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Chapter 9

Cedar Memorial cemetery might have been a macabre meeting place to some but in Lynn’s opinion, it was perfect. She’d seen a couple other TD Hunter players with their electric blue batons hunting the green spaces in front of the mall complex. But none of them seemed inclined to venture farther afield. The only people around to witness what might be the biggest mistake of her life were dead and buried. Plus, since Edgar and she had hunted there before, she knew where all the TDM hot spots were. That would come in handy later if…well, if things didn’t turn into a complete “Charlie Foxtrot,” as some of the former military Tier Ones in WarMonger liked to say.

Despite having made her decision on what to do, she’d still barely slept last night. She’d risen before the sun, run through her daily exercises and training simulations, then was out the door for a day of hunting before it was even fully light. She’d left a message for her mom that she was meeting up with the guys to play TD Hunter, so her mom wouldn’t worry. Whether or not the guys would actually stick around was a completely different matter.

Ronnie, Dan and Mack, being teenage and male, would likely not even be awake until noon to see the ping she’d sent them. Lynn had plenty of time to kill before they—hopefully—arrived. Edgar, of course, had his landscaping job, which took up most of his mornings when things were still cool.

Lynn spent her spare time in the cemetery fighting the highest class TDMs she could detect, leaving the imps and ghosts and grinder worms for later. When she hit Level 5, she breathed a deep sigh of relief to hear Hugo’s congratulations on her high scores and to see the familiar Skadi’s Glory augment appear in her inventory.

So far, so good.

She was halfway to Level 6 when noon rolled around and she took a break to order food via delivery drone. She found a shaded spot beneath an elm tree to sit and eat. It was near the center of the cemetery where she’d told the guys to meet her. She barely tasted the food she ate as her eyes kept a sharp lookout. By one o’clock, the agreed upon meeting time, she was getting twitchy. She went back into combat mode in the hopes that some monsters would come along and distract her as she paced.

The guys were late. Maybe they weren’t even coming. A part of her dreaded the possibility; another part hoped for it.

She was so busy worrying that she almost didn’t hear the sibilant hiss in her earbud. By the time it registered and Hugo was sounding his proximity alarm, she was already spinning, her newly unlocked Plasma Blade slashing at chest level to hit the Ghast sneaking up on her. Even as she struck, she was shifting her weight, redirecting her momentum from the spin to leap backward and avoid the Ghast’s retaliatory strike. But she didn’t keep backing up. Instead, she switched directions again, lunging forward at an angle to strike the Ghast on its side as she skipped past.

It was a tactic she’d discovered when trying to implement Steve’s advice to “run faster” than the Ghasts. She’d been working on her sprint speed, certainly, but Ghasts were awfully quick in a straight line. Turning, however, slowed them down. They always backed up to reorient before attacking. Lynn surmised it was because they were programmed to approach targets from behind if possible. She’d found she didn’t need to roll through them and take damage to disorient them. Attacking at an angle worked just as well and if she was quick enough, she could avoid the Ghast’s reaching tentacles.

The dance continued until finally a flash of exploding sparks lit up her display. Her eyes flicked to her overhead where she saw another dot headed her way. But a familiar roar jerked her attention away.

Her training took over again and she sidestepped, dodging the charging demon that had appeared out of nowhere right behind her. She stabbed it in the back as it blundered past, then spun to deal with the second Ghast she’d known would circle behind her. A quick left-right-left slash sent red damage blossoming across the Ghast’s floating form, though she didn’t pause to see it. She’d already spun again and pitched forward into a roll that sent her under the reaching claws of the demon’s second charge. Coming up on one knee she executed the spin-stab she had perfected from weeks of practice, ending the demon’s existence without it landing so much as a single blow. Then it was back to the sideways, in-out dance with the Ghast until it was nothing but fading sparks too.

With her targets neutralized, Lynn adopted a loose defensive stance as she scanned her overhead for more dots and listened for any more attackers. She must have been pacing around right on a spawn point for them to appear so suddenly, though she didn’t remember killing any Ghasts or demons on that spot earlier.

The sudden sound of clapping and whooping behind her made her jump and she nearly fell over in her haste to turn around.

“See, what did I tell you? She’s a natural!” Edgar exclaimed.

He stood a few dozen yards away with Mack and Dan, who were clapping enthusiastically and Ronnie, who stood with his arms crossed and a disgruntled look on his face. The whooping must have come from Edgar, because it wasn’t a normal-sounding whoo-hoo but more like an undulating choo-hoo-HOO. Maybe it was something his Samoan grandparents had taught him? Either way, it made her extremely aware of the spectacle she’d made of herself. That fight must have looked ridiculous with all the spinning and flailing she’d done. Her face heated at the mere thought and she looked down, wishing Dan and Mack would quit clapping.

They finally did but only to run over and pound her on the back.

“That was epic!” Mack said, grinning from ear to ear. “Can you teach me how to do that?”

“Sweet moves, Lynn and where in the world did you get that armor?” asked Dan.

Dan’s comment made Lynn finally look up and realize they all had their AR glasses on…which meant they’d seen her fight with full augmentation…complete with monsters and her Skadi’s Glory armor.

The realization sent a wave of relief through her and she finally managed a nervous smile.

“It was an achievement award. I, um, guess I’m pretty good at killing stuff.”

“You’re telling me,” Dan said, waving his hands. “What was the big ugly bogie that charged you? That dodge-spin thing you did was so cool. You were, like, Bruce Lee or something.”

“Okay you two, lay off,” Edgar said, shouldering between Lynn and their gushing friends to give her some space. “She’s good at what she does, just like I told you. You gonna keep running your mouths or are you gonna shut up and let her talk?”

There was a sudden silence as all eyes turned to her. Lynn gulped.

“Miss Lynn, shall I take you out of combat mode for your conversation?”

“Yeah,” she subvocalized, grateful her AI had thought of it. All her icons and stats disappeared and a part of her relaxed, the part she’d trained to remain hyper aware of her surroundings, ready for an attack at any moment. Her friends still appeared in her display clothed in their TD Hunter skins—just basic beginner armor and combat gear at this point. She found the sight distracting, so she raised a hand to push her AR glasses up on her forehead. She immediately regretted it. The glasses had been a subtle barrier between her and the real world and without them she felt naked.

