short, and teams themselves could ask for applications to fill a vacant slot.<
br />
I loaded the ‘vacancies’ section. From here, there was a list of upcoming VBR battles. It seemed that, over the next week, there was a gold-ladder match in Kinohelm, as well as a coal match in Sootstein. On and on the list went, with the smaller VBRs at the bottom. The one I needed was at the top, crowning the list like a king looking over his subjects.
New Eden VBR Team Qualifiers
Upon opening this, I saw a much smaller list. This one showed the names of teams who had unexpectedly found themselves a member short leading up to the qualifier.
Team Roust
Team Golden Ork
Team Perlshaw
Wow. I’d heard of Team Roust. Those guys were silver-rated, but they’d won eight VBRs in a row, and they were tipped for gold before long. Team Golden Ork were pretty good, too. They’d once been diamond-rated, but their bit accountant had run off with their funds. After that, they’d had to sell some of their best runes, fire their coaches and move down two ladders just to stay afloat.
I rubbed my hands together. Team Roust or Golden Ork would be great for the qualifiers. If I could get into them, I’d be happy. I guessed their requirements would be strict and, given I wasn’t even coal-rated as an abermorph, they might not even look twice at me, but it was worth a shot, right?
As for Team Perlshaw… Well, they were new, barely coal-rated themselves. According to their battle log, they’d placed fifteenth, eighteen, seventh, and ninth in their last four coal-ladder matches. That wasn’t the greatest advertisement for them. What the hell, I’d apply anyway. It couldn’t hurt. Beggars can’t be choosers.
After making my applications, I waited for my mainnet socket to buzz, indicating an incoming message or call. I waited…and waited…and waited. An hour passed, and I hadn’t heard anything. As the qualifiers were the next morning, the teams would need to fill their slots before then. I just needed to get some sleep.
February 3rd was the day of the solo and team qualifiers, and February 3rd came and went, without a call. I wasn’t going to New Eden.
Chapter Fifteen
Across the country, in the biggest city in the land, the qualifiers for the New Eden VBR happened. I missed them. I already knew I wasn’t going to be there, but I purposefully let the gel on my wall evaporate, and I resolved not to replace it for a few weeks. I needed some time away from VBRs and mainnets and everything else. I gave Dylan a few days of vacation and decided to fill my mind with work. If I could break my body down by laboring on the ranch, there’d be no room in my head for anything but tiredness.
I spent my days dividing my time between taking care of the hounds and finishing jobs that had been on my to-do list for years but that I’d never gotten around to. I reapplied a complete coat of insulating clay to every building. I mowed the grass using our ancient s-mower. I fixed a part of the fence that surrounded our ranch, a part that had been broken for three years. Then, after fixing it, I decided a new fence would look much better, so I made one. It was the kind of work that made my back cry out for mercy, but I was glad for it.
A few times every day, my wrist would vibrate, indicating that someone was trying to call me. At first, I thought it’d be Dylan calling me from town, or a rune salesman trying to sell his wares. Maybe it would even be one of my old teammates or, God forbid, Overseer Lucas, who had somehow gotten my number and was calling me to gloat.
Every time I checked my holoface, the number came up as unknown. It wasn’t someone from my contacts. When I searched it on the mainnet, the number didn’t come up in any of the cold-call or phishing sites. Oh well. If I ignored them long enough, they’d go away.
On February 7th, after getting the mysterious calls a few times a day, I’d had enough. I abandoned my tactic of ignorance and decided to give them a piece of my mind, although, as my mind is kinda easy-going, that wouldn’t do much. That morning, my wrist vibrated. Ready for it, I answered the call.
“Listen,” I said. “I know you’re just doing your job. But whatever you’re selling, whatever your advertising, I don’t—”
“Is this…uh…Harry Wollenstein?”
“No, it’s Overseer Sternbuck,” I said.
The voice on the other end laughed. “Good one.” Something about this person was familiar. It was a man’s voice. Had a youthful edge to it. His accent sounded a little southern.
“Sorry to keep pestering you,” said the man, “but I’ve found if you keep callin’ people, eventually they’ll pick up.”
