It was somehow already six before Ryan decided to leave the hospital. He and Jay took another auto to the hotel. All of the tournament’s competitors were given free boarding, and it was simple enough for Ryan to move into the hotel room that had been reserved for Lisa. It was twice the size of a bedroom, with a queen-sized bed against one wall, a forty-inch flat-screen against the other, a mini-bar in one corner and a trio of chairs around a table in the other. Ryan plopped his bags on one side of the bed and lay down. He took out his phone.

According to the internet, the party he was about to attend had been a thing for the past four years. It was held at the Turner mansion. It wouldn’t just be the competitors there. There would be several members of Breach’s development team, some other VIPs from around the industry, executives from all of the companies sponsoring the tournament, a handful of players who came close to making it into the tournament, some fans who won a sweepstakes, and some fans rich enough to donate large sums to this year’s charity. (“Habitat for Humanity,” who had been hard at work for decades trying to deal with the countless people who’d been displaced from coastal cities all around the world due to rising sea levels.)

The party was Maximillian Turner’s idea. He held the first one the first year he qualified for the championship. Max was apparently no stranger to parties. There was a detailed article about Max and his near-weekly gatherings on a website for rich New Yorkers. At least for the sorts of people reading this site, it wasn’t hard to get oneself invited. Charitable contributions were often solicited from guests. Breach related imagery wasn’t uncommon, but the article assured its readers that the mansion was exquisite, and the parties not so unsophisticated that only a young adult could enjoy them.

The article did a good job of maintaining the balance between seeming like a real rich person and seeming like a human being with a soul, but this might have been a front. There were debates in the comments about whether it was okay that Max’s family had only been rich for a single generation. You see, Max’s father had come from a family so lowly that it could almost be considered upper middle class. The man had only became extremely wealthy when Thunderware found unexpected success in virtual reality gaming. This apparently caused Max’s parties, and everything else about his public behavior, to be far less sophisticated and upright. Also Max wasn’t white, but that had nothing to do with these people’s objections.

Ryan didn’t even really want to go to the party, except it would be his earliest chance to see Sophia. Also, there was a tradition where the eight teams that had qualified for the tournament entered a battle-royale match. Ryan wasn’t going to make his team miss out on that just because these sorts of social events bored him.

Ryan decided he was bored of the internet and switched to watching television, but after just ten minutes of some old Christmas special it was already time to go. Ryan changed into some less casual clothes, used the bathroom, and went outside. He met up with Jay in the hallway, and they left for the mansion.

//////////

To Ryan’s Shock, Jay put down his phone to speak. “When we get to the mansion,” he said, “they’ll want invitations.” He seemed to think this would be news to Ryan. “Max knows about our situation, so we should be fine, but you might have to wait outside for a minute if there’s a misunderstanding with whoever is checking them at the door.”

“You’re on a first name basis with him?” Ryan asked.

“Yeah,” Jay said. “I’ve hung out with him some at events. I think he’d been trying to make nice with me for some reason.”

“Weird.”

“He is, kind of, yeah.”

Upon seeing the mansion, it was immediately clear to Ryan why the CEO’s son held so many parties. He had to do something to keep all that space from going to waste. Three people lived in this mansion, yet it was three stories tall and twice as wide. Its outer walls looked like they were made entirely of glass, held in place by a grid of steel window frames. One could see the interior of every room in the front of the mansion. One room appeared to be a dining room, with a long brown table and giant gold chandelier. Another might have been a library, though there were so many shelves that some of them must have been holding something else. No one could read that much. There was a giant fountain outside. It was shut off for the winter but decorated with Christmas lights. Lights also covered the mansion itself, framing each of its giant windows and circling its roof. The lights were brightly colored, red, green, blue, deep yellow and white, and they were all constantly fading and relighting themselves in different colors.

Ryan and Jay’s auto made it two car-lengths in to a massive horse-shoe before the other cars present forced it to stop. Jay got out of the car, and Ryan followed him. Any other time of the year, during an event like this, there might have been a crowd on the lawn, but no one wanted to be outside in this cold, Ryan least of all, so he went straight up to the door and knocked. A well-dressed butler was camped by the door to answer it. He recognized Jay’s face, and so didn’t feel the need to ask for their invitations.

The walls of the entryway were painted blue. The floor was tiled with marble, marred with blue veins. A curly staircase with a golden handrail led to a brown door. On the ground, a scarlet rug led to a gold double-door twice the size of the mansion’s entrance. These doors were held open, and behind them was a ballroom. There were more brown doors to the right and left. There were couches in each corner of the room. People Ryan didn’t recognize, but who were the right age to be developers or businessmen, mingled on some of them.

Ryan walked across the carpet. The doors were flanked by statues: one of Breach’s most iconic character, James of the Terran Naval Marines, and one of the character Max happened to main, Occilo.

The glass windows on the far end of the ballroom revealed that it was as deep as the whole rest of the house. A few dozen people mingled and danced to 40s techno beats matching the style of Breach’s soundtrack. Ryan scanned the room and saw Sophia. She was speaking to someone next to a table on which food had been laid out. Ryan walked toward her. Jay went off on his own, probably toward Mitch, but Ryan didn’t care.

