Chapter 1
Could a gaming artificial intelligence hold a grudge? Mack had no idea but sometimes he had to wonder. Times like now, when his screen noted the newly spawned enemy player was not one of their four-man opposing team but instead Larry Coughlin. Of course, Larry couldn’t be an AI. Ever since the mid-2010s when things like AI trolls and farming bots had become a real problem, game developers had spent the last thirty years and billions of dollars developing sophisticated software to keep their games secure and their paying customers happy. But Mack had to wonder.
“Aš Išvykę savo akis ir seksas kaukolės!” Ronnie, the leader of their four-man team, snarled. “Jūs esate homoseksualus idiotas!”
“Larry’s here,” Mack said dolefully.
“Yep,” Dan replied. “I don’t even have to look at the board. Ronnie’s cursing in—”
Dan’s voice cut off and the screen flashed: DarkRider48 has been terminated by Larry Coughlin!
“Jūs patekote asilas vyrų dalis!” Ronnie shouted.
“Ronnnie…” a deep baritone voice taunted. “Oh, Ronnnie…I’m here to kiiill you. Cursing in Lithuanian won’t save you…”
RonnieDarko714 has been terminated by Larry Coughlin!
Mack got up in a good viewpoint to scope things out, no longer worrying what their lead was on their opponents. They were doomed anyway. He could see the other team pulling back through the broken rubble “scenery” of the battle quadrant. Why take chances when a legendary Tier One had shown up to wipe out the other team for you?
He had no idea what Ronnie had done to get on Larry Coughlin’s “naughty” list. Nobody knew who Larry actually was, just that he ranked as one of the top ten best players in the world on the mega popular first-person-shooter game, WarMonger. That and he was the only one of the ten who never attended tournaments. He was a mystery man in virtual and their own personal boogeyman—a good argument against the whole AI theory. Why would an AI waste its time on them? All Mack knew for sure was that Larry was a mercenary in virtual, taking gear or cash to show up and turn the tide in a fight. Rumors were he might be a merc in the real, too, maybe a retired one. Some people said he used to be an actual Delta Force or maybe SEAL team member, based on the way he fought. But, again, why someone like that would care about a random high schooler from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was anybody’s guess.
Oh, well. At least the gaming AI had picked a nice day for it. Clear blue skies instead of the nearly perpetual gray, apparently cold, rain the game usually generated.
The other thing Mack knew for sure? Half the time they were in a match, Larry Coughlin would show up to ruin their night. And probably charge somebody through the nose to do it. It was insulting.
Mack decided to camp out behind this nice safe wall and hope the Tier One didn’t notice him. After all, miracles could happen, right?
“I’m back—” Ronnie said only to be cut off again.
RonnieDarko714 has been terminated by Larry Coughlin!
“He’s teabagging Ronnie,” Edgar, the other remaining team member, said. If it weren’t for the fact that Edgar rarely showed emotion, Mack would have sworn he heard a grin in his friend’s voice. “Heck of a thing to see just as you res—”
BigHero232 has been terminated by Larry Coughlin!
Aaaand, there went Edgar. Now Mack was alone. He waited, hoping one of his teammates could respawn and stay alive for more than five seconds.
“Can you move in on him?” Mack whispered as Dan’s name showed back up on the board. He knew whispering didn’t help but it was Larry Coughlin, for Pete’s sake!
“On me?” Larry’s deep voice replied. “Doubt it. He’s all the way across the map and I’m over here behind you, Mack.”
MackTruck35 has been terminated by Larry Coughlin!
“I swear to GOD, he teleports!” Mack shouted at his screen as his respawn clock counted down. “He has to be cheating!”
“That guy’s got some sort of homo crush on me, I swear,” Ronnie replied as he respawned. “Freaking hom—”
“He’s doing it again,” Dan added. “And he took out Edgar from across the—”
DarkRider48 has been terminated by Larry Coughlin!
“Want to give up, Mack?” Larry asked. “Don’t bother running, you’ll only die tired.”
“Why us, man?” Mack said as he sent his avatar sprinting away from his respawn point, looking for cover. “Why the heck do you always turn up to beat on us?”
“It’s not you I’m after, kid,” Larry replied. “It’s Ronnie. You know that.”
“What’ve you got against Ronnie?” Mack asked.
“He’s a jerk,” Larry said, “and you know it. I admire your loyalty, Mack. But, as always, it’s going to cost you.”
“Where are you?” Mack shouted, spinning his avatar in a useless circle.
“Behind you,” Larry whispered over the coms.
Baconville Bashers Have Failed to Achieve Objective!
Lynn Raven leaned back in her body-mold chair and lowered her old-school headset so she could stretch the kinks out of her neck. She knew some kids at school who had convinced their parents to get them audio implants so they never had to use headphones or a mic again.
That would have been a dream.
Her mom? Nope, not a chance. Never mind that global tech was changing around them faster than you could wrap your mind around it. Whenever Lynn brought up audio or even visual implants, it was all “they’re a dangerous new fad” or “you can wait to make permanent alterations to your anatomy after you turn eighteen.” It was annoying but Lynn only had a little over a year to go before she could finally make those decisions for herself. Then her life in WarMonger as a grizzled old mercenary for hire would get so much easier.
Grabbing an energy drink, Lynn downed it and then started on a bag of chips as she reviewed the victory stats on her wall-screen.
It wasn’t quite as high resolution as a flex-screen gaming monitor but repainting her bedroom with smartpaint had definitely been the cheaper option. Plus, she liked being able to change the screen’s size and location so she could play from her bed, from the floor, or wherever she felt like. Of course, most gamers these days preferred augmented reality glasses or a virtual reality headset. But the cheap AR and VR equipment gave her a headache, and she wasn’t going to pay for the good ones. Yet.
Lynn polished off the last of her chips, licked her fingers, then prepared to get back to work. It wasn’t as if taking out her very few friends was hard; compared to the top players in WarMonger that she usually played against, it was like kicking puppies. But it was worth it just to listen to Ronnie’s dramatics, both during the game and at school. He really was an arrogant jerk who needed his balloon head popped. And the fact that she was getting paid to do it? That was just icing on the cake.
She put the headset back on and pinged the team leader who’d hired her.
“SkullCrusher,” she said, her voice modulated to the deep baritone Larry Coughlin was known for. “I want that rifle you promised in my inventory by ten hundred hours Eastern or you’ll be next on my list. Copy?”
“Roger, sir,” SkullCrusher said carefully. “I’m already transferring it. Thanks for the assist.”
