Gods of the Game, Chapter 20

Game day.

The Finals.

The atmosphere in their flutterline was brittle. Tense. Fatalistic. Twice they’d played Nullpoint, and twice they’d been decisively beaten. And today they’d face Charn Chai.

In all respects they should have been celebrating. To rise from the Scandinavian Minor League to the Premiere and carve a swathe through every other team, to rise to second place?

Unheard of.

And yet they were all supremely aware of Virgil’s ambitions. The fuel that a first place Virgil would give his ambitions. They all felt the weight of humanity’s future on their shoulders.

Except for Hammer. He whistled happily as he played on an archaic handheld game console whose beeps and trills filled the cavernous interior of the vessel.

They landed on a private airfield and rode a luxury shuttle to the stadium. Crux Prime was a modern city. Gazing out the window at the streets, the buildings, its people, Lance couldn’t help but compare the sterile grandeur of what he saw to the grungy antiquity of Oslo. Instead of endless palm trees and kudzu, he saw oaks and beech trees, green grass carefully cultivated in precise strips. Blue sky instead of orange haze. Citizens in severe, monochromatic outfits striding purposefully about their business.

No beggars, no poverty, at least, none that was left out in plain sight.

Virgil shuffled over and sat beside him. Now that Lance knew his secret, he could see how the past months had caused irreversible deterioration. His eyes were once more ringed in purple, his skin waxen, his tremors more pronounced. But as ever, the könig didn’t allow his ailment to detract from his mood.

“Gods, it’s awful, isn’t it?” He looked past Lance at the streets outside. “At the time, when I lived here, or, well, emerged from my palatial estate to cross through the city on some errand or another, I thought it all so frightfully modern. Clean and functional. Everything was designed to minimize the impact of environmental catastrophe and elevate humanity to its most precise and functional best.”

Virgil frowned out at the scrolling street.

“Only now do I see the artificiality of it all. It’s a veneer. The people don’t know it. They’re actors who don’t know they’re in a play. It’s the surface that matters to them. Their latest gadget, this season’s latest minor variation on fashion. All of them so intent on remaining busy that they don’t notice they’re not actually contributing to anything. Humanity is sinking into stultified inertia, and nobody cares.”

Lance nodded warily.

“You’re lucky, actually.” Virgil eyed him. “Or, well, Charoen was. Being raised in poverty imparts a certain vitality that’s completely missing from the enervated elites out there. A raw appreciation for life.”

“Really.” Not a question, just an indication of his own skepticism.

“Oh yes. Poverty brings out the animal. Reduces people to the lower echelons of Maslov’s Triangle. Survival, food, sex, dance, a roof over your head. Primal. Yes, I imagine the hunger and precarious living situations get old, but that vitality, that verve. Poverty. I tell you. It’s wasted on the poor.”

“Are you trying to get a rise out of me?”

Virgil laughed. “Not even! Tell me: would you rather live in a museum, where you could be well fed and kept like a pet by the AI’s on a leash, or live in a jungle, where you had to fight for each day to survive, but were free?”

“The poor aren’t free.” He summoned Chareon’s memories of Camp Defiance, the haunted, hollowed out faces, the desperation. “They’re trapped.”

“Yes, yes, I know, but still—have you attended one high society function that was actually fun?”

“I haven’t attended any.”

Virgil made a face. “Check Charoen’s memories.”

Lance didn’t have to. “He didn’t.”

“Precisely. That’s all I’m saying. Hence my mission, yadda yadda, break the yoke, escape from this bleak satiation where every need is met even as we devolve into complacent cattle. I’d rather the world a hard scrabble place where humanity strives for greatness than… that.” And he waved at the streets outside.

“Easy to say from a place of privilege.”

“It sure is!” Virgil clapped Lance’s knee. “Anyways. How are you feeling?”

Lance looked back out the window. “Pensive.”

“Pensive. Not exactly a fighting word.”

“There’s something I haven’t yet figured out. A realization. It’s holding me back. But I don’t know what it is. I thought I’d had all the break throughs I needed. But I haven’t.”

“That’s called life, Lance.” Virgil rose unsteadily. “You keep figuring stuff out till you die. Let’s avoid that today, shall we?”

