The smoky-gray glow of her weapon smoldered in the shadows, and her heavy breaths came through the audio. Eventually, her breathing slowed, until she was taking deep, meditative breaths. Nice, Hannah.
The outline of two opponents appeared at the end of the street. They charged into the darkness. Hannah raced to meet them. Her axe swirled and chopped, streaking through the black backdrop. Her opponents cried out, and one after another, dropped to the ground. Faint moonlight creased the edges of her face as she looked up at the sky and shouted, “Is that all you’ve got?”
Yup. Definitely enjoying this. The audience would think she was just putting on a good show, but really, it was a subliminal taunt at the VGL.
The weeks started clicking by, faster than I could count. Derek faced his fear. Not surprisingly, snakes. His apprehension of Unagi the Eel suddenly made a lot more sense. But that only caused our teasing about it to triple.
I still hadn’t seen mine. I didn’t know what the game would prepare for me, but nothing triggered my fears over losing the team or seeing them hurt, other than by the hands of our opponents. But the game itself remained stoic on that front.
The winners’ bracket of the tournament played out. K-Rig won the first slot into the championship. The second went to Eon, the Swedish team I’d met at the all-star dinner.
Pretty soon, the game had nothing left for us to face. The matchups were only between us and our opponents. Either we’d mastered our fears, and the pods couldn’t sense them anymore, or the VGL had realized we’d figured out their plan and backed off.
The week of the semifinals for the loser’s bracket, I sat in front of my computer, waiting for the announcement that would reveal our opponent. Derek sat beside me, leaning against the desk. I wasn’t sure where the rest of the team had taken off to, but they disappeared after supper, and Derek had insisted on waiting for the matchup announcement in my office. He hunched over my shoulder, watching the screen as intently as I was.
My e-mail chimed, and I immediately tapped it open. I leaned across the table so Derek could read the message as well.
Legacy vs. Epoch
Defiance vs. Oblivion
Rounds: Best out of three
We traded looks with each other.
“Best out of three,” Derek said. “Looks like that’s the new element for the semifinals. So, we’ll have to win twice.”
“Against Cole’s team,” I emphasized. “He knows things about us. Weaknesses.”
“We know things about him, too,” he pointed out.
“But he knows our whole team. We don’t know his.”
He considered that. “I know I’m not in charge of strategy anymore, but I think you and Rooke should go for the flag this round. The chemistry between you is back.”
So was shower sex.
“We could debate strategy against Oblivion all night,” I said.
“In that case, I’m grabbing a drink.” He nodded toward the door. “Come with me.”
“Can’t even get a drink by yourself?” I teased, standing up from my desk. “Don’t let the game know that.”
He frowned at me until I bumped shoulders with him and skidded past him toward the kitchen.
“Everything’s going really well with the team,” he said, hurrying to catch up.
I glanced at him as he reached my side, and grinned. “Can I tell you something?”
He nodded.
“I think we can make it.”
He grinned back.
“Me, too.”
We walked into the darkened kitchen together, and the lights popped on.
“Surprise.”
The chorus rang out from the rest of my teammates, who were all gathered around the kitchen table. Their tablets projected holograms of virtual balloons. There was a pile of gifts on the counter. A cake sat next to it. Judging by the pink frosting and floral design, Hannah had ordered it.
“Whose birthday is it?” I asked.
Lily laughed. “It’s yours, dumb-ass.”
What? No. It couldn’t be mine . . .
I counted the weeks in my mind, thinking back to the first day of the tournament and going forward. It was April 21. Holy shit, it really was my birthday. I’d been so caught up in training, working with the team on our fears, and prepping for the next matchup, I’d completely lost track of time.
I glanced between the cake and the stack of gifts.
“Which first?”
“Oh, I think we’ll start with this,” Hannah said with a grin, picking up a knife to slice the cake. She placed a piece on a plate and handed it to me. I studied it. Chocolate cake glistened, all moist and dark, and the thick scent of sugary frosting wafted up to my nose. I eyed Hannah over the dessert.
“If it’s sugar-free, I’m going to hurt you.”
I shoved a forkful in my mouth, and it melted the minute it hit my tongue. Definitely not sugar-free.
Hannah quickly sliced pieces for everyone else. Derek helped himself to seconds, then thirds. The rest of us followed his lead. This was the first junk food we’d had since the start of the tournament. Hell, I was surprised we didn’t rip the cake apart and eat it with our bare hands like one-year-olds.
Next came the gifts. The first few were a series of gag gifts, including a hat and scarf for Unagi the Eel. The first serious present I opened came from Hannah, who got me a gift certificate for massage and acupuncture.
“I figured you could use some relaxation time after the tournament,” she said, and kissed my cheek. I laughed, and nearly kissed her back. With all the chaos of the tournament, relaxation sounded just about perfect.
When I grabbed the next box and popped it open, my mouth dropped. Inside was a three-foot-by-two-foot bamboo canvas. Painted on the canvas was the team. Done in a black and white graphic-novel sort of style, only the shadows of our faces were colored in with black ink, so the wood-colored bamboo showed through to make up the highlights. We were encircled in swirling puffs of smoke. In each corner was one of the four Chinese symbols from my jacket inside the game. Harmony, balance, nature, and peace.