The silence was becoming uncomfortable but Lynn couldn’t seem to force herself to speak. Her eyes flitted to Edgar, who gave an encouraging nod. It didn’t help much but it did remind her that she was among friends. Sort of. She gritted her teeth, frustrated at her own reluctance.

One of the top game designers in the world thought she had talent.

Tier One WarMonger gamers trembled at her name—or at least at Larry Coughlin’s name.

If she could kill monsters, impress CEOs and make professional gamers fall over themselves to fight by her side, then surely she could be honest with her friends? Mostly honest, anyway. So, what would Larry do in this situation? Probably spit but she could skip that part. He definitely wouldn’t waste time dithering. He would be blunt and unapologetic. Get in, get the job done, get out.

Lynn took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry,” she said. There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?

Dan and Mack looked at each other, then back at her, their expressions open and expectant. Ronnie, standing behind everyone else with his arms still crossed, snorted.

Oh, go jump off a cliff, Ronnie, she thought with sudden vehemence. She was done caring what he thought. Shifting her gaze back to Dan and Mack, she stood a little straighter and continued.

“I’m sorry for not being more open with you all. I’ve been gaming seriously since I was thirteen. I don’t know why Mister—er, TD Hunter asked me to beta. I guess they liked my scores.”

Hopefully none of them asked her what scores, because Larry Coughlin was certainly not a topic she was going to discuss.

“I didn’t tell anyone about it but my mom and I only told her because I’m a minor so she had to sign stuff. Edgar only found out because one of Elena’s minions spotted me practicing and then Elena cornered me at school and Edgar happened to pass by and…” Lynn forced herself to stop and take a breath. Remember, short and to the point. “I wasn’t trying to cut you guys out, I just…didn’t think you wanted me around,” she finished, wincing internally. Way to sound lame.

“What? No, that’s not it at all!” Mack said and Dan echoed the protestations, if a little less enthusiastically. “We’re like the three musketeers and you’re what’s-his-name, the fourth guy. Except there’s four of us so I guess you’re the fifth…” Mack said, trailing off and rubbing his chin nervously.

“Brilliant metaphor, Mack. Absolutely brilliant,” Edgar said, completely straight-faced.

While Mack elbowed Edgar, Dan piped up.

“If you’ve been gaming for so long, why not tell us, Lynn? We could have been playing together for ages now.”

Lynn finally met Ronnie’s gaze.

“Oh, you know, girls got no game and all that,” she said, working hard to keep her face neutral. She’d already resolved that this wasn’t going to be about hurt feelings or getting even. There was a prize of a lifetime to win and they had to work together to win it.

Ronnie’s face flushed and his frown deepened but he didn’t say anything. Probably for the best, since whenever he opened his mouth, stupidity usually came out.

“That was just a joke, Lynn,” Mack said, his brows tilted in distress. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Yeah,” Dan added. “We play with tons of girls all the time, don’t we?”

“Not exactly ‘all the time,’” Edgar countered, one eyebrow raised.

“Okay, well, it doesn’t matter either way. We just play with whoever wants to play with us. There’s no telling who’s who in virtual anyway, right?”

“Right,” agreed Mack and Edgar.

“So…” Lynn said, then took a deep breath. Get in. Get it done. Get out. “So, you all wouldn’t mind having a girl on your TD Hunter team, right?”

Edgar grinned, Mack shook his head vigorously and Dan shrugged.

“As long as you can game, it doesn’t matter, right?” he said, though he turned and looked at Ronnie as he said it.

All eyes turned to Ronnie, whose face looked even paler than usual, though his expression hadn’t softened. He didn’t look at Lynn as he spoke.

“I don’t know why we’re wasting our time here,” Ronnie said, shaking his head. “We don’t need her help, we’re good enough already to build a winning team all on our own.”

“What? No—”

“Come on, man—”

“Stop being an idiot, Ronnie—”

The other guys’ voices tumbled over each other and soon all four of them were arguing.

Lynn stepped back and crossed her arms, trying to keep a check on her simmering anger. She’d been making a living on her gaming skills for years and Ronnie was saying she was a waste of his time? Her hands itched to have her Plasma Blade in them and for the first time she wished TD Hunter was a player versus player game. She’d teach Ronnie a lesson then.

As the guys’ argument grew more heated, Lynn had half a mind to walk away and leave the idiots to it. She hated this kind of drama and if this was what she’d have to deal with throughout the entire competition, then she wasn’t sure it was even worth it.

But before she could turn away, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath and reminded herself of the stakes.

Five million dollars.

College education.

A gaming career.

Was she willing to give up on all that just so she could stay inside her comfort zone? That wasn’t how she played Larry. Larry Coughlin knew perfectly well that some situations called for bold, decisive action. No battle or competition was won by staying in your comfort zone. And she wanted to win this thing. She wanted it so badly it made her heart race and chest ache with hope and desire.

Fine. If Robert Krator wanted Larry, he was going to get Larry.

“ALL OF YOU SHUT UP!”

Silence followed Lynn’s throaty yell. For a moment her body wouldn’t obey her command to move. Everyone was looking at her like they’d never seen her before and she felt pinned under the weight of their stares. But then she gritted her teeth and clenched her fists and focused on the only important thing she needed to worry about.

What would Larry do?

Her limbs unfroze and she stalked forward to halt in front of Ronnie, chest to chest. Having to look up to meet his eye made her waver for a moment. But instead of backing down, she deepened her scowl and narrowed her eyes.

What would Larry say? Without the cussing, of course.

“If you want to stick your head up your butt and leave it there, be my guest,” she finally ground out, looking Ronnie directly in the eye. “But you have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning that grand prize without me and you know it. Look at my scores from the past twenty-four hours and then try to tell me I’ve got no game.”

Ronnie didn’t break eye contact, which made Lynn think he’d probably looked up her scores already and knew exactly how good she was. She lowered her voice and spoke quietly, the words meant for him alone.

“Yesterday you were complaining about all the insider info you were missing out on. Well now I’m offering it to you. Are you going to let some petty grudge get in your way?”

At that Ronnie’s jaw flexed and he finally looked away, though not before Lynn caught a hint of uncertainty in his eyes.

“You can either coddle your ego,” she continued quietly, “or fight for the future you’ve always wanted. Which do you choose?”

He didn’t answer for a long moment and Lynn briefly wondered what was going on inside that stubborn, idiotic head of his.