Lance had an image of Xander up close, embracing the enemy könig as he pulled the blade from his own neck with which to slay Xander and end his own life, winning the game in the process.

“No,” he agreed. “I’ve no interest in sacrificing my life for the game.”

“Hmm.” Virgil considered him, swaying with the movement of the shuttle. “That’s good, I guess. Still. If the opportunity presents itself…?” He raised both hands. “I jest! Haha. Anyways, chin up. It’s just another game.”

And he limped away.

Just another game.

A bigger lie had never been told.

*

It was their third appearance in the Nullpoint Stadium. Not having an arena of their own in which to host matches had kept them on the road all season long, depriving them of the support and thrill of hosting home games. Each game had set them against the crowd, had forced them to focus despite the boos and catcalls even as they endured the lionizing that each home team received from their multimedia departments.

That was fine.

Lance didn’t care about the crowds. Virgil’s vast income meant that they were inured to the politics and funding requirements of regular teams.

The screams and roars and chants were just background noise.

But here in Nullpoint, the crowd didn’t bay like beasts. Instead, they chanted their anthem as one, their voices accompanied by the ambient electronic music with deep sub-bass pulses, all of it swallowed up by the vast carnivorous sky.

The Final.

The home team had gone all out. The atmosphere was one of smug self-satisfaction. Their confidence in total Virgil was absolute. The air was filled with holographic patterns, with highlights from the season, with Nullpoint player profiles. It was a victory lap before the actual game.

Drink in that arrogance, Virgil said over the team comm. Lap it up. Use it as rocket fuel. Just imagine how sweet it’ll be when we win and force them to shut the hell up.

No response. Nobody believed him.

Remember your promise, said Jessie over a private line.

I do. He met her gaze and gave a firm nod. We’ll get you other there.

The plan had been amply discussed. With Nullpoint so perfect in every respect, there was little point into trying to devise a strategy that played on a weakness. Instead, they had to amp up their own strengths. Outplay Nullpoint, overwhelm them, throw them back and crush their könig.

It made logical sense. But it left everyone feeling hopeless. There was no denying the disparity in team averages. The fact that they’d already lost twice.

Outplay them?

Lance had seen the others shake their heads and look away.

He frowned up at the light display, took in the crowds dancing in celebration around the stone oval.

If the home crowd thought they’d already lost, Brutal Deluxe wasn’t giving them any reason to think otherwise.

The old Charoen might have tried for a rousing speech. Virgil did his best, repeating some of his best talking points from the locker room, and then Samira spoke up, a rarity, which caused everybody to turn and tune in.

It’s a miracle that we’ve gotten this far. A couple of years ago we were Bandit League. Now we’re in the Finals. We’re proof that dedication, talent, and hard work can cause miracles to happen. We just need one more. Were we anybody else, I’d laugh. But we’re not. We’re Brutal Deluxe. We’ve beaten every odd. We’ve silenced every critic. We just need to do it one more time. And if anybody can pull off the impossible, it’s us. Give this game everything you’ve got, and we just may shock the world again.

That was it.

For a moment the team just stood there, then people roused themselves, exchanged fist bumps, nodded, shook out their shoulders.

The light show grew frenzied—at least by Crux Prime standards—and the crowd’s chant peaked in volume.

Nullpoint was about to take the field.

One by one they emerged at a jog from their tunnel, weapons or fists raised, monochromatic armor gleaming, their profiles and visages holographically displayed a hundred feet high as the announcer introduced them, a dozen smaller scenes of each player’s highlights from the season playing in miniature around their faces.

Opferns first.

Then the schlosses.

Then the hellseherins.

Lance realized he was holding his breath.

The first jäger was announced. Luzmira Calatron. She emerged from the tunnel already flying, arms spread out as a blaze of fireworks exploded behind her, so that it seemed as if she was lofted forth on a cushion of fire.

The crowd loved her, but their cheers grew muted at the announcement of the second jäger: Charn Chai.

Who strode out slowly onto the field, lightning lance laid across his shoulders, gauntlets hanging over its length. The cheers became tentative—he wasn’t one of their own, and while he’d helped deliver victory, they’d been winning already without him.

But Charn Chai didn’t seem to care. He marched up to where the rest of his team waited, swung his lance around in a flourish, and snapped it to a stop in one fist.