“Lily,” I gasped. “Did you make this?”
She blushed a little and nodded.
“Thank you.”
It seemed like a meager thing to say for a gift so personal, but the smile on Lily’s face was all I needed to know it was enough. I pulled her into a deep side-hug, and she squeezed me back.
When I reached for Rooke’s present, the rest of the team did a drumroll against the kitchen table. I ripped off the wrapping to reveal a PlayStation 5, the first PlayStation with a VR headset included in the box set. Rooke had also added a stack of games and adapter plugs for modern TV screens. But before I even set my hands on the box, my teammates snatched it up.
“Now we can play Tekken 9 on the original system,” Derek said, as he carried the box over to the living room. “Me versus anyone who wants to die.”
Hannah followed him with the stack of games in hand. “It’s Kali’s gift, and Rooke gave it to her. They should play first.”
Derek pulled the system from the box and attached the adapter unit to the cables. “It’s her house, too. She should be a good host and share with her friends.”
“Hey, guys,” Lily called, interrupting the argument. She had pulled on the VR headset that came with the system. It was solid black, somewhat sleek but still ridiculously oversized, taking up a good third of her face. She grinned. “Look, it’s cordless!”
The room erupted in laughter. Both Derek and Hannah fell on their backs, gripping their stomachs.
“Holy shit,” Derek squeezed out. “It’s so advanced.”
As I watched my teammates kill themselves laughing over the archaic technology that was my birthday present, I leaned toward Rooke.
“Are you sure this gift is for me?”
He lac
ed his fingers through mine. “I have something to show you.” He nodded toward the back of the house.
I glanced at my giggling teammates on the floor. “But everyone else—”
“They already know.”
He tugged on my hand. I resisted.
“Where are we going?”
“Do you really think all I got you for your birthday was a classic video game console?”
Interesting.
Really, the console was more than enough of a gift. The PS5 had been released more than three and a half decades ago, so to find one mint-in-box couldn’t have been easy. Still, I grinned. “I get a second present? Why can’t you give it to me in front of everyone else?”
“It can’t be wrapped.”
How interesting, indeed. What kind of present couldn’t be wrapped? Okay, I’m down for it. I let him lead me into the pod room. It was empty, other than the pods, and hummed with the buzz of machines and electricity. In other words, same as usual.
“So,” I began, rocking on my feet. “What are we doing?”
He walked toward his pod. “Derek helped me create a special program just for us.”
Oh, a special program. Just for us. If it was anything like what I was already thinking of, there were plenty of “special programs” in the back rooms of strip clubs.
“This is my birthday,” I told him. “Not yours.”
He grinned. “Get changed.”
Fine. I wasn’t going to ruin the surprise. The expression on his face told me this meant something to him. So, I stopped resisting, changed into my pod suit, climbed into my pod, and closed my eyes, with no idea what waited for me on the other side.
• • •
Pure silence.
The deafening kind of silence that swallows any other sound, even your own thoughts, leaving behind nothing but a sense of peace.
I didn’t open my eyes. Not at first.
I took a breath. Thick mountain air expanded my lungs and made me feel whole. Then a bubbling sound broke through the quiet. A stream? No. A river or a small lake, flowing effortlessly over rocks and around bends. Everything was still and moving. Bustling with noise, and somehow still quiet. Birds chirped, leaves rustled, and water bubbled. And yet, the air held an omnipotent weight of calmness and tranquility.
I opened my eyes.
I stood on a dock, which wound its way over a shallow body of water. Its surface shimmered in the sunlight, reflecting that above it while still revealing what lay below, like a translucent mirror. Where the dock ended, stone stairs and paths broke off in several directions. All around me, mountains rose from the ground. As they climbed higher and higher, rock and vegetation wrapped around one another and became one. Stone walls and trails led the way up into the mountains. Every so often, there was a plateau, where small villages of stone structures, statues, and temples had been built, their bright red walls and jade-colored roofs gleaming against the mountainside. Wisps of mist slithered through everything: the lake, the stones, and the mountaintops.
My heart beat just a little softer then, and stronger. I knew this place. The Wudang Mountains. The birthplace of Baguazhang, several other martial arts, and one of the most sacred places in the world for Taoists.
Footsteps walked up behind me.
“I know it’s not as good as the real thing,” Rooke said, “but we can’t actually get on a twenty-hour flight in the middle of a tournament.”
I turned to face him. He stared into my eyes, his expression stoic and warm, like it always was when he was at peace. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. The words snagged in my throat and refused to ascend any higher.
Because, really.
What do you say to the man who built you a mountain?
I crossed my arms as I looked up at him. “You’re still an asshole, sometimes.”
Apparently, that’s what I say.
He grinned. “And you’re still stubborn.”
I grinned back. “Proudly.”