“Anytime,” she said in a sinister tone. “As long as you make the payment schedule.”
She checked her inventory, and sure enough, the Tiger War was already transferred. She generated an interactive image copy, forwarded it, then switched her wireless controller’s config from gaming to keyboard. A lot of gamers used the versatile haptic gloves that could control all their devices at once with a few simple flicks. But Lynn preferred having an actual object in her hands, even if it was a bit clunky. The controller’s omni-polymer flowed seamlessly into the new keyboard config, and she opened a second screen on her wall where she pulled up an auction site and began typing rapidly.
“WM Tiger War AR. $50 OBO. Larry Coughlin.”
As she typed, her eyes were pulled to the side of the listing form she was filling out by a flash of color. It was another one of those TD Hunter ads, the “biggest release of the year” augmented reality game she was getting sick of hearing about. The ad showed an athletic, vaguely Asian-looking man holding what appeared to be a pair of electric blue toy swords. The man stood alone in a park, his stance alert and ready as if he were listening for something. Suddenly, he spun and slashed behind him, launching into a series of seamlessly fluid attacks.
Ten seconds in, there was a lull in his movements as he pulled out a pair of AR glasses and slipped them on, triggering an amazing transformation. It started at his head and flowed down his body, then spread to everything around him. His appearance was transformed into that of a fierce warrior, armored to the nines and wielding lethal blades of shining steel. They whipped through the air as the man resumed his dance of death, cutting down monster after monster as they leapt at him in the augmented reality that now overlaid his surroundings. The slogan “Step into the real” appeared superimposed over the action, then the scene faded into a black background with a large military-looking emblem shining in the middle.
Stupid ads.
She was annoyed to have been sucked into watching something she’d seen some version of hundreds of times already over the past six months. Access to the global mesh network—the faster, more reliable version of the Internet that had replaced the world wide web a decade ago—was free for everyone, all the time, everywhere. But only because ads inundated every corner of it.
Unless, of course, you paid a premium to get rid of them.
After a spate of global pandemics during the 2020s that locked down whole countries for months at a time and started the “social distancing” fad, the trend toward everything going virtual hit warp speed. Even though medical tech eventually caught up with the strains that kept getting passed, the decade of the 2020s permanently changed global culture. In virtual became the default place for any kind of recreation or entertainment, and the only reason Lynn still physically went to school was because of a bunch of studies done in the late 2020s when there was a push for permanent virtual classrooms. The science indicating kids needed face-to-face instruction was convincing enough that the virtual schooling lobby failed.
Personally, Lynn thought it was a shame. If she didn’t have to go to school then she wouldn’t have to deal with people anymore. She didn’t like people. Most of them sucked—a major reason why she’d gotten into gaming in the first place.
Getting back to work, Lynn added the image copy of the red and blue Tiger War to her auction listing, activated the offer, then switched her keyboard back to a controller and her attention back to WarMonger. Out of necessity, she had forked out extra to keep her gaming time ad-free, so it was a calm oasis for her in virtual. She’d give her auction listing a couple of hours to see what sort of bids she got. Since it was a work night she might wait until Monday to accept an offer. Weekends were the best time to sell.
Whatever she got, it’d help with the bills. Not that her mom knew she paid their rent and held back their mountain of debt by mercing in the virtual. Her mom hated taking money from anyone. But once Lynn had figured out what a goldmine WarMonger was for someone of her skills, she’d gotten her mom to teach her how to manage their finances, claiming she needed the experience for extra credit in one of her classes.
Her mom hadn’t liked the idea—as if Lynn hadn’t already known how much they struggled to make ends meet. But she’d begged and cajoled until her mom had given in. Matilda carefully supervised everything at first, and it had taken months of Lynn enthusiastically dotting every “I” and crossing every “T” before her mom relaxed and let Lynn take over.
At first, she could only use a trickle of gaming funds. Her mom would notice if they could suddenly afford normal things like red meat. But after a year of gradual increases, she’d achieved a comfortable balance. Enough to keep a roof over their heads and the debt collectors at bay but not enough to make her mom suspicious. Anything extra she made she funneled into a savings account for college.
Sometimes her secret felt too heavy to bear. Maybe, once she turned eighteen, it wouldn’t bother her mom so much to find out she was pitching in.
But there was still the problem of Larry Coughlin.
There was a saying, “two people could keep a secret if one of them was dead.” The people who managed the WarMonger servers knew she wasn’t some old military vet named Larry Coughlin, but that was okay. They didn’t talk. If her mom knew, it might get out, and the last thing she needed was for her friends to find out she regularly kicked their butts for fun. Ronnie for sure would never talk to her again, and the other guys would probably follow his lead.
Lynn shook her head. No point wasting time thinking about something that she was going to make sure never happened. Right now it was time to make some real money.
“Larry Coughlin available for hire. Best game or best offer. Enemy team average L25+ only.”
She needed to spend some time playing at her own level. Beating up on Tier Tens was fun, especially when she knew them and they didn’t know it was her. But keeping at the top of WarMonger’s charts was about playing at her level. Larry’s name had been on WarMonger’s leader board for years and she intended to keep it there.
There were rich people out there with plenty of money to spend on the best gear. Custom stuff. Stuff that was rare or restricted. People like that enjoyed winning, and they thought a pretty, customized laser cannon would help. But they knew they would win if Larry Coughlin was on their team. So, they would happily transfer that custom, tricked out, very expensive laser cannon to her for a few hours of her time.
And then she’d turn around and put it on the auction site. She already had all the powered armor and laser cannons she needed for herself. And none of them were “pretty.” Pretty got you noticed. Pretty got you killed. The only place she wanted to be noticed was on the kill board showing she’d wiped out another team of topflight players more or less by herself.
She loved it when two or three rich dudes who didn’t play enough to be worth a wet rag hired her to go up against a team of hardcore gamers with top kill to death ratios and the other team just up and ran.
Her gaming skills and reputation kept her and her mom afloat, and it was eventually going to pay her way through college.
Time to get to work.
“If I ever meet Larry Coughlin in real life, I’m going to kick his freaking teeth in,” Ronnie Payne grumped, taking a bite of fish sticks.
The lanky seventeen-year-old had a shock of ginger hair and enough freckles to make even a Dalmatian jealous. If he’d been as physically gifted as he was mentally, Lynn might have worried. But while Ronnie was a good gamer with a quick mind and a lot of natural skill, he was all bark and no bite. The most physical she’d ever seen him was his one and only tryout for the school’s ARS team—Augmented Reality Sports, the crazy, amazing fusion of in the real sports and in virtual gaming that only recent technology had made possible. The tryout had not been pretty, and she hadn’t seen him do anything remotely physical since.