“Hey!” Sophia said when she noticed Ryan.

“Hey,” Ryan said. The person she’d been talking to turned around. It was, in fact, Maximilian Turner. He stepped back allowing the two to greet one another with a brief hug.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Ryan said. Turner was in a light blue shirt and dark blue jacket and pants. His face was smooth and flawless, his eyes soft blue and gentle, his mouth curved in an eternal smile.

“Oh, no, it’s fine,” he said. He extended his hand, which Ryan shook. “I’m Max Turner.”

“I recognized you,” Ryan said. “I’m Ryan Jonson.”

“Nice to meet you, Ryan,” Max said.” So, you’re Unbroken’s new Zap? Sophie says you’re pretty good.” He gestured toward Sophia.

“Well I’m definitely not going to go and deny that,” Ryan said.

“Ha ha. Well, it’s nice to meet you, and thanks for coming at the last minute. It would have sucked for your team to have to step out because of what happened.”

“Well that’s for sure,” Ryan said.

“Ooh, Sorry,” Max said. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

“No, no, it’s fine. You’re fine.”

“Max and I had just been talking about the ’79 regionals,” Sophia said.

“Yeah,” Max said. “You guys did really well there.”

“Think so?” Ryan asked.

“Of course. I mean, sure, I could have done better, but you got third place. That’s pretty impressive.”

“You know, it’s not nice to tell people you’re better than them.”

“Right, sorry about that!”

“Don’t worry. I’ll have my revenge once we start playing.”

“Ha ha. I’m going to hold you to that. You’ll get a good chance in an hour when the match starts. It’ll be fun no matter how it goes.”

“Yeah. It will.” Ryan would need to consider hitting on this man later.

“You four really did have a great dynamic, though,” Max said. “Some of the best teamwork I’ve ever seen.”

“Thanks.”

“There’s no need to thank me for telling the truth. Anyways, you two must have a lot to talk about. I think I should let you two catch up. There are still some people who are going to arrive, and I should greet them.”

“No problem,” Sophia said.

“Yeah, do what you need to do,” Ryan said. “I hope we bump into each other later.”

“Me too. Oh, and a word of advice. My brother isn’t as friendly as I am. If you see him, don’t introduce yourself. And if you do, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Uh, okay,” Ryan said.

“Maybe you’ll see what I mean,” Max said, and he walked off.

Sophia picked up a bit of bread from the table next to them. “So, what the hell have you been up to for a year and a half?”

“Not much. Basically just gaming.”

“I’m surprised you’ve not found yourself another team. It’s not like there aren’t a million teams that would kill for a competent Zap.”

“Eh, maybe someday.” Ryan scooped a ladel-full of punch into a paper cup. “No offense, but I haven’t been missing competitive play much.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I hope Jay didn’t strongarm you—”

“No, no, it’s fine. I’m happy to be here under the circumstances, and I’m psyched to play with you again. It’s just not my favorite playing environment.” Ryan took a sip of his punch. It was good; pinkish orange and pretty darn sour. It didn’t taste or smell alcoholic. “How did Mitch react to learning that I was coming?” Ryan asked.

Sophia had to think about that. “He understood. He’d definitely rather have you come than forfeit the tournament.”

“He wasn’t happy about it though?”

“Don’t worry about it. Jayden gave him the chance to say no and he didn’t take it. I won’t let him get away with going back on that.”

“Oh, I can take care of that myself if the situation calls for it. I’m curious, though. What would you do?”

“I dunno. I’ve never had to answer that question before. I get along with them fine. It’s you the two of them annoy.”

“Heh.” How someone could possibly stand Mitch, Ryan didn’t understand. The same would be true for Jay, if Ryan hadn’t dated him for so long. “By the way, how is it you guys managed to get yourselves into the championship? I leave and all of the sudden you’re championship material? I have to admit, I’m a little wounded.”

“I’m sure we’d have done it last year if you’d still been on the team.”

“Thanks for saying so.” The two continued catching up for quite a while, until another team entered the ballroom.

//////////

Mitch was in the corner, on a couch, dutifully studying, bobbing his head to the ambient music. Jayden walked over and sat next to him, wrapping an arm around him.

“Hey,” Mitch said.

“Hey,” Jayden said. “Anything to share?”

“Not that you probably don’t know,” Mitch said. “I’ve mostly been looking into Reigning Fire. Their item selection patterns are pretty wonky.”

“That much I know,” Jayden said. The weak teams warranted some study, but at the end of the day you probably wouldn’t face them, so they didn’t warrant the bulk of your attention. Reigning Fire were the ones to obsess over. The only way you wouldn’t face them eventually was if they lost to someone else, and the odds of that were low. The odds of them losing to Unbroken were low too, but that didn’t bear thinking about. If Unbroken was going to win the championship, they were probably going to have to beat Reigning Fire. “If you’ve got them down, though, I’ll do Ours is the Glory.”

“Sounds good.” Ryan would be shocked to hear it, but Jayden did get bored watching hours of footage and pouring over game data. Jayden just had the ability to power through it with this little thing called dedication.

