“You sure this is a good idea, man?” Jarek asked Nic in a private comms channel.

“I wouldn’t have suggested it otherwise,” Nic answered him plainly.

“I know, but... him? You’re 100% sure this’ll work?”

“We’ll get nowhere if we don’t learn to trust each other. He’s the one who’ll know this round best. He’ll tell us how it’s done.” You just want an out in case you lose, the accusing voice in his head scolded him. No, that’s not it... It was my call in the first place anyway. I have to believe in him like everyone else believes in me.

“Go ahead, Max,” Nic said into the open team chat. “You’re our precision weapons expert, so I’m putting you in charge for this round. The floor’s yours.”

“All right, then,” said Maqsud, and Nic thought he caught a little hint of a flustered breath on Scarlet 4’s end. Max’s usual bravado and confidence faltered ever so slightly. “The name of the game is Precision. Rules are simple: no starting weapon loadouts. Single elimination. The map has five Pistols and five Sniper Rifles scattered throughout, as well as two Upgrade Pak variants: three Incognitos and two Ultravisions. I’m sure we can all guess how those will both come in handy.

“Precision-based weaponry relies on a good vantage point from which to scope out your targets. You don’t want to engage in any medium-range or close-range combat if you can help it. As we all know, the Sniper has much better scoping capabilities, but the Pistol still comes with a 5x magnification, so don’t despair if you can only find a sidearm. It’ll just take a few more shots to bring down your target than a single dead-on rifle round.”

Nic listened to Maqsud give the orders as all five members of Team Scarlet spread out from their individual starting positions. The group was scattered again, just like they were in Fisticuffs, but this time it may have been more tactically advantageous to stay far apart. The last thing we need is one sniper picking off two of us at once, he thought grimly.

“I think we should climb up these if we come across any. We’ll be able to see all over the battlefield.”

“You’re right about that, Nic,” Max agreed, “which is precisely why we’re all going to stay far away from them.”

“I’m confused,” Perri chimed in.

“Keep an eye on the towers—that’s almost certainly where Team Malachite will try to get an advantage. Rather than seek them out, we’ll let them come to us. Stick to cover low to the ground and stay as alert as possible at all times.”

“Roger that,” Nic said. “You heard the man. Let’s move out!”

I wish Joe was here to tell me if this was the right call, Nic thought. Or Magister Dana. Or anyone.

In the back of his mind, there still existed this impulse to seek approval or guidance from someone above him—someone older, who knew exactly what to do, and could tell him the right answer as simply as 2+2. Oh, the answer is quite obvious, Nic. You see... But he was beginning to come to the terrifying conclusion that all the adults that he’d ever met—all the adults that had ever existed—were either just feigning confidence, when really they had no idea what was going on... or they were just too stupid to know what they didn’t know.

But there was one realization even more frightening: right or wrong, confidence or uncertainty, there reached a certain point in a man’s life when the buck stopped with him. When there was no one to whom he could pass the blame if he failed. That terrified him even more than failure itself: knowing that it was his fault. Everyone else knowing, too.

This was my call, he told himself. I’ll see it through to the end. Win or lose.

“[I found a Sniper Rifle,]” Shanti’s speech software announced.

“You know your way around one of those,” Maqsud said in a pleased tone. “We learned that last round. Good work, Scarlet 5.”

“Got a Pistol,” said Jarek. “Locked and loaded.”

Just a second after that, Perri piped up, “Grabbing an Incognito. Still no sign of any guns yet.”

“They’re out there,” Nic assured her. “Let’s keep looking. Stick to Max’s plan—low and slow. And stay frosty out there.”

As ever, Nic dispensed advice that he found difficult to follow himself. Do as I say, not as I do. Paradoxically, in the tiebreaker round with their young careers at stake, the entire weight of Planet Didumos on his shoulders like some terraforming Atlas, his mind couldn’t help but wander.

Sometimes, when the here and now became too much, he retreated into the there and then. Not to find solace. To find clarity.

***

Nic was back on Ayrus in the underground city of Paradigm Prep. It was a Friday morning; the day of the big test had finally arrived. Pre-Calculus. He had studied endlessly for that test, even skipping his usual after-school leisure sims to free up some extra academic time.

Functions, functions, functions—linear functions, polynomial functions, and some other functions after that, each of which he understood less and less as their complexity increased. He’d done the practice problems and completed all the study guides. The holotable in his room was even set to display examples of functions around the clock all week. He felt he was as prepared as he could have been.

But when the test arrived, he had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. The test questions didn’t look like anything on his study guides. He wondered at first if he and his classmates had been given the wrong test by mistake, but when he glanced up and saw that everyone else was diligently scribbling away on their tablets, he felt like the odd one out. Every question was a race against time; he tried to parse out the right answers based on how the questions were written, but not all of them were multiple choice. He did what he could with what he had.