“They say he used to be an operator,” Mack Rios said as he poked unenthusiastically at his salad.
He hated anything green, but his mom paid for the “healthy” lunch from the cafeteria dispenser, so that’s what it gave him when he swiped his school ID. Lynn sometimes took pity on him and swapped meals—her mom, a nurse, had made sure she grew up liking vegetables. But today she’d been craving meat, so Mack was stuck with his rabbit food. “I mean, like a real one. Army special ops or something. I don’t think you’d stand much of a chance.”
Lynn had known Mack since the beginning of middle school when she and her mom had first moved to Cedar Rapids. She’d started puberty early and, being the short and curvy type, had developed embarrassingly noticeable breasts by sixth grade. The bullying had been hell. More than one of the boys had tried to get physical. Mack had been the only “safe” guy to be around in her entire sixth grade class. He hadn’t exactly stuck out his neck for her—he was bullied enough himself. But he was one of the few who never teased her, and he would often sit with her so she wasn’t easy pickings.
He was good people, even if he did let his mom run his life like he was her prized poodle. The recent sprinkling of fuzz on his chin was his latest attempt at acting out but his adolescent body wasn’t cooperating. Coupled with an average build, straight black hair and “wannabe cool kid” attire, his looks were as unassuming and laid back as his personality.
“Naw, he can’t be an operator,” Dan Nguyen protested, shaking his head so enthusiastically that his school-issued AR glasses threatened to slip off his head.
The shortest of them all, Dan looked as thoroughly Asian as his last name sounded, and he seemed to think it gave him special “martial arts” powers. In virtual he excelled at fighting games and sniffed out every combo, cheat and secret move that could possibly exist. Alas, in the real there were no shortcuts and he was as graceful as a cow on ice. Where Ronnie was methodical, organized and a stickler for rules, Dan was all over the place trying out new things and coming up with wild ideas—ideas that usually paid off.
Both he and Ronnie were angling for careers in the gaming industry. They were often invited to beta test games and were constantly arguing game mechanics. “No real operator would waste time on a bunch of kids, not unless he had a bone to pick. And he’d have to know Ronnie in the real for that. How many operators do you think Ronnie knows?”
“None,” Edgar Johnston said, his slow, calm voice an odd counterpoint to Dan’s staccato chatter.
Lynn had always been a little intimidated by Edgar’s six-foot-two bulk. But he was even more laid back than Mack, and over time she’d grown to appreciate his quiet nature. His dark eyes often sparkled with hidden amusement in his tawny face, and he was as loyal and dependable as could be even if he wasn’t as obsessed with gaming as the rest of them.
“How many times we been over this?” Edgar asked, popping a handful of fries into his mouth.
“Sixty-three, by my count,” Lynn offered.
WarMonger had an extensive database. One item it tracked was how many times a particular player had been in the same match as another player. She’d checked last night, and it was the sixty-third time Larry Coughlin and RonnieDarko714 had been in the same game. Ergo, that was how many times Ronnie had complained about it.
“How was your night, Lynn?” Mack asked, obviously trying to head off an explosion from Ronnie’s side of the table.
Lynn was focused on needling Ronnie, so the question took her off guard. Fortunately, she always had an easy answer on tap.
“I was up all night getting ready for the Milan fashion show!” she said, brightening with false enthusiasm. “Two of my super-models got hospitalized for anorexia and none of my patterns are ready and I’ve got to get booking…”
She hated Kim’s Diva Princess, one of the ubiquitous “fashion” games marketed for girls. Her grandparents had given it to her, thinking it was the sort of thing teenage girls played. She’d tried it once and started screaming obscenities in under two minutes. But it was perfect as a cover story because one mention of it and all her guy friends immediately changed the subject.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me!” Ronnie said. “You’re still playing that asinine game?”
“Well, at least I’m not the one who got teabagged,” Lynn snapped.
“Who told you that?” Ronnie practically shouted, then lowered his voice as people looked their way. “Who told you that?”
“You get teabagged every time you go up against Larry Coughlin,” Lynn said, shrugging. “So, you did, didn’t you? That makes, what, sixty-three times, right?”
“I don’t wanna talk about it.”
“Yes,” Mack sighed.
“More,” Edgar said placidly. “Sometimes it happens a couple times a game.”
Edgar was almost always calm, no matter how excited the rest of them got. Part of that was his nature, Lynn guessed. But the other reason he kept his temper in check was an “incident” he’d had when she’d been in seventh grade. By that time she and Mack were pretty good friends and he had introduced her to Edgar.
The day of the “incident,” one of the usual eighth grade bullies had started picking on Mack, and when she’d gotten involved the bully had turned his attention, and crudely suggestive remarks, on her. That was when Edgar had stepped in. At first he’d only told the bully to back off, but when the swaggering eighth grader had ignored the warning and slapped her butt, Edgar had lost it.
It had taken four full-grown male teachers to pull Edgar off the kid. The eighth grader had ended up in the hospital while Edgar had ended up on juvie probation for two years. He’d also been held back a grade, ironically putting him in the same class as Lynn and Mack. Lynn suspected his poor grades were more the result of a horrible home life—something with his dad and alcohol but he would never talk about it—than because Edgar was bad at school.
After that Lynn tried really hard to keep Edgar out of it when she was being bullied and he tried really hard not to lose his temper. Fortunately, he had a fuse as long as Florida.
“He’s a homo,” Ronnie complained.
“So’s Jed Pepper on the swim team,” Lynn said, rolling her eyes. “What’s that got to do with anything? Ya think maybe, whoever he is, he’s just trying to send you the message that you don’t always have to be the biggest smart aleck around?”
“What do you know? You play fashion ranch or whatever.”
“Diva Princess.”
“See what I mean?” Ronnie said. “Girls got no game.”
Lynn gritted her teeth and shut up before she gave herself away. For all of Ronnie’s smarts, he was about as flexible in his thinking as a slab of granite. He was also a raging misogynist when it came to gaming, which was ridiculous considering the number of celebrity female gamers out there. Lynn had no idea what his problem was.
For now, she would content herself with humiliating him in virtual. And occasionally getting paid to do it.
Gaming had its perks.
