[Brackets]

by Sloan, David

  In his hand, he held a printed copy of the cursed document. He had gone through it many times over the last week. At first he was looking for the code that Typhoon150 had supposedly entered for him. After several days, he had personally confirmed that there was no code—not even the possibility of a code—embedded in the selections. It was no surprise that all of his e-mails to Typhoon’s account went unanswered. Like everything else that week, it had been a set-up, a trick to rob him. The Scarmada now dominated the Triabl Wars. Killergremlin was now the General of the depleted Warriors of Tsepes. Perry’s former position at the clerk’s office was filled by another. His house was at risk of foreclosure. The only thing he had left was the only thing he hadn’t wanted, and it was going to end. And then what? There was no way to jump out of reality, no matter how surreal it was.

  These were the thoughts that lingered in his mind like tar on his skin, difficult to shake even in his lighter, more lucid moments, when he laughed at himself for thinking that his fate was somehow tied to a fictional city in a computer or a piece of paper. There were no Ahtzon, no Scarmada, no temples or altars built for ripping out his heart. Surely, life’s imitation of art had a limit. The worst-case scenario was that this would all be a waste of time. As for the bracket, he had done his homework. He knew that no one was giving Georgia much of a chance against a bigger, faster Nebraska team. He was probably bound to lose—thanks for nothing, Typhoon150—and he realized that he should embrace the inevitable, ease the anxiety about the unknowns in his life by accepting fate as it happened to him. But that thought didn’t comfort him. Nothing truly comforted him.

  The pregame introductions helped him understand that Nebraska was in white and Georgia was in red. He watched carefully, trying to remember what he had read about the players. There was an especially tall one who, he concluded, had to be the leader. He had always been good at picking out the leader.

  The ball was tossed into the air, and the game began with a sense of instant acceleration. Both teams were nervous and balls clanked off rims more often than they went in. Perry tried to follow the patterns in the way each team defended or moved, but it went too fast. Each possession was different, although he noticed that Georgia often found ways to get the ball to the leader, who was always standing and pushing around opponents near the basket. That was smart, he thought. However, he also noticed that Nebraska seemed to make just as many baskets as Georgia, and the scoreboard confirmed it. By the end of the first half, the score was Nebraska 45, Georgia 46. He was winning.

  A reporter came to them during half-time with questions. She addressed the tall, overly enthusiastic one first.

  “Tucker, what do you expect out of your Nebraska team during this second half?”

  “I’m happy with the way they’re playing,” he said, grinning so much that the two large red N’s painted on both cheeks became illegible. “They’ve got no one who can guard my man 14, he’s a beast, and Miller is playing out of his mind. I think they come back with some energy in this second half and finish it off.” Then, with sudden, game-day-testosterone-fueled euphoria, he pointed both fingers in the air and yelled “Nebraska is Number One!” A host of Nebraska fans lower in the stands overheard and cheered their approval. The reporter high-fived Tucker, and the camera was turned onto Perry.

  “Perry, Tucker seems pretty confident. What do you think about your Georgia going into the second?”

  “Uh, well, they’re up, right? I hope it stays that way.” Some Georgia fans overheard and began a “Bull-dogs!” chant. Perry turned and gave them two half-hearted thumbs up, then put them down as if he wasn’t sure that he’d done the right thing.

  “You said it, Perry. It’s anyone’s game. We’ll check in with you after the final buzzer.” The camera went off, the reporter thanked them, and they left.

  Perry checked his watch and excused himself to find the bathroom before the next half started.

  The bathroom was crowded with rowdy basketball fans, but he found an empty stall and sat down to take some deep breaths. It was nice to finally have some relative quiet and solitude for a few minutes, regardless of how bad it smelled.

  Alone with his own thoughts, he took stock of the game thus far. What he’d told the interviewer was true—they were up. Only by one point, one half of a basket, but winning was winning. And what the interviewer had said was also true—it was anyone’s game. It could be his game. For the first time, it occurred to him that he might actually win. And with that thought, he began to feel a little silly for all the strange thoughts that he’d had leading up to the game. If he won, since he was the only one that had Georgia winning the championship, he would automatically take the Bracket Challenge if Georgia won in the Final Four. That meant a lot of money. He could move somewhere else. He could find a new city, a new game, a new team, he could start over. Not that there was anything like Kaah Mukul, but he could build his repertoire and reputation, maybe even attract some professional gaming endorsements. Things would work out.

  He stood up, conscious that the bathroom had been getting progressively quieter over the past couple of minutes. As he did, his eyes met his blurred reflection in the metallic door of the stall. He could feel that his eyes were tired, over-stimulated. He rubbed them and reopened them. Suddenly, a glimmer of light appeared over the reflection of his forehead. It flashed and grew, completely silent, into a whitish-yellow pool of light that seemed to hypnotize him as he stared into it. He couldn’t move. He fixated on it, as if there were nothing else in the world. The light grew brighter and brighter until it dominated his field of vision. And then it was gone.

  He knew that light. The last time he’d seen it was in the Montezuma Arena, right before he died.

