Gods of the Game #3, Chapter 17

Lance scrambled up against the wall, eyes wide, recoiling from the apparition. Who refused to dissipate, and instead leaned back to sip on his mug of something hot.

It was Virgil.

Alive, breathing, his skin flushed with health, his hair freshly washed and hanging in golden curls. It was him, every inch, unharmed, face uncrushed, eyes clear, his amusement obvious.

“I… you…”

“Were dead? Yes. Haven’t put it together yet?” Virgil paused, eyebrow raised. “Disappointing. Ah well, we’re not all at our best when confronted with the dead. I’m an Echo, Charoen. Always have been, always will be.”

“I…” Some stubborn spar of self-forged identity asserted itself. “Am not Charoen. Lance, now.”

“Lance.” Virgil made a considering expression. “Very well. It’s apropos.”

“You’re… an Echo?” He relaxed but a fraction, still gaping at the man.

“Yes. Tragic, I know.” Virgil exhaled. “The original me died some years before we ever met. A victim of the degenerative disease I was inflicted with by my enemies. They thought it amusing to erase all my prior genetic scans, and leave me with a bleak decision: to accept final death and failure, or create an Echo based on my already poisoned self. Well. You know how stubborn I am.”

Lance tried to wrap his mind around this. “So each time you…” He trailed off. “The restorative trips you always took?”

“The ones from which I came back hale and hearty?” Virgil grinned. “That was a new me. I have about four months each go round. You weren’t aware of the scope of my Echo lab in the Antarctic, but it’s sizeable. I have a half-dozen Virgil’s on tap, ready to go at any time. So, yes. Your killing me—nasty, by the way—was both unexpected but something I could take in stride. I’m in the habit now of creating a video log each night documenting latest updates in case something goes wrong. Good thing, too. This new me would have been thoroughly disoriented if all I had to go on was my last sign-off a month ago.”

“But…”

“Now, let’s address the elephant in the room: killing me is not nice, nor is it productive. At best you’ll force me into another three-day resuscitation period, at worst you’ll cause us to throw a game if I can’t show to play as könig.” Virgil fixed him with a stern stare. “Are we clear?”

Lance just stared at the man, unable to find the right words.

“I, in turn, owe you an apology. The original Charoen was not a homicidal maniac. That you’ve been pushed to such extremes betrays criminal negligence on my part. I thought…” Virgil sighed and massaged his brow. “Look. Having been forced to deal with being an Echo again and again has led to my being… callous. Cruelly so, perhaps, about the whole process.” He dropped his hand into his lap. “I’ve grown inured to the worst of the implications. Sublimated my own anxieties over being a copy of a copy of a copy ad nauseum into my spiritual quest. Which. Obviously. You’re not on. So.”

Virgil’s gaze took on a weary cast that was wholly divorced from his physical health. There appeared in the depths of his eyes a fatigue, an old pain, that felt akin to leaning over the edge of a chasm to sight into its dark depths.

“Was that an apology?” Lance asked at last.

Virgil snorted. “I suppose it was. I’m sorry. I like to pretend that I’m above the fray, that the pressures and demands of the role I’ve taken don’t get to me.” He stared down into his mug. “That defying the political hegemony is more of a lark than anything else. But.”

Lance waited.

“But, no.” Virgil inhaled sharply and sat up. “It’s quite intense. It asks more of me than perhaps I’m aware at any given moment, and always when I’m not at my best. But.” He smiled wryly. “I’ll never be at my best. Ever again. Existence, hence forth, in every iteration, will be a slow but irrevocable decline into death and senility.” He seemed to consider the prospect. “Which is bad, but you know, at least I’m not poor.” His smile grew sharp. “Now that would be unconscionable.”

“You’re trying to get a rise out of me again.”

“Alas, I am. A habit. I’ll… I’ll do my best to stop. But where does that leave us?”

“You’re hoping I’ll stop hammer fisting you to death.”

“Humor. That’s good. But yes.” Virgil peered at him again. “Talk to me, Lance. Where are you at?”

Lance stared at the man. The urge to rebuff him was strong. A moment’s vulnerability didn’t excuse him of all his heinous misdeeds.

But Virgil was an Echo. Had always been an Echo. A Echo who lived with the fact that he was doomed to die, each time, every four months. Lance and Charoen before him had always admired his cavalier disregard of his degenerative condition, but now he saw it in a new light.

If anything, Virgil’s willingness to press on was even more admirable. “What’s the end point of this for you?”

