Chapter Two #2
Some of those players extrapolate that stardom into real life, making names for themselves in Wizzard’s esports league or streaming on WiTch, Wizzard’s all-Guardians live-streaming platform.
And it’s fine that they do that, really.
A hustle is a hustle, and if someone can leverage their natural ability to get strangers invested in their fake life while they play video games in a pair of kitty cat headphones, then more power to them.
It’s just that I, personally, would rather bite the head off a living pigeon than be perceived on that level.
My talents begin when I boot up Guardians League Royale on my gaming PC and end when I log out.
That middle period where I’m completely absorbed in the game, laser focused on my opponents while hunting them down one by one like a shadow in the night …
that’s the good stuff. It’s where I get my ideas on how to make GLR better, or for new games and challenges that would make a killer spinoff title, or a plot arc that could make the upcoming season the most downloaded version of the game yet.
So I don’t have time to follow the online drama between GLR streamers or catch up on who’s trading whom around the competitive circuit.
Look at me, using “whom” right and everything.
If that’s not an underutilized skill in my generation, I don’t know what is.
I’ll stand out this summer to Brian Juno. I have to.
The red stairs Cassius mentioned have a perfect view of the Wizzard Theater’s entrance: its famous double doors are works of art, made of special black glass that reveals glowing neon circuitry running in randomly generated patterns all day long.
The building used to be an old-school theater, so there’s a real marquee, but instead of those rearrangeable black letters that inevitably fall off and leave typos like “WELCOME HO,” there’s a high-tech LED “Summer Academy Royale” chyron spelling out a welcome that’s significantly more difficult to vandalize.
It doesn’t take long to find Cass. I scan the crowd on the steps and spot his Muppet-y mess of blond curls before I see the telltale black Wizzard Games Summer Academy Royale T-shirt we’re all wearing today.
I also notice with very little surprise that he’s zoned out and staring into the middle distance while I approach.
“Space cadet” is one of my many nicknames for Cass for a reason.
Head always up in the air, while I’m firmly planted on the ground.
If we played one of the Guardians League games that requires a team, we’d probably tear each other apart, so it’s a good thing neither of us wants to.
For an elite gamer, his peripheral vision is awful.
I’m halfway up the stairs and he’s still in la-la land.
I sit next to him and he automatically scoots over to give me more space but doesn’t look at me.
I even take a Red Bull out of my jacket, crack it open, and still he has no interest in turning his head and looking to his left.
It’s a waste, really. If we had a match today he could totally channel that focus into GLR, but the first two days of the academy are just for orientation.
And we’re almost late for it, and it’s disgustingly hot out, so let’s move this along, bud.
“Hey.” I finally tap Cass on the shoulder. He springs to life like a haunted animatronic, his blue eyes blinking as if he’s suddenly been teleported from his bed in Delaware to the bleachers in the middle of Times Square and has no idea how he got there. “You’re finally awake.”
He looks up to see me sweating like a half-sipped iced coffee left out in the sun. Ten bucks says I look gorgeous. Twenty says I look like what would happen if Chewbacca lost a fight with a curling iron.
“Zora!” Cass’s hand flies up into his hair in a bold, if futile, attempt to make his messy bangs behave.
“Hi!” I give him a little wave. “I’m looking for my nemesis?”
“Nemesis? I think you mean your rival,” Cass goads me.
“Rival?” I reply. “That’s a crazy way to pronounce ‘pinata.’”
“Yep.” Cassius nods. “You’re definitely Zora.”
I manage to hold on to the seriousness for a few more seconds before I crack. “Dude, I can’t even believe it’s really you again, here, in front of me right now, alive!” I’m basically squealing, but I don’t even care. “I mean awake!”
Cass laughs. It’s a happy, snorty sound I’ve heard a hundred times before, but until now it’s been modulated through the crackle of our headsets as we blast each other to pieces in Guardians League Royale.
“Yeah, man, we made it! Summer Academy Royale, let’s go!” Cass leans toward me like he’s going for a hug, but I hold my fist out for a bump instead. He happily knocks his fist against mine.
