Gods of the Game #3, Chapter 14

The medical drones worked their magic. Charoen slept for most of the flight home. There were after-game celebrations, but he was only dimly aware of them. Buenos Aires was apparently a wonderful city in which to celebrate, but the next day the team showed up in various states of wear and tear, and boarded the flutterline home.

Virgil was obnoxiously ebullient. Brutal Deluxe was already in the top 50% of the Premiere League’s rankings with 3 points awarded for their win, and with twenty-one games left till the season was over and the top two teams played in the Championship Final. They would play each of the other eleven teams twice, and if they remained in the top ten teams, remain in the Premiere League.

The bottom two ranking teams would be relegated as always.

Sitting in his bunk, back to the wall, staring out at nothing, the prospect of nine months’ worth of games felt not just daunting, it felt impossible.

Twenty-one more games against the global elite? That was a game every ten days from this moment to infinity.

Sindre summoned everyone the following day to the training complex locker-room. Players filtered in, took their seats on the many benches. Sindre stood at the front, strangely dour for having won an improbable first game.

“I can see it in your faces. Your body language. Victory has only served to make you feel more overwhelmed. If that’s what it took to win, how are you supposed to serve up more of the same from now till the end of the season? Hmm?”

He glared at them with his one good eye.

“You’re thinking, this is too much. One game and you’re already gassed. How are you going to keep up this rate, this intensity? Well, luckily we have on hand some experienced players who’ve run the gauntlet before. Any words?”

Hammer raised one scarred fist. “Just have fun with it.”

Snorts and head shakes all round.

Old Bufford leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “You get through it the same way you get through life: one game at a time. Don’t think about the scope of the whole damn thing. Think about the next game eight days from now. Look at yourself, your performance, and focus on getting better before game day.”

“Correct,” said Sindre, snapping his fingers. “One game at a time. That’s exactly right. Plenty of rest, plenty of recovery, but we’re also going to keep our eyes on the prize. Now, we don’t have access to our fancy digs like we used to back in the Scandinavian Minor League, but we’ve brought much of the team with us back here, to our home. We’re going to be providing each of you with a tailored, customized plan to work on your weaknesses. You’re going to rotate through gamma, physical, team, and strategy training just like we used to. But know this.”

Sindre glowered at them again, letting the pause drag out.

“Know that you’re better than you were in the Scandinavian League. We don’t need to brutalize you as we once did because you’ve already been purified in the fires of competition. You’re sitting here today because you have shown, time and again, that you have what it takes. You’ve been through the crucible. You’ve earned your place on this team, all of you. Are we green? Sure. Are we still scrambling to get our tactics in place? You bet. But are we weak? Are we the worst in the league? Are we going to get crushed? Absolutely not.”

Sindre poked his stubby forefinger at them all.

“We are Brutal Deluxe. We’ve already won our first game. If we can win sixteen out of the next twenty-one games, there’s a good chance we’ll come first in the league. If we win fourteen, we can come in second and have a shot in the Championship Final. Those are the numbers that matter. Yes, we’ll try to win every single game we can, we’ll play each like it’s our last, but this is a marathon, ladies and gentlemen. We’re here to reach the first and second rank, and that means perseverance, diligence, and staying power.”

Lars scoffed, turning away from Sindre to look at the rest of the team with a wry smile. “First or second place? In our first outing into the Premiere? I mean, c’mon, there are absurd expectations, and then…”

“If you don’t think you can commit to that level of excellence, Lars, then we need to speak privately,” rumbled Sindre. “The first step on this journey is one of faith. Even if you don’t think you can manifest that level of skill and power by yourself, believe that you can do it for your team. Commit to doing your utmost for their sakes. For the players who will live and die by your side.”

Lars nodded, expression hangdog.

“Good. Now begins a new day. Everyone should have their personal training programs waiting for them in their inboxes. Review, and get to work.”

People stood, began to talk, to filter out into the training fields.

Charoen remained still, not even bothering to check his training regimen yet. Someone stepped over to him. He glanced up. Silence.

For a moment she looked a complete stranger. Alien, bizarre, beautiful, but without context or connection.

“You did well in the last game,” she said, tone clipped.

He didn’t respond.

“But that style of play. It wasn’t what we discussed. What we trained.”

Still Charoen remained quiet.

“You won’t last long if you throw yourself like a rabid dog at the enemy,” she continued. “The Premiere League rewards precision. Play like that and you’ll be too broken to continue five games from now.”

Charoen inclined his head. “Guess I still have much to learn, then.”

“Hmm.” She narrowed her blank, milky-white eyes. “Perhaps.”