“Fine,” he finally said, sounding like he’d dragged the word kicking and screaming from his throat. “But I’m team captain, okay?”

Lynn relaxed and stepped back, putting distance between the two of them as she tried to hide the wash of triumph and relief that left her lightheaded.

“Sure, whatever,” she said and shrugged. The idea of Ronnie ordering them all around left a sour taste in her mouth but she certainly didn’t want the job.

“Yeeeah!” Mack said, turning to give Edgar a high five. He missed.

“Sweet,” Dan said, rubbing his hands together delightedly. “Could you show me that move you did? Oh, and I’ve been wondering about spawning algorithms and item drop probabilities. Do you know—”

As Dan prattled on, asking question after question, Lynn spotted Edgar grinning at her over Dan’s head. She rolled her eyes but grinned back.

“All right everyone, quiet down,” Ronnie said, interrupting Dan’s stream-of-thought inquisition as he stepped forward to assert his position as captain. “The first thing we need to do is all register for the qualifiers in September. We can’t officially form a team until we hit Level 20 but when we register we have to list each other as teammates for the competition. After that we’ll need to make a plan of action to get us all to Level 20 and outfitted with the best augments the game has to offer before the qualifiers—”

“Wait a minute,” Mack piped up. “What’s our team name going to be?”

Ronnie shot him an annoyed look.

“The Baconville Bashers, obviously.”

Several groans met the “captain’s” announcement.

“Come on, Ronnie,” Dan said, rubbing his hands nervously. “We’ve been using that stupid name since we were in the seventh grade. We need a new name and we should vote on it.”

“It’s a perfectly good name and I’m team captain, so I get to decide—”

And they were off again arguing, though this time it was mostly just Ronnie and Dan with occasional comments offered by Mack. Edgar stayed out of it, the look on his face making it all too clear he was used to such squabbles among his friends.

Lynn shook her head. She’d known this was going to be a colossal waste of time. She could be mowing down TDMs right now and instead she was watching a couple of adolescent boys argue about something as asinine as their team name. But…this was what she’d signed up for. The last thing she wanted to do was get involved but if this was the only way to achieve her goal, then she might as well suck it up and do what needed to be done.

She gritted her teeth.

“Look, guys, could we just—” she began but neither Ronnie nor Dan gave any indication they’d even heard her. Ugh. If only she could bash a few heads together, that would straighten them out…

She took a deep breath and tried again. This time she pitched her voice low and deep so it would carry, drawing on her years of practice barking commands in WarMonger.

“HEY! YARDBIRDS!”

The argument stopped and once again all eyes were on her. She cleared her throat, ignoring the trickle of nervousness in her gut.

“I think we have plenty of time to decide on a team name later. Right now we should use the daylight hours we have to start, um, getting into the swing of things.”

“Ooh, like Monster Hunting 101?” asked Mack eagerly.

“Pretty much,” Edgar said with a goofy smile in Lynn’s direction.

She shot him a repressive look, silently praying he wouldn’t call her any silly nicknames in front of the guys.

“Right,” Ronnie said brusquely. “We’ll have a chatroom discussion later to decide the team name so we don’t waste training time.” He said it without a glance at Lynn, as if he’d come up with the idea all by himself. “For right now we need to start learning the game mechanics and opponents inside and out.”

Lynn expected him to continue with something like “Take it away, Lynn.” But he just stopped abruptly and let the silence simmer, as if he couldn’t bear to acknowledge her or her expertise.

“Welp, I dunno about you guys,” Edgar said, popping his gum, “but I’m ready to go stab some monsters in the face. You gonna get this show on the road, Lynn?”

“Uh, yeah, right,” Lynn said, mind racing. What should she say? Where should she start? What if she messed up and made herself look foolish?

“If I may be so bold, Miss Lynn, you might start by equipping your AR glasses.” Hugo’s voice piped up in her ear, timely as ever. She swore that AI could read her mind sometimes. Regardless, the familiar voice centered her and got her back into the right headspace. It was time to hunt and she knew just where to start.

“The first thing you always have to remember,” she said as she slipped her glasses back on and focused on her four teammates, “is that if you can see them, they can see you…”


An hour later she was still pacing back and forth under the elm tree’s shade as her new teammates listened and asked questions—well, mostly Dan asked questions and she frequently had to rescue the conversation from his rabbit trails. She covered all the basics she could think of, from TDM types and behaviors, to attack strategies and tactical considerations, to all the training resources the app had to offer.

It felt odd, sharing her experience so freely. She’d earned all that knowledge by the sweat of her brow and it went against her gaming nature to just give it away. But she was on a team now and they needed all the help they could get.

Once she’d gone over all the useful “book knowledge” she could think of, she had everyone go into combat mode and armor up, filling globe and plate slots. Then they headed down the hill to where the cemetery bordered the nearby shopping center. She had to stop now and then to dispatch a stray Ghast that detected her, despite her being stealthed to the nines. The guys walked a few paces behind to keep out of her way.

She’d done a bit of digging in the tactical support section that morning to better understand how playing as a group worked, since she’d never done it before. Hunters couldn’t see TDMs outside their combat capabilities unless they were nearby a higher level Hunter who had targeted and was actively fighting a stronger class monster. Even then, though, the monster was only a ghost of an image and couldn’t be engaged by the lower-level Hunters. Apparently this was a safety feature to ensure low-level Hunters weren’t slaughtered by powerful monsters simply for hanging around higher level Hunters. It also ensured that groups, and later teams, were actively invested in making sure all their fellows were at the same level, otherwise they might get caught in a battle that only some of them could help with. She wasn’t worried about her—she knew how to take care of herself. But it did mean she had to invest all her spare time in helping her teammates level up fast, rather than focusing on monetizing the game like she’d planned.

It would all be worth it if they won the grand prize.

Once they reached the shopping center, Lynn had them spread out and go looking for imps and grinder worms with the oft-repeated warning of constant vigilance! ringing in their ears. Before you reached Level 20 and gained the team function, players could add each other as “friends” to form hunting groups. In addition to the group experience bonus, groups had the advantage of a shared comm channel and chat stream that could be used both in and out of combat mode. This was infinitely useful and Lynn was grateful to not have to yell across the loading docks at her various team members. She hung back as they hunted, watching and offering a subtle suggestion here and there, all the while busy plotting future training plans and team tactics. She’d never trained a group of newbies before. Not that the guys were newbie gamers, just newbie Hunters. Still, in WarMonger she’d always fought beside experienced players and when she’d led a team she’d known her orders would be carried out with deadly proficiency.