“Sooo, you guys hear the TD Hunter announcement that they’re going to reveal something super big next week as a lead-up to the June fifteenth launch?” Dan asked, fairly bouncing in his seat. “They’re playing it close to the chest. I can’t find any leaks at all. Any guesses what it is?”
“Maybe they’re finally going to announce open beta,” Mack said, leaning forward and pulling at his wisps of beard. “That would be epic. You guys both applied for closed beta, right?”
“Yeah,” Ronnie said, his tone sour. “Those idiots wouldn’t know a good opportunity if it danced naked in front of them.”
Lynn had to work to keep a smirk from giving her away. Maybe it was petty, being amused that Ronnie and Dan had been rejected as betas. If Ronnie hadn’t made such a big deal about it beforehand—bragging as if he’d already been picked—she wouldn’t have had to fight so hard not to grin.
Beta testing was a process most games went through, selecting professional gamers from around the world to “close beta” their platform pre-release in order to work out the kinks. Some games also did an “open beta” right before launch, letting anyone who wanted to beta in on it, usually to stress test their system and avoid launch day mishaps or server overloads. Lynn had done some beta testing herself over the years. She might have even applied to beta test TD Hunter if it hadn’t been a freaking augmented reality game.
Dan and Mack argued about what they thought the big announcement would be while Ronnie scowled and Edgar methodically finished his food. Lynn kept her mouth shut, mostly because she’d been nursing a grudge against TD Hunter for months. It wasn’t fair that it was AR instead of in virtual where she could enjoy it without going outside where there were people. The game itself looked really impressive, which was no doubt why, despite Ronnie, Dan and Mack’s complete lack of athletic ability, they had been obsessing over it for months. It was as if they thought that, as soon as they put on their AR glasses, they would somehow magically be able to do back flips like the man in the ad.
Step into the real.
Lynn snorted at the thought. It was certainly a clever marketing ploy and it annoyed her that even she was drawn in by it. Not that inspiring millions of basement-dwelling gamers world-wide to poke their noses outside for a bit of fresh air and exercise was a bad thing. AR games had been trying to do that for decades, with limited success. It wasn’t that people weren’t familiar with AR technology. It, along with VR, had single-handedly saved the sanity of billions during the 2020s. Then the 2030s started and there had been the big push to get everyone outside again and the mesh web took off.
Corporations figured out they could spam people walking down the sidewalk or riding the airbus with ads—unless they paid their opt-out fee. But gaming companies still had humanity’s collective laziness to overcome. People loved watching AR sports but ask the same people to go outside themselves and get hot and sweaty? Good luck with that. Every new AR game, local paramedics became experts at treating heat stroke.
Still, with its massive marketing campaign, maybe TD Hunter would be the first AR game to make it big in a world that increasingly lived in virtual.
The bell tone sounded over the intercom, calling them all back to class. Lynn looked at the rest of her lunch, considered her waistline and left it.
“See you later. I gotta book it to get logged in to Mr. Harris’ class. He gets crazy about attendance when finals are this close.”
Lynn got a chorus of goodbyes and one annoyed grunt in response. She turned away and waved over her shoulder as she headed off, finally allowing a smile to spread across her face at Ronnie’s continued bad temper.
Yes, gaming did have its perks.
“Hey, Mom!” Lynn said as she walked in the door of their apartment.
“Hi, sweetie,” Matilda Raven replied, looking up from her breakfast of coffee, eggs and toast. She worked graveyard shift at St. Sebastian’s Memorial Hospital, so this was “morning” to her. “You’re home late today. Did the airbus have to stop for an emergency charge again?”
“Yeah. You’d think they’d upgrade the batteries in those things, but I guess no one cares if a bunch of high schoolers have to wait around for forever. I can’t believe how crowded the air lanes have gotten in the past few years. It wasn’t like this in middle school.”
Lynn saw her mom’s lips purse. Unlike most of her friends’ parents, her mom actually attended Parent-Teacher night and paid attention to things like government policy and the news.
“Local governments are trying to put so many restrictions on manuals that people will stop using them. I know it’s frustrating but it’s an important process. Vehicular fatalities have more than halved since they made the big push to autonomous vehicles and air taxis, honey. It just kills me every time I treat a car accident patient in my ER, knowing it could have been avoided if they would stop being stubborn and let the AIs do the driving.”
“I know, I know,” Lynn said, dumping her backpack in a chair and going to the cabinet to root out a snack. It wasn’t that she didn’t care about such things, in theory. She would just rather be shooting people in the comfortable solitude of her room than sitting around on a crowded airbus. She could, technically, play any number of games on her AR glasses while she waited. But playing in front of other people completely defeated the purpose of gaming, as far as she was concerned. She usually worked on homework instead, to give herself more time to game when she was at home.
“Going to my room if that’s okay?”
“Can you empty the dishwasher, first, please?” Matilda said, after a bit of a sigh.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry, Mom,” Lynn said, going to the dishwasher. “I forgot last night. I was playing—”
“Video games,” Matilda finished for her.
“Yes,” Lynn replied, unable to keep a bit of sarcasm from her tone.
“It’s not that, Lynn,” Matilda said, setting down her coffee and turning toward her daughter. “I’d rather have you home playing video games than out, well…”
“Getting into trouble?” Lynn, said, turning from the cabinet to raise an eyebrow at her mother. “Hanging out with bad boys?” She couldn’t help rolling her eyes and smiling at the thought. Her mom smiled back.
“Better games than drugs,” Matilda said. “But if you could try to remember your chores?”
“I know, I know,” Lynn repeated. She stuffed her snack in the top of her backpack, then hurried to start emptying the dishwasher. She’d seen the new ones on the stream channels that had built-in dish storage and that sorted all your dishes automatically once they were clean. But their apartment’s appliances were twice as old as her at least, probably dating back to the turn of the century. No smart kitchen for them. “I do try, Mom. I just get caught up, you know?”
“Not really but I can use my imagination.” Another smile. “So…anything interesting happen at school today?”
“Nothing particularly bad,” Lynn said. “Just all of the teachers are freaking out about finals, as usual. It’s like they forget we do this every year.”
“Well, finals are really important. You can’t blame them for wanting you to do well.”
Lynn rolled her eyes again, stretching to reach the cabinets above the sink. Despite the fact that her father had been a blond-haired, blue-eyed Scandinavian giant, she hadn’t managed to get a single drop of his height or looks. She blamed all her vertical challenges on her mother’s Lakota genes. To be fair, she did appreciate her long, silky black hair and the fact that she wasn’t a pale ghost like Ronnie, despite never going outside. That and her eyes. They were a light hazel so vibrant and flecked with gold that her mom called them “wolf eyes.” Even though they were one more thing about her that set her apart and invited bullying, she still liked them.