And then she walked away.

The locker room emptied. Still Charoen remained seated. He studied the seams in his palm. His body thrummed with pent-up energy. Yet he felt no compunction to rise.

The absurdity of the game arose within his mind. Brutal Deluxe and Virgil were asking everything of him, of them all, and to what end?

As if summoned, Virgil limped back into the locker room. His whole body trembled as he moved, and he made a beeline for a bench across from Charoen and there sat carefully to study him.

Charoen met his gaze without qualms.

“Hmm,” said Virgil at last. “That’s not good.”

Charoen said nothing.

“The problem with having one’s manipulative prowess acknowledged is that it makes every subsequent interaction suspect. Nothing I can say will convince you that I’m being sincere or genuine.”

Charoen slowly shook his head.

“And yet. I’m not just a calculating, Machiavellian robot. Deep, deep, deep down I’m also a person. With some tattered remnants of empathy. Some vestigial amounts of humanity. I think. But at any rate, I can sense an existential crisis in the offing. I’ve been monitoring you since Buenos Aires. You’ve barely slept, but you’ve also barely moved. You’re just sitting around staring at nothing all the time. In case you don’t know, that’s not normal human behavior.”

“I’m not human. I’m an Echo.”

“Correction, Echoes are still technically human. It’s just your origin that’s different. You, here, now, are human.”

“I don’t feel human.”

“That’s a logical fallacy. You can’t compare what you’re feeling to anything else, therefore, whatever you’re feeling, is what a human would feel given your circumstances.”

“So it’s my circumstances that are inhuman.”

“Assuredly. You’re an Echo. A vat baby. A goo-boy. But you’re also a human. You have the same emotional needs and primal instincts as the rest of us. It’s just that right now what you’re feeling—that glorious, stimpack-induced need for action—isn’t coupled with a purpose. At least, that’s how it looks from the outside.”

“I know your purpose. You don’t need to sell it to me.”

“I wasn’t going to try. I’ve found that my brutal idealism is shockingly annoying if heard more than once. Yes, I want to uplift humanity and return us to the stars, but unfortunately that means getting my hands dirty in the process and becoming a bit of a monster along the way. No sense in trying to cheer you up with vague assurances of the importance of my ideals when you’re trying to just decide whether to even move today.”

Charoen stared at the man.

“Now, there are all manner of synthetic solutions at hand, all tailor-made to alleviate symptoms of depression, anxiety, low-esteem, and so on, but none of that appeals, primarily because their interactions with your stimpack are very complex, and require inordinate amounts to overcome the nanobots that repair and maintain your current form. And that level of medications can very easily impair your abilities on the field. So.”

Charoen couldn’t help but smile in dark amusement. “Anything but that.”

“Exactly right,” agreed Virgil. “There’s talk therapy, of which an enormous amount is customized to the Echo’s unique situation, but…” Charoen waved one hand. “Mostly that’s flimflam feel-good stuff that I know won’t work for you, either. Call me an egoist, but I’m certain having a well-intentioned therapist assure how special and unique you are won’t help.”

“Then?”

“I have a third idea as to how to motivate you. You, Charoen, are a beautiful, beautiful tool. Like a hammer. I would have said ‘scalpel’, but you had to go and choose Berserker, didn’t you? So, let’s call you a hammer. The most gorgeously designed hammer ever conceived. Imagine a hammer on a shelf. It’s lying there, asking itself what it’s purpose is. How to be happy. Whether it should make friends with the other tools in the shed. But what is that will truly make that hammer happy?”

Charoen answered reluctantly. “Hammering.”

“Hammering.” Virgil leaned forward carefully, eyes gleaming. “Most people out there in our terrible world aren’t uniquely designed or suited to a single purpose. They’re not driven. They’re not a literal genius at any given thing. They just muddle through life, making enough money to satisfy their base desires, and spend their time watching those who have been given absurd talents. They’re lost in mediocrity, but for the most part happy enough. They’re not hammers, Charoen. They’re…”

Virgil hesitated, and made a face. “They’re sticks. Poles. A pole can be put to any number of useful purposes. But you’re not a stick.”

“I’m a hammer,” said Charoen skeptically.

“Yes! A hammer. A hammer on the shelf asking what it’s purpose is, and I’ll tell you, it’s simple. It’s hammering. Hammering the shit out of anything and everything that gets in its way. I went back and looked at your hormonal fluctuations, and you know when all the right hormones were at their best?”

“When I was hammering.” Not a question.

When you’re hammering. Training with Catori or Silence. There were some peaks when you and Silence were getting it on, but amazingly, not as intense as during gameplay. And you know when they were absolutely at their highest?”