  Movement came back into his limbs. He pushed the door, but it was still latched. His hands were too shaky to turn the lock, so he flung his shoulder into the door and lost his balance as he went through, slamming into the bathroom wall. A man washing his hands looked over and asked if he was alright. He raised his hand and mumbled that he was fine. But he wasn’t. He was terrified and sweating. It smelled bad in there, like gasoline or drying blood. He looked above the stall to see if there was any kind of mirror or light source that could account for what he had seen, but he saw nothing.

  Think, think, he told himself as he washed his hands and wiped his face. He looked pale in the mirror, and inside he felt haunted. There must be an explanation.

  He walked outside and nearly crashed into a pedestrian. Everything looked normal, but not normal at the same time. Something was off. That light shouldn’t have happened. That light only existed in Kaah Mukul. Reality was not Kaah Mukul. Life couldn’t imitate that art. And he knew from experience that the light had a terrible meaning.

  In the concourse, amidst the crowds, he looked around for some anchor on which to secure his sanity, some pure product of reality. He saw the concession stand. Food! Food could only be real. Hot dogs and pretzels and fats and oils; there was nothing so tangible. He got in the long line and searched for his wallet with shaking hands.

  It will all be OK, he repeated in his mind, looking around.

  There were carts with people selling t-shirts and merchandise. There was music and balloons and little kids holding plastic basketballs with Final Four logos on them. A small commotion started when a group with suits came up the elevator guarding someone in sunglasses. A few people began snapping pictures with their phones. Some celebrity. There was a non-descript door embedded in the concourse entryway that opened out onto the escalators. The door was opened as the celebrity approached. From between the bodies in the crowd, he made out a face, and a mane of spiked hair.

  It was Myung-Ki Noh.

  Perry jumped out of the line and ran towards the man. “Noh! Noh!” he called. The man he thought was Noh disappeared and the door shut behind him. Perry ran up but was stopped cold by a security guard. They wouldn’t let him pass. Perry resisted, yelling Noh’s name while the guards tried to calm him down. He tripped and
fell on his back. When he looked up, he saw a large man with red hair standing over him.

  “What’s going on?” the man asked authoritatively.

  Perry said nothing, just put up his hands, rolled onto his stomach, and stood up, slapping away any helping hands. He walked off mumbling apologies and returned to the bathroom. He entered the same stall that he’d used before and closed the door. The reflection in the stainless steel door showed no ominous lights, merely his own pale, damp reflection.

  His mind gyrated in seemingly endless loop. Arena. Bracket. Noh. Ahtzon. Life. Art. Fate…Arena…Bracket… He laid his head against the door, closed his eyes, and rested.

  In what seemed a moment to him, he came to. He looked around to reorient himself. What time was it? He checked his watch. When he saw the time, gasped, then raced out of the bathroom and straight through the short tunnel into the arena. The clock on the Jumbotron confirmed that he had somehow missed most of the second half. Scrambling, he spun around until he remembered where his seats were. He scrambled over the knees of the irritated CEO and the floppy-haired guy and sat down, ignoring the questions about where he had been. There were five minutes left to play. The score was now Nebraska 72, Georgia 63.

  He couldn’t understand what was happening. The players were the same ones that had started the game. They weren’t injured. They looked like they were doing the same things. But something unseen had changed, there was this imbalance now. As he watched, he became more and more frustrated by Tucker’s persistent clapping and hooting on his right and Cole’s more subdued cheers on his left. Couldn’t they tell that something was wrong? Couldn’t they see that his team was not playing normally? They should be nervous—everyone here should be nervous.

  He looked around, squinting, at all the lights. It was too loud, too bright inside. His head hurt. Cheers rang out as a Nebraska player hit another three-pointer. He realized that they were really cheering against him. The imbalance was against him.

  He looked around again. The people in the audience seemed to blur together, and all he could see were the rows. The lines of seats became tiers that looked familiar, bigger. He looked down at the players on the court. It was hard to tell what was going on, but he could make out a ball and running. There were hoops, and as he watched, they rotated until they were vertical and thickened. He found himself trying to remember when he had returned to the Montezuma, and he thought how strange it was that Nebraska and Georgia had their own Ullamaball teams. Maybe Mr. Noh had done it.

  By this time, the crowd was standing, cheering, and all Perry could think about was what would happen if he lost. The pattern would repeat, Noh had said. Fate. Noh knew.

  He looked at the stairs by his seat and saw a woman in black running up past him. Why was Tula running? The game wasn’t over yet. But he looked, and his team was losing. Maybe that was why. She had to get out before the Ahtzon came. Smart. Tula always seemed smart. It would be smart to leave right away too, he thought.

  The Nebraska fans began to count down from ten. Something was wrong. He had lost, he knew that. He looked around the arena and could see the Ahtzon standing, poised to mow down the losers that tried to escape, waiting patiently for him at the exits. The floppy-haired kid was tapping him on the shoulder, asking him if he was OK, but he didn’t answer. They had to get out before the doors closed, didn’t they? A good leader knew when to run. The crowds were counting down.

  3…2…1..!

