Player vs Player

by Amelia C. Gormley

  He had, quite literally, written their death scenes.

  How the hell was he supposed to ever write again?

  Unable to focus, he left his office, heading down to Rosie’s where she had set Detective Payne up on one of the gaming rigs, away from the bustle of coders working in the lab. He met Jordan in the hall, apparently on his way to consult with Rosie about something. He caught his brother’s eyes, but he couldn’t think of anything to say besides to tell him to back off Tim, so he pressed his lips together and said nothing.

  Tim was in Rosie’s office too, looking as bewildered as ever as Detective Payne carried on a murmured discussion with him about each bit of dialogue, each choice made in the game. She was the one playing, controlling the player character, but Tim was taking notes.

  “Seriously?” Rosie groaned at her computer screen.

  “What is it?” Detective Payne paused the game and turned in her chair.

  “Oh, this picture.” She gestured to her screen, and Detective Payne rose and crossed the office to look. “The new Wonder Woman in the upcoming Superman v Batman movie.”

  Detective Payne made a derisive sound. “Needs to be a sistah.”

  “I know, right?” Rosie held up her hand and bumped fists with her.

  Tim shuddered. “Did you just feel that?”

  “I think that is what the geeks would call a great disturbance in the Force,” Jordan murmured.

  Niles shrugged, feeling a touch of amusement for the first time in days. “Well, if it’s any consolation, on the day of their coronation as joint Planetary Imperators, we can tell people we were there the moment the Unholy Alliance was forged.”

  Rosie was giving Detective Payne a rundown of the controversy over whether or not casting the Israeli actress was considered POC representation or not when Tim spoke up again.

  “Let me ask you a question, Niles. I know you love your work, and you’ve spoken a lot about the potential outreach factor, but, still—video games? Why make your stand there? Why not just find something else to do for recreation, and fight the good fight someplace a little less, well, fringe?”

  Rosie clearly overheard because she cut off her discussion with Detective Payne, and Niles met her eyes as she asked casually, “Angie, Rosa Parks should have just found somewhere else to sit, right? I mean, a bus seat doesn’t really matter.”

  Detective Payne rolled her eyes in response, and Tim held up his hands. “Whoa, that’s not— We’re talking about video games, not the next great civil rights frontier.”

  Jordan moaned softly, muttering to Niles, “When he starts digging, he brings the backhoe, doesn’t he?”

  Rosie came to her feet, and Niles gave Tim a sympathetic look. No way was he going to get in the middle of this.

  “Tell me. What do you think the next great civil rights frontier looks like?” Rosie asked, drawing herself up. She didn’t fold her arms over her chest or look defensive or confrontational. Instead, her posture was open, conversational but authoritative. He’d seen her do it before, and something about her presence compelled people to listen, which was why she was such an amazing public speaker. “The face of prejudice in the twenty-first century is not a guy in a pointy white hood. It’s hundreds of thousands of little ways our culture sets people who aren’t white, able-bodied, cis-het males to the side and says, ‘You’re different, and therefore you can’t have what we have.’ You can’t have the same access to healthcare, to jobs, to education, to bodily autonomy, to protection under the law, to tax and inheritance laws. To basic human dignity.”

  He watched Tim’s reaction, but Tim didn’t say anything. You didn’t interrupt Rosie when she was in this zone. Her intensity was electrifying, and you just shut up and listened.

  “Two years ago, while I was in the hospital having a baseball-sized tumor removed from my skull, I had people posting images of my house online, daring someone to rape or kill me, wishing death on me. Why? Because I have this audacious idea that people who aren’t white, straight cis-men should see positive reflections of themselves in media and common recreational activities.” Her eyes flashed with a fire that Niles hadn’t seen in her since— God, he didn’t remember when. “One of the last interactions Charity Anspach had on this planet was with a guy who called her a crazy bitch for saying that he shouldn’t grope her without her consent. And our culture supports that. In hundreds of little ways, it tells him that he’s right and she was unreasonable. And if you found that guy today and told him she was dead, I’ll bet you cash money that the first thing he’d do is hop online and start mouthing off about how she deserved it.”

