Sarah was looking at her phone as she robotically unlocked her door and walked into her room. A second later she was on the ground. She landed on her butt and her phone had gone flying as she fell. Sarah looked up. Angie was standing there apologizing over and over.

“Are you OK?” Sarah asked.

“No.” Angie gushed frantic apologies as she helped Sarah get up off the floor. Once Sarah was on her feet, Angie launched into an explanation of the crisis.

“They quit?” Sarah asked. It had taken a few minutes to get the story out of Angie. “I can’t believe it.”

“Believe it!” Angie picked up a cup and slammed it down on the desk. “Flanni said it wasn’t because I’m a chick. Because I’m a chick? What the hell does that mean?”

“I know,” Sarah said, “I mean you hardly realize you have boobs.” Angie looked down at her chest. She knew she had boobs. They’re not small and they get in the way sometimes. Thank goodness they weren’t the melons her mother carried around, even if mom….. I don’t have time for this.

She looked up and saw Sarah laughing. Angie started to laugh too. Her best friend could always get her laughing. That’s why she was her best friend.

Both of them remembered the bra discussion two days ago. They drank beer and talked about what fit, what didn’t. What boys like. What men like. And how the hell did Angie not have a single sexy bra. Not a bralette, not a pushup, yeah one or two had a touch of lace, but not one bra you could really call sexy. Well, there is one, Angie thought to herself, but I’m not telling.

Angie and Sarah drank through the few beers they had kept in the dorm room fridge and Sarah couldn’t take it any longer. She, dragged Angie out for a girl’s day. It was their way of celebrating the “programmed time out” before the game. Some shopping, which included a LBD, a new lingerie set, dancing and more drinks. It was relaxing.

Now, as Sarah hugged her, Angie cursed herself that she had gone out instead of finding a backup team. If I didn’t go out drinking, Flannie wouldn’t have quit. No that’s not true. Maybe it is. I don’t know. I didn’t know!

When Sarah’s phone vibrated again, she didn’t ignore it. One message was from dad, asking if everything was OK. She answered [Yes, be there in a minute.] The next message was from Joey, team leader for team Sssshark, the team she was on. Joey asked if she wanted a ride to the devil center. [Got one. See you soon.] she responded. The rest of the messages were system notices. T-minus 90 minutes until doors. T-minus 3h30m until game.

Angie was pacing again. Nerves and worries crashed back like a tidal wave. “Sara, have you, would you consider…”

Sara cut her off right there. “I can’t leave my team just before we start.” maybe if she had asked when the semester started, that would have been different. Now? No.

“I would never ask you to do that,” Angie lied. They both knew it was a lie and like friends do, they both pretended the lie was true.

The door to the room opened and in bounced Heather. She was pulling Mike behind her.

“I’m here,” Heather announced. She was dragging Mike along behind her. Sara looked at them.

Heather, like Sarah, wasn’t an engineer. This dorm had a mix of engineers and liberal arts students- the dorm was near both the engineering and the liberal arts buildings. Heather was a friend. She was also a flibbertyjibbt. A little scatter brained and a little sarcastic and a thousand other things, including being one of Angie’s saviors right now.

Mike was smarter than most people, he would be happy to tell you that himself. For whatever reason he wasn’t part of a team. He should have had his own team, or been a headliner dev or even a top player on one of the teams. Instead, Mike was being dragged along by Heather.

“Are you the new grunt squad?” Sarah tried to hide her horror as she turned to Angie. “This is your playing squad?”

I know! She wanted to yell at Sarah. I know this is a disaster. I know that the, uh, know-it-all and Heather were a disaster as a grunt squad. There’s nothing I can do about it. A deep breath later, Angie answered “We’re still short a person.”

“I love you Heather, but you are going to be a grunt?”

“A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.” Heather was cheerful and smart at the moment. That could change when her inner demon broke free. Until then she was the pretty girl next door.

In order to successfully demonstrate what their equipment could do, each team had to dedicate four players to actually play the Space Opera game using all of the fancy new equipment that the engineers cooked up. The playing team had to survive long enough to show off the equipment.

Every team that lost the competition would later claim that their gear was the greatest ever, it was the human grunts who got killed out early. If the grunt players had just lasted longer, everybody would have seen how good the equipment was.

“You get spooked by...” Sarah didn’t finish the sentence. “Mike what are you doing?”

“Uh, It’s an emergency and I don’t have anything better to do.”

“Okay.” Sarah and Mike never got along. He was a chauvinist know-it-all. He wasn’t a male chauvinist pig with something against girls. He was an equal opportunity chauvinist. If you weren’t Mike, you weren’t that smart or important.

Angie butted in. “I’ll meet you over there when the doors open. Room b23. Do you need a ride?”

“We’re going to ride my scooter over.” Mike announced happily. He couldn’t remember the last time a girl had been on the scooter with him. Heather didn’t look overjoyed, but if that was the price of getting Mike to help her friend, Heather was willing to pay it.

“OK, well, see you there.” Sarah was talking to Mike, but Heather answered.

“Let’s go.” Heather grabbed Mike’s hand. “Somebody has a reception to get ready for.” With a smile for Angie, Heather led Mike out of the room.

Angie’s expression changed to horror. “The reception!”

“I forgot about it,” Sarah said.

“Me too.” Angie was not happy. “I can’t skip it. All of the judges will be there.” She stood there looking miserable.

“Do you think it matters?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. Yes it does. All of the VIPs will be there, the people who do hiring.”

“The let’s get you ready. I happen to know somebody has a brand new Little Black Dress” Sarah was chipper.

“I don’t have time for getting dressed up.”

“You’re a chick. Be a chick. Remind them that you’re not just brains.”

“I think feminism just got set back 50 years.”

“Win and you advance feminism 100 years.” Sarah went to the closet. “Let’s get you ready.”

Instead of getting onto his scooter, Mike had been press-ganged into carrying Angie’s bags, briefcase and boxes down to the car. While he was busy, Heather opened the door to Sarah and Angie’s room and slipped in. When she saw Angie and she squealed in delight. “You. Look. AAAAAAA- MAZING!!!!”

Angie stood there in her little black dress. Sarah had done something to her hair. My makeup isn’t getting any better and I’m out of time. She looked at the time on her phone. T-Minus 70 minutes until the doors open. T-minus 10 minutes until the reception starts.

“You go wow ‘em, hotstuff. Mike and I will see you in an hour.” Heather slipped back out.

“You think I’m crazy. “

Sarah put her bag back down. “No, I think you’re desperate.”

Angie sat down heavily on her bed. “I’m desperate. And I need two more people.”

“You could play. You know there are bonuses if you play.”

“The tech team doesn’t have enough experience. And you know, maybe if Javi hadn’t played last year…” It was an old argument. Javi was the team president last year and he had played. Yes he got bonuses- if the team president plays they get bonuses that could help the squad that is playing. Last year, after the competition, Should Javi have played was a huge argument. “If we had a real player out there, we might have won.”

Sarah came over and sat down beside her roommate. “There are always people at the Devil Center hoping to get in a game.”

“I’m hoping lightning strikes.”

Sarah’s phone beeped again. She looked down at the message and then back to Angie. “It’s now or never.”

“Now or never.”