“You mean beyond accomplishing my goals for humanity?” Virgil leaned back, his left leg trembling. “To be honest, I’ve tried very hard not to give it much thought. Existence isn’t very… enjoyable. My purpose keeps me on track, but say I accomplish it?” His gaze grew unfocused as he frowned. “I suppose I’d cease reincarnating myself. Or perhaps I’d stagger each return, say, five years apart, so that I can satiate my intellectual curiosity as things develop. Though it wouldn’t be me learning how the future progresses, would it? It would be Virgil #43, or #121, or whatever. Me? I’ll be dead. So.” He shrugged. “I guess… I’ve a hunch that I’ll let future Virgil’s make that decision. We’re on the cusp of victory, but nowhere close as of yet. Not unless we can get you situated.”

“Situated.” Lance tested the word. “I’m… I’m situated. Killing you. Learning that I’m Charn Chai. That clarified things for me. Shaved off… complexities.”

“Is that so?”

Lance nodded slowly, trying to find the right words, to determine just how much he wanted to share. “I’m not a person. Not as other people might think. I don’t hope for… connections. Affection. A ‘life’. I…” He stared down at his hands. “I’m a krieg chess player. As such, I want to play the game. Then… maybe like a future you, I’ll decide when I’ve had enough.”

“And turn off the lights,” said Virgil quietly.

“And turn off the lights,” agreed Lance. “But, until then, I’ll play.”

Virgil met his gaze with sober intensity, then nodded. “Good. I in turn will cease to needle you. That was… uncouth of me. I can see now that I was displacing my own… what’s the right word? Problems, shall we say. I was displacing them onto you. A fellow Echo. Which was wrong of me. It won’t happen again.”

Lance nodded guardedly.

Virgil arose with a deep breath. “Well. You were asleep for three days as you recovered from your NDS spike. Bierhals tells me you’re down to 47%. Which is still dangerous, but you’re clear to play in the next game. That gives you four days of further recovery and practice. Think you’re up for it?”

The answer was simple. “I am.”

“Good.” Virgil moved to the door. “I’m glad we’ve cleared the air. You’ve found your purpose, and I’ve… calibrated my approach. Nothing like having your skull crushed to shift your perspective.”

Lance tongued the inside of his cheek, eyes narrowed, and when Virgil departed, lay back, fingers interlaced behind his head.

Huh.

He hadn’t expected… any of that, but even less so for their exchange to go so smoothly. Perhaps Virgil really had been needing a quick murder to get his head on straight.

Only time would tell if he managed to retain this new equipoise.

*

There next game was against the Seoul Pulsebreakers. Everybody was tense. With three losses in their first five games, they were already dragging behind the bulk of the other teams, and the chances of their reaching the top 5 by season’s end was vanishingly small. Their flutterline deposited them outside the brand new arena, and they were all treated to the spectacle of a hypermodern bowl wrapped in luminous screens; everything appeared to be shifting neon palettes which washed the fervent crowd in blues, magentas, and cyber-reds.

This close to the inhospitable Central Belt the air was baking hot and as humid as a sauna, but this didn’t deter the crowd, which clapped precise rhythmic sequences in time to synchronized chants. An electronic thrum filled the air, and Charoen’s armor was forced to work overtime to keep him cool.

The Pulsebreakers were an easy favorite, beloved by the crowd, and each took the field like a popstar, one by one, their handsome visages projected a dozen stories tall along with their background story. All of it culminated in an actual song and dance sequence as the players put on a performance on a stage, complete with a mesmerizing light show and thunderous applause.

Lance watched, cool, calm, and collected.

When the game finally began, several hours later, he was ready.

The Pulsebreakers leaped forward into a classic Royal, their movements sharp, precise, rehearsed.

Lance surged forward, intent on their shimmering, elegant hellseherins. Who split and sought to evade him, but he gave chase with dispassionate focus. With judicious use of Speed and Blink, he cornered one and brought the furious man down with a remote blast from his lance; Catori was shepherding the second around the sky above the game, and Lance intersected the other man’s trajectory smoothly to bring him down as well.

The enemy shields disappeared.

Together, he and Catori flew over the enemy ranks to target the könig from high above, and while the schloss’s cried out impotently, brought the könig down with targeted blasts.

And so the game was won.

Neat, clean, surgical. Lance felt himself almost amused.

Their third win, putting them 3 to 3.

Ten days later they took on the Harbin Iron Tempest in the northern reaches of Old China. Lance felt almost nothing as Brutal Deluxe emerged into the open-air oval built of reinforced concrete and steel. All was gunmetal gray, deep crimson, and bleak white, the game at night and illuminated by harsh floodlights.

There was no glamor to the Iron Tempest. Just raw force. One of the Premiere League’s most formidable teams, they were famous for an early-game focus on structural defense known as the ‘Ironwall’. Nothing flashy, everything solid. Crushing mid-game surge wherever they sensed weakness, their opferns hitting like hammers, wearing down their foes and seemingly indefatigable.