“Who is this?” I asked.
“This is Eddie Hazzard. ‘Member me? I’m pretty hard to forget.”
It took a few seconds for the gears of my memory to whir. The older I got, the more they needed oiling. When they finally clanked to work, I remembered his name. I remembered meeting Eddie and his friends back in the fighter’s lounge in Sootstein.
“You’re team Perlshaw, right?” I said.
“Uh, yeah. That’s us. The one and only. You applied for our vacancy.”
“And I didn’t hear anything back.”
“My bad, dude. My bad. We’d already filled the slot, and qualifiers were the next day, so….”
“What can I do for you, Ed?”
“Eddie. Not Ed. My dad’s called Ed.”
“Sorry.”
“I’m just messin’ with you. Call me whatever you want. Call me Percy, for all I give a damn. Listen, Harry, something’s come up. We aced the qualifiers…”
“You qualified for New Eden?”
“You sound surprised!” said Eddie.
“I am a little. You’re kinda green. Only just on the coal-ladder, aren’t you?”
“And rising! We got through, and then Silky, the guy we brought in, got a better offer, and he hitched his ass onto the first s-train out. So, we’re a fighter short again, and we’ve got a month before the qualifiers.”
“And?” I said. I knew what he wanted now. Call me stubborn, but it still hurt that I’d been ignored in the first place, and I wanted to hear Eddie say the words.
“We were wondering if you were still interested,” he said.
I gave a few seconds pause. When I thought the gap had been sufficient to make my next word more dramatic, I finally spoke.
“Maybe.”
“Woo hoo! Good stuff, my man,” said Eddie, the inflections in his voice rising and falling in a way that made his enthusiasm infectious. I found myself liking him already.
“We’d have to work out the specifics,” I said, “but I think we can sort something out.”
“There’s just one thing,” said Eddie.
“Yeah?”
“Think you could come down to Perlshaw? Like, tomorrow? The elder wants to see you, or they’re threatening to cut funding to the team.”
“I might be able to work something out.”
Despite my pretend-coolness to Eddie, I was already out of the door. New Eden VBRs, here I come!
Chapter Sixteen
“Just take an s-train down here, and I’ll swing by and pick you up at the station.” That’s what Eddie had told me when I agreed to go to Perlshaw and meet him, his team, and the town elder, whoever that was. I booked the second-to-last seat on the train at a whopping ninety-eight bits. I spent five cramped hours next to a guy wearing an earbud and repeating German phrases over and over again. He was apparently passing his journey time by learning a new language. By the end of it, I’d learned quite a few new words that would be useful if I ever went to Deutschland, and I made a new train buddy in the process.
After disembarking, I waited at the Perlshaw s-station. Hours of being cooped up on the train meant that I needed a little fresh air, so I went outside. Through the Perlshaw prot-layer arcing fifty feet above me, I could see a mean, grey sky. Clouds gathered like bullies ready to steal a kid’s lunch money. Pretty soon they began spitting, and before long, torrential rain plopped onto the prot-layer surface, hammering it again and again with tiny little fists. That said everything I needed to know about Perlshaw. The newer model prot-la
yers not only filtered the air better, making it feel fresh, but they also dulled the sounds of wind and rain when they hit the layer. In other words, standing in most developed cities these days didn’t sound like you were under a tin roof while an angry army of cats stomped all over it.
As I stood outside the station and waited for Eddie to pick me up in his car, I heard a clomping sound like that of coconuts clacking together. I walked down the station steps and looked down the road. To my right, two horses trundled down the street. Their heads were held up in a dignified way, and they looked at the street around them with interest. When they snorted, hot steam left their noses and floated into the air, where it would eventually either disperse or make its way up to the prot-layer. They pulled a wooden carriage behind them. It was made from assorted colors and cuts of timber, as though someone had cobbled it together from castoffs. Sitting on the front of the carriage with his feet up as if he didn’t have a care to give, was Eddie Hazzard. He had the stub of a cigarette hanging loosely from his mouth.