“They don’t care whether or not we do well, Mom. They just want their end-of-the-year stats to make them look good,” Lynn pointed out.
“I’m sure that’s not true, sweetie.”
“Uh, yeah. If you say so, Mom,” Lynn offered without enthusiasm, deciding to change the topic. “One funny thing did happen today. Ronnie got mugged in virtual again.”
“Mugged?” Matilda asked. “How do you get mugged online?”
Lynn turned around and grinned.
“Ronnie’s got an enemy in WarMonger. This guy turns up from time to time and pretty much destroys the whole team. Then he disappears. They can’t figure out why. Nobody even knows who he is. It happened again last night, and Ronnie was complaining about it our entire lunch break.”
“I don’t know why you don’t play with them,” her mom said. “I mean, I do and I don’t. But sometimes I’d prefer it if you were over at Mack’s house than holed up here all the time.”
“Mack’s house?” Lynn said. “Mom, Mrs. Rios hates me, remember? She thinks I’ve been trying to steal her precious little boy since sixth grade. And I don’t game with them because Ronnie is a pig-head and thinks girls are no good at games. So I stay here and play my own games instead.” In more ways than one, she added silently, holding back another grin.
“Well, I guess that makes sense. But you should really get out now and then. It doesn’t matter how much nutritious food I cook, a healthy lifestyle includes fresh air and sunshine.” Sometimes having a nurse for a mom had its drawbacks.
“Tell that to Goths,” Lynn said, making her mom laugh. “I do get sun, in between leaving the apartment and getting on the school airbus. Dishes are done. Mind if I go to my room?”
“Sure, honey.” Matilda said with a sigh. “Have fun. I’ll call you when supper’s ready.”
Mom left for her shift after dinner and once Lynn had gotten the dishes in the dishwasher, she could finally settle down to make money. She went into WarMonger and joined a free-form among other top tiers for about an hour. Win some, lose some, it all evens out in the end. Her ranking inched up a few meager points, which was all she was really after. Unless you put in the time fighting your peers you’d start slipping. Couldn’t merc all the time.
In the last round, she managed to finally get up on YodaMaster, which was something. He generally stayed in the top five world-wide players. Managing to bag him not once but twice in one game was probably what put her up in points. She was pretty sure it had more to do with YodaMaster having a bad night than that she had somehow surpassed him. But still, it felt pretty satisfying.
“Yoda, you’re off your game tonight,” Lynn said, her voice safely disguised by her modulator. “I’m glad to take advantage but you wouldn’t last a night in Johannesburg.”
“I’ve been to Johannesburg, Larry,” Yoda replied. “I was just fine. It’s not nearly as bad as you make it out to these kids. Real world stuff on my mind, is all. You up for another round? I’ll wipe the floor with you this time.”
“As much as I love making you eat your words, I gotta go make the man his money,” Lynn replied. She wasn’t even sure what the term meant, other than “time to make money,” but it was one she’d picked up scanning various boards.
Keeping up the Larry persona was a matter of constant research and coming up with new quip lines based on it. Some of it, stuff like the Bosnian Civil War, she’d rolled into classes. She’d made sure to spin it right for her teachers but had dug into things like MPRI, who sounded like actual bad-asses, and other mercenary groups like Tzarist Wolves, who were more like bar thugs with guns.
She’d decided that “Larry” was an old guy, like, really old. He was a vet of the Bosnian wars back in the ’90s, probably Special Forces, then later a mercenary. He was badly injured sometime after the turn of the century, maybe during the Iraq or Afghanistan conflict. He’d probably been a black ops assassin who’d “retired” a bunch of opposing tribal leaders, off the books of course. He was definitely paranoid and pretty much assumed there were still people out there who wanted him dead. He’d probably spent some time with CIA paramil but more in the Middle East or maybe South America than Europe.
After he was injured by an IED, he’d gotten into gaming and established a presence in virtual to keep up some semblance of still being an “operator.” He brought full-on operator experience and training to his matches, which let him “feel” like he was back in the “good old days retiring terrorists and drug lords.” She “knew” all that but kept most of it secret, especially the “in a wheelchair” stuff. And his name wasn’t “Larry Coughlin” any more than hers was. She’d never decided on a “real” name for him. Not knowing made Larry feel more like a skin—like a mindset or a memory—that she could slip in and out of at will, rather than a made-up person she was pretending to be.
The problem, though, was the quips. Not only how to correctly pronounce names like “Medellin,” Med-ah-een, but how a guy like Larry would pronounce it. One wrong pronunciation and her cover would be blown.
To pick up the general feel of things, she lurked on boards like Arfcom. There were plenty of military contractors on those boards and they’d sometimes drop a line that made sense to her. That’s where she’d picked up terms like “operator” and “snake.” She’d picked up “Going to make the man his money” on one of the boards and it was always followed by congratulations. When someone had asked “Where?” he’d been immediately slapped down and called a noob.
You never asked where anyone lived, you never asked them where they were going. Just “out of town” or sometimes “OCONUS” which meant something like “out of the country.” Though she had seen some different stuff recently, more people than usual posting “Time to make the man his money” or “going op,” which meant “going operational”—going somewhere to do something “shooty” as one guy put it—without adding “out of town” or “OCONUS.” Maybe there was some special training operation or readiness drill going on. She knew the military did those sometimes.
It was an ongoing job, expanding her knowledge of military operations, history, culture, lingo and the like. What had started out as a simple information dive, though, had turned into a weird sort of hobby—watching documentaries, following ex-military guys on their stream channels, searching through declassified military documents and, of course, reading the boards. It was fun digging up the most obscure references and figuring out how to fool everyone into thinking she was some grizzled old merc who slept with a knife under his pillow and gun on his bedside table. And another one under the pillow.
And the boards were the weirdest place. It wasn’t only that people didn’t speak anything like a normal language. Ma Deuce and LES and ESA and other acronyms seemed to be half the postings. No personal sharing at all. People who tried were more or less driven off. Except when it was a young vet. There were guys, women even, who were vets from Iraq and Afghanistan, GWOT as they put it, who would post about problems. Those were fine. But come on and start complaining about your day and the replies would mostly be insults. Which seemed to be what the posters expected. That if you complained about mundane stuff you’d be insulted. The insults seemed to even help and some of them were rough. She kept the better ones for when she was really mad at someone in a WarMonger match.