  Perry pushed out from the seats and shoved by the others as he ran up the stairs to the tunnel. He had to get out before they closed. Someone was calling his name and he heard heavy footsteps. The Ahtzon were coming. He shouldered past exiting crowds and through the tunnel. He was out! But they were still chasing him, and when he yelled for Killergremlin to send back-up, he heard no response.

  He saw some stairs, long and tall and moving. The way out! He made it to the top and looked down and around for his next move. The stairway below him was black and gleaming, and suddenly he realized that he wasn’t out. He was at the top of the Central Temple. If he were caught, he would be sacrificed. Someone grabbed him from behind. He wheeled around and saw a big officer gripping him on the shoulder. No! He struggled and writhed, but he was too close to the edge and felt the rails sliding against his back like a snake. He spun wildly and felt his back flip over the edge as hands tried to clasp onto him, but gravity had him. His entire mass flipped over, and then, in a moment of horrifying clarity, he understood that he was falling very far.

  -[South Division]-

  [South Division: Play-in Game]

  [Wednesday, March 18]

  Georgetown University’s administration building stood grey and stark against the winter-white sky, an intellectually gloomy cathedral. The grassy area to the east, with its bare trees and a promise of shade in warmer months, hosted a small park bench. Sitting on the bench, eating handfuls of salted peanuts with gloved hands, was an unsmiling older man in a baseball cap. The man could have been a professor or administrator, and thus he attracted no notice from the huddled students moving between buildings. It was a skill that he had conscientiously nurtured: to be unimportant to a crowd but to command rapt attention from an individual. That day, the individual whose attention Mr. Graham wanted to command was named Carla.

  Carla emerged from behind the grey building wrapped in a wool trench coat. She walked with her head erect while others were bent against the cold. She walked like someone who had been trained early to march under pressure. Graham waved discreetly to draw her attention.

  “You’re Graham, right?” she began without overture, removing something black from her pocket. “So, here it is. Like I said, it’s a little scratched, but it still…”

  Graham interrupted, his voice as even and quiet as a therapist. “Carla, I’m going to disappoint you right now and say that I don’t want to buy your phone.”

  Carla paused, her hand instinctively going back to her pocket. “What?”

  “I answered your ad so I could meet you here and offer you a job. Unless you think Langley is really paying you what you’re worth.”

  Carla’s eyes flashed with momentary consternation that few would have noticed behind the perfect poker face. “I think you have the wrong woman. I’m a freshman—”

  “Just a note, for the future,” Graham interrupted. “When you lie to someone who already knows the truth, it’s a mutual waste of time. From what I hear about you, you aren’t the kind of person that has much time to waste.”

  Carla looked at him cautiously. “And what have you heard about me, Mr. Graham?”

  “That you’re smarter than the above average Georgetown student, that your analysis of the Many Hands operation in Bangladesh turned out to be better than accurate, and that you’re here taking college classes not because you actually need college, but because you work for a federal institution that pays you only what your diploma says you’re worth. Or was all of that just gossip?”

  Carla looked around again, checking individual faces as they passed. “If you’re asking me to do something illegal…”

  “I’m not asking anything. I’m offering. I’m offering you a chance to reach your potential. The organization I work for doesn’t care about degrees, doesn’t care about résumés, doesn’t even care about money. It’s a place where you can actually tell people what you think and it can go all the way to the top without the, ah, ‘incessant trumpet of politics making everybody deaf and stupid.’ Those are your words, right? Come work for us. You want to do analysis, fine. You want to be a spook, the kind they would never let you try to be, that can be arranged. There are no limits. And, if you agree right now, we’ll reimburse you the cost of your tuition.”

  Carla studied her feet. “You know, the Agency is paying for this.”

  “I don’t think I would need to mention that detail to our accountants.”

  Carla continued to scan nervously. “You don’t just leave the CIA, especially not for mysterious reasons.”

 
; “Tell that to all the ex-CIA guys making six figures in the private sector. The Agency knows they can’t compete with that. Just tell them you got a better offer with a private company. It will make them mad, but by the time you walk out the door, they’ll be cursing the back-handed slap of capitalism instead of you. Just another big one that got away. We can make sure that we back it up with some legitimacy.”

  The recruit stared at him. “Are you offering me six figures?”

  Graham raised an eyebrow. “Not to start, but you do a good job, you contribute, there’s room for some upward mobility.”

  Carla shuffled again. “Twenty-four hours to think, and I want a full job description e-mailed to my account tonight.”

  Graham retrieved a mostly-blank business card and gave it to Carla. “When you decide, give me a call. Your first job is already waiting. You have your twenty-four hours, but don’t use them all.”

  Carla began to walk away, slowly this time. She stopped after a few feet.

  “So, why not just call and say that you wanted to meet with me? You know that even clandestine people like me can set up appointments.”

  “We wanted you to know how important we think you are to the long-term progress of our group.” Graham glanced up at the gothic spires of Healy Hall. “It’s a competitive world out there; the most successful recruiters are the ones that stand out. And as I’ve recently re-discovered, we are not the only ones recruiting.”