"Because you shot him," Zaya chuckled while chewing.
"Was that me?" Rhese feigned surprise. "Where's your food, new guy?"
I didn't bother to answer. I was obviously being toyed with. Instead, I was debating on what to do. Go back to my room? Retrieve some food or stay there? Sit down with them now without my own bowl? Or maybe go sit on the sofa until they were done.
I wasn't one to speak up for myself when it wasn’t absolutely necessary, so I decided on the last option. I turned to head to the other side of the social area.
"Hey, don't cry," Rhese mocked me. I just kept on walking.
"Boone," Memphis called out. "It's okay. Come sit with us."
I slowed my retreat but didn't stop. Philia had told me that the brunette would be the friendly one. Maybe I'd be better off waiting for her to finish eating. She'd probably be the first one to come to me.
Then I stopped in my tracks when Zaya's firm raised voice said, "Rook! Come back. Don't be double rude."
Her plea held less value than the one from Memphis. Yet, there was something in her tone that made me reconsider my plan.
"Why did you kill me?" I asked as I turned around, the slightest quiver in my voice. I told myself that I wasn't going to bring it up. It would only make me look weaker. But the words spilled out of my mouth. My inability to say them without emotion made my lack of control even worse.
They all stopped eating at hearing my query. Zaya did not turn around. Rhese stared at me with no sign of compassion, while Memphis was alternating glances between me and the captain.
Finally, Rhese announced with a firm voice, "It was my right and responsibility. Are you challenging my decisions?"
I could almost see how she had a right to do it. As team captain it was her job to decide what was best for the team. That didn’t always translate to the welfare of each individual player. But how was it her responsibility?
Shaking my head, I turned back around and headed for the sofa. This was not going how I had hoped. I felt myself getting even more emotional. The way I used to as a kid. It meant that I was about to do something stupid. Something that would earn me additional ridicule if I didn't stop myself.
I retreated to my quarters instead. I searched the door frame for a way to close the access but failed to see any. Striding back to the game table I searched the record of the last game for any mission objectives that I might have missed. A clue as to why it was Rhese's responsibility to end me in my first game. Unless my version was limited, there was no explanation for her action.
Dropping into the comfortable chair I tried to force the question out of my head. The panel's countdown told me that only forty-three minutes remained in the team's social time. I needed to get back out there. Yet, I couldn't bring myself to do it.
"It was an honor," a soft voice said from my open doorway to the team room. I looked over to find Memphis leaning against the door frame.
Several things ran through my mind at that moment. What did she mean that it was an honor? To meet me? Or for me to be killed by the captain in the game? Did she know how to close the door? But coming to the forefront was the realization that this girl was actually quite pretty. A make a boy so nervous that his knees knocked kind of pretty.
"I only made it three minutes and seventeen seconds into my first game," she explained. "I never even saw my teammates. Even Zaya didn't last as long as you did on her first try. Boone, you're not supposed to do well on the initial adventure. It was an easy level that gained us nothing. As your teammates we were expected to find it a waste of time, and you to be the cause of it. Rhese would have been considered weak as a captain if she let you finish the level."
I weighed her words. My mind said that her explanation helped, but my heart was still struggling. At least it was nice of her to come looking for me. Was I supposed to invite her in?
"You did well, even earning a skill point," she continued. "It's over now and has no bearing on our team's standing. Put it behind you."
"Thanks," I said as I stood up. I looked around for another chair that she could sit in. The only other was by the dining table. Then there was the bed. Oh my, what if this beautiful young woman came in and sat on my bed?
"I'm not supposed to enter your quarters," Memphis said, reading my mind. Hopefully, she couldn't see everything that I was thinking. "Would you like to join us in the common room? We are almost halfway through our hour."
I hesitated as I thought about what I might say if I did return. Apologize? Ignore the awkwardness? Make small talk?
"Or you and I could just sit on the sofa and talk, if you prefer," she added.
I studied her expression and found it just the slightest bit flirty. Then she did that thing where she casually swung her knee back and forth with her foot up on its toe. At least she didn’t toss her hair around while licking her lips.
I knew that I had to be looking like an idiot. I wasn't responding verbally and that just made the situation more awkward. My palms were sweating, and my legs were starting to shake a little.
"I'll be on the sofa out here if you want to talk," she said as she turned and walked away from my room.
"Memp!" Zaya voice raised. "You gonna play this game with us?"
"No," the friendly girl replied. "I'm going to relax for a few minutes."
"You can relax in your room later," Rhese told her. "This time is for socializing."
"I know. Just give me a few minutes."
