Arena

by Holly Jennings

  Nestled in protective, custom-fit foam was the original Nintendo Entertainment System. The 1985, as-gray-as-the-walls-around-us, it’s-a-me-Mario, no-really-it’s-a-me-Mario, freaking Nintendo set.

  “Are you serious?” I screeched like a twelve-year-old girl. I peered up at Rooke as my stomach did somersaults. “Is it real?”

  “You bet.”

  “Oh my God. Oh my God.” I repeated it a dozen times, followed by, “Can I touch it?”

  “Where have I heard that before?”

  I was too stunned to punch him or even think of a retort.

  He nodded at me for encouragement. “Go ahead.”

  I reached into the case and lifted out the black-and-gray controller, complete with two red buttons and one directional pad.

  “Is this the original NES? I mean, the actual original set, not a replica?”

  He nodded, still grinning.

  Of course it was. Would Rooke have anything else?

  “God, this thing is like a hundred years old.”

  He sat down on the bed beside me. “Not quite, but yeah.”

  I held up the connection cables to the system. Each had a gray-plastic carton on the end.

  “But wait, this is new technology,” I said, turning it over in my hand to examine it. “What is it?”

  “Adapters. Look.”

  He pulled a shelf out from the wall, propped his tablet on it, and plugged the cable in. The screen flickered. Then the game’s menu popped up, and a pixelated red plumber jumped across it.

  My heart rifled into my throat.

  “It works?”

  Another screech.

  Rooke grinned and dropped the remote in my lap. I glanced between it and the screen, openmouthed, not moving, heart still beating in place of my larynx.

  “You look tentative,” he said, reaching for my lap. “Maybe you should let me—”

  I snatched up the remote. “Screw you. I’m going first.”

  He chuckled to himself but didn’t reach for the remote again.

  The room filled with the sounds of clicking buttons and 1980s synthesizer music as I plowed my way through the 2D world on the screen. I glanced at Rooke, figuring he’d be bored, but he watched with fascination as I chased coins and broke bricks. Gamers. We never tire of the game.

  “Funny how far we’ve come, huh?” he mused.

  Whether he meant the game or us, I wasn’t sure. I stuck with the game.

  “From stick characters to fully immersive virtual reality in a century. It doesn’t seem that fast when you think about it.”

  “In context it does. The automobile was invented in 1886, but it wasn’t until the late 2020s when they became truly automatic and drove themselves. That’s 140 years compared to 60, if you consider 2044 as the introduction of the first fully immersive VR system. Hell, it’s less than half the time.”

  Wow. History and math. I’m a lucky girl.

  I considered jamming the spare remote in his mouth. “You and history. Two peas in a pod.”

  Either he missed the sarcasm or ignored it entirely when he started talking again. “You know, the first real video game was invented in the 1950s and ran on an analog comfuterrr—”

  His words became a muffled mess as I smothered his lips with my hand.

  “Not now, babe. I’m gaming.”

  As if just to spite me, the screen broke into a pixilated jumble of red lines. I dropped the remote, mimicking the sinking feeling in my stomach.

  “Shit. Is it toast?”

  “Nah, it’s a glitch.” Rooke waved a hand at the screen like it was a common occurrence. “Just reset the game.”

  I pulled the game out of the system and turned it over in my hands, looking for the reset button.

  “No,” he said with a laugh. “You have to blow on it.”

  “What? What would that do?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just what everyone does.”

  I looked between him and the game a few times, and blew on his face instead. When he tried to tickle me as a comeback, I punched him in the ribs, and he doubled over, half coughing, half laughing.

  Warriors don’t get tickled.

  Thirty seconds after I got the game going again, he slipped an arm around my waist, pulled me tight against him, and pressed his lips against my ear. Little shock waves coursed through me. I fumbled, almost dropping the remote, but kept my eyes on the screen. I recovered and resumed pushing buttons.

  “That isn’t going to get you a turn any faster,” I told him. He lowered his mouth to the nape of my neck, pressed his lips against my pulse point, and murmured something that sounded like “I want you.”

  Good thing even games back then had pause buttons.

  We ended up at the foot of his bed, me straddling him. His hands kneaded my hips as I rocked against him in a slow and grinding pace. We clung to each other, every inch touching, mouths brushing. Our eyes locked as our breathing synced. In the moments when our hips met in perfect unison, we’d gasp together. We eased into a rhythm. Soft. Comfortable. Like we’d been together for years.

  This is what it was about. Being with another person. Not a release. Not just about pleasure, but what you could give to each other. It was just as much about you as it was about the other person, and all about the connection you created with them. The feel of their body against yours. The taste of their skin. Their vulnerability. Their energy. Their everything.

  And to think, I didn’t even have to dress up.

  The next morning, I woke to his touch. He traced the outline of my hip with his fingers, featherlight touches that sent goose bumps flooding across my skin. I smiled. He’d stayed the night. Sure, it was his bunk, but he’d kept by my side through the moonlight. That was something.

  His eyes flicked to mine and back to my hip.

  “You know what today is.”

  My stomach twisted, half from excitement and half from fear.