Wrangling four teenage guys, in the real no less, was a new challenge altogether.

She’d initially suggested that they work in pairs, Mack with Dan and Edgar with Ronnie. But Ronnie had scoffed at the idea and peeled off on his own, scything through imps and gremlins with prejudice, as if they’d personally insulted him. His tactics lacked finesse and his strikes were all over the place, so he took far more damage than necessary. When she’d tried giving him a few pointers, he’d flatly ignored her. His behavior made Lynn grit her teeth but she reminded herself that his pigheadedness wasn’t her problem.

Well…until it cost them the championship. But hopefully he would grow up before then.

At least Ronnie’s grumpy mood wasn’t all bad. At one point, a pair of guys in shorts, tees and flip-flops appeared around the back of the mall, bright blue Nano Blades in their hands. Lynn noticed them first and was trying to figure out how to get rid of them without being rude—or talking to them at all—when Ronnie spotted them. He wasted no time before yelling at them to get lost, saying the area was already claimed for competition team training. The two guys looked like they wanted to argue but Ronnie gave them such a threatening glare that they turned and high-tailed it out of there.

After that, nobody else interrupted them.

With Ronnie doing his own thing, Mack, Edgar and Dan ended up fighting together. Edgar offered insights from his hours spent observing her while Mack and Dan got used to killing imps without clobbering themselves, or each other. To her relief, they weren’t as abysmal at welding their weapons as Lynn had feared they would be. Dan did manage to drop his Nano Blade an impressive six times and he stumbled over his own feet too many times to count. Edgar and Mack laughed and ribbed him about it, even as they made their own mistakes and received their own share of ridicule. Lynn couldn’t help but be jealous of their carefree attitudes. Would she ever feel so at ease around her friends? It wasn’t a question she liked to dwell on.

After a solid two hours of hunting, first behind the shopping center then behind several restaurants on the east side of the cemetery, all four guys had finally reached Level 2. Lynn got the perfect teaching opportunity when Mack was jumped by several ghosts and a gremlin as soon as he leveled. She taught them to make sure their globes and plates were topped off when they were close to leveling, plus she showed them how to alter their settings so their display notices didn’t distract them during combat.

By the time the sun dipped below the level of the trees, they were worn out but happy. Even Ronnie seemed less grumpy, though he was still ignoring Lynn like she didn’t exist. Mack finally said he needed to get going or his mom would freak out, so Ronnie called them in for a huddle.

“All right, guys,” Ronnie said, “good job for today but we’ve got a lot of training and leveling to do. We have to learn this game backwards and forwards by September. Until we’ve all reached Level 20, I think we should meet up every day of the week—”

“Whaaat? That’s crazy,” said Dan and the others’ protests weren’t far behind.

“That’s kinda excessive on top of my job, Ronnie.”

“Yeah, my mom will think I’ve joined a cult or something.”

Ronnie narrowed his eyes.

“This is a chance of a lifetime and the only way we’re going to win it is if we commit one hundred percent. Weren’t you paying attention to the prize announcement yesterday? This isn’t some silly regional competition for bragging rights. This is as big as the World Cup, as big as the Olympics—”

“—I don’t know about that,” muttered Dan but Ronnie ignored him.

“This is a global fight for supremacy in the biggest game of the twenty-first century. We’re making history, here, you guys! If you don’t have what it takes to commit, then you should flake out now so we can find someone to replace you. It’s not fair if you hold everyone else back.” Ronnie glared around at the group, his unspoken “if you hold me back” hovering in the air.

“Hey, guys,” Lynn cut in before another shouting match started. “I think what Ronnie means is that we have to take our training seriously. There’s no point doing this halfway. We’re going to have to make sacrifices.”

She looked at each of her friends in turn as she spoke, even Ronnie, who glared at her, though he didn’t interrupt.

“I know I for one could be doing other more, um, profitable things, right now. But I’ve chosen this instead. I’ve chosen you guys. We should make sure right now that we’re all ready for how much work this is going to take. We might not need to meet every day of the week but we should certainly be training every day, even if only for an hour or two. So…are we all ready for this?”

There was a moment of silence, then Dan piped up.

“Heck, why not? All I ever do is game anyway. Some of my MMORPG groups are going to whine about it but they’ll get over it. I’ll have to come up with something to tell my parents, though. They always try to sign me up for extracurricular stuff during the summer and I get out of it by convincing them I’m too busy taking virtual AP classes. Maybe I can tell them it’s robotics camp or something. They’ll be so proud of me for signing up all on my own.” He grinned impishly and everyone chuckled.

Dan’s parents were obsessed with achievements, and considering his older brother was a lawyer and his older sister was currently in pre-med, he had a lot to live up to. Fortunately for him, he was an expert at hacking parental controls and he’d rigged all his gaming equipment to flip seamlessly between homework-looking material and his game screens at the flick of a finger.

“It’s gonna be a rough summer but as long as we meet after one o’clock on the days I work, I’m in,” Edgar said, giving Lynn a big grin. “We gotta win this competition, though. I’ll have to promise my sister some of that prize money to take over for me when I’m supposed to babysit my siblings while Mom’s at work. Well, unless you guys are cool with them tagging along…”

A chorus of “No!” “Nope,” “Absolutely not,” came from the other guys. Lynn didn’t say anything but she silently agreed.

Edgar shrugged.

“Cool. No worries. My sis is a mean negotiator, though. It’s gonna take some serious mulla to get her to cover for me all summer.”

“All the more reason to get to work and dominate this thing,” Ronnie said. “Who’s left? Mack?”

Everyone turned to look at Mack, who shuffled his feet.

“I dunno, guys. I want to, I swear but my mom has been on me to get a summer job, and…well you know my mom.”

“Scary lady,” Edgar agreed, widening his eyes in emphasis.

“You can play it by ear, Mack,” Lynn said. “If she asks, try telling her your gaming group has entered an AR competition to improve your health and develop your teamwork and leadership skills for future job opportunities. Lots of companies use AR gaming scenarios for corporate team-building and having advanced skills in navigating an AR environment is absolutely something you could put on your resume.”