She was waiting for me. Giving me time to get over whatever was going on inside my brain. I would regret missing this opportunity once that door shut and left me all alone again. So, I crept toward the entrance to the social area like I was expecting a trap. Instead, Memphis was lying on the couch with her head propped up against the far end. Her face brightened when she saw me approach.
I never had a girlfriend. Seeing her resting there like that patiently waiting for me made me nervous. Her exposed bare feet and ankles in the middle of the sofa. I was hesitant to sit too close. I knew that my awkward nature would cause me to stare at her toes if I did.
When I sat on my side, nearly gripping the arm for support, she sat up and slid over to me. Just inches away I noticed her kick the front of the sofa once, then hold her feet up off the ground. A footrest slowly appeared so she could continue to recline.
I was tempted to do the same, but afraid that mine wouldn't respond. I needed to avoid any further embarrassment.
She sat there quietly for a couple minutes, glancing at me periodically. If she was expecting me to get the conversation going, that would be a problem. Socializing with new people had never been easy for me. Instead, I struggled to keep from staring at her feet propped up in the raised front section of the sofa.
I wanted to talk. I just didn't know what to say to her. I appreciated her coming over and offering insight on how things went for me the way they did in my first game but was unsure of how to word that. Just sitting in silence was helping me calm down. Would she be willing to do that for the rest of the time slot? Instead, she asked me the worst possible question.
"So," she said casually. "Do you have a girlfriend?"
Chapter Six
I did my best to make small talk with Memphis, but I was drastically under-skilled at it. Our conversation consisted mostly of her asking me questions and me supplying the short answers possible. I did ask her a little bit about her past, but there simply wasn't much variance between one childhood and the next on Kylos Magnus station. Our lives were very structured and provided us all the same opportunities. I played more games than her, but she had made more friends. When we compared our favorite games, she used the opportunity to steer the discussion toward our team.
"So, Skotopia is sort of like those games you played in the arcade, especially Doomsday Troopers," Memphis told me. "You'll probably be a lot better at it than me."
"I don't know about that," I replied humbly. "I hope to do well enough not to get booted off the team, though. Can you tell me more abo
ut these ranking levels?"
"Sure," she answered with a smile and a flip of her long brunette hair. I tried desperately to focus on her words and not the proximity of her body. I just wasn't that used to sitting with attractive young women.
"You start at zero obviously. Once you acquire ten skill points in the game, you rank up to level one. Each level is harder to reach, though. You'll need fifteen new skill points to reach level two, so that's twenty-five total."
"You're level three, right?" I asked.
"Yes. I have fifty-three points. I need another seventeen to reach level four."
"So, you are well on your way and I'm still at the beginning."
"You'll catch up fast, I'm sure," she told me with a brief touch of my knee. "Seeing how well you did in your initiation game you’ll be racking up points in no time."
"I guess the goal is to reach level five before I turn twenty. Then I'm on target for level ten before my four years are up. That should keep me from getting dumped down to Athlios?"
"Yes and no," she answered with one finger on her bottom lip as she glanced toward the ceiling to form her reply. "I just turned nineteen, but I'm a bit behind the curve. Dashell was well ahead of me but got cut anyway."
"Why is that?"
"I would call that a personality conflict," she told me. "He didn't get along well with Rhese. The same thing happened to the guy that I replaced. My first impression is that you are nothing like either of them. Still, she was hoping that Dashell's replacement would be another girl."
"Oh," I responded, finally starting to understand. "So, I'm a disappointment already."
"Not really," as she leaned toward me and looked up through her eye lashes. "You just need to show her that you are different. She's kind of a control freak, you see. Don't butt heads, follow her orders, and you'll be fine. You do need to pick up skills as fast as you can, though. She's certainly not happy with my performance, but I don't give her any back talk."
"Back on the subject of leveling up," she continued. "It takes a hundred points to reach level five. However, since each level requires more points than the one before it, you'll need four hundred to reach level ten. It's best to snag up what you can as fast as possible. That's another reason why today's game was a setback. None of us had a legitimate opportunity to gain anything from it. It's not your fault, though. They always run a basic sim when there is a new player."
More good information. I was getting better at processing it despite her casual and often unintentional contact with me. I felt a little dizzy, though. It probably had to do with my inability to draw in a deep breath. I was essentially panting, afraid that a quiver might be heard in my voice if I sucked in too much air.
"Rhese and Zaya are both level seven. They must be really good players," I said.
She nodded emphatically. "They are. But Zaya has twenty-seven more points than Rhese, and she is several months younger. They say she is on a record pace for an Orange Dragon and could rank out the fifth fastest in Skotopian history."
"How does Rhese feel about that?"
"It doesn't bother her that much because we keep winning. And Zaya is a great team player. In fact, she has ten points in healing. Rhese is much more selfish," she whispered. "She's only a two."