  She lifted her chin, and the stare she fixed Tim with became a little challenging. “So, what do you think? Should I go do something more important, something less fringe? Because sure, I could teach women’s studies, but is that guy going to sit his ass down in my lecture hall and walk out thinking, ‘Wow, I’ve been a real douchenozzle, maybe I should knock it off’? Or do I need to go into the spaces he thinks are his, and get up in his face, and challenge him, and say, ‘This is not okay, this is not okay, this. Is. Not. Okay,’ until he finally gets it?”

  She fell silent, but she held Tim pinned with her gaze until he bowed his head. “I’m sorry. That was a completely stupid thing for me to say,” he murmured.

  Rosie’s mouth curved into a wistful smile. “Apology noted. I suppose I should thank you. You just made me remember why I do this.”

  She sat down, turning her attention back to her computer. “You guys have about ninety hours of gameplay left. I’ll let you get back to that.”

  Detective Payne nodded once and returned to the computer against the far wall, gesturing for Tim to start taking notes again, and Niles slipped quietly back to his office.

  A quick rap on the frame of his open door later that morning brought Niles’s head snapping up to see his brother standing there, looking sober.

  “What is it?”

  Jordan took that as an invitation and came all the way in, shutting the door behind him. “You haven’t spoken to me today.”

  “I’ve been busy.” Niles gestured to his laptop, though the characters on the screen might as well have been gibberish for all the sense he’d been able to make of them all morning.

  “You’re pissed at me.”

  “No. Yes.” He sighed and pushed a hand through his hair, sweeping it back from his face.

  Jordan moved around to the other side of Niles’s desk, and perched on the edge of it, facing his brother, his expression still solemn.

  “You need to get off Tim’s back,” Niles said.

  “Okay.” Jordan shrugged easily. “Anything else?”

  “Where did this idea that I can’t take care of myself come from?”

  Jordan’s eyebrows inched upward. “From the fact that you don’t, bro,” he said simply, as though it should be self-evident.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You don’t, Niles, and you never have. You live with your head in the clouds half the time, off building fantasy worlds where you forget to eat and sleep. I’ve seen you mourn fictional characters like they’re real people. And that’s great. It’s who you are. You know I’d never change you. You know that.”

  Warmth spread though Niles’s chest. Sometimes it was easy to lose sight of why Jordan was the closest person in the world to him and always would be. And it wasn’t just a matter of identical DNA; Jordan got him without ever disapproving or judging.

  “You’re not wrong,” he conceded. “But that’s got nothing to do with Tim.”

  “Sure it does. You forget to protect yourself the same way you forget to feed yourself. Or maybe it’s more deliberate than that. Thirty-two years and I still can’t figure out if you just forget to be suspicious, or if you refuse to because you find that trusting takes less effort. Whatever it is, you always want to give people the benefit of the doubt, which leaves you wide open. That’s not a complaint.” Jordan held up a hand, forestalling Niles’s protest. “Sometimes I really
envy you that, the way you look at the world with such optimism and trust. It must be nice. But it makes you vulnerable, and right now, someone is trying to slip past that vulnerability and hurt you. You can’t ask me not to react to that. I couldn’t, even if I wanted to.”

  “So what you’re saying is, this isn’t about Tim at all. He just makes a convenient punching bag.”

  Jordan shrugged. “It’s not like I don’t owe him.”

  Niles snorted a soft laugh. “If anyone owes him a few cheap shots, it’s me. But I’m not going to do that. And I can’t really figure out whether or not this thing with him is going to work if the two of you keep posturing at each other. So back down. Let me handle it.”

  “I already agreed to that part.” Jordan swung his foot from where his leg was hitched up on the desk, nudging Niles’s knee and pushing his chair back. “Let’s get some lunch.”