“That’s brilliant, Lynn. Thanks!”

“Good, so we all agree, then,” Ronnie said before Lynn could reply to Mack. “We’ll meet five days a week and spend the other two doing solo training—”

And they were off arguing again.

Lynn mentally threw up her hands and let the guys duke it out over schedules. It didn’t matter to her, since she’d be training and hunting every day anyway.

They eventually agreed to meet four days a week, do individual training two days a week and take it easy on Sunday. Lynn had insisted on that last one, since she knew Mom would put her foot down anyway. Sunday was their girls’ hangout day and family was more important than gaming, Matilda would say.

Ronnie broke up their huddle without mentioning anything about training plans but she kept her mouth shut. He seemed to view her suggestions as a threat to his leadership. Maybe she could share her ideas with Dan and have him talk it over with Ronnie? Hopefully the idiot would listen to Dan, at least.

By the time true dusk had arrived, they’d trooped back to the nearby airbus platform in front of the mall and had said their goodbyes. Dan and Ronnie hopped on the same airbus since they both lived out toward Marion. Edgar lived downtown, close to the river and Lynn and Mack’s neighborhoods were on the way there, so they all caught the same airbus together. She wished them both a warm, if exhausted, goodbye when the airbus reached her apartment complex.

Her feet dragged on the way back to her apartment, not because her muscles ached but because of what she’d promised herself she’d do when she got home.

Tell her mom the truth.


“All right, young lady. Out with it.”

“What?” Lynn asked, looking up from her plate full of taco pizza—one of the few things she loved about living in Iowa.

“I haven’t seen you this fidgety since you were asked to beta test TD Hunter and were trying to tell me about it. What is it this time? Have they asked you to beta test another game?”

“Um, no, Mom. It’s not that.”

“Okay,” Matilda said and put down her fork to give Lynn her full attention. “Then what is it?”

Lynn couldn’t quite meet her mom’s gaze, so instead she stared over Matilda’s shoulder at the smartframe on their kitchen wall. It was connected to her mom’s subscription to EveryPhoto, a massive database of beautiful photography that let you program your frame to show whatever sort of pictures you wanted, taken by professionals all over the world. Her mom had it set to landscape photography from the Black Hills and Badlands areas in South Dakota where Matilda had grown up. Lynn had only ever been there the times she’d visited her grandparents’ small cattle ranch on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

“Sweetie?”

“Yeah. Sorry.” There was more silence as Lynn tried to decide how to start. “Mom…when did you know what you wanted to do with your life?”

“Well,” Matilda said, eyeing her daughter. “I’ve always been interested in fixing people up. I thought when I was a kid I was going to be a vet, since we had more animals than people on the ranch. But there weren’t any good scholarships for vet school and in high school I decided nursing would be a safer shot. I wasn’t terribly picky, as long as it got me off the reservation.”

Lynn wanted to ask “why,” but didn’t. As much as she would love the distraction, she couldn’t dance around this forever.

“Did you ever doubt yourself?”

“Sure, who doesn’t? Halfway through my nursing degree at University of Maryland where I got my scholarship I almost quit, I was so sick of it all. But then I met your dad and…well, he convinced me to stick it out.”

More questions blossomed in Lynn’s head but this time she didn’t ask them because she knew they wouldn’t be answered.

“Did you ever do something, um, questionable to achieve your dreams?”

Matilda stilled and Lynn could almost feel her not raise an eyebrow.

“Okay. Now you’re making me nervous, sweetie. Whatever it is, it’s okay, you can tell me.”

This was so dumb. She should just say it and be done with it.

“Um, you know how I’ve been managing our finances since that time you let me do it for a school project?”

“Yeees.”

“Well…ever wondered why all those collection agencies stopped spamming your LINC? It’s because I’ve been paying off our debt, a little every month, for years,” Lynn said in a rush, trying to get it all out at once. “And whenever we’ve had an emergency, like when the dishwasher died or when you needed those orthopedic shoes for work, I paid for that too and I’m sorry I haven’t been honest about it all this time…”

Lynn trailed off and there was an expectant silence. Matilda just blinked a few times, as if she wasn’t sure how to process the information.

“Okaaay. That’s good, which means where the money came from is the bad part? When the dishwasher broke you said that money was from Grandma Ingrid. I felt awful for putting the burden on someone else but we didn’t have much of a choice.”

Now it was Lynn’s turn to blink.

“Wait, you mean you’re not mad at me for helping us get by and for lying about it?”

“Oh, honey,” Matilda said and reached across the table to take Lynn’s hand, “why would I be mad at you? I’m sorry I’ve never been open about our…well, our financial situation after your dad died. But it was a burden I wanted to spare you from. You were so young. Even now I hate the idea of burdening you with our problems but you’re a young woman and you’ve obviously done a wonderful job of balancing our finances every month. I honestly thought you were just really good at making every penny count. That said, I might be mad at you depending on where all that money came from…” She trailed off and gave Lynn a skeptical look.

A nervous chuckle escaped Lynn as the tension in her chest eased. Obviously it would still be a chore to explain everything but that was all gaming stuff, stuff her mom had no opinions about. This secret, this burden was what she’d been afraid of. And her mom wasn’t mad. Well, not yet.

“I make money playing games, Mom.”

“Excuse me?” Matilda said.

“Can I show you some stuff?” Lynn said, drawing her hand out of her mom’s grasp. She projected her LINC display so her mom could see it and brought up her WarMonger auction listings. One column listed the items she’d sold, another showed the sale price and a third displayed the total transferred to her external account minus fees.

“What are all these things and where in the world did you get them?” Matilda asked, her finger tracing the column of various weapons, armor and other items labeled in WarMonger gamer shorthand.

“I’m a merc,” Lynn said. “A mercenary. These are all from that game I play called WarMonger. Somebody wants a strong player on their team and they pay me to show up, sometimes in the form of gear that I sell on this site, sometimes it’s just a straight fee.”

She flipped to another screen that showed her bank account, letting her mom examine the deposits. Matilda’s eyes widened as they scanned down and at one entry she almost choked.

“Three hundred dollars? Real dollars? For people to hire my daughter to play a game? Online? Not even meet her?”

“That’s actually below my usual fee but there were reasons. Generally, I don’t get out of bed for less than five hundred. And if they’re asking me to fight Tier Ones or Twos it better be more than that.”