Charoen let slide the fact that Virgil was monitoring him during sex. “When?”

“When you attacked those two hellseherins in Buenos Aires. Everything was off the charts, figuratively speaking. Our charts are actually quite big. That was when you were most alive. So. Let me ask you.”

Virgil sat up straighter. “If you’re a hammer, and you’re happiest when hammering, and you have twenty-one opportunities before you in which you’ll be allowed to hammer to your heart’s content, what should be focused on? Sitting around in locker rooms asking what’s the point in living, or accepting that the whole point has already been established, and you just need to become the very best little hammer you can be?”

“So you can accomplish your goals.”

“Hammers have handles for a reason. But don’t concern yourself with that. Think instead of the joys of hammering. Of how alive you feel when you’re out there pounding your enemies into the dirt. Think of that wild, wonderful, delirious experience, and go get more of it.”

Charoen worked his jaw and looked away. The worst part of this all was that Virgil wasn’t wrong. The sole consistently good thing he’d experienced was the joy of the game. On some level it almost felt like his body was betraying him, experiencing such euphoria as he trained and fought, but was Virgil right?

Was he just a hammer?

Was he overthinking everything else?

“Good man,” said Virgil, struggling to his feet. “Anything else you need while we’re at it? Recreational drugs that play well with your stimpack? Men or women of easy virtue who are even easier on the eyes? You may think I’m jesting, but I’m completely serious about keeping you happy. If that requires copious amounts of coping mechanism sex, just say the word.”

“No, thank you,” said Charoen dryly.

“Good, good.” Virgil began to hobble away. “In that case, I think you’d better get up and get started.”

Charoen sat in silence as Virgil limped away, and then, with a sigh, did as he was told.

*

The next game was against Cape Town’s KwaZulu Stormline.

The team felt brittle and on edge. The ride down to the southern tip of the African continent was tense. Clovinn tried to break the ice, but her jokes fell flat.

When they arrived at the huge Qamata Stadium, Jessie had a breakdown. She’d kept to herself for too long, and half an hour before they were due to go out she broke into sobs, began pacing uncontrollably, and when Clovinn and Lars tried to console her she began to scream.

The sounds were awful. It took Dr. Bierhals manipulating the stimpack remotely to get her to quiet down, and the one time he tried to rouse her right before the game she began screaming again, so he put her down once more.

Virgil took Silence aside, but she refused to take on the mantle of mörderin.

So they took the field without their key player.

It felt like a dream. The stands were draped in gold, deep greens, and burnt orange. The vibe was loud and kinetic, the energy boiling off the huge crowd in waves rather than a steady roar. Drumming groups were everywhere, filling the sound with their rhythms, and the heat shimmer over the pitch was mesmerizing. Open bowl, sun-bleached concrete, bold geometric patterns painted everywhere.

The vibrant energy put everyone on edge.

When the Stormline players took the field, the place erupted.

The game began all too quickly. Charoen took to the air only to realize how deadly it was when an all the enemy opfern players had Speed. It was one thing to be warned in conference, another to see it happen live. Their jog accelerated into incredibly athletic sprinting, which then became a blur as they surged forth as one.

Warnings were shouted over the comms.

Stormline’s assault was relentless, mobile, and rhythm-driven. They attacked, retreated, wheeled, pounded forth again.

Brutal Deluxe looked flat-footed in contrast, and despite everyone’s best efforts, the Stormline’s könig was carried into Brutal Deluxe’s end zone on an unstoppable wave of power and fury.

Thirty-three minutes it took, but it felt like they’d played two weeks straight.

Brutal Deluxe fell in the rankings.

Then fell again when they played and lost to the Auckland Skyforge.

Much smaller stadium. The enemy team was almost exclusively composed of Māori players.

Jessie had recovered thanks to intense therapy and a vicious cocktail of drugs, but still refused to look at Charoen.

The game began auspiciously. Coastal winds brought in the tang of salt through the side of the stadium that was open to the sea. Deep blues, teals, charcoal blacks, flashes of white amongst the crowd. A steady chant caused the air to vibrate, a low and constant rumble that was somehow more menacing than screams. When the Skyforge team took the field, they performed a warrior haka as a misty-rain fell upon the field.

Virgil called an Icelandic.

The Skyforge replied with discipline and order, their formation tight, their emphasis on collective timing. They made ample use of Phalanx, Shared Burden, and the  Quantum-ranked Armor ability Harmonizing. And it felt like all of them had taken Gravitational Pull, so that Brutal Deluxe was yanked constantly apart as Skyforge cleaved a path through them to Virgil.

