Nic ran the flag toward home base. Bullets peppered him from multiple angles, although he only felt them as little pellets striking his body. Almost there, he thought. Even as his enemies closed in all around him, even as his proxybot’s health plummeted into the single digits, his resolve never wavered.

He scored the flag and waited for RTIFIS to congratulate him.

FLAG CAPTURED! SCARLET: 3 | PLATINUM: 2 SCARLET 1: VICTORY!

He awaited his rebirth into the Simnasium, the real world, but it never came. The simulation of Planet Slate and his gray proxybot enemies faded into the background layer by layer, replaced with a loading screen that read ROUND 5 READY... WAITING FOR PLAYERS...

“Ready to get back to it, boss?” Jarek asked in the team chat.

“He’s already jacked in and everything,” said Perri playfully. “Logging some Furflower Island while you wait, Nic?”

He scoffed. “You know it.”

“I’ll get you to play with me and Jarek one of these days. You’ll love it!”

Nic couldn’t bear to tell her the real reason he stayed in the Simnasium. I’m slipping back into old habits, he thought guiltily. Wait... No, that’s not true. I left the pain settings at Tactile Mod. I’d call that progress.

Before she could connect the dots, or Jarek could accuse him, RTIFIS stole the show.

How fitting, Nic thought. Well, that’s just creepy. The thought occurred to him that maybe, just maybe, through some artificially intelligent finagling, RTIFIS had seen his obsessive practice session and inserted this mode to help Team Scarlet. I did just beat five Advanced-level proxies on my own, after all. But then he remembered that their RTIFIS was just one of many, and that the instances belonging to Xanthic and Tyrian both wanted their respective squads to win just as badly.

The order had been randomized from the start. It was just an eerie coincidence. Believing otherwise was wishful thinking—that childish reflex to trust that someone, somewhere, who was wiser and more powerful was looking out for Nic. As if he were somehow eternally a child deferring to the real adults for the answers and for help when he needed it.

My only help will come from the barrel of my gun.

“Nic?” Jarek asked.

“Sorry,” Nic muttered. “I’m here.”

“We’re waitin’.” A pause. “You gotta give the final go-ahead to ready us up, remember?”

“Oh! Right, right. Sorry. Uh... RTIFIS, Team Scarlet is ready.”

Instantly, Nic found himself on a platform bearing a flagpole, all the metal astrosteel, black and unreflective. His HUD generated a simulated red flag at the top of the pole, which pretended to wave in the cold, damp wind of Planet Nereus. Nic looked back at his squadmates.

“Okay,” he breathed, focusing. “This is it, Team Scarlet. Let’s get a different outcome than the one we got last time.”

Jarek unstrapped his SMG. “Just like we practiced?”

Nic nodded once. “Just like we practiced.”

“You heard the man. Let’s get to it!”

Just as they’d strategized during practice sessions in the Wargame: Capture the Flag sim, Team Scarlet divided into three sub-teams: Defenders, Attackers, and the Assassin. Nic and Maqsud remained on base to defend the red flag from any encroaching enemy players. Jarek and Perri searched for a useful vehicle—ideally the two-seater Satyr, the fastest multi-person vehicle of them all. Their primary objective was to secure an enemy flag and drive it home, with the non-flag carrier serving as the bodyguard. Meanwhile, Shanti would prowl the field at all times, laying low until an opportunity presented itself. Her primary targets were any flag carriers she could catch off guard.

Their divide and conquer strategy worked phenomenally in a simulated setting. Nic held out hope that it would translate into the real world.

“Does it not concern you,” Maqsud asked as the sound of friendly proxybot footfalls faded into the distance, “that we’re using roughly the same strategy that lost us our match against Team Azure?”

“We almost won with this strategy,” Nic answered, “and we’ve been practicing it regularly. Losing that to Azure was a fluke.” His eyes picked out two purple proxybots heading for Yellow Base; they disappeared behind cover and he lost them. “Plus, Edith was a freak.”

“It seems as though Team Tyrian comprises five Ediths... or something far worse.” They exchanged a blank look through the faceless visors of their proxybots. Max shrugged. “What? Do you disagree?”

“Just trust the strategy, man,” Nic sighed. “Believe in Team Scarlet like the rest of us do.”

“Do you?”

Nic turned and tried his best to communicate the fact that he was glaring at Max, offended. “That shouldn’t even be a question.”

“Is that why you’re relapsing into your old ways? Pushing yourself through an extra practice when everyone else was taking a break? If we lose this round, will you force us all to join you next time?”

“If Tyrian wins this round, we leave this planet with nothing!” Nic snapped. “The alternative is 10 million credits and a normal life. Forgive me if these stakes are starting to weigh on me, dude. God... One little crack in my façade and you’re ready to interrogate me.”

“I’m not the only one who sees it, Nic,” Max replied gently. “The others do, too. Shanti keeps quiet. Perri tries to play it off with a joke. Jarek pushes, but when you push back, he folds. I’m asking you this out of a place of genuine concern... for you and for our performance today. If our leader starts to lose his cool—” Maqsud whipped out his Pistol and fired a barrage of bullets into the heads of two advancing Xanthic players. Nic hadn’t even seen them. “Erm, requesting backup?!”

Frozen at first, the Squad Leader drew his SMG and fired as well. The recoil surprised his muscles in a way that it hadn’t since the first shots of the Final Exam. Focus, man, focus! Nic coached himself. He gritted his teeth through the pain of each and every bullet wound stabbing his nerve endings through the connections in his SimSuit. He’d died hundreds of deaths already in his short 18 years, but they hurt the same each time.

Miraculously, though, he and his squadmate survived the onslaught. The shattered remnants of the Xanthic ‘bots smoldered silently at the foot of Red Base. Gunsmoke billowed out the barrel of Nic’s SMG and the wind whisked it away.

“RTIFIS, status report on me and Max,” he panted.

NIC [18%] MAQSUD [11%]

“Bit of a close call,” Max breathed, “but your assistance was invaluable. Nic, I know we might not be the best of friends on this squad, but you know that you can talk to me about your concerns, right? Contrary to popular belief, I do have the ability to switch off my acerbic wit when the need arises.”

Nic would have answered him if Max hadn’t readied his SMG, prompting Nic to do the same.

Three more Xanthic players were approaching now in the distance—all still at 100% health.

“How unorthodox,” said Max. “A full-squad attack force?”

“They’re forgetting all about defense. Shock and awe tactics. The first squad to capture three flags wins, after all. They’re throwing everything they have on offense and relying on speed!” Dammit, Nic thought. There goes our entire strategy! “We can’t kill them all, Max, but let’s do as much damage as we can on our way out! Come on!”

Nic squeezed his trigger and tried to think of a way out of this—the game, the match, the lifestyle. And something deeper.

I can’t keep this up forever.