Énouement

Chapter Five

I was right, as usual. We still had school. Every day there were classes. Reading. Numbers. History. Videos of the bloody battles in space. The marines splattering blood all over the walls of the bunker ships. Holos of clean wars of the fleet, ships turning into puffs of light as a spacecraft killed each other deafly in the deep night.

Many things to learn, But I didn't care as long as I was with Ender. We worked hard, as hard as anyone. Most of us struggled for the first time in our lives, for the first time in our lives we competed with classmates who are at least as right as we were. For the first time Ender competed with me.

"Are you okay?" I sat on his table before class started. He continued typing at his desk. "I was thinking later we can go to the arcade? Most of the big kids have battles today, so it should be really empty -"

"I don't have as good a handle on this is you do Tori, I don't have time to waste in the arcade." He didn't look up at me. Just kept typing. My face fell and I dejectedly walked away.

"Right. Sorry Ender I wasn't thinking." That was the second time I noticed a change in Ender. I heard him sigh and place his desk down.

"No Tori I'm sorry. I just, I really want to do well here. I don't want to have left home for nothing. I didn't mean to be so cold to you." I smiled, turned around, and kissed his cheek.

"Never Ender. I can help you with it if you want?" Any time this happened, well anytime Ender realized how he acted, he apologized and we can quickly made up. I can never stay mad at him.

The best thing we learned here though, were the games. That's what everyone looks for. That was what filled the hours between waking and sleeping.
Dap introduce us to a game room. It was up, way above the decks where the boys, and us few girls lived and worked. We became lost in the weakened gravity and there in the caravan we saw the dazzling lights of the games.

Some of the games we knew some some we had even played at home. Simple ones and hard ones. We passed a two-dimensional game on video and begin to look at them more closely. The bigger boys play the holographic games with objects you bring in the air. I stood next to Ender and observed with him. We had strayed from our group and away from Dap. Every now and then we get shoved from the bigger kids, but I wasnt about to leave Ender here by himself. That was until he ran into someone. Then I'd cart him away from them as fast as I could.

Every time though, he went back. He was too curious for his own good. Can get to a different spot at least, a different angle, so you can observe the game. We're too short to see the controls and how the game is actually done. It didn't matter much. It's in the movement in there, the way the player dug the tunnels in the darkness tunnels of light, which the enemy ships at search for and then follow mercilessly into the player got the players ships.

The player can make traps, mines, drifting bombs, flips in the air that for sending me ships to repeat endlessly. Some of the players were clever, most were not. Ender and I both liked it better though when they boys played against each other. Then they had a use each other's tunnels and it quickly became clear which one of them was worth anything at the strategy of it.

"I thought only the best of the best were accepted here. I guess they get whoever looks like they might have potential, and need them to play games like this." I bit my lip.

"We need to be careful Ender."
"They're only analyzing us Tori, and we know they are, so don't give them anything that we don't want them to have. Besides, if we don't play at all they'll get suspicious. They know that you're as smart as anyone here, maybe more. This is just to see if we can strategize and be a leader."

I pouted, but I knew it was right. Of course with my hippie parents, I was taught that I had a right to privacy, and something about the government watching me and observing didn't sit right with me. Even if these adults were in charge of me, and the fate of the world.

We watch the games for an hour, until sure exactly how to play and what to do to win. Think like a machine instead of a boy, and you could win against anyone. Well I could win against them and Ender could. But against each other? I don't know.
"I'd like a turn against you," Ender said to the boy who had just won.

"Lawsy me, what is this? is it a bug or a bigger?"
"I new flock of dwarfs just came aboard," Another boy answered. I want to retort, I wanted to curse them, but Ender and I were small for our age, and Ender had a plan.

"So you're afraid to play me two out of three?"
"Beating you would be as easy as pissing in the shower."
"And not half as fun." I scrunched my nose in disgust. I guess is what happens when you put a bunch of boys on an asteroid without anyone telling them what to do. They just get more disgusting.

"I'm Ender Wiggin."
"Listen up scrunch face you're no one! You're nobody. Got that? You're nobody, got that? You're not nobody till you gots you're first kill. Got that?"

I whispered in Ender's ear, "He must be talking about the game, the one the older boys play." The boy was speaking in a slang, at least I hope you was. I really hope they didn't have anyone illiterate here. It did have a rhythm though, and was easy enough to pick up.

"If I'm nobody, then how come you scared to play me two out of three?"
They were getting impatient.

"Kill the square quick and let's get on with it. But maybe leave his cute little friend." Ender stepped half in front of me trying to draw the attention away to him. The boys were getting agitated. I pushed him towards the game, they were going to let him play.

He took the controls. His hands maybe small but they were simple enough. It took a minute to find out what button did what. The other boy, his name we didn't know, got ahead quickly. But he learned a lot and was doing much better by the time the game and ended. I knew he wanted more though.

"Satisfied launchy?"
"Two out of three."
"We don't allow two out of three games." I didn't want Ender to push his luck with these boys. Everyone here was so violent, but maybe that's because of what I was used to, which wasn't them. I had a feeling that they wouldn't hesitate to hit Ender. I dont want to think of what they would do to me.

"So you beat me the first time I ever touched the game," Ender said. "if you can't do it twice, you can't do it at all." I pinched his arm from behind.

They played again, and this time he was deft enough to pull off a few maneuvers that the boy had obviously never seen before. Ender didn't win easily, but he won.

The bigger boys stopped laughing and joking then. I looked around nervously as more show up. Third game in total silence. Ender won quickly and efficiently. But it ended, one of the older boys said, "Bout time they replace this machine. Getting so any pinbrain can beat it now."

No one congratulated him. No one looked happy for him. Just silence as Ender walked away and got my hand. We didn't get far just off to the distance nearby. We watched as the next players try to use the things that Ender had already done.

"Any pinbrain huh?" I giggled as Ender smiled slightly. I knew he had it felt better now, that he won something against this older boys. Maybe not the best of the older boys, but maybe now he didn't feel that he was out of his wits here. That battle school might not be so much for him now, and maybe now he wouldn't feel so threatened by me. At least that's what I hoped. I didn't know what the teachers would do to us later.