Then there were what she’d mentally termed “the crazies.” The ones who posted about the wacky conspiracy theories were her favorites. The world was run by, depending on your take, a cabal of rich people, or the eternal boogeyman China, or big-media corporations or big-tech or big-industrial, or big-media or -tech or -industrial Chinese corporations, or by a cabal of shadowy bureaucrats, most of whom were Chinese or bought by the Chinese. Or aliens. Who apparently were from the extraterrestrial China. Or possibly in league with China. But China was involved. Somehow.
As a kid who’d grown up with irregular shutdowns of the entire economy over the latest “novel virus” to start up, which, yes, might have something to do with China, occasionally, she found the preppers to be on the “less than” crazy side. Slightly. When she’d started making money in WarMonger she’d also started to, slowly, build up supplies. It wasn’t like they could keep much in the apartment. But she’d just order a bit more than they actually needed per month so if something “happened” they’d have some materials to fall back on.
Especially toilet paper. She agreed, wholeheartedly, there was no such thing as “too much” toilet paper. Just more than you could stock.
Lately, the conspiracy buffs and preppers had been particularly fired up. “Something” was happening. Capital Something. They were comparing notes on random occurrences across the globe and “proving” how the media was covering up “something.” An airbus crash here, an “unexplained” power outage, for which there was always a clear explanation, there.
China was “up to something.” Probably activating its final plan to take over the world through…they weren’t sure what but they were prepared to take the fight to the invading Chinese hordes at their “BOL,” bug-out location, when SHTF, stuff hits the fan. Which was going to happen any, day, now…Any…day…The Yellow Peril is going to strike…
Sigh.
Despite all that, she liked some of the guys who were…sane. She’d seen reasoned arguments against women in combat positions. She knew even if she was in shape she couldn’t play football against guys and in the real world she’d never be able to do most of the stuff she did in WarMonger. She also, quietly, thought there were such things as “biological males” and they shouldn’t be in women’s sports. She’d seen explanations of the price of having gays in combat units. “Fraternization” was apparently a huge issue in small teams and having people who were sexually attracted to each other increased a problem that could get people killed in combat. She could sort of see it. But most of the posting on any political subject was ranting. And anyone saying anything good about the VA was in for a round of pummeling.
She never posted herself. But there were a few of the posters who seemed…calmer. More empathetic, maybe. She’d occasionally, carefully, send one of them a question about something.
“I’m researching a paper about the Drug Wars in the ’80s and I have to give an oral report. And I’ve got a question. How do you pronounce ‘Medellin’?”
Her persona for the boards was a teenage male, Tom Reynolds, who was “4F,” unfit for military service due to asthma but “into” the military. “Yeah, I’m a wannabe but I’m pro-military. Just don’t post cause no background.”
Lies and more lies.
“Okay, then. I’ll probably see you round,” Yoda said, sounding disappointed at her begging off another match. “I need to blow off some steam.”
“Bad week?” Lynn asked. She liked YodaMaster despite the cocky name. He was the only top tier who she hated beating because he was so nice about it.
“Oh, just putting out dumpster fires at work,” Yoda said. “Can’t get into specifics, get my throat cut if I did. Burn before reading and all that.”
Lynn had to think fast about a Larry response on that one. “Burn before reading” meant “highly classified.” Yoda wasn’t military or anything as far as she knew. He’d mostly dropped hints about working in the gaming industry.
“I didn’t know you were secret squirrel,” Lynn said, letting the surprised tone into her voice.
“I didn’t used to be,” Yoda said. “And I wish I still wasn’t. You probably know how it is, knowing stuff you wish you didn’t.”
“Got it,” Lynn said, not getting anything.
“Well, I’d better get a move on,” Yoda said. “Gotta go collect some heads. Metaphorically.”
Lynn looked up at her wall at a bunch of post-it notes for a good quip. She was probably one of the few people her age who still even used paper and pen. But then when you were poor, you made do. In any case, she liked the physicality of it. The realness helped her connect on a deeper level with “Larry” and the kind of world he would have grown up in.
“Keep the ears,” she said, voice deadpan. “Only way you can collect the bounty.”
She pulled the post-it note down and reluctantly tossed it in the trash. It was a good quip. She’d probably use it again.
“Larry, you crack me up,” Yoda said. “When you don’t scare me, anyway. See ya.”
“One night in Melbourne will make a strong man tumble,” Lynn said.
“That’s Bangkok, Larry,” DragonRider772 said. “I’ve heard that song.”
“You’ve never been in the parts of Melbourne I have, kid,” Lynn replied in Larry’s gravelly tone as she focused her sights on her last target and pulled the trigger. “Aaand that’s the last of them. Make sure you make the payment schedule.”
“Will do, Larry,” DragonRider said. “Thanks for the assist.”
“Thanks for the cash,” Lynn said. “Got a girlfriend who’s greedy as a Bangkok coochi girl. Gotta find some more clients. I’m didi mao.”
Lynn exited the match. Good game. High level players, mostly mercs, with their clients along for the ride. And the clients weren’t noobs either. Tough fight but her side had won.
She put up a post of availability and got an immediate ping.
Robert Krator: Larry, mind coming up on voice?
There was a blinking link to a voice chat.
Lynn sat, frozen in shock. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been asked to voice chat before. Most of the time she’d do initial negotiations in voice then finalize in text for a record.
But this was a query from freaking Robert Krator.
Robert Krator was the creator of WarMonger and it was not his first mega-successful game. He was a legend in the gaming community and one of Tsunami Entertainment’s top game developers.
And he wanted to talk to Larry Coughlin? Why?
Wait. He owned WarMonger. He knew perfectly well that he wasn’t talking to “Larry Coughlin.” He was talking to a sixteen-going-on-seventeen-year-old girl from Cedar Rapids named Lynn Raven.
The real question was, why did he want to talk to Lynn Raven?
It had to be the Robert Krator. Nobody would dare, much less get away with, posting as him on WarMonger.
Larry Coughlin: May I ask why?
Robert Krator: In voice. Not text. Don’t worry, not going to blow your cover, Larry.
Lynn hit the link.
“Hi, Lynn,” Mr. Krator said. “Glad to finally talk to you. First, you’re not in any kind of trouble with the game or otherwise. It’s all good. I actually need to ask you a favor.”
“A favor?” Lynn squeaked, then remembered she still had her modulator on. “Ahem, I mean, ‘A favor?’” she repeated in a lower voice.