  Niles considered refusing, but the words on his computer made no more sense than they had before Jordan had arrived. He shut his laptop and stood, stretching until a series of pops zipped up his spine. “Sure. Anywhere is better than here right now.”

  There was an armed security guard stationed in the front lobby near the receptionist, a sight that made Niles grimace. No wonder the studio felt different now: everyone was working knowing a man with a gun was sitting outside the office waiting for trouble to arrive, while a similarly armed woman patrolled the building and grounds. Next week there would be metal detectors installed and a fence erected around the employee parking lot, with a key-card-controlled gate.

  “Let it go, Niles,” Jordan murmured, clapping him on the shoulder as he came to a standstill and looked around the lobby as if he’d never seen the place before. “This is what has to happen. Right now we need you and Rosie safe.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  Jordan sighed and gave the guard—who had no doubt overheard Niles’s remarks—an apologetic smile, then opened the door to let them out into the gray afternoon. “I know you don’t. But Rosie’s going to do what she has to do in order to protect you and herself and everyone else here.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “No buts,” Tim interjected, and Niles spun to see him standing beside the door, evidently lying in wait. “Hey. Payne and I are taking a break from combing through the game—she needs to go conduct some interviews—so I thought I’d ask if you wanted to get lunch, but it looks like you two already have plans.”

  “You can come with us,” Jordan offered before Niles could even open his mouth. He turned to flash his brother a grateful smile over his shoulder.

  “Unless ‘lunch’ is code for a nooner,” Jordan added. “Then I’m out of here.”

  Niles chuckled. “No, I’m pretty sure we’re all talking about food. Let’s go.”

  “So, how’s the investigation going?” Jordan asked Tim as Niles fell into step between them.

  “I asked my captain to take me off the case, but he just made Payne the lead detective and told me to tread very lightly and stay away from anything to do with Niles’s ex. Which is why I’m taking notes for her today and why she’s going to interview Anthony Joyner without me.”

  And just like that, Tim and Jordan were chatting like they hadn’t been bristling and snarling at each other twelve hours ago. Niles shook his head and let them talk without interruption. Trying to make sense of it would be useless.

  Jordan had left twenty minutes ago to get back to work—something about a conference call—but Tim was willing to bet that he was offering Niles and Tim some alone time before lunch was over. Which Tim fully intended to take advantage of, at least until Payne called. With a rueful smile, Niles murmured something about going to get the car, which they’d been forced to park a couple blocks away, while Tim stepped around the corner of the pub to talk with Payne under the sheltering eaves.

  “Niles?”

  Tim jerked at the vaguely familiar voice calling out Niles’s name with a note of desperation. He managed to place the voice just as Niles’s sharp response floated around the building toward him.

  “What do you want, Anthony?”

  “I want to know what the hell is going on!” came the angry reply. “The police came by—”

  “You there, Wyatt?” Payne’s question was impatient enough to suggest she’d already asked a couple of times.

  “I’m here, Payne.” He pitched his voice low. “So is Anthony Joyner. I can hear him talking to Niles now. He sounds upset.”

  “Shit. Where are you?”

  “Outside the Lucky Labrador on Quimby.”

  “I’m sending a car and am on my way.” The phone beeped the disconnect signal before Tim could respond. Reaching inside his jacket to unsnap his holster, he peered around the corner of the building to see Niles’s ex blocking his way. He had to hold tight if he could, until Payne or the patrol got there. If he joined in, it would likely escalate the matter.

  “How the hell did you even know I was here?” Niles demanded.

  “The GPS tracker on your phone.” Joyner said it casually, as though stalking his ex’s whereabouts was a completely rational thing to do. “Niles, why do the police think I know anything about some girls being killed after a convention?”

  “That’s between you and the police, Anthony. I really can’t talk to you about it.” Niles attempted to walk past him, but Joyner sidestepped to block his way again. “Anthony, just let me pass. Now.”