“That’s crazy,” Matilda said, her voice faint.

“They don’t even know I’m a girl,” Lynn said, grinning. “They think I’m some grizzled old guy with a baritone named Larry Coughlin. Most people think I’m a former SEAL or something. I’ll never tell, though. The mystery gives me a reputation. Sometimes I’ll drop hints and say something like,” she lowered her voice as far as it would go, “‘This reminds me of good times in Sarajevo!’”

“Oh, my GOD!” Matilda said and burst out laughing. “Please tell me that’s not the voice you use online,” she gasped out.

“I’ve got a voice modulator,” Lynn said, pointing at her throat. “Sounds like a real guy.”

“Oh—my—!” Matilda said, continuing to gasp in laughter. Tears were coming out of her eyes. “My daughter, international mercenary of mystery! Does anyone else know?”

“Well, some of the people over at WarMonger who manage the servers and stuff. Also, some of the players I’ve made friends with in WarMonger are also Alpha testers for TD Hunter. I’ve even met one of them,” Lynn admitted. “He works in the Tactical Support department and he was an actual operator. Like, in the real. He said he spit out a mouthful of drink when he found out ‘Larry’ was a teenage girl.”

“I imagine he did,” Matilda said, wiping her eyes.

“Mom,” Lynn said carefully, scrolling further down to more recent transactions. “These days, because I’ve been focusing on TD Hunter, ‘Larry Coughlin’ won’t get out of bed for less than a grand.”

“A grand?” Matilda said, her eyes widening again. “A thousand dollars. Not five hundred, a thousand?”

“I’m a Tier One operator,” Lynn said, shrugging. “That means I’m in the ninety-nine point ninth percentile of players. Hang on.” She scrolled all the way to the bottom of her savings account summary to where the total showed in big green numbers. This was the moment of truth.

Her mother considered the projected display in charged silence.

“That’s more than I make in a year, Lynn,” Matilda said quietly.

“I…I know,” Lynn said. “I’m sorry I’ve been keeping it a secret, I was just so afraid if I told you, you would be angry and make me stop gaming. But gaming is my life, it’s the only thing that gets me through each day. I’m saving all this for college and of course paying off our debt.”

The somber silence continued and Lynn dared to glance up at her mom’s expression. It was smooth. Thoughtful. Definitely not angry. But something about the angle of her brows gave off a hint of wariness. And sadness.

“There are some really big deposits here,” her mother said. “A lot more than five hundred dollars. Wait, this one is five thousand dollars, Lynn? That seems like an awful lot for someone to pay for just a game.…”

“That was a good day,” Lynn hurried to explain. “That client was, um, a senior partner I think in a high-end law firm in New York. His firm and another firm had a sort of friendly game going but then the partner at the other firm hired a bunch of Tier Ones and Twos, top people in the game like me.”

“Like you,” Matilda said, nodding sagely as one side of her mouth quirked.

Lynn grinned and sped up.

“I looked at the team he was up against and then the guys he’d been able to recruit for his side and told him no. But he was persistent and said I could name my price, so I said five grand, cash, and told him I’d recruit some people I knew and they’d be a grand apiece. I really didn’t want to go in against the other team but next thing I knew, there was five grand in my account, so I couldn’t back out. It all worked out, though, because I knew the other team and what type of tactics they were weak against, so I was able to recruit the right mix of skill to take them out. Come to think of it, Fallu was on the other team that time.”

“Fallu?” Matilda said.

“The guy who works at TD Hunter,” Lynn said. “He’s really good at medium range but he takes positions that open him up to snipers. And one guy, SweetVengeance68, is really good at reading him. So, I messaged SweetVengeance an offer of a thousand in cash to show up. Stuff like that. Put the team together.”

“Did you win?” Matilda asked.

Lynn snorted.

“Before a match starts, the other team shows up on the board. Well, we went into the field and waited. And waited. And waited. Then the other team dropped off the board.”

“Okay, I don’t follow. What does that mean?”

“They defaulted,” Lynn explained. “They saw my team and realized I’d stacked the deck against them. See, if you lose to a lower level player you lose major points, especially if a team of mostly lower players wipes out your team. The people I recruited were all lower players who had successfully beaten one of them at some point or another. They knew I’d have my teammates find and concentrate on the opponents they knew best how to beat while I finished off any survivors. Wipe five Tier Ones off the board with a handful of Tier Twos and Tier Threes and that’s a big change in ranking. They’d lose major points, I’d gain major points. It would probably have bumped me to number eight or nine in the rankings. Especially since some of them would have dropped down to Tier Two. You’d have to throw a lot of money at a Tier One player to get him to risk dropping down to Tier Two for one measly game. So, they defaulted instead. Doesn’t count as a loss. Game never happened.”

“But, weren’t they being paid?” Matilda asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Lynn said, shrugging. “But sometimes you just decide there’s other days to make money. Not a hill worth dying on. I’ve dumped out when I’ve seen the other team a time or two. You just say ‘Not today.’ We’re mercenaries, not idiots. We’ve got to live to spend our pay.”

“Got to live to spend your pay?” Matilda said, chortling. “You sound like some grizzled old mercenary.”

Lynn shrugged.

“The lingo and mindset come with the territory. I’ve been playing Larry for so long that I guess…well, I guess he’s a part of me, in some ways.” She felt foolish saying it but her mom looked amused.

“And I thought I’d seen it all,” Matilda said, leaning back in her chair and shaking her head. Then she sighed. “I guess I did suspect you’d been getting money from somewhere. It wasn’t just the washer, although you were obviously good about not spending it. I just…didn’t want to push you away by prying, I guess. And with how crazy my schedule is, it’s easy to forget about things you don’t want to think about. But I did wonder sometimes…worried, even, about what you might be doing…”

As the silence dragged on Lynn thought about the pause, then thought some more, then screwed up her face in disgust.

“Oh, Mom! Really?” Lynn said. “You’ve got to be…Mother!”

“I didn’t know, okay?” Matilda said, rubbing her temples. “As far as I could tell you were just playing video games. I had no reason to doubt your responsible behavior. But with my schedule, you’re here by yourself for hours. I don’t like that, but…I’m sorry for thinking…anything. I had no idea you could make money from games.”

“It’s okay,” Lynn said after another shudder. “But…Seriously? Me?”