Charoen took down an enemy jäger and hellseherin, but it mattered not. Samira and Hammer were demolished by the twin Solar-ranked enemy schlosses, and Virgil laid low with such a terrible blow to the head that he was carried off the field and kept in medical for two days.

Brutal Deluxe dropped to the lowest 20% of the rankings.

Sindre ran Brutal Deluxe ragged, had them drill sequences and plays, and to everyone’s immense relief they pulled off an upset win against the Anchorage Quantum Knights.

Subarctic light cast long shadows across the field; the stadium was recessed  into rock and steel, carved right into the heart of a mountain. Everything felt ice-blue, matte black, and silver, and Charoen had felt compelled to draw off his helm to better hear the intricate industrial electronica that filled the air and to which the crowd chanted.

The Quantum Knights made the mistake of playing defensively, taking on a Fortress Defense early in the game and clustering in tight. Virgil sent a squad of opferns down the right flank and they fought their way into the end zone, releasing Jessie, who fell upon the enemy like a Grecian Fury.

And Charoen was right there beside her.

They tore into the tight formation of the enemy players, prying open a gap into which Silence and Marex stormed.

Even then the higher quality of the Anchorage players might have held the line had it not been for the könig’s decision to send his whole team barreling down the field in an attempt to steamroll over the approaching Virgil.

Pressure from above and sides caused the Anchorage team to fracture, and in the chaos Jessie took down a schloss, Charoen a second, and Silence dropped the könig with a swipe of her Brilliant Energy power-halberd.

Celebrations, a sweet sense that perhaps the first victory against the Platinum Suns hadn’t been a fluke, and everyone bonded for the first time as a team, going out to a reserved bar to drink and dance.

Charoen had almost come out of his shell when Jessie made it a point to tell him their fighting together meant nothing.

She’d stopped before him in the neon lighting of the bar, bottle of beer in hand, and stared at him with such intensity that he’d frozen in place.

“You’re not my brother,” she’d said, voice cutting through the music like a knife through silk. “You never will be. Nothing you can do on the field will change that. You’re an imposter. You’re nothing. And you’ll never be able to change it.”

Her words scalded.

Charoen’s desire to celebrate died there and then, and he’d retreated to his room only to find Silence awaiting him.

He’d indulged her masochistic proclivities with unusual fervor that night.

For all his training in those weeks, Charoen’s growth had slowed, stalled. His gamma rarely rose above 115 hz. His physical stats were also sluggish. But Virgil had been right about one thing: there was nothing comparable to being on the field during live play.

Nothing like hunting the enemy and having them hunt him in turn.

Their fifth game was against Nullpoint, last season’s champions from Crux Prime in the Antarctic.

They were all Solar-ranked, and boasted the highest rated players, with even their opferns averaging S7.

Brutal Deluxe never had a chance.

The stadium was the largest in the league, bigger even than the one in Buenos Aires. Sunken deep into the stone, it was painted in the traditional hues of white, glacial blues, and matte black accents. Illumination from blue LED bands under artificial ice panels brought back the vibe of the ancient days when their continent had been covered with glaciers.

The field itself was slicked with ice, and for the first time in his life Charoen experienced his breath frosting in the air. Stadium lights refracted off the crystalline snowfields, and he’d never been gladder to take to the air.

But there was no contest. Nullpoint seized the central lane and never relinquished it. Their weapon-armor synergies were stacked for cascading effects, each player buffing the next. They dictated the pacing, and created kill-boxes, forcing Brutal Deluxe players into pre-planned zones where their top players executed them without mercy.

They had better mobility. Faster reactions. Higher aggression. They played like an optimized machine, and demolished Brutal Deluxe, player by player, till only Virgil stood, alone, to face the enemy könig.

Who marched forth alone, leaving behind his schlosses, and remove his helm when he reached Virgil, revealing his famed visage.

Martin Haalberg.

Owner of Nullpoint, Chancellor of Crux Prime, and Virgil’s greatest political foe.

Virgil had laughed, curtsied, and not bothered fighting back when Martin had shoved him once in the chest, knocking him onto his back.

Pinned under a schloss’s boot, Charoen had watched in bitter fury as the game was taken from them as a toy from a toddler.

Only then, trapped and furious, did Charoen realize how vast the gulf was between where he stood and the true elites of the game. The other teams they’d played had been warm-ups.

Nullpoint showed him what could be done.

And in that moment, limbs broken and pinned under the mighty schloss boot, Charoen vowed to get stronger and never let such a loss happen again.