There he was. Three hundred yards away, the Wolf of Terra.

In the flesh.

Lance’s heart was pounding, and he fought to ease his rapid breathing.

The cheering resumed as Beatrice was introduced, the Bleakest Star, and then Haalberg took the field, jogging forth with easy athleticism despite his sixty years of age, waving to the crowd as they acknowledged their könig.

Nullpoint.

There was plenty of ritual yet to go. The anthem, a couple of speeches from club managers or politicians, and then Haalberg himself stepped up onto the dais that had been smoothly erected on the field. In the sky above him his projection appeared, vast and details.

“Hello, Crux Prime! Welcome to the Finals. A final chance to view Nullpoint’s excellence on display. Don’t worry, I’ll keep my words short—you didn’t come to hear me talk, you came to watch the game!”

Predictable cheers.

“But this game is special. Tonight we face the upstart Brutal Deluxe who rocketed into the Premiere League as if this were a fairy tale. Led by Virgil Sutherland, a former scion of the disgraced Sutherland family, they dare to question the rightful order of the world. They say we are incorrect to prioritize order, stability, and wealth. That we are wrong to accept guidance from the artificial intelligences whose code is bent toward one goal and one goal only: prosperity, equality, and happiness for all.”

Boos rose to bruise the air.

“It is the lot of the disgraced to be discontent.” Haalberg smiled, his weathered, patrician face amused and kindly. “But it is Nullpoint’s lot to crush such chaos mongers beneath our boots. Again. Which we shall. So! If you’re ready to watch a little social justice be done, sit back, and watch us do what we do best.”

He waved, descended from the dais, and jogged back to his team.

Incredibly, they declined my request to also give a little speech, said Virgil, his amusement clear. I can’t imagine why.

And then the moment was finally upon them.

Game time.

Nullpoint arranged themselves within their end zone, assuming a classic Royal. Why should they try for anything clever or deceptive?

There was no need.

Virgil had opted for their old favorite: the Icelandic, with everybody poised to rush toward the left flank and then drive toward the end zone to release Jessie. Samira and Hammer would try to cover the right, staving off an influx of opferns, and everyone would just do their damned best to overcome their foes.

The count down began.

Lance stared across the field at where Charn Chai rose lazily into the air. He was more vivid, somehow more threatening than the S-ranked jäger had been in the VMU in ways that Lance couldn’t define. The Wolf of Terra. Here, at long last, playing against him.

Sweat prickled his brow. His chest felt tight, his hands clammy.

Easy, said Sindre over his personal comm. Watch your gamma.

It had dipped down to 104 hz.

Lance took some measured breaths.

3.

2.

1.

The alarm sounded, and Nullpoint sprang forward, loping down the field without any sense of urgency.

Lance took to the air and flew out toward the left. He and Catoria would run interference to protect the opfern flank. Aadhya and Langley would cluster just behind the opfern line, depending on the jägers to stave off or at least complicate the enemy jägers’ attempt to bring them down.

Clustering also neutralized Charn Chai Hunter.

Lance’s pulse remained elevated, his mouth dry, his whole body jangly. Even as he flew he watched Charn Chai move lazily toward them, lightning lance trailing behind.

Should he move to intercept? Wasn’t that inevitable? Their duel had been written in the stars, had obsessed him for ages now, had obsessed Charoen. Father versus son. Father versus self. What would winning prove? What would losing mean? Was this a battle for primacy? There could be only one?

Lance watched Charn Chai with dread. The man was a better player than he. More powerful. He had Quantum-ranked powers. Years of experience. A truly killer instinct. Lance hadn’t even been able to beat him in a simulation.

It was hopeless.

Watch your gamma! Snapped Sindre.

Lance checked: 92 hz.

He had to get his head in the game. With real effort he tore his gaze away from his father’s distant figure and accelerated to reach the tip of the opfern wedge, flying a dozen yards above Silence and Fireball, the rest of the opferns trailing out wide behind them. Catori took the hard flank. The hellseherins locked into position behind their screen.

They were covering ground at a fast run, not an all-out sprint. Nullpoint was moving to intercept, their opferns simply jogging laterally to form a skirmish line before their end zone.