The others were nervous. Chatter over the comms was antsy. Virgil was a steadying presence, and perhaps in reaction to the deep traditional nature of the Iron Tempest called for a Mörderin Exchange play, one of Sindre’s old Siberian tactics from his years coaching in Novosibirsk.

The Brutal Deluxe opferns formed a classic skirmishing line, but when the game began, they split into two groups. One was lifted by jägers and hellseherins to carry them aloft and fly them directly down the flank into the enemy zone, while the second team snuck down the other side of the field.

The Iron Tempest rarely brought their mörderin into play. It was thought she was sub-par.

Everything proceeded smoothly at first. The Iron Tempest aerial units moved to intercept the flying decoys, even as Silence led three other opferns down the other flank and into the end zone.

Releasing Jessie.

Who flew forth like a vortex of fury straight into the staggered line of the Ironwall.

But the Iron Tempest könig reacted swiftly, and his opferns raced away, avoiding Jessie to stream toward Brutal Deluxe’s end zone in turn.

Dropping his opfern, Lance flung himself at the enemy hellseherins who sought to backpedal and escape—and brought first one, then the second down.

Only to see the enemy mörderin take to the field. She clashed with Jessie over the Iron Tempest könig, and in a brutal display of power cut her down.

Seeing Jessie fall tore at Lance in a manner he’d thought impossible: outmoded emotions of horror and defensiveness swept over him, and he flung himself at the enemy mörderin, who turned to accept his charge.

They dueled.

Their battle was brutal. But so infused with righteous fury was he that Lance overcame the enemy mörderin, left her smoking on the field, then took out an enemy schloss before being incapacitated in turn.

Darkness.

A trip back home in their flutterline med-bay.

Confusion. On one hand, his reaction to Jessie’s defeat had helped them win the game, an upset that put them ahead of the curve at 4-3. And yet. He’d thought himself beyond such base emotions. Such predictable reactions.

Jessie came to visit him the day after they arrived at the Brutal Deluxe training complex. He was just about ready to be discharged. Bierhals was marveling over his reduced NDS rating when the medical bay front door opened, to reveal Jessie, one arm crossed over her chest, gripping her other elbow.

Bierhals stiffened, no doubt receiving a direct comm message, then inclined his head and departed.

Lance sat up some, wary.

Jessie studied him from a distance, then approached. They’d not spoken since her last bitter attack on him what felt like months ago. But now she bit her lower lip, tears glassy, her face pale.

He didn’t know what to say, so he remained quiet.

“There was a moment there,” she said at last, voice raw, “while I lay on the turf. When I saw you fly in to rescue me. And I felt like I was watching my own brother come back. It made me so happy, but ever since, I’ve only felt more broken.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice low. “I… when I saw you fall, I felt his outrage. I couldn’t help myself.”

She nodded, and one tear brimmed and ran down her cheek.

“I know I’m not him,” he continued softly. “I’ve changed my name.”

“Lance.”

“Lance,” he agreed. “But… biology, or my mind… it’s not as easy to change, I guess.”

“I guess not.” She blinked, then realized she was crying, and wiped at her eyes with her cuff. “I… I came to say… I don’t know why I came.” Her smile was sudden, lopsided, her eyes filling with tears once more. “I want to hate you, but it’s not your fault. Hate… I don’t have it in me to hate anyone who’s just a victim.”

“I’m not a victim,” said Lance gently.

“You didn’t ask to be reborn. You—the old Charoen—didn’t want it.”

“Nobody asks to be reborn, or born. We just… are.” He considered his own statement. “Nobody asks for their parents. Their place of origin. Their culture. Their religion. They get it anyway.”

Jessie nodded reluctantly.

“When I think of what you and he had, I feel… jealous. He loved you so much. He’d want you to be safe. To be happy. That’s what came over me in the game. It just took over me. I guess that’s how strong his love was.”

She nodded jerkily.

“I can’t promise I won’t react the same again in another game,” Lance continued. “I can’t control it. But maybe, for him. Maybe… to honor him. What he gave me. I’ll do what I can when I feel that way. To help you. To protect you. For his sake.”

“For his sake,” she whispered, eyes overflowing again, and he saw the grief rising up from within her like fire claiming a tall building. Rising, consuming her. “I…”

She took a half-step forward, drew back, her arms momentarily rising, then falling.

It tore at him, but he knew what she wanted. What Charoen’s memories within him wanted, too. So, unsure of himself, what he was doing, he lifted his own arms to her, and when she fell into them and began to sob, he simply held her close.

