Would you believe the creativity of these young folk?

It sure is amazing to see their ingenuity. The communication. The improvisation!

Dare I say, this is going to be the best Annual yet!

--

What do I think? It’s abhorrent! We just watched a bunch of kids start a forest fire in a paintball match with the US Army. Seriously, does no one see how insa-

--

Welcome to BETterTV dot com. The first round is hereby opened. The hero students are marked by a number hovering above them onscreen and their odds have been calculated. Place your bets on who’d make it to the first break point.

The numbers rolled in. Thousands. Then millions. Most of the money came from whales and addicts. The operation was too small to warrant adequate resources from investigation bureaus. And they moved servers often. This morning they were a moving company working for a couple who had made a small fortune flipping houses. By the afternoon, they had their server rack set up in the basement, selling drone feeds and betting games to a couple hundred thousand people viewing through an Onion browser, hidden from the law further by a VPN anyone could afford if they skipped a Starbucks run a month.

The owner went by Carlos, inventor, entrepreneur. A rarity among his kind. He was a code monkey who could navigate social waters like a fisher of men. He stood straight, had a strong handshake, and white teeth so tidy he could lie through them without the slightest whistle. His compression algorithm enabled those illicit drone feeds to survive layers of encryption at 1080p 88fps. He was too successful.

“I’m telling you,” Richy, his partner, was saying, “We need to stop expanding.”

“We’ll hit saturation soon,” Carlos said. “Other providers will catch up. We’re already invisible. We’ll soon be indistinguishable. Until then, there’s no point in not capitalizing on it.”

“We’ve made enough for everyone back home to live comfortably,” Richy said. “Why tempt fate?”

“Because I’m not. We’re not throwing bones here. This is science and stats. How can they find us? It’s only right we get our share anyways. The only reason this is illegal is because big media loses out on views. We’re not doing anything wrong.”

Richy wanted to say that was beside the point, or mention that any legitimate streaming service could sign a contract to get drone access. But they both knew the reason why they did not go that route; theirs made more money. Most of it came from the gambling, from both adults and kids with credit cards. But the winnings were fair; no one has ever been cheated. It was not Richy’s responsibility to parent other people’s spawn anyhow. People should learn at a young age to manage their own money. And if it was with their parents’ credit card, well, the adults in the family should mind their children better.

“Just manage our equities and coin,” Carlos said. “Use that business degree you got with your affirmative action scholarship. I’ll keep an eye on our operation.”

“Fuck off. I didn’t need the condescending patronization to get into college. I’m just concerned about our online cross-section.”

Carlos ignored him. “Look!” He pointed at one of the many monitors in his set-up. It had a series of unintelligible figures scrolling down. “We just got a hundred more sales… from the same person. Why would anyone want a hundred feeds of the games?”

--

The fire had put itself out, more or less. The forest was not yet dry enough for a catastrophe of any magnitude. The students kept their vigilance up as they walked. Lyssa learned a few things in that time. The student with the wind gift was named Allison, but she preferred Vortex, and she had taken leadership of their wing. No one objected, so through a unanimous vote of silence she took point.

Vortex generated pressure differentials in her palms and could control them well enough to create tornados, with the drawback that it took a lot of concentration to do so. Lyssa watched a bead of sweat crawl down the side of her face before it got whisked away by a breeze. Even now she was maintaining a circular wind, sweeping the forest ahead. If anything moved, she would know.

Lyssa wondered if Vortex knew she was exhausting herself. And that this game was not a competition between the students.

“We’re coming up to a river,” Vortex said. “We should take a break there. Drink and relieve ourselves. Whose gift can take them into the air?”

A few people raised their hands.

“Clear the area for us. Don’t engage if you see anyone.”

They set off immediately. One student asked, “Why don’t you do it?”

Vortex looked at them for a second.

“Because it’s not as easy as it looks. Imagine keeping a figurine in the air with a leaf blower.”

There were no more questions after that. Lyssa had seen Vortex hover. It must not be as hard as she claimed. And many students seemed content to listen to leadership rather than dispute it.

Lyssa began to understand. Vortex was preparing for the next game, where there might be teams. In her mind she had already made it to the end. Now, she was recruiting, watching for people she might want on her team when it came time, whoever was the most useful, whoever followed orders.

Lyssa stayed away from her gaze.

“We don’t need a team! We’re a whole army!”

“No. We should cooperate.”

She shook her head. The bickering was becoming too much. As the students stopped by the river to hydrate and rest, Lyssa took the time to sit by a tree and meditate. Lian had taught her a technique to do establish order in her head. She was her own master. She needed to assert her dominance.

A word came to her memory. Primum. Her selves had a hierarchy they had established without her knowing. Maybe that was why she often woke up exhausted; she had been deliberating with herself while unconscious. She was the leader in her own mind. She needed to make that known.

In her thoughts, she searched for Izanami the metalbender. The one who shrunk away. She entered the fractal halls and staircases of her mansion. Up on the observation deck, Sethlana and Mercurial argued over what they should do next. Lyssa would deal with them later. She opened the door to Izanami’s concrete cubicle. It was empty. She searched the halls. Nothing.

A painting caught her eye. She stopped to look at the dark inks, the oily depiction of old linoleum and shaggy carpet. She blinked. The painting was as tall as her. Without thinking, she stepped through into a place of warm firelight and wavering shadow, cast by a settee before a hearth. A grandfather clock ticked away, the seconds passing quickly and carelessly.

Lyssa walked forward. She placed her hand on the back of the settee and peered over, watching a little girl drink tea with a man made of wrinkles and wisdom. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, perhaps because it had happened a long time ago, too far back to be remembered. She did remember the happiness.

She did not say it, but her lips formed the word.

Grandfather.

She also remembered desperation. The old man’s cup splattered on his lap. His head laid back. He exhaled. The girl froze. Then she screamed. Something happened in her body then. Perhaps it was the first time it had ever occurred. What was not there before, mutated into the lattices of her being. A pale blue flash erupted, leaving a painful mark on the back of Lyssa’s eyes. She stumbled back, shielding her face. When she opened her eyes again, the whole room had been frozen.

Ghostly light danced on the carpet, soaked the walls, and coated the antiques. The pendulum within the clock had stopped mid swing. Everything had stopped. It was not ice. No, the fireplace had not been extinguished. The flames waved in slow motion, colorless and cold.

Lyssa watched as the little girl shook the old man. But he did not move. He could not move, even if he had still been alive. Realizing the futility of it, the little girl let go, her arms fell loosely by her side. Lyssa felt a pang of sympathy. She had only been to this house a few times. To think it had this much of an impact. She watched her younger self shed those same tears again. The ghostly light faded. Everything returned to motion except grandfather, everything happened the way it was supposed to happen. Then her younger self turned her head, looking Lyssa straight in the eyes.

“What?” Lyssa barely had time to exclaim before her younger self jumped at her, pushing her to the floor. Lyssa scrambled to her feet. Young Lyssa had already jumped through the doorway.

“Wait!” Lyssa shouted. She ran to chase her, head first into old wallpaper.

She fell onto her rear, her face tingling with pain. The doorway had disappeared.

“Fuck.”