The situation was coming together piece by piece. Memphis was going to be a great source of information for me as I started contributing to the team. Who should I try to befriend next, though? Rhese or Zaya? I could see clear advantages to either. Due to my personal limitations, it would probably be the one that became more receptive to me.
"We lost some skills when Dashell got removed from the team," she told me with a serious tone. "That makes it a little harder on the rest of us. Plus, there are some things that none of us were really that great at. If I were you, I'd try to pick up points in categories where we are weak. That will definitely gain you ground with the captain."
"What categories?"
"Mech and Tech, for sure."
"What are those?"
Memphis turned toward me to bring her left leg up on the sofa. Both her knee and foot were then in contact with my right leg. I flinched but did my best not to draw attention to my fright. Hanging out with three girls and no guys was going to take a while for me to get accustomed.
"Mech is mechanical," she explained. She clearly had no issues with getting this close to me even though we had just met. Friendly was an understatement in my opinion. She should be labelled as the team ambassador.
"That mostly means fixing stuff. There was this one game where we needed to repair a rover so we could transport our precious cargo around a canyon. Dashell was the highest skill, but he couldn't get it done. So, instead we had to cross this heavily guarded two-tier bridge while carrying our stuff. The objective was to get all four pieces to the extraction zone. Rhese was pretty pissed off about that one."
"You failed the mission?"
"Not entirely," she answered. "Zaya made out, but she could only carry the one piece. That was a league-wide mission, too. We finished twelfth out of twenty."
"That's bad?"
"We are currently ranked as the fifth best team in the league," she replied. "So, yes. That was unacceptable. So, if you could pick up some mech points, that would be great for the team. Tech is similar, but it is specific to working with computers and gadgets. Not usually fixing them, but just figuring out how to operate them."
"I should take to that category well," I told her, the tiniest bit of pride showing. Tech was probably my best category in real life. Hopefully, it would translate over to the game.
"Awesome!" Her face lit up naturally with the slightest reason to do so. She was the kind of person that could make people feel better about themselves just by being in her presence. That was something that I seriously needed.
"Exactly how do I get these points, though?"
She placed her hand right on my knee as she answered. And didn't pull it back, even when I stared at it. "Mostly by doing those things in the game, figuring things out on the fly. But there are some things that you can study on your own that they'll give you credit for. Or at least allow it to help you on a mission. Your room comp can help you get those study guides."
Room comp? "Oh, you mean Philia."
"Philia?"
"Yeah, that's what I named her," I said, not really sure if that was something that I should be embarrassed about.
"You named your room computer?" she cracked a huge smile as she whispered, somehow managing to lean even closer to me. Her face was uncomfortably close to mine. Her lips called to me like a space spirit trying to get me in trouble. The confusing part was that she showed no sign of reading my signals. I knew from experience that my emotions were always more apparent that I would have liked.
"I think I'm going to like you, Boone."
Chapter Seven
We received a two-minute warning for the end of the social hour. Though I didn't speak again with either Rhese or Zaya, I still felt like things went fairly well overall. I believed that I could count on Memphis to help me learn what I needed to know regarding Skotopia and the Orange Dragons. The twenty-team league, with one representing each sector, was the most popular entertainment on the station. The pressure to adapt and perform meant more than bragging rights. Our people depended on us to make them proud, and our future rested on it as well.
Once back inside my quarters I asked Philia to prepare the Mech and Tech study guides for me. They would then be easily accessible from any panel or the large game table. I barely got started on the first Mech lesson when an alert came in.
Two social hours had been scheduled for the next day. One for a group lunch. The other in the evening to prepare for our next mission. A personal note had been tagged to the lunchtime notification. Rhese was requiring me to spend the first ten minutes of that social time with her so she could cover what she expected from me. I couldn’t say that I was looking forward to that conversation. Then again, any guidance that she could give would be h
elpful. It also gave me another opportunity to try and get on her good side.
Philia helped me work up a schedule for the next day that included three hours of exercise and seven hours of studying. The last two hours would be after our game prep meeting in case there was something mission specific to focus on. There were no details yet on the upcoming game available to me.
It took me two hours of lying in my bed that night before I was finally able to sleep. A world of thoughts marched their way through my brain. I missed my family, though I've known for my entire life that I would be leaving them behind once I reached age eighteen, possibly forever. I also wondered if they got teased about my performance in my first game. Based on what Memphis said, I thought there was a chance that they didn't.
I remembered how weird it felt to be running around in a simulated body. I couldn't let that slow me down next time. Philia told me that I had a good chance of earning points in Agility, Endurance, Reflex and Strength if I lived long enough.
Gamer 1 - Skotopia: A Gamelit novel for science fiction action fans Page 4