He offered his hand. I studied it for a minute, tapping my foot against the dock. Then I laced my fingers through his, and he led the way. Together, we walked along the dock to the stone steps. We passed through a gate to a small group of buildings and courtyards. In one of the courtyards, nine monks stood in a three-by-three formation. They moved together in perfect synchronicity, performing Bagua circle walking.
“You can interact with them,” Rooke told me. “Since the pods have artificial intelligence, the programming isn’t limited to what the programmer created. It can tap into the Internet or any electronic source, extract information, and channel it through a virtual teacher.” He paused, and chuckled to himself. “Turns out these pods are good for something.”
“So I can discuss Taoist philosophy with them? Don’t I have you for that?” I nudged him playfully. He smiled.
“It’s more than that. You can study every style of martial arts specific to the Wudang school. Plus, I’m not so familiar with the religious side of Taoism. If that’s something you’d like to know more about, you can talk to them.”
He took my hand again. We left the practicing monks behind and kept climbing. Pine, cypress, Chinese maples, and gingko trees framed our path while camellias bloomed the color of sunsets after storms. We wandered through some of the villages, where monks nodded at me as I passed.
In the center of one of the villages was an eight-sided fountain approximately fifteen feet in diameter. It rose three steps, each level slightly smaller than the former. In the center was a stone platform with a yin yang symbol embedded in the stones. The bagua.
“We took a little creative licensing,” he told me, motioning at the water feature. “Not everything here is exactly the same as at the actual Wudang Mountains. But whenever you need some time to yourself, you can come here. Stay for minutes, or for hours.”
I glanced up at him. “Is there hours’ worth of content in here?”
He turned his gaze to the mountains. “Days’ worth, technically. The whole mountain range is accessible. There are steps all the way to the highest peak. You can climb over fifteen hundred meters to the Golden Hall. Plus, there are over a hundred palaces, temples, and pavilions you can visit from different dynasties throughout history.”
We started climbing up the mountainside again. Midway up the steps to the next collection of temples, I stopped at an overlook. It stretched out several feet and ended in the shape of a dragon’s head. I placed a knee against the perch and leaned over it a little, taking in the deep ravine. Below was nothing but green treetops and brush, with streams of water running downhill. The air smelled sweet and dense, the way only mountain air could.
At the next cluster of pavilions, Rooke led me inside the closest one, which was obviously used for studying martial arts. Several classic Chinese weapons lined the walls, including dao glaives, hook swords, and ji polearms. In the center of the room, a pair of men sparred bare-handed, while a semicircle of monks clustered around them, watching their techniques. As we approached, they halted their fight, turned to us, and bowed deeply. Then they motioned for us to take their place.
I surged forward. Good idea, boys. But when I reached the center, my fighting partner hadn’t followed. Rooke walked over to the wall, retrieved two sets of deerhorn knives, and handed a pair to me. I gripped them tight in my hands, feeling the subtle leather grips rub against my palms. I rested my weight on my back foot and swirled through a few sharp movements from the Baguazhang poses. The knives slid through the air, feeling both weighted and fluid. The knives, my movements, everything felt the same as real life.
Rooke took up a pose opposite me, like he was preparing for a duel. I had to smile.
“I told you before. These aren’t really meant to spar with.”
“That doesn’t sound much like the warrior to me.” His grin spread from ear to ear. “Unless you’re afrai
d to lose.”
My expression set. I slid back and struck a pose. “I’m going to take your ears off last, so you’ll hear my rants the entire time.”
He got into his position and grimaced. “I might just stab myself in the eardrums.”
It went quiet between us, and throughout the entire room. I felt nothing but the air on my skin and the intense stares of the monks around us. I locked eyes with Rooke, each of us waiting for the other to move. When we finally did, it was in perfect synchronicity.
The whole thing was a dance. We moved like one. Like the entire routine had been planned out and rehearsed.
We spun around each other, growing closer with each turn. When the blades started wisping across each other’s skin, Rooke suddenly surged forward for a final move. We locked up. The tip of his blade dug into my back, and the edge of mine pressed into the soft spot under his jaw. He glanced down at me, keeping his head high.
“I guess that’s a draw.”
“Only because you stopped.”
He dropped his weapons to the floor, and with his arms still wrapped around me, crushed me against him. I burst out laughing and dropped my own weapons.
“Death by asphyxiation,” I squeezed out between gasps of laughter. “That’s cheating.”
He caved.
The second he loosened his grip, I wrapped my ankle around his and threw my shoulder into his upper body. He lost his balance and fell back. I landed on top of him, pinning him on the floor.
He laughed, and I watched the movement rumble in his chest. That wasn’t manufactured laughter, not simply a response to the situation. It was genuine. Whatever anger he’d been holding when we first started practicing was gone.
It made me happy. Happier than I expected. I pressed my lips together as my throat grew tight. I didn’t feel quite connected to my body in that moment. Not because this was the virtual world. But because this was the virtual world and what I felt was so real. But instead of fighting it, instead of separating what was real and what wasn’t, I just let them mingle. Constructed or organic. Digital or real. It didn’t matter. Together, they left me breathless.
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