“Lynn, this is kind throwing me,” Krator said. “I’ll talk to ‘Larry’ if you insist but could you turn off the voice modulator?”
“Sure,” she said, switching it off. “That better, Mr. Krator?”
“Call me Rob,” Krator said. “Lynn, first let me congratulate you both on your rankings and on your persona. I’ll admit I play my own game from time to time so we’ve met. Allow me to keep my own anonymity if you will. But some of the best times I’ve had playing my own game is playing with ‘Larry Coughlin.’ I dislike all the foul-mouthed cursing that goes on, but Larry’s comments are a hoot. Where do you get them?”
“I watch some military streams and I’ve done a lot of research,” Lynn said, trying to hide her smile, then remembered they were on voice only, not video. “I go on military boards and lurk and look up things I don’t understand. ‘Gotta burrow into Charlie like a stone snake, boy!’”
“That’s what I meant,” Krator said, laughing. “Thank you. Laughter has been limited, lately. Which brings me to the favor. I’m rolling out a new game, an AR FPS called TransDimensional Hunter. Heard about it?”
“Uh, yes, sir,” Lynn said, chuckling. “I’m pretty sure everybody in the world has heard about your game, at least judging by how often your ads pop up. I’m not big into AR games myself, but it looks interesting. Interdimensional beings invading and you’ve got to hunt them down, right?”
“That is the game, yes,” Krator said. “Would you like to be a beta tester?”
Lynn frowned, absolutely sure she’d misheard. “What did you say?”
“Would you like to be a beta tester for TD Hunter?”
“You mean, like, for open beta?” she asked.
“No, Lynn,” Krator said, chuckling at her disbelief. “We’re not planning on doing an open beta. Closed beta only.”
Lynn swallowed hard, too stunned to speak. Robert Krator was personally inviting her to beta test one of his games? This was an opportunity she should be jumping on without a second’s hesitation.
So, why did her lips feel glued shut?
She couldn’t count how many times she’d daydreamed about being like those athletic actors in the TD Hunter commercials—whirling, spinning, killing like she was born to do it. But those daydreams were stupid. It was just a game, even if it did invite her to “Step into the real.” She was a couch potato and a happy one at that. What if she sucked at it?
And that was only half of it.
You couldn’t monetize a game in beta. She’d have to take significant time away from her bread and butter for what was basically an honorary position. She could withdraw money from her savings to cover bills for a few months, but she needed that money for college. Even though her mom didn’t even know what she’d been contributing all this time—and would tell her she shouldn’t be if she knew—Lynn still felt responsible…
“Sir, I’m really honored, but…”
“But you can’t make money off of it,” Krator finished for her. He didn’t sound the least bit surprised.
“Well…yeah.”
“I don’t mind the mercing, Lynn,” Krator said. “When it started up in my first big hit game, some of my fellow developers were incensed. I pointed out to them that they’d just made more money than God himself, so who were they to get all upset about people making money off a game? TD Hunter is set up specifically for serious gamers to monetize. Not in beta, obviously, but not long after it launches you should be making as much money as you do at WarMonger. And remember, as a beta you’ll have an early foot in the door. You’ll know all the ins and outs before everyone else. The market will be yours to dominate. Any other objections?”
“Uh…I don’t have a decent AR interface and my LINC is as basic as it gets.” Lynn said. “I know that sounds lame, but I’ve never told my mom about the money I make in WarMonger and she can’t afford to buy me good equipment.”
“Hm, I wasn’t aware you were…” Krator said, then paused. “How does this sound? Free equipment. Top of the line. Replacement plan since there are still…quirks with the game. Six months free usage, unlimited, as long as you’re using it regularly for TD Hunter. If you drop out after six months, you pick it up at corporate rate. About a fifth of the regular plan. And you keep the equipment either way. Does that cover it?”
Lynn swallowed again. Was this guy for real? Was she dreaming? Finally she gathered her wits and courage and voiced the thing that was really holding her back.
“Um, hate to break it to you, but I’m really nothing like Larry in WarMonger. I’m not some elite operator. I’ve never wanted to be a soldier or even a Girl Scout. I’m just a nerd who really likes her body-mold chair. I’m regularly in danger of failing PE at school. I’m not athletic at all and I hate going outside. There’s bugs and sun and people and…I like being in virtual—it’s safe. I’m not Larry Freaking Coughlin. I’m just Lynn Raven. Nobody special…”
She trailed off, suddenly blushing as she realized how much she was oversharing. She might as well have shouted that she was socially averse and had body image issues. Why could she never seem to play it cool with people?
“You know, I totally get it. Really,” Krator said, his voice surprisingly kind. “You…probably wouldn’t be surprised how many gamers feel exactly the same way. Even me, I have to admit. The more time I can spend alone the better. But I’ve learned I have to get out there, to run the business if nothing else. I spent years in dark rooms, developing, programming, designing. Getting out in the light was scary. But I’ve found it’s pretty good out here once you get used to it. Believe me, you’re not the first one I’ve talked to who brought up that objection. A few do exist who are very athletic, like Tommy Jones, but they’re rare.”
Tommy was a guy around her tier but much better known. He’d merc occasionally, but mostly he made his money from endorsements and tournaments. For Lynn to do tournaments she’d have to reveal she was “Larry” and she didn’t want to do that. Girls got nothing but grief in FPS gaming. It was a predominantly guy sport and most guys preferred it that way.
She had a bit of a crush on Tommy, who was, yes, very fit, very good looking and very good at WarMonger. Not quite as good as her but still Tier One. She’d even written him a fan message once, then gone easy on him for a month in game, waiting to see if he would write back. But he never had and from their interactions in WarMonger, she knew he was an arrogant prick. So after that, she’d set out to thoroughly and regularly kick his pretty butt. It had been neck and neck for a while, but she’d finally advanced and he’d dropped a couple of spots behind, cursing Larry all the way.
“You, however,” Krator continued, “are special, whether you realize it or not. Unlike players such as Tommy, you bring something to beta that’s rare. You’re a patternist. You see things other people don’t, the patterns that even the developers don’t realize are there but need to know about so they don’t become an exploitable weakness. People like Tommy just have good hand-eye coordination, lightning reflexes, and in Tommy’s case, he’s been gaming since he was two. You’ve got most of that yourself and you outthought me in my own game. That’s exceptional. I need that in a tester for this game. I need you, Lynn. Not some merc named Larry. I know it’s a temporary loss of income. I can’t fix that other than offering some top-of-the-line equipment. But I’m asking as a personal favor: help me make this the best game of the century. Do say yes, Lynn. Please.”