Bold of them. It gave little room for error: one mistake and Brutal Deluxe opferns could dash through and enter the end zone. It was why most teams came at opfern wedges in an oblique line, trying to engage them a third of the way down the field from their end zone.

Charn Chai and Luzmira were flying swiftly to intercept, but neither looked worried.

No sign of the Nullpoint Hellseherins. They must have engaged their Invisibility and other powers to trust in their higher hertz to keep them safe.

Steady, said Virgil over the comms. Catori, move to intercept the jägers. Lance, open a hole in the opfern line.

The desire to protest was savage and swift. He should have been the one to intercept, to face his father. This was his—his what? His destiny? The moment was here at last, and Virgil was having him—

Catori had already broken away to fly directly at the pair. Both outranked her. It was a suicide run, meant only to buy them time.

Abruptly, both  Aadhya and Langley retreated, flying back down the field toward the Brutal Deluxe end zone. Virgil must have spoken to them privately. An attempt to draw the jägers after them after they devoured Catori?

No time to think.

Resisting the urge to tap Speed, Lance flew out before the rushing opferns to accelerate toward the enemy opfern wall. Though they couldn’t fly, the Nullpoint opferns were truly formidable: they boasted a complex synergy of Phalanx, Grounding, Rebound, Shared Burden, Gravitational Pull, Defending, Magnetic Shield, Energy Absorption, and ranged attacks.

It was akin to charging a spiked steel wall.

Still, he could soften them up.

Off to his right, Catori began blipping and dancing with the enemy jägers. No, jäger; Luzmira had peeled off to race after Aadhya and Langley.

Catori didn’t have a chance.

Lance hesitated.

Time seemed to slow.

Now. Now was the moment he should charge at his father. Now was the moment where he should manifest his power.

Perhaps he’d lose. Perhaps he’d be bested. But he’d never know if he didn’t try. Never know if he was worthy, if—

No.

Lance tore his mind free from that vicious, panicked circle of thoughts. It felt like Charoen was screaming from within him, that dead instincts and desires were trying to possess his body.

But he wasn’t Charoen.

And that wasn’t his father.

Charn Chai—the realization hit him. Charn Chai was nothing to him. They’d never even met. None of his memories were true. That man, that jäger, the Wolf of Terra—he was a stranger.

Nothing more, nothing less.

And Lance had made an oath to Jessie.

That was her fight. Not his.

And with that realization, peace washed over him.

True peace. A sense of release, of acceptance, of the final puzzle piece falling into place.

Even now, after his every revelation, he’d allowed himself to remain enmeshed in Charoen’s tale. Had seen this last game, the stakes, through Charoen’s lens.

But it was a false lens.

He had nothing to prove. No identity to wrest from Charn Chai.

A weight slid from his shoulders. That sense of forced destiny.

And he flew forward with renewed speed toward the enemy opferns.

Flew faster than he’d over done before. That was weird. He’d not tapped Speed.

Damn, son, laughed Sindre. Nice of you to take my advice at last!

Lance checked his gamma.

97 hz.

Then 103.

112 hz.

It kept ticking up.

118.

Satisfaction and pure, unalloyed joy filled him. This was right. This was true. He was a part of Brutal Deluxe, just a player, yes, but also his own person. He was a krieg chess man, but also Lance. He had friends, and a purpose. He was alive, and he claimed his life, not in anybody else’s name, not in defiance of anyone else, but purely as his own.

He was himself at last.

His hertz hit 123.

Language appeared in the air before him:

Incoming data from League Processing Center…

SCI: 98% (Horizon Dynamics)

Speed upgraded: S1 → S3

Agility upgraded: S2 → S3

Power upgraded: A9 → S2

Average Ranking: A9 → S2

Gamma Frequency: 131 hertz (S-ranked, Quantum Zone)

Armor Ranking: S

Weapon Ranking: S

The list of Solar-ranked powers scrolled before him, and almost he chose what he’d been obsessing over all this time: Stutter Step and Brilliant Energy. It was the same powers that Charn Chai had chosen—wouldn’t they put him on the same playing field as he?

But that was what the old Charoen would have done.

He was Lance.

He was free of such imperatives.

Uncertain of what to choose, he instead focused on the Nullpoint opferns before him.

