Chapter Ten #2
Some others in my group were just happy to be there.
Three at least, by my count. They’re not in the academy to win; they’re proud of themselves just for getting in, a viewpoint far too psychologically healthy to be a threat to my goals.
I belong to the Guardians series stan contingent, the deep-cut freaks who have their eye on going pro in the Guardians League or, like me, have their eye on Brian’s mentorship.
Those are my real competition. Those, and the four other people crammed into this dressing room.
“Team name, team name. What about … Team Fury?” Trieu suggests, with a cheeky eye on Ivan’s reflection. I smirk at the dig, and Trieu takes advantage of the position to smear cream blush on the apples of my cheeks.
“That’s not funny,” Ivan says flatly.
“Team Z-TICK?” Cass supplies. “It’s our initials.”
“That’s pretty good.” Kavi nods. “If we want to sound like we’re selling bug spray.” Even though her makeup has been done since this morning, she’s preening like a bird in the good dressing room light, touching herself up after this morning’s academy presentation.
That presentation was the second reason I know I have to keep my distance.
A senior Wizzard writer named Sarah gave a speech on how the core purpose of games is to create and sustain the player fantasy.
In the team game Guardians League Online, that fantasy is to protect the spoils of an intergalactic gold rush from thine enemies.
In Guardians League Royale, it’s being a savvy space survivalist and dunking on sweats who can’t shoot.
Everything else—the action, the world, every scrap of text and visual effect—exists to keep that fantasy going.
I’d never thought about games that way, as concrete pillars of code supporting something as weightless as an idea. My mind was blown.
After the presentation, someone asked the question I think all of us wanted answered: how did Sarah get started writing for Wizzard?
I could have guessed what she’d say: she was a Brian Juno mentee.
His first, to be exact, and the reason he started picking one aspiring game writer out of the ether to champion them for the rest of their career.
If I play my role right for the next five weeks, I could be Sarah within the next five years.
I hold the image of her onstage in my head and imagine myself in her place while Trieu dabs at the corner of my mouth with his pinky finger, removing an errant glob of lip gloss.
“What about Team Fantasy?” This gloss doesn’t feel as heavy on my lips as I thought it would be, and it smells delicious. I poke my tongue out to see if it tastes as good as it smells. The answer to that question is no, it does not. Bleh.
“Sounds like an underwear campaign.” Trieu sees me try to eat the gloss and gently shakes his head. All right, note taken. He worked hard on my lips, and like most products of artistic endeavors, it’s considered rude to lick them.
“I like the concept, though,” Ivan says and pulls his phone out of his pocket. That’s almost like he’s agreeing with me. Feels weird. “It should be something aspirational, something forward-thinking. Something that shows we have—”
“Done!” Trieu exclaims suddenly. He steps back from my chair and swerves from side to side, testing how the light hits my made-up face from different angles. “She was a babe to begin with, but when I’m good, I’m good.”
Trieu spins me a quarter turn toward the mirror, and my reflection, bright, brown, and beautiful, bounces back into my disbelieving eyes.
Which is strange, because I don’t look all that different.
I expected Trieu to go all out, with flashy eyeliner, fake freckles, and everything else I’ve seen makeup tutorial streamers do on their own faces, but that’s not what he’s done for me.
It’s my own face but glowy, like my skull is made of gold that shines through where the skin is thinnest. My almost-black eyes stand in higher contrast, with whiter whites and curling lashes that make me feel like a cartoon bunny, but not in a terrible way.
I blink at myself a few times and feel the slight tickle of my lashes against my eyelids.
I smile at Trieu, who smiles back. Then, on an instinct I should really do more to suppress, I check to see Ivan’s first reaction.
“Vision,” he says, both eyes trained on me. “Team Vision.”
“I like it,” Cass replies, and I’m not sure he’s talking about the name. “Team Vision, I mean,” he clarifies, though no one asked him to. “Name good.”
I can only nod my agreement; I’m busy getting acquainted with the lady in the mirror.
Her face looks capable of things I’ve never tried to do.
Like being coy, for one. I flutter my eyelashes, just to test the theory.
How did Ivan and I meet? Ask him, he tells the story so much better.
Needs work, but with a little practice I think it could be convincing.
How about a cheeky smile? Oh, Ivan, you are incorrigible.
That’s not as hard since it’s true and he is.
Now let’s try humble surprise: eyes wide, brows up.
Of course I’ll be your mentee, Mr. Juno! Not bad, not bad at all.
Before my silent face journey can get awkward, Trieu’s phone blasts out the staccato opening beats of the siren diss track from Hades 2.
What’s the name of that song again? I’m about to ask Trieu when he starts scooping up all the makeup he spread out on the dressing room counter. “That’s five, let’s get a move on.”
“Thank you, five.” Ivan’s attention predictably returns to his own reflection for one last futzy moment involving the way his bangs fall over his forehead.
I stand up and shake my own hair out—Trieu can do makeup, but it’s more than I can ask of a Vietnamese stylist to learn how to do Black hair in a week, though he did offer to try.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Cassius asks me. He mimes holding a camera in front of his face and clicks his tongue like a shutter. “For Clive.”
“Oh, right.” I told Clive I’d send him some pictures after orientation. “Kavi, can you come in for a selfie?”
“Oh, for sure, for sure.”
I laugh in earnest. I’m not the only one who noticed Chaz has a catchphrase, and Kavi has an uncanny ability to mimic his tone.
“Our first selfie as Team Vision?” Trieu asks, excited.
“Nope, just girls,” I explain. “My, uh … my uncle thinks I’m at an all-girls coding camp right now.”
I hear Ivan snort from his place by the door. “And I’m the one who’s full of it?”
Suddenly, for reasons I don’t have to interrogate, I remember the name of that song. It’s “I Am Gonna Claw (Out Your Eyes then Drown You To Death).” A Darren Korb classic.
Kavi comes in for the picture and takes the phone from my hands.
I surrender it willingly; she’s known me for two days and has a much stronger eye for my angles than I do.
It’s odd seeing Mirror Zora on the screen, but for once my wide-eyed confusion comes across photogenically.
After taking a few pictures, Kavi taps straight into my messages and sets up a Team Vision group chat.
“Send it to all of us,” she instructs. “We should take a few more today and cross-post to our WiTch accounts after the meet and greet. Presents a united front.”
Sure, but before I do that, I have to text Clive.
Hey unc, two days in and I already let my roommate talk me into a makeover. Ready for my close-up! Miss u. Attach photo. Nerd face emoji. Hair flip emoji. Send.
“Okay, we’re good.”
“Team Vision on the move, let’s roll.” Ivan holds the door open for all of us, letting Trieu guide us like a mother duck through the narrow back halls of the Wizzard’s less public-facing wing.
Each turn takes us closer to the lounge, through better lit halls, across the crowded lobby, and finally through the double doors that lead to the Wizzard Theater’s premiere performance space. And I do not mean the stage.