  “They all but insinuated that I killed some guy you had a date with a couple weeks ago!”

  “Well, did you?” Niles shot the question back so quickly it was almost reflexive, and Tim winced. So much for not talking to him about it.

  “How can you ask me that?” Joyner was nearly shouting now. Passersby were turning to stare at them. One big guy decked out in spandex and Gore-Tex stopped and got off his bike. He propped it against a light post and attempted to intervene.

  “Hey, everything okay here—”

  “Back off!” Joyner screamed, his rain-dampened hair straggling down his furiously red face. He took an aggressive step toward the cyclist, and there went any chance Tim had of staying out of the scene.

  Tim strode out from his vantage point and closed the distance between them, his hands held out in a placating gesture. “Hey, whoa, let’s take a deep breath and calm down,” he said, trying to keep his voice firm but nonconfrontational. “Can you back up, give Niles and the bystander some room to breathe?”

  “You again! Who the fuck is this guy, Niles?” Joyner’s frantic eyes flew back and forth between him and Niles.

  Niles raised his hands, mirroring Tim’s conciliatory posture. “Anthony, settle down. This is Tim Wyatt. He’s a detective and a friend. He’s been trying to help—”

  “Oh, so this is a setup!” Joyner dragged his hands through his hair, making it spike wildly. The bicyclist had the sense to move out of the way, and Tim took a step back as Niles’s ex turned his anger toward him. He kept his smile pasted on and his posture open, even though Joyner’s aggression was hitting all his protective and self-preservation instincts. But trying to defuse the situation was his only option. Drawing his weapon wasn’t even a consideration as long as Joyner appeared unarmed. “Is this how you get rid of the competition? Frame them for a crime they didn’t commit?”

  Niles groaned. “Jesus, Anthony, don’t be so dramatic.” The weary, scornful tone behind the mutter was so unlike Niles that it distracted Tim for a split second.

  “Nobody is framing you, Joyner. We just want to find out who killed those people.”

  “Fuck you! This is your fault!” Tim tried to step back as Joyner charged him, but Joyner was too close. He rammed into Tim, sending him stumbling off the curb between two parked cars. Tim took Joyner with him as he tried to catch one of Joyner’s wildly swinging arms. When he got a hold, he twisted it into a wristlock behind Joyner’s back. Before Tim could shove him forward over the hood of one of the cars, however, Joyner managed to get his feet up on the bumper and push back
off it, making Tim stagger backward, out from between the cars and into the street. Without Tim blocking his momentum, Joyner tumbled after him.

  Niles’s alarmed shout, the screech of tires, Joyner’s pained cry, and the snap of breaking bones all mingled with a flood of pain everywhere. He was on the pavement with no recollection of landing, the traces of gas and oil on the street riding on top of the puddles in an iridescent film right before his eyes. Somewhere nearby, Joyner was groaning, and he could hear sirens in the distance. Mostly, though, he could hear Niles.

  “Tim— Oh shit! Jesus, Tim!” He was close. Those knees that hit the wet asphalt right by Tim’s face, did they belong to Niles? It hurt too much to try to move his head to find out.

  “Don’t move him, sir! Wait for the paramedics. I need to check on the other guy.” That voice wasn’t familiar. The cyclist?

  His entire body ached and stung, but the pain seemed to be concentrated in his left shoulder and upper chest, sending throbbing rings of agony through his body as if that spot was the epicenter of a one-man earthquake. He tried to find the breath to reassure Niles, but it hurt too damn much to inhale.

  The shining pavement, the wet denim covering Niles’s knees, the buzz of gathering gawkers all mingled in a gray blur that stole vision and time, and when Tim managed to focus again, Payne’s authoritative voice was cutting through the cacophony, snapping orders, instructing someone to push back the crowd. Another wash of gray, and then Tim was on his back staring up at the sky, and there was a paramedic hovering over him trying to get him to answer questions.