Chapter 1 #3
“You did it!”
“Oh my God, you actually did it!”
The screen flashed white.
“Holy shit,” I whispered.
Dead silence followed.
“Did Priya Anand just swear?” Gina asked. "Out loud?"
“I think she did,” Alisha replied.
“I swear.” I did. All the time. In my head. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. See?
“Not on comms.”
“This isn’t work.”
“Tell that to the voice you use every time we’re about to die,” Alisha said. She dropped her voice into a disturbingly accurate imitation of me. “Please remain calm. We are currently crashing into an asteroid. Your cooperation is appreciated.”
I laughed so hard my hands slipped off the controls. “I won.” The words felt strange. I had beaten the game.
“You graduated,” Gina said. “You’re an Elite Starfighter.”
“A fake Elite Starfighter.”
“Still counts.”
“Okay,” Alisha said. “We always agreed the first person to finish would wait for the other two. Whatever happens next, don’t start another campaign without us.”
“Obviously. Where would I go?”
The white faded from the center monitor. Vesh’s face appeared. Close. Too close. His green eyes locked on mine, and the corner of his mouth lifted. He grinned. I stopped breathing.
In almost a year, I had never seen him smile.
Not once. The expression changed his entire face.
He was still dangerous. Still hard. But for one perfect second, he looked happy.
Because of me. Which was ridiculous. He was a fictional character responding to a completed mission. The smile was programmed.
So why did I want to kiss him so badly? Why did it feel like he was seeing me instead of my avatar? My body warmed. Not only my cheeks. Lower. Much lower. Great. I had beaten the hardest game in the world and been rewarded with sexual frustration. Stupid.
“Congratulations, Starfighter,” Vesh said. “You have completed your training.”
The image widened. He removed the crest from his uniform and held it out toward me. Words appeared beside his hand. Starfighter Bonding Ceremony.
“We have been paired through the reconnaissance program,” Vesh continued. “We have fought together. Flown together. Do you accept my crest as a sign of our permanent bond? Will you remain at my side, as my bondmate, and fight with me to the end of our days?”
The teasing in my headset stopped.
“Say yes,” Gina whispered.
“It’s just the final cut scene.” This was just part of the game. Not real.
“Say yes anyway.”
Alisha made an impatient sound. “Priya, if you do not accept that man’s crest, I will drive to Phoenix and do it for you.”
“You already have Torek.”
“I’m flexible.”
I looked at the crest in Vesh’s hand.
This was the part I had been avoiding. Once I accepted, the game was over. No more Wednesday missions with Vesh at my side. No more low voice in my headset. No more green eyes staring at me as if I were the only woman in his universe. God, that was pathetic.
I wanted him to be real. There. I admitted it. I wanted the smile to be his. I wanted the question to matter. I wanted a man like Vesh to look at the tired woman in fuzzy airplane socks and choose her anyway. But he wasn’t real. It’s just a game.
I pressed the button to accept.
“Welcome to Velerion,” Vesh said.
A second voice entered my headset. Official. Male. Older. Tired, but warm.
“Welcome, Elite Starfighter. I am General Aryk. We’ve been waiting for you.”
The screen popped. All three monitors went black. My chair died beneath me. The headset cut off. Every light on the gaming rig vanished at the same time.
“What the hell?”
I pulled off the headset and hit the power button. Nothing. The room was completely silent except for the ticking of cooling electronics. The apartment lights still worked. So did the lamp in the hallway. Not a power outage, then. I tried the computer again. Still dead.
“Gina? Alisha?”
Obviously, they could not hear me through a headset with no power. Apparently beating the game had temporarily destroyed my common sense along with several thousand dollars’ worth of equipment. My cell phone buzzed as my friends lit up our group chat.
GINA: ARE YOU ALIVE?
ALISHA: Your screen went black. Did the game crash?
GINA: DID THE ALIENS TAKE YOU?
I replied as fast as my fingers could fly over the screen.
ME: I wish. Still here. Rig is dead. I won.
GINA: You accepted the crest.
ME: It was part of the game.
ALISHA: Sure it was.
I sent them both an obscene emoji and promised to call in the morning.
Then I sat in my very expensive dead cockpit and stared at the black center monitor.
Vesh was gone.
I had known that would happen when I finished. I had spent weeks avoiding it. Now that it was done, I felt… lonely. Also annoyed. Mostly annoyed. A replacement gaming system was going to cost a fortune.
I made tea, checked every cable and power cord twice, tried to reboot, and finally gave up.
Tomorrow, I would call the manufacturer and explain that the world’s most popular video game had murdered my computer.
Hopefully, some of my stuff was still under warranty.
Tonight, I went to bed hoping I would dream about a certain sexy alien.