  “Halloween?” I offered. It really was. But the fact that the holiday coincided with the championship was just coincidence. I sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

  It was Saturday. The last Saturday. Only of the tournament, of course, but it might as well have been a Mayan apocalypse. For us, there was no tomorrow. There was only tonight. Only the championship.

  He pushed out a heavy sigh. “Last one.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Last one.”

  Rooke slid under the covers, nestled against my back, and pulled me tight against him.

  “We have a few minutes,” he murmured against my hair, “before the alarm.”

  I smiled at the thought and snuggled even more into him. His nose grazed against my neck, his breath tickling the crook of my shoulder. His warmth pressed against my back and curled over me like the blanket. The heat from him rivaled the facility’s cool air around us. His steady heartbeat opposed the empty sounds of the facility. This was balance. No. This was pure relaxation.

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  My chest tightened at the sound of the alarm. This was it. The beginning of the end. Rooke exhaled into my hair, and his grip tensed around me.

  “Showtime.”

  —

  I returned to my own bunk to shower and dress. Showering with Rooke would have been just a little too tempting to end up late to breakfast. After pulling on my training gear, I sat on the edge of my bed to meditate and focused on centering myself on the sensations around me. The soft memory foam of the mattress conforming to my body, the cool hospital smell of the facility around me, and the soft pinging coming from my tablet.

  Soft pinging? I opened my eyes.

  Incoming call from San Diego.

  I scooped up my tablet and tapped the screen. When the image of a middle-aged woman flashed across it, I beamed.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Oh, Sweetie. I�
��m glad I caught you. Are you busy?”

  “It’s a busy day, but I have a few minutes.”

  “The championship is tonight, right? What channel is it on?”

  I sighed. “You don’t have to watch. I know how you feel about this stuff.”

  “I can watch with one hand over my eyes. You know, between my fingers.” She demonstrated, peeking at me through her middle and ring fingers. I laughed.

  “Everyone’s been talking about it at the office all week,” she continued. “They say you’re the first girl to lead a team in a championship. Is that true?”

  “Yeah, it’s true.”

  “I never realized that.”

  There was an awkward pause. Our eyes met a few times and looked away again. Finally, she broke the silence.

  “I know you really want to win, but your father and I will be proud either way.”

  “I know.” I smiled. “So will I.”

  A buzz came from my door, and I knew who it was.

  “One second,” I called out. “And damn it, Rooke, if you say something like you’ve already been in here before, I will punch you right through that metal door.”

  I turned back to my tablet to find a coy grin on my mother’s face.

  “Not your boyfriend, huh?” she said cheekily. “Why has he been in your room?”

  I fought a losing battle with the heat rushing to my face. “Well, uh, that’s a long story.”

  “Mmm-hmm. I thought that article in Pro Gamer Weekly was . . . What did you call it? Oh yeah, ‘crap.’”

  Ah, yes. Crap. Poets, my mother and I.

  I tried to suppress a smile and failed. “Turns out, not so much.”

  The door buzzed again. Twice.

  Mom grinned. “Persistent little bugger, isn’t he?”

  I mirrored her expression. “You have no idea.”

  “He’d have to be to win you over.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “You get your stubbornness from your father.”

  I laughed, knowing it was exactly the opposite. “I appreciate the call, Mom, but I have to get going.”

  “Okay. I’ll let you go. Good luck. We’ll be watching.”

  The screen faded out on my mother’s smile until the main menu popped up. I sat on the bed for a moment, trying to process how the call had made me feel. San Diego felt just a little bit closer, now. Maybe once the tournament was over, I’d go home for a visit.

  I left the tablet on my bed and walked with Rooke to the cafeteria. I managed to eat breakfast and, more importantly, managed to keep it in my stomach. Even with the table full of my teammates and the facility’s staff, every clang of a spoon or thunk of a mug echoed through the unusually quiet room.

  We spent the morning training together, all of us in various matchups and attack positions. Time passed too slow and too fast altogether. Awkward silences seeped in between moments of action. Times when we’d meet eyes and just stare at each other, like we were sharing messages mind to mind. Yeah, it’s today. I’m not ready, either.

  The day took on more shape when I met with Dr. Renner in her office for a final check-in before the championship.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  I sat in the chair, trying not to fidget too much. “Good. Nervous.”

  “That’s understandable. What are you most nervous about?”

  “My teammates. This is their future, and it’s in my hands.”

  “They believe in you. Everyone here does.”

  She stressed the word everyone. This woman, educated well beyond what I could ever understand, master of the complexities of the human mind, believed in me?

  She leaned toward me and removed her glasses. “Nathan would be proud, you know.”

  I swallowed thick and blinked back the stinging sensation in my eyes. But I wasn’t crying. Warriors don’t cry.

  “Thanks for your help, Doc,” I said, forcing an even tone to my voice.

  She smiled and replaced her glasses, sitting back in her chair. “You’ve changed a lot over these past weeks. I’m glad I got to be a part of it.” She leaned toward me once more, as if sharing a secret. “You also impacted the industry. You’re about to lead this team to something so much more than victory.”

  My stomach did a somersault. I held up a hand. “Let’s not get that far.”