“I work in a hospital,” Matilda said, shrugging. “We see more than we’d like of how the world really works. Honestly, I should have gotten to the bottom of this ages ago, I just didn’t want to be that mom, you know? Assuming the worst and micromanaging you when you’ve already been through so much…”

“Hey, Mom, I’m the one who’s supposed to be apologizing, not you. I’m the one who lied.”

“I know, honey. Obviously lying is bad and I wish you’d trusted me enough to be honest from the beginning. But I forgive you and I’m so grateful you came to me to explain things.” She paused, as if a sudden thought had come to her. “You’re a minor…how did you even open a bank account by yourself in the first place?”

“Um, well, there’s ways to do banking in virtual anonymously…like not through a traditional bank. Places that don’t care if you’re a minor or not. Cryptocurrency and all that.”

Matilda looked skeptical and leveled a stern eye at her daughter.

“Are you paying taxes on your earnings?”

“Erm, no, not yet—but I’m going to, I promise! I…know some people, they’ve been managing it all for me but, uh, now that things are out in the open I can get a normal bank account and declare my income and all that.”

“Okay, well, I suppose that’s good enough,” Matilda said, sighing. “Our country is screwed up enough as it is, we need everybody doing their part to hold things together, especially when our idiotic Congress is passing black bills funneling trillions of dollars to who knows where.”

“Uh, say what?” Lynn asked. She was about as interested in politics as the guys were in Fashion Diva but it was something her mom regularly stressed over. And “trillions” was a lot of money.

“They just passed a bill in Congress that nobody knows what’s in it,” Matilda said. “It’s causing a lot of problems.”

“What do you mean nobody knows what’s in it?” Lynn said.

“They’re called black bills because the contents are supposedly too sensitive for national security to release to the public,” Matilda replied. “Most people have never heard of them because they usually only pertain to military spending and are kept pretty hush hush. But this one is different. The funding is for a bunch of different departments from military to intelligence to infrastructure and technology. And it’s the first that Congress has admitted includes regulations and legal provisions, meaning there are laws in it. But nobody knows what is in it. So…how do you vote on, much less obey, a law that you can’t even read?”

“Whaaa? That’s crazy,” Lynn said, brow furrowed. Real crazy. Maybe she shouldn’t be so obsessed with gaming all the time and keep an eye on the real world, too.

“Yes. It is. I blame the President,” Matilda said with a sigh. “None of this would have happened if Warrick had been elected. And of course all this money has to come from somewhere, so they’ve cut medical spending, which we’ve already been told is going to affect the hospital. We don’t have enough money as it is. Some people are saying it has to do with terrorism or cybersecurity but nobody is talking. It was all over the news for a while then it just…dropped away. I e-mailed our congresswoman but all I got was platitudes about ‘for the good of the nation.’ It was a form letter, basically.”

“Huh. Well, I’ve run into some people online who think the U.S. is going to have a civil war any day now,” Lynn said. “Maybe they’re right. Maybe the government is preparing for something like that.”

“Where do you run into crazies like that?” Matilda asked, sounding worried.

“The mesh web is a screwy place, Mom,” Lynn said with a wry smile. “You meet all kinds. I do a bunch of digging around on chat boards and in forums for my Larry Coughlin persona. I look up military lingo and stuff. I end up reading a bunch of conspiracy theories and random chatter in the military community. I don’t necessarily believe any of it, much less agree with it but I’ve run into the discussions. I’d guess those boards are exploding about now if the ‘gubmint’ is passing laws and nobody can read them.”

“Well, that’s one way to stay informed,” her mom muttered, finally digging back into her taco pizza.

“Yeah, I haven’t been on the boards much in the past month or two though, because of TD Hunter.”

“Oh, yes, how did it go yesterday with your friends? By the time I got up this morning you were already gone again to meet them, so I assume it went well? Did you enjoy playing with them?”

“Um, yeah, about that…” Lynn fidgeted with her fork, then took a bite of her own pizza to give herself a minute to think. This was the other thing she hadn’t been looking forward to talking about. But she didn’t have a choice.

“It was pretty good,” she said finally after swallowing. “Ronnie was still a jerk but everybody else was really cool. We plan on meeting regularly to, well, practice.”

“Practice? Why, is there something going on?”

“Yeah. You know how I’ve been gaming constantly since I was thirteen? Well, it’s become pretty important to me, not to mention I’m good at it. Really good, according to Mr. Krator. Anyway, TD Hunter is putting on some regional and eventually global competitions. That’s pretty normal, most big games have them. But since this is an AR game, it can’t be participated in remotely, you know? And the competitions will only be for teams, no individual games.”

Matilda raised her eyebrows.

“Teams? Does that mean…”

“Yup. Me and the guys formed a team. Or at least, we’re going to. But to compete we have to qualify first and that’s why we have to practice. A lot. Like, all summer long.”

“Okay…that doesn’t sound too bad. All that exercise will be good for you, anyway.” Her mom smiled and Lynn tried to smile back but the sudden churning in her gut made it hard.

“I don’t think you quite understand, Mom. We will have to go all over the city, exploring in places we’ve never been before, looking for monsters to hunt.”

“Oh…but you’ll all be together, right?”

“Most of the time, probably. But…” Lynn took a deep breath and pushed onward. “I could be dishonest and promise you I’d always have a buddy. Just to keep you from worrying. But I know I can’t keep that promise. Not if we want any chance of winning. We’ll all have to do our own individual training on days we can’t meet. Plus, I’m the best player on our team, so I’ll be scouting new locations and learning new fighting techniques to teach everyone else and give us an edge.”

“Honey…I don’t know…”

Lynn looked her mom right in the eye.

“I’m not a kid anymore, Mom. This is important to me. More important than anything else I’ve ever done. I didn’t mention it before but the grand prize is five million dollars per player, a full ride for a gaming degree and a job at Tsunami Entertainment.”

Matilda’s eyes bugged out.

Five million dollars?”

“Yeah and I can’t train like I should if I’m always worried about what time of day it is or whether or not I have a buddy with me. I’ll be careful, I can definitely promise you that. And the game AI, Hugo, is as good as any buddy. He can watch out while I’m distracted and he has a direct connection to the city’s emergency services.”

There was a heavy silence while her mom looked at her, then looked away.

“I know it seems unfair, Lynn, but you’re a young woman and it’s not safe to go traipsing around the city by yourself, especially at night. It wouldn’t be responsible of me to allow it.”