“We can totally go; I’ve just been waiting for you.” Cass stands up and—whew—that is a long boy. He must have hit another spurt in the six months since then, he’s got to be six feet by now. “Unless you don’t want to go in yet? Where’s all your stuff?”
“Right here.” I twist around to show Cass that I have my backpack.
“Is that all you brought?” Cass asks and stands up on the stairs.
His bag is a lot bigger than mine; it’s a proper camping duffel with a waist strap and everything.
My backpack mostly contains my toothbrush, some underwear, and just enough clothing to get by.
My standard fit of a T-shirt and shorts will serve me well this summer, with minimal laundry breaks and no worrying about what I look like.
Just pure, uncut competition and a chance to show everyone at Wizzard Games that I belong not only on their radar, but also behind the radar, alongside them, interpreting the blips and dots that come together to make extraordinary games at an extraordinary company.
“It’s all I need,” I answer and get to my feet too.
I slam the last dregs of the Red Bull, slide the empty can into a mesh socket on the side of my backpack, and yank a new can out from the front pocket.
It’s going to be a two-can type of day, I can just tell.
Now that we’re both standing, I see that I’m not as tall as Cass, even if I’m tall for my age and for a girl.
My hair adds a few inches too, especially on days like today, when my twist-out curls attract every stray molecule of water in the air and grow accordingly, like the ever-expanding roller ball in a Katamari game.
“Come on. We’re off to see the Wizzard.”
Cassius groans but joins me as I pick my way down the stairs and cross the plaza toward the theater.
The theater’s aura is very different now that it’s mostly empty.
There is no crowd waiting outside, no bonehead security guards keeping people out.
Dozens of people are passing it by without looking.
Don’t they know that this is the first all-esports theater in New York?
Don’t they know Brian Juno is in there somewhere right now?
As we get closer to the theater, I think for a moment that those big dark doors look like a perfectly rectangular black hole eating away at the front of the building from the inside.
Ooh, that’s a good one. I pull out my phone again and tap “black hole doors on a bright summer sidewalk. Pulls people in but no one notices. Building is hungry?” into the digital scratch pad I use for errant GLR ideas. You never know what might be a good foundation for a story.
“So,” Cass says as we approach. “How did you get your uncle to sign the permission slip for the academy? Last I checked he wasn’t too keen on you going away for the summer.”
“Oh, that,” I reply. “I lied to him.”
“Lied to him how?” Cass asks cautiously.
He also holds the door to the theater open for me, which is amazing because it proves the doors are indeed corporeal objects, and the action bathes us both in a waft of air-conditioning.
There’s not much in the lobby except a pile of bags on the far side next to a sign for luggage drop-off.
Wait, they’ll bring our bags to our rooms for us? Fancy.
“Lied to him as in he thinks this is an all-girls coding camp for aspiring game developers,” I say.
“Zora!”
“What?” We both walk over to ditch our bags with the rest. Where is everybody?
They must be in the theater already, but I have a plan for how Cass and I will sneak up unannounced.
“It’s going to have the same result anyway.
” I crack open the second energy drink and take a sip.
“Brian Juno gets, like, a zillion applications a year for his mentorship program, and I need something to make me stand out from the rest. Anyone can code, but the winner of his Summer Academy Royale? That’s a bingo. ”
“Why don’t you just tell Clive that?” Cass sets his bag down and pauses, waiting to follow my lead for our next move.
“Because it’s not the way he thinks.”
Everybody knows of Clive Lyon. They just don’t know that they know.
He’s a cautionary tale more than anything else, the top draft pick college football star who tore his meniscus days before his NFL debut and never played another game again.
The boogeyman coaches invoke when they tell their guys to stretch before and after each game.
The unspoken worry in the back of every player’s mind when something twinges wrong on the field.
I point toward the elevator in the back and wave Cass over to follow me. “He’s fine with me working in games, but he wants me to do it by the book. I don’t know if he thinks I’m going to engineering school or what, but he doesn’t believe in shortcuts.”
“In his defense, he is Clive Lyon,” Cass adds. “I get why he’d maybe have a thing against shortcuts.” The elevator doors slide closed, and he presses the button for the upper floor, level with the top and last row of the amphitheater.
“He also doesn’t want me anywhere near boys until I’m forty.”