  She shook her head and smiled again. “You’ve been so focused on Nathan and the team, I think you’ve forgotten about yourself, a little. You’re the first woman to lead a team into a championship match. Win or lose, you’ve already made history.”

  The somersaults morphed into a high-power mixing machine.

  “Okay, stop now.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “What’s wrong? Don’t you believe it yourself?”

  “It’s not that. It’s just . . . you’re confident I have this in the bag, so to speak. I can’t even picture myself winning. Or leading the team to victory. Or anything. And if we don’t win, then was everything we did this season for nothing? What if we let Nathan down?”

  It was her turn to hold up a hand. “You can’t let Nathan down. Not after everything you’ve done to preserve his honor. And everything you did this season will just prepare you for the next. Does every baseball team only have one shot at the World Series? No. They come back next year and go for it again. There will be other tournaments, Kali. Win or lose, your life isn’t over tonight. It’s just beginning.”

  I curled a lip at her words. There was some truth behind them, but that didn’t stop my churning gut.

  When the doc surveyed my doubtful expression, she leaned toward me again. “It’s easier to think about when you envision what comes next. And I don’t just mean the celebration afterwards or the press releases, or even the next day. Picture yourself in the next tournament. Picture where you’ll be six months from now. No matter what happens tonight, you’ll still get there. Then it won’t seem like such a big deal.”

  Right now, it was. It was the biggest deal in the history of the universe. How could losing the tournament not have an impact on where I’d be in six months?

  The doc tried again. “Think about it this way: Where is it you’d like to end up, Kali? What matters to you most?”

  I faltered. “I . . . don’t know.”

  These tournaments, making it as a pro gamer was all that had mattered to me. But now, living this life, sacrificing parts of myself . . . Was it worth it?

  I stood up from the chair and headed for the exit.

  “Where are you going?” she called.

  “I have some thinking to do.”

  —

  The rest of the day, I considered the doc’s words. Even that afternoon, as I looked down at the world below me and smiled at the wind whipping through my hair. The strange thing was I wasn’t plugged in.

  While most teams plugged in and played from a facility, all the eSports championships took place in an arena. The ten of us, the team and our programmers, were flown in by helicopter to the Riot Games Arena, located in downtown Los Angeles, across the street from the historic Staples Center and the renovated L.A. Convention Center.

  Inside the arena, I warmed up with my teammates in the training rooms offstage. Most sports teams had locker rooms. We had dojos. In the center of the room, I practiced my Tai Chi routine for what seemed like the last time. Tomorrow, the season would be over. We’d be champions, or we wouldn’t. But we’d still be a team, we’d still be athletic gamers, and there was always next year if things didn’t go our way. The doctor was right. It was easier to picture myself through all this. Now, the match seemed like a drop in the bucket.

  A big-ass drop in a tiny little bucket, but hey, I was working on it.

  Once I brought my routine to a close, I sat on the floor and settled into a meditative position. Minutes passed, maybe hours, as I sat there in silence with my teammat
es training around me, one with each other and ourselves.

  Except I wasn’t. I wasn’t completely one with myself. Because the question tugged at the back of my mind. The one the doc had posed. What mattered to me most? I wasn’t sure. For so long it had been the games. Nothing else mattered. The fame and free drugs were nice perks at first, but those had grown stale.

  Worse than old coffee. No, really.

  So then, what did matter? Where was I heading? I took a breath and pushed down into my stomach, reminding myself to stay grounded and focused. I was twenty years old and on top of the world. I could go anywhere, do anything I wanted.

  So, what was that, exactly?

  Not everyone gets these kinds of opportunities. Not everyone has the world as their oyster. I did. I’d been blessed. Now it was time to decide what to do with my gifts.

  “Defiance.”

  I opened my eyes and looked to the doorway, where a woman stood clutching a tablet. She nodded toward the darkened hallway behind her.

  “Prepare to get onstage. It’s time.”

  CHAPTER 25

  This was it. Our Super Bowl. Our Stanley Cup.

  The time was now.

  On the monitors backstage, we had a full view inside the arena. The entire interior gleamed like black lacquer. Embedded floor lights ran in tracks outlining the aisles and seating sections, glowing in an iridescent blue-white. The color scheme and design was a hat tip to the classic movie Tron, one of the first to feature a character disappearing into a video game.

  In the center of the arena, the stage was the shape of a four-way directional pad, also outlined in a blue-white glow. Enormous, two-hundred-foot screens faced each of the four directions. The east and west stages featured the pod centers for each team, while the north held the announcers’ booth, and the south was reserved for interviews and other general announcements.

  Sold out at full capacity, the arena was filled with twenty thousand fans. About one in three was dressed as their favorite video game character. It was Halloween, after all. Some paid homage to the more famous characters: Link, Lara Croft, Cloud Strife, and Halo Soldiers. Others were from the most recent games, Queen Ryadoc Serend, ruler of the biggest virtual RPG in history, alongside Nico Reese, star of the latest action game on the PlayStation Platinum console. There were even a few dressed in battle gear that mimicked our own, both Defiance and InvictUS.