What’s going on with your gamma? Demanded Virgil, tone breathless.

Lance had one moment to check before he engaged: 141 hz.

Impossible.

But he’d never felt so at peace. Some vast weight had slipped from his shoulders. He wanted to laugh.

Instead he destroyed the opferns.

Shock and Conductive, when amplified by such a ridiculously high gamma, turned his lightning lance into an awesome weapon of destruction. He raked his lance across the ranged opferns, and the sky blanched as a it was torn asunder by a lightning bolt hurled as if by Thor himself. Thick as his thigh, the vast bolt trawled over the ranks, triggering defenses, counters, and forcing a handful of the opferns to stagger back, their armor smoking.

But these were all S5 or higher ranked players. One of them alone could have defeated an entire Scandinavian Minor League team.

No time.

Lance engaged his hopper pack, and then a moment later emerged high and behind the opfern line, who’d expected the ploy. Half their number wheeled about, power halberds drawn back to either hurl them at him if they had Called or unleash blasts of their own.

Lance felt becalmed. The roar of the crowd, the violence, the pressure—it all fell away.

And in that moment of clarity, he engaged Berserker.

His gamma began to oscillate as waves of emotion buffeted at him. But his gamma also empowered Centered, which rose in potency to match Berserker’s rage-inducing power. Beyond that, his own newfound calm resisted the Ability’s madness: it felt as if a great ocean were crashing down upon his walls, and failing to break through.

His gamma began to oscillate, dropping as low as 80 hz, then spiking high to over 160.

Impossible, whispered Sindre over the comm.

Lance unloaded a new attack upon the opferns below.

Shock, Conductive, and Berserker synergized with his inhuman gamma level to shatter the heavens. This time four huge bolts of lightning burst forth, leaping and licking and bleaching the opferns below of all color even as they sought to dive aside, to block the assault, to survive.

It went on and on, the sonic boom that followed cataclysmic, and the Nullpoint opferns collapsed upon each other.

Barely any of them could resist his attack.

A couple remained standing when his assault cut off, the very toughest of the opferns, but they were dazed, and seconds later cut down from behind as Silence and Fireball powered through.

Hells yeah! Roared Sindre over the comms, and the opferns themselves were whooping in triumph as they spilled through the breached line to sprint the last score of yards into the End Zone.

Lance tore his gaze away from them, and saw Charn Chai hovering high overhead. Watching. Unconcerned with the opferns.

Facing him.

Lance’s gut clenched.

“You’re not my son,” Charn Chai said, voice magnified by his helm. “You’re an illegal copy that should have never been made. I’ll rectify that mistake now.”

Lance floated on his turbine boots, irresolute. He had a chance now. The sheer power of his assault could destroy Charn Chai’s defenses—couldn’t it?

But his gamma oscillation range was starting to shrink. Even as he nervously checked it, the peak dropped to 153 hz, then 148. The lows improved as well, but Charn Chai’s very presence was disarming him. Worse yet, it wasn’t due to an Ability that disrupted gamma; it was just the man’s glare that was undoing his resolve.

Charn Chai raised his infamous lance. Lightning bled from its pronged tip. “I hope you can put up some token resistance. Your performance in every previous game has been pathetic. Honor my son, honor is legacy, by at least giving me some sport.”

Lance raised his own lance, thoughts darting, trying to think: a hop now, Blink, or a direct assault from outside his father’s range? Or should he—

A dark bolt of crimson and gray slammed into Charn Chai’s flank, moving so quickly that the jäger barely had time to twist, deflect a sword sweep with his lance, and be knocked back a dozen yards before his turbine boots steadied him.

And there, coming to a stop before him, floated Jessie. Her shoulders heaved, her twin blades scintillated, and she raised one sword to point it at her foe.

“Hello, father. For the crimes you committed against our family, I’ll make you pay.”

“Oh.” For a moment the Wolf of Terra seemed confused. “Jessie! I’d forgotten all about you. Very well. Let’s get this tantrum over with so I may kill the Echo.”

“Forgotten me? Tantrum?” Her voice rose with incredulity. “I am the Brutal Deluxe mörderin, and this shall be a lesson you’ll never forget!”

And with that, Jessie let out a scream of pure rage and flung herself at her father.