Frustration rose in Lynn but she bit her tongue, taking a moment to breathe deeply through her nose before replying.

“Dad wasn’t a young woman alone at night,” she said quietly.

Her mom flinched.

“He was a freaking six-foot-something, muscular guy in broad daylight. And he still got attacked. He still died.”

The silence stretched on this time while Lynn tried not to remember. She failed.

The attack happened while her dad was in plainclothes and the perp had taken his wallet and watch, so the investigators assumed it wasn’t related to her dad’s job. Just a random mugging.

The case was still unsolved, as far as Lynn knew. Little to no physical evidence and only grainy surveillance footage from behind of a white male, about five foot eleven. The slugs from the scene were 9mm Luger, probably shot from a Glock G19 but Lynn only knew that because she’d eavesdropped on a couple of her dad’s coworkers outside his hospital room while she held his hand and silently begged him to wake up. There were three wounds: one to the head, one to the shoulder and one to the gut. The gut and shoulder had been manageable. Bad but manageable. The one to the head had left bone fragments in her dad’s brain and sent him into a coma with severe swelling. They’d pulled out all the stops trying to save him, even trying experimental nanite exploratory surgery and stem-cell therapy to heal the damaged brain tissue. But after weeks of hanging on, his body finally gave up.

She’d never even gotten to say goodbye.

Her dad had just been out jogging. Nothing dangerous. Nothing risky. But ever since, her mom had been paranoid about Lynn going anywhere by herself. It hadn’t been too bad right after it happened and they’d left Baltimore to live with her grandparents in South Dakota. There was nobody to randomly mug her on the ranch. But when they’d first moved to Cedar Rapids, Matilda had suffered a lot of anxiety and Lynn had spent months “checking in” every hour to help her mom cope. That’s what happened sometimes when you suffered a sudden and traumatic loss—the knowledge that everything you love could be ripped away at any moment is imprinted onto your very soul. Lynn was better at ignoring those crippling fears considering she had plenty of other crippling anxieties to deal with. Plus, once she started gaming, it was easier to forget everything. In virtual she was safe and her lack of desire to leave her room, much less the apartment, soothed a lot of her mom’s fears as well. They’d coped together that way for a long time. And over the years, Matilda’s fears had faded.

But now they had to face them.

Lynn knew she needed to be understanding. Her mom was way more emotional than she was, so her dad’s death hadn’t hit her the same way it had her mom. But how did her mom plan on coping once Lynn went to college? They had to deal with this now.

“Mom…” Lynn said.

Matilda took a shuddering breath and finally looked back. Moisture shone in her eyes but she didn’t wipe it away.

“I know honey…I know. It’s just so hard. So. So. Hard.”

The pain in her mom’s voice had Lynn moving before she realized it. She pushed away from the table and came around it to wrap her arms around her mom’s shoulders and lean her forehead down to rest it on her mom’s head. Matilda reached up to give her arm a squeeze.

“I miss him,” Lynn said. Her eyes burned but her voice was steady.

“I miss him too, sweetie. But he would have been so proud of you, his little warrior princess.”

Despite the somber mood, her mom’s words made her lips quirk.

“I don’t think Larry Coughlin is quite what Dad would have called a ‘little warrior princess.’”

Her mom chuckled wetly.

“No, definitely not. But you are absolutely what he would consider a warrior woman. Look how much you’ve grown and through crushing circumstances that no one should ever have to cope with.”

Lynn shrugged, not sure what to say. How could she be a warrior woman when she was embarrassed to even be seen out in public? A warrior was supposed to be brave. Powerful. Fearless. As far as she could tell, the only things she had done in the past seven years were not get kicked out of school and get really good at shooting people in a video game. That was it.

“I know it’s been hard dealing with my anxiety. But it’s been like this for so long, I don’t know where the line is between unfounded fears and wise parental precaution. Wait until you have kids. You’ll see what I mean then.”

That got a snort out of Lynn.

“Sorry to break it to you, Mom, but I don’t really see myself as the mothering type.”

Matilda laughed and pulled back so she could see her daughter’s face.

“I thought the same thing when I was a teenager, dear. Give it time, you’ll see. Besides, I want grandchildren!”

Lynn rolled her eyes.

“Can we focus, Mom? Please?”

Matilda sighed and rubbed her face.

“You’re right, you are old enough to be responsible for yourself if you want to go out. But it’s perfectly reasonable to take precautions and I need to know you aren’t just wandering around completely vulnerable.”

“I know, Mom. That’s why I’ll have Hugo’s help. Seriously, he’s pretty awesome. When those guys were bothering me over at the Heathers apartments, he scared them off by threatening to call over a nearby police drone. It was pretty cool.”

“That’s certainly reassuring. But drones aren’t always nearby and a drone can’t save you if…if you get attacked. You should at least carry some pepper spray.”

Lynn thought about that for a moment then shrugged.

“I’m okay with that,” Lynn said, finally stepping back from their embrace and returning to her seat. “So, if I carry pepper spray, you’re okay with me hunting wherever and whenever I need to?”

“I still expect you to keep me informed of where you are, what you’re doing and when you’ll be home. I’m still your mother, missy.” Matilda pointed her fork at her daughter with a look of mock severity.

“Don’t worry, I will,” Lynn said, then she grinned. “You know, Mr. Thomas was right. I feel so much better now, sort of light and free.”

“Mr. Thomas? Do you mean our neighbor downstairs?”

“Yeah. I’ve seen him around a few times when I’ve been hunting in our complex. He gave me some advice yesterday about keeping secrets.”

Her mom smiled.

“Well, that was kind of him. I haven’t seen him around for a while, maybe I’ll make him some cookies and drop by. He’s getting on in years and I don’t know if he has any family in this area.”

“I’ve never seen him with anybody else,” Lynn said around a mouthful of food.

“Neither have I…you know, I think I’ll make him some cookies as soon as we’re done with dinner. Want to help?”

Lynn thought about all the research she needed to do for team training. Then she thought about the last time she’d ever spoken to her dad. It was the morning he’d been attacked. She’d been on their couch watching cartoons as he’d headed for the front door. He’d paused at the couch to ruffle her hair and say goodbye. She’d just grunted in reply.

The memory still haunted her.

“Sure, Mom, I’d love to.”


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