“Time is now up,” said Magister Puck disinterestedly. “Styli down, please. Allow the AI a moment to grade and then return your tests to you.” He and his classmates did as they were instructed. Two minutes later, according to the holo-clock on the wall, Nic’s tablet lit up with his test score: 88%. “Well done, class. That concludes today’s lesson.”

That 88% came to haunt Nic for the rest of the year. 88%. Not even an A-. His only saving grace would be extra credit opportunities—the only way to salvage his 4.0. Math was never his strong suit, and he’d gone too long pretending he was adequate at it.

What his classmates may have taken as a minor setback or maybe even a decent result, he saw as a reason for merciless self-punishment. He didn’t log any time on leisure sims over the weekend. He didn’t see any friends. He skipped meals. It got to the point where a PPI psychologist was dispatched to his room for a quick evaluation. This was all about that pesky “maladaptive perfectionism,” as they liked to call it. They told him all about his mental problems and how bad they were and how they should be corrected but never told him how to do so.

The only solutions they gave him were, “Just try not to let it get to you so much.” “Focus on the positive.” In other words, nothing.

And so he carried it with him. He carried it with him like a freckle. Like a scar. His need to win. His pursuit of perfection. The threat of failure sucking the breath out of his lungs like wind through an airlock.

His heart was racing. A cold sweat broke out across his face and his chest felt heavy. For a reason he couldn’t explain, although the sensation was familiar to him, he worried he was about to die—not in the Wargame, but in real life. The tiebreaker was too much for him to bear.

And yet, just like everything else, he would have to bear it anyway.

***

“Nic, do you copy? I repeat, do you copy?” Jarek’s voice snapped him out of his neurotic flashback.

“S-sorry, yeah, I copy,” Nic stammered. “Say again.”

“I said, there’s a green proxybot in the tower to your right. I marked their location. You wanna take ‘em out with me? Two heads are better than one.”

“Yeah,” he replied. “I mean, no—no, I still haven’t found a gun yet.” He shook off the dregs of his daydream. “I’ll find one soon. I promise.” The world around him settled back into place piece by piece—the battlefield, the tower Jarek tagged, and sure enough, a Malachite foe leaning off the balcony... with no weapon in hand. Must be doing recon, he assessed. Trying to scope us out for the rest of Team Malachite. Maqsud was right. Nic approached from an angle behind that player’s line of sight, so he was confident he wouldn’t draw their attention.

“I’ve got a Pistol now,” said Maqsud. “How’s everyone doing out there? Making any progress?”

“I found an Ultravision,” Perri answered. “Other than that, nothing. Not a single gun—and nothing to shoot if I found one, either.”

“Have you been checking the towers?”

“Affirmative. Nothing. Sounds like 1 and 2 have found the only enemy so far.”

While they chatted strategy, Nic’s mind analyzed the situation. I wonder if Max is trying to play it too slow and safe by having us duck for cover down below here. “Max, I’d like your permission to climb this tower,” said Nic. “I can get the drop on this Malachite. They don’t see me yet.”

Scarlet 4 took a moment to respond. “Didn’t you say you were still lacking a weapon?”

“I have my fists. 3% damage with every punch. There’s also the option of chucking them off the balcony and seeing how much fall damage they take. The rules never stated we could only use weapons.”

Max chuckled into the team chat. “And you’re confident they’re not armed?”

“I can see both of their hands just resting on the balcony now. Even if they have a rifle stashed behind them, there’s no way they’ll hear me coming in time—not in this atmosphere.”

“You’ve given this a good bit of thought. Well, I can’t fault your assessment, Nic. Your provisional Mission Leader gives you full clearance. Proceed with caution.”

“Acknowledged.” Nic ascended the astrosteel tower’s wraparound staircase carefully. Even if he was correct about the relative silence of his own movements, he didn’t want to leave anything to chance—not when the stakes were this high. Several flights of repetitive, drab, black stairs later, he was finally on the same platform as his prospective target. Didumos looked even more beautiful from this vantage point. “Approaching Matsuno from behind.” He spoke into the team chat, knowing his proxy output would still be silent—but he was on guard nonetheless. Matsuno is a tough opponent in a fistfight. I have to use the element of surprise to my—

The shot pierced his chest mid-thought. His whole body tensed. Then came the gasping pain, the surge of adrenaline as his body rushed to mitigate what it thought was a physical, grievous wound. He staggered a step.

“Nic!” Jarek called out. “Nic, was that you? Are you hit? I saw the vapor trail!”

“They’re using my strategy,” Maqsud realized. “Nic, you took the bait! Abort! Get out of there!”

“Hit,” Nic muttered between wheezing breaths of pain. He could barely register what his squadmates were saying. “I’m hit... Engaging!” Matsuno turned around slowly and assuredly. Nic planted his foot to start swinging. Rather than duke it out, however, the Malachite player crouched down low to waist-level and tackled him—all the way to the back wall of the tower’s lookout. Matsuno had him pinned. Nic wheezed in another breath. “Guys—”

A thunderclap of pain straight through the center of his skull. Then darkness.