And marveled.

He’d thought himself beyond these emotions. An instrument. A weapon. Nothing more than a krieg chess player. But holding Jessie as she sobbed into his shoulder, her whole body tense.

“I miss you,” she wept into his shoulder, and Lance knew she was talking to the dead Charoen. Talking to her brother through him. “Brother-mine. Brother-mine.”

The skin of his face burned, and goosebumps broke across his skin. He held her carefully, as if she were made of spun glass, and when her tears subsided, released her as she pulled back.

Her face was blotched, her lashes turned into triangular wedges by her tears, her smell about him. She sniffed, wiped at her face again, then simply covered it with both hands. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. That was… I shouldn’t…”

“It’s… it’s all right,” he said, managing to speak around the lump in his throat.

“No, it’s not.” She dropped her hands and looked away. “Nothing is all right, and maybe it never will be. But… thank you.”

And she left.

Lance lay back. A storm raged within his chest. Dark waves surged and dashed themselves against the armature of his soul. He couldn’t swallow away the knot that had lodged itself in his gullet. Every time he thought he was getting a grip on himself he’d see the wounded wet rugs that Jessie’s eyes had become, and his heart would stutter and his breath catch.

He draped his arm over his eyes. What the actual hell?

His name was Lance. But his pretense at being just a player and nothing more, perhaps… couldn’t a true resolve, a pure resolution, hold true?

He saw Jessie fall again, heard her scream over the comms, felt that raging, protective beast awaken within his soul where it had slumbered. Felt the need to fly to her defense.

He was haunted by Charoen. By Charoen’s instincts, loves, loyalties.

And there was no excising the dead man from his soul.

Which meant—what?

Lance didn’t know.

They won their next game against the Nuuk Heatwave out of Greenland. Their bleak, majestic amphitheater carved directly out of coastal rock was Lance’s favorite so far, the wind screaming in through the gaps from the sea. The crowd had been somber, their low chants in support of their team blending with the slow-building bassline that came from drones that blanketed the sky overhead.

It was a grueling game, but again Lance played with distinction. Berserker truly synergized with Centering and allowed him to tear through an enemy jäger, a hellseherin, and five opferns before Samira buffaloed her way straight into the enemy könig, raised him off the ground and smashed him into an enemy schloss.

5-3.

They defeated the Ushaia Fireline out of Tierra Del Fuego eight days later in crushing style—Virgil sent both Samira and Hammer pounding forward in an unexpected charge halfway through the game even as Lance fell back to protect him, and their twin schlosses obliterated the opfern skirmishing line so that their own opferns could make the end zone and release Jessie, who took down the könig in short order.

6-3.

The mood was up.

They defeated Polar Apex a week later.

7-3.

Then crushed the Calgary Riftguard.

8-3.

Finally they went up against the fearsome Windhoek Sandstrikers out of Namibia.

Another victory.

9-3.

That evening, as he descended from their flutterline to emerge into their training complex once more, Lance finally realized that they’d pulled back into the upper half of the Premiere League rankings. They’d clawed their way out of relegation and utter defeat. The mood around him was ebullient, Clovinn insisting on a celebration, Hammer bellowing a victory song, and when Lance caught Virgil’s gaze from across the crowd, the könig gave him a wry nod of acknowledgment that meant far more than it should.

Later that night Silence asked if she could come visit him in his bunk.

To her shock and confusion, he politely declined.

Instead, he made his way down into the underground training fields, and there stared up at the leaderboard to take in his stats.

Charoen, jäger: Strength S3, Stamina A8, Speed S4, Reactions S6, Agility S5, Power S2, Gamma 118 hertz (A-ranked, Apex Zone). Average: S3.

The bumps in his stats had been constant and remarkable. Somewhere along the line he’d become an official Solar-ranked player. A momentous achievement. But instead of celebrating, he felt melancholy.

His gamma hadn’t changed in any noticeable way.

They were halfway through the season. They were now slated to play every team for a second time, which meant rematches against those that had defeated them on the first go-round: Auckland Skyforge, Cape Town’s KwaZulu Stormline, and the dreaded Nullpoint.

Nullpoint, who hadn’t lost a game since his father had joined their ranks.

He’d refused any offers to watch his father play. Not that there had been many.

But soon.

Soon they’d have to face each other across the field.

And when they did, Lance knew that being an S3 ranked player wouldn’t be enough.

But what more could he do?

He was already growing faster than anybody could believe.

He needed a categorical break through, something violent, something that would unleash the last of his potential.

But what?

Lance remained thus in the dark a while longer, staring up at his stats, then shook his head, mystified, and walked away.