In his visor display, communicator options listed each of the other players. This all felt like something he knew. The others could all be pro gamers for all that he knew, but at least the sim gave him some sense of familiarity. Carter, Hacker, Huggert, Molson, his name, ‘Tristan’ was grayed, and Varofakis were listed. Underneath were audio and video controls and options for ‘synth.’ Under ‘Synth,’ he found ‘disguise,’ ‘weapons,’ and ‘assets.’

If this worked the same way as the virtus he knew then the weapons, like the disguise, would be for costume. They might look scary and do flashy things, but they usually wouldn’t deliver any real impact. ‘Assets’ was normally a way to synthesize clones of game elements.

The instructions said, Ready? Go.

On the far side, Carter’s broad frame drifted upward and reached for the trophy behind him. Molson’s dark mop bobbed as he swum at Carter and blocked him. The two wrestled. Red-headed Hacker went for Carter. Angelo powered around the back of the three of them.

Angelo’s braided head rose behind the group and up toward the trophy. Molson saw him first, but then Hacker and Carter both leaped on Angelo too.

Joel paddled casually backward to the other end, keeping his eyes on the fray as four sets of arms and legs spun and fought. He rose with his back against the wall. He guessed he was almost to the height of the trophy when Ben’s face rose in front of him and his hands slapped into the wall either side of his head.

Ben’s cool eyes held Joel’s as his long reach went up for the trophy. Carter and Hacker spotted him and shot back to him. They chased Ben and Joel drifted away. He was content to let the others fight and tire themselves before they’d figured out what the game was. Molson was still locked in a struggle with Angelo.

While Hacker and Ben wrestled, twisting and turning, Joel was half fascinated by the mechanics, the way the sensory augmentation was achieved. But he pulled himself back into the game.

Carter had reached Joel. He stretched out his arms to Joel’s shoulders to pull him down. Joel hit the communicator button for Carter

Joel said, “You’ve worked out that this is a team game, right?”

He was close, so he saw the image of Carter’s face. He blinked behind the visor. Joel told him, “The only way for any one of us to win would be if he killed all the others. Or was able to buy them off or something. While there are two trophies, it can only be won through co-operation.”

Carter’s eyes narrowed. But he said, “Yeah. Of course. I was waiting until someone else had figured that out.”

“Right.” Joel said, stifling a grin before it got started.

Carter’s hand gripped Joel’s shoulder hard. “I have worked out that I don’t need a wetlander on my team, though.” He grinned, “Though the webbed toes ought to give you some kind of an advantage.”

Just for a fraction of a second, Joel synthed a massive dragon’s head in place of his own, “And you know that we can do this, for instance?” The reflection in Carter’s visor looked amazing. As Carter recoiled involuntarily, he hoped only Carter had seen it and none of the others. If they hadn’t figured out that ‘Synth,’ was an option, he didn’t want to be teaching them.

“Uh, yeah.” Carter said. “How did you do that?”

“Get Hacker.” Joel told him, “You and he go around the far side. They’ll all chase you, I’ll grab the trophy.”

“Yeah. Oh, wait a minute–”

Joel held up a hand. “Don’t worry. When they see I’ve got the trophy, they’ll turn after me. You’ll be ahead of them waiting. I’ll pass it to you. You’ll get through. But get Hacker ready, in case they stop you, and then he can take it home. Either way, we win.”

“No either way about it.” Carter slapped him on the shoulder.

Carter and Hacker tangled with the other three. Joel drifted behind them and slunk up to grab the blue trophy. He was away with it before any of them noticed. Without hurry, he got all the way to the other side. He swam up to the nook and took out the red trophy.

Carter’s visor drifted up between Joel and the wall. He snatched the blue trophy away and popped it into the nook.

Carter took out the red trophy and dived fast across the tank. Joel was ready. When Molon and Ben dived at him, he threw the trophy and Joel was ready and right by the nook when he caught it.

Instructions came over the headsets.

‘Another round.‘ The trophies were instantly restored to their places. A soon as the instruction said, Go! Molson had a huge gun appear in his hand. Carter and Hacker panicked. Joel commed to them both. “Don’t worry. It’s only synth.”

He set a cursor on Molson’s gun and hit ‘synth’ to clone one for himself. The huge weapon felt heavy on his hands. Joel was impressed by the way the sim-stim suit made sensations of weight and force. He wondered how much of the sensation was implanted through the spikes in the hood.

Carter immediately snatched the gun from him. He aimed the weapon at Molson. He fired a blast of white and blue bolts. They hit Molson and exploded in the center of his chest. With no effect at all. Carter fired again.

Molson fired back. Ben got after Molson and Hacker tackled Carter, trying to steal the weapons. So, as he drifted upward and casually reached back for the trophy, Joel thought that was pretty interesting. Carter, Ben and Hacker had not clocked the fact that they could easily clone up one of those scary cannons for themselves. Nor the fact that they were entirely cosmetic and ornamental whizz-bangs.

Those four seemed not to be as familiar as Joel with the regular concepts of AR and virtu.

Joel had floated idly to the nook on the far side. Angelo lunged from behind him and swiped the trophy from him. “Nice try.”

There was a smile in his voice as he snapped the trophy home into place.

The other four swam over. Carter’s face was tense. He did not enjoy losing. Something resentful in his eyes made Joel wonder if that wasn’t because Carter had too much experience of losing.

So, Joel thought, Why pick him for whatever this contest is about? Why not pick one of the guys who have been beating him all the time? Joel filed the thought away. He could be looking at Carter the wrong way around. It could just as easily be that Carter’s resentment was the rage of a winner, clawing himself up from a downtrodden family.

He knew that second guessing everything could drive him nuts. It made sense to see and observe everything that he could, have thoughts about it and move on.

‘One more,’ said the instructor.

Joel commed Carter and Hacker. “Team up on this?”

Hacker raised a thumb. Carter was slower to respond, but eventually he nodded. Joel told them the plan. Carter didn’t like it, but then the voice said, ‘Go,’ and Joel moved. He grabbed the blue trophy from behind him. Then he synthed copies of it. He gave a trophy to Carter and one to Hacker.

Angelo synthed up a grenade launcher. Fired it with a grin, right in Joel’s face. The explosion was harmless but forceful. It slammed him backward and he bounced against the wall. The flash left him dazzled for several seconds.

The first Joel knew of Ben coming up behind him was the huge arms wrapped around him. Ben squeezed hard. After a short struggle, Joel gave up. He handed over the blue trophy with a shrug.

Molson marked Hacker and Angelo blinded Carter with another grenade. Considering how strong and how fast Carter was, Angelo made quick work of pulling his trophy off him.

Molson and Hacker were still tumbling and wrestling in the water when Angelo popped the trophy into the nook. Nothing happened. Molson had his hand on Hacker’s face when he finally wrestled the trophy away. He swam it straight up to the nook. Still nothing happened.

Then Ben drifted calmly to the target and dropped in the trophy he had gotten from Joel. Joel had drifted just underneath the target nook. Carter dashed at him, His hands slapped the sides of the pool either side of Joel’s ears. He commed, “Give.”

Joel handed him the trophy.

“And the other one. I know you made two copies.”

Reluctantly, Joel shook his head and said, “You’ll get the hang of this yet.”

Carter’s victory was short lived, though. Molson was bigger, stronger and too near. He put his feet to Carter’s face and took both trophies from him. He swam up to make the final score.