BECOMING SUPRA

Chapter 16.4: New York City: Raë

I am in Arthur Ashe Stadium, Flushing, New York. It's a sold-out event, there are twenty-three thousand spectators present, another two million are watching from their homes. The place is bustling, a cross-current of myriad energies, clattering of sounds, crowds cheering, laser wands waving. A commentator is at the mic, enthusiastically screaming.

The drum roll begins.

The pictures of the hundred participating players fill up the main spectator screen, three women have made it to finals. I am one of them.

A sound is honked, a long blare and cheer fills the air. I barely feel ready when the Deathonator Finals begin.

I am launched into the arena of play. Bullets whizzing, detonations and explosions, I am running, my heart beating arrhythmically, my neck is stiff as iron grates.

Thirty-seven minutes into the game and I am out of armor plates and have exhausted all my ammunition. I have to find a treasure chest. It is a matter of life and death!

I take cover behind a broken wall, eyeing the castle that houses the loot. A player is following close at my heels, it's as though he is stalking me. As I am about to run, he takes aim and fires a round. I duck and fall back into the wall.

It is HaRAmi! The misogynist from my earlier games. He uses the worst expletives one can imagine, abuses involving mothers and sisters and repeated threats of rape. In the past, whenever we played in virtual parlors, I noticed he was first to target players wearing female skins. I remember winning a round with him not long ago, he didn't seem this brilliant. I am surprised he even made it to the top one hundred. But judging by the skills he is showcasing today, he was probably downplaying his genius on purpose, so as to acquire a reading of the other player's talent.

HaRAmi had made it to the finals!

Run!

I made a mad dash for the castle.

Then suddenly, I dithered, I hesitated, my hands went soft on the controller, my body pulled back ... and out of nowhere I saw a vision of Æsh: looking directly into my eyes, a smile beginning to play on his face. My focus wavered, HaRAmi took aim and pulled the trigger. Three clean shots. I fell to the ground, dead.

HaRami slays KalashniKov! flashed on the screen.

My shoulders dropped. I fell back into my seat like a stiff corpse.

Game over. I had lost.

I snapped my headphones off and threw them on the console. Lights, cameras and zoom-in closeups, the eyes of the world were upon me. But the game continued on. Players around me were still engaged, their focus unwavering, their controllers clicking at furious speeds. I looked at the audience surrounding us, the hum of excitement still heavy in the arena. The main spectator screen displayed the names of the twenty-eight gamers still in play. I hadn't even made it to the top twenty-five, forget ten.

I lost. I lost everything. The game, the money, the internship at BlizzardWizard! I had lost the entire dream.

I wanted to cry.

What was it? I had practiced so hard. It was the glare. I was thrown off. I was ill prepared for the glare of the spot-light, the rustling of the audience, the movement of other players in such close quarters.

No, it was Æsh!

I had not thought of Æsh the entire holiday, not once, then he flashes into my mind in the middle of the finals! Sneaking in, flinging his memory into my consciousness. And then our membranes fused and superimposed over each other's, I paused and lost momentum.

Æsh!