Jayden searched for and pulled up some footage of Ours is the Glory playing against Unbroken earlier this year. Ours is the Glory had an odd battle dynamic. Everyone else was dedicated to supporting Max’s Occilo. He rode the Nullum. The Armigiri existed mostly to buff him. Terraemotus put a lot of work into aiding him as well, and forcing enemies to fight him alone. All three of those players weren’t people Max had known before he started competitive play. They were hired by Max’s father. That didn’t mean Max was some upstart whose daddy had bought him a team. A team that made it into the world championship multiple times in a row had to have four good players. Still, Jayden wished his dad were rich enough to buy him the best teammates in the world.

Jayden studied Max’s movements in the piece of footage he was watching. Max was massive as Occilo, and he moved with power, riding his Nullum toward Zap, played by Lisa. His sword glowed with Armigeri’s magic as he slammed it into her chest. Sparks flew. Being impaled by the sword locked Lisa in place. Nullum hit her with a breath of blue-white fire. Her rusty armor plating melted, bits of them dripping onto the horned beast, but doing him no harm. Max wrenched his sword out of her and rode off to the right. Lisa’s body fell forward. Jayden studied the clip for over ten minutes but couldn’t find any flaw with the technique. He scooted toward Mitch, who reciprocated, and rested his head against Jayden’s shoulder.

Across the ballroom, another team entered.

//////////

Ryan turned to see who was entering. He recognized the first person to enter: Joss Turner, Captain of Reigning Fire. As much as Max probably wouldn’t want to hear it, they looked a lot alike: both olive-skinned with puffy ridged cheeks. Joss, though, had a wiry beard, redder than his head-hair. He was wearing a shirt and jeans. The rest of his team entered behind him, only one of them dressed up.

“Should I go introduce myself to him?” Ryan asked.

“Like Max told you not to?” Sophia asked.

“Right, exactly,” Ryan said. “I’m really curious.” Reigning Fire split up. One member headed toward the stage to dance. Two others walked over to the couches where Jay and Mitch were. These were championship players. Some of the best in the league and the most dedicated.

Maybe Jay would leave Mitch for one of them.

“Have you met Reigning Fire before?” Ryan asked Sophia. Ryan was pretty sure Unbroken had played them once back when he was on it, but he didn’t remember interacting with them himself. They weren’t quite as big of a team a few years ago.

“We’ve played against them,” Sophia said. “I’ve not had any extended conversations with them or anything.”

“Do you think he’s as bad as his brother let on?”

“Probably.”

Joss was walking over to them. Toward the punch, Ryan realized. He gave Ryan a look that told him he’d noticed Ryan’s staring. That was rude of Ryan. Still, the look sort of sealed the deal. “I’m going in,” Ryan said.

“I’ll be here to cheer you on,” Sophia said.

Ryan waited for Joss to arrive at the punch bowl. Once Joss was in front of the bowl, Ryan walked up to and stood behind him, as if waiting in line to refill his glass, which was long-empty. “Hi,” Ryan said.

“Hi,” Joss said. He scooped punch into his cup, and, without moving out of the way, pulled a flask out of his coat and poured its contents in.

“I’m Ryan,” Ryan said. “You’re Joss Turner?”

“Yes.” He moved over, and got a plate, which he began to fill with artificial meat.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Ryan said.

“Nice to meet you,” Joss said, focused on his task. Ryan got his own punch.

“Can I borrow some of what’s in the flask?” Ryan said.

“If only I had enough to share.”

“Yikes. I’m here if you want to talk about it.”

“Believe me, there’s nothing you could say. Now please leave me alone.”

“Sorry,” Ryan said.

“I didn’t ask you to apologize. I asked you to go away.”

“Sorry,” Ryan said again.

“And what was it I just said?”

“Alright, alright, I’m going.”

“You say that.”

Ryan took his full punch glass back over to Sophia.

“Looks like that went well,” she said.

“We’re best friends now,” Ryan said.

“Cool beans. Anything worth sharing?”

“He has more foresight than me. He brought a flask to mix into his punch.”

“I’m wounded. Are you saying you’re not enjoying yourself?”

“Oh no. I am. For now. While I’ve not seen Mitch.”

“It’d be as simple as looking right over there.” She gestured toward the two of them, half snuggling, half studying on the couch.

“Bleck,” Ryan said.

“Fair enough. I can’t blame Joss for needing some help getting through this, though. There must be a lot of baggage between he and his brother after the accusations.”

“I was reading about that on the way here. You’ve been more hooked into things than I have. Do you think he did it?”

“There’s not really any evidence. The whole point of having an AI govern the game is that it allows the rules to be a bit adaptable and the game still be fair. Max had a second Purifying Light in that match because Breach-bot allowed him to, and Joss knew that that kind of thing could happen, so he prepared for it.”

“I guess. I can’t help but see him as the cheating type, though.”

“I’m sure he is. People who play fair don’t become world champions.”

“What does that say about us?”

“That we’ll get third place, like we did at regionals. At least that’s as high as I’m letting my hopes get.”

“Wise. And now I feel sorry for Jay and Mitch.”

“Softie.”