Lynn let out a breath. When he put it like that…One of her all-time heroes of the gaming industry was asking her for a personal favor, what did he expect her to say?
“Of course, Mr. Krator. I’d be honored,” she said. “But I do have a…condition.”
“Let’s hear it,” Krator said.
“I’ll accept the equipment, but…if I end up quitting after the beta period, I’m returning it,” Lynn insisted, feeling uncomfortable. “Either that or I’ll buy it myself or something. If I’m not playing the game, I’m not going to have you pay for stuff that’s not being used for it.”
“That is remarkably altruistic and totally unnecessary,” Robert said, his tone tinged with amusement. “You wouldn’t believe how much funding I’ve got for this game. The investors really went all-in, you might say, so there’s a lot riding on its success.”
“I’m not going to cheat you,” Lynn said firmly. “I don’t let people renege when I merc for them, so I’m not going to renege on you. I don’t care if you can afford it.”
“Condition accepted,” Robert said. “Now, what kind of AR interface do you want us to send? I suppose retinal implants are off the table, considering you’re underage…”
Lynn laughed, assuming he was joking.
“Yeah, my mom would be about as likely to approve that as brain implants. I thought they learned their lesson after that implant hacking scandal, but people have short memories. My mom is kinda old school, maybe because she’s a nurse? She doesn’t trust technology you can’t take off at the end of the day.”
“It sounds like your mother is a careful woman who cares deeply about her daughter,” Robert said.
“That’s one way to put it,” Lynn muttered.
“Ah—well,” Robert coughed, “your options, then, are contacts, glasses, or one of those full-on helmets that seems more popular with the younger crowd. Those are ‘cool,’ right?”
“Are you kidding me? I’d get laughed at everywhere I went. Glasses are fine. At least then I’ll blend in.”
“Glasses it is. What about your LINC? We can do any config you want. Necklace, ring, bracelet, watch, you name it.”
Lynn considered the question. Her current LINC—a Limitless Integrated Network Connector—was so old it was almost one of the original models from when they’d debuted in 2033 and had replaced cell phones as the new “do everything in the palm of your hand” technology. Hers was in the standard smartwatch configuration. With the advances in 3D printing, they could make them in almost any shape and size you wanted nowadays, it simply had to be something you wore close to your skin, since their batteries were powered by body heat and the body’s movement. Wrist configs were the most clunky and Lynn kept the baggy sleeves of her hoodie pulled down over hers so people at school wouldn’t tease her about it. Necklaces were more popular, but she’d always hated having something around her neck.
“What about a ring?” she finally asked.
“Perfect. Done. You should see all the necessary equipment delivered by tomorrow, maybe the next day if they have to print your LINC special. But I assume our suppliers have plenty of configs already available. I hope you like the game, Lynn. It’s a pretty wild ride.”
“I’m sure I’ll love it,” she said. “I’ve loved every other game you’ve designed. I’m just not sure how well I’ll adapt to gaming in the real. I mean, it looks amazing in your ads, but I see AR players walking around sometimes waving their hands, and well…they look kinda funny.”
“Don’t worry,” Krator said with a chuckle. “You’ll get used to it really quick. Plus, you won’t be alone. We’re pushing this game, hard. Lots of pre-reg incentives, competitions, prizes. It’s going to popularize AR gaming like never before, so you won’t be the only one out there having fun, I promise. In fact, I suspect you’re going to love the challenge of being outside a lot more than you think. This game is…different from anything I’ve developed before. I hope you’ll do well. No, I know you’ll do well. I just hope you enjoy it enough to keep playing.”
“I hope so too. It certainly sounds interesting,” Lynn said graciously.
“But enough rambling. I know you’ve got money to make, Lynn. Your TD Hunter beta profile is set up and waiting to go. There’s heavy technical and tactical support, so don’t hesitate to ping us if you need anything at all. You’re going to enjoy it. Just play. That’s the important part. The game AI will record all your feedback real-time and of course we’ll be poring over your combat logs. We need to get it dialed in by June fifteenth when we roll out. Oh, there will be a non-disclosure agreement for you and your mother to sign as well as an end-user license agreement. Usual stuff. And I’m throwing in a couple freebies that it’ll cost more to send back than keep. Standard swag package, for promotion purposes and as a thank you. So, even if you drop the game and equipment, hang onto them. Okay?”
“Okay,” Lynn said again. “It was a real honor talking to you, sir. Thanks for this opportunity.”
“No thanks necessary, Lynn,” Krator said. “It’s an honor to have you on board. If it’s not too forward of me to say, I think you should remember that ‘Lynn Raven’ is special in a very important way, not just ‘Larry Coughlin.’ Don’t let anyone tell you different. Got to go now. Hope to talk to you again some time. Maybe we’ll get a chance to meet in the real someday and I can thank you in person. Oh, and don’t forget to turn your modulator back on. Don’t want to blow your cover.”
“Oh, yeah, thanks. Er, bye?” Lynn said, then winced. Real smooth, Lynn. Real smooth.
The link dropped.
“Well, that was weird,” Lynn said, finally relaxing for the first time since she’d picked up the call.
“I’ll wait to see the equipment before I get my hopes up,” Lynn said to her empty room. Mr. Krator had probably overstated things. He was the guy at the top, after all, not the one sending out boxes. Her stuff would probably get here and it wouldn’t be that much better than what she had already.
Now all she had to do was figure out how to tell her mom. Well, her mom had been bugging her to get outside more, so that should work in her favor…but she’d worry about it later. She still had work to do before bed.
When she checked her messages she had one from a regular client. His friend had amassed a team of mostly First or Second Tiers. Tommy Jones was in it, mercing for a change and the friend was sending smack talk. Would Larry join his team?
She knew both. She’d merced for the other guy before. They were a couple of Silicon trust fund babies who thought they were the world’s greatest gamers and blamed their failings on lag and equipment.
Sure, trust fund boy, I’ll save your pretty butt. I’ve bodyguarded from…
Lynn looked at the map on her wall and thought about it for a second…
From Mandalay to…somewhere in Africa or South America that started with M… Used Medellin too many times. Mozambique? Too close to Myanmar… Would trust fund baby know that?
Larry Coughlin: Sure, buddy. I’ve bodyguarded from Burma to Basrah. The long way…
This beta testing had better not take up all her time. Now to see what the market would bear…
Larry Coughlin: Let’s come up on voice and discuss price.
At the last second she remembered to turn her modulator back on.