We Are Watching Eliza Bright

by A. E. Osworth

  (“Well?” “Fancy Dog blows, I’m in.” “Suzanne?” “Actually—yeah. Maybe. No more CS though—maybe PR? I can’t picture leaving the Sixsterhood. But also I can. For a bit at least.” “We could live together, like all three of us.” “Do you think Preston?” “Nope. That’s insane. He’s probably long gone. Plus you owe that turd nothing.” “He’s not a turd.” “He’s a turd.”)

  Eliza: I’d like to recommend Devonte Aleba, a developer at Fancy Dog. Suzanne Choy as well, she’s a customer service representative now, but would like to move to PR and communications. If we’re developing a game, we’d like her to be the voice of it. And I’d like to recommend—

  (“Eliza are you okay?” “Yes, dipshit, I’m fine. Just thinking.” “Sometimes I think I liked it better when you weren’t talking.” “I am literally only pausing for a hot second, stop fucking babying me, I’m fucking fine.”)

  Eliza: And I’d like to recommend Jean-Pascale Desfrappes, he is currently available and specializes in gameplay development.

  (“No shit.” “Really? Really, Eliza?” “Yep.”)

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-One

  Eliza calls Jean-Pascale. She’s worried she’s done it in the wrong order. But when she gets him on the phone, it feels like a weird conversation to have. Like, heads-up, you’re probably getting a job offer today and maybe I’ll wind up being your boss, hope that’s cool? Eliza flushes red and speaks softly and carefully into the phone. She asks him to please come over.

  “To the hospital?” he asks. We can hear the nervous in his voice.

  “No, no,” she clarifies. “I’m going outpatient as we speak. Getting all my shit together, just waiting on someone to sign something. My apartment.”

  “You’re—” Jean-Pascale clears his throat. “You’re going back to your apartment?”

  “Yup.”

  “That—does not make you nervous?”

  “JP. It’s already happened. The worst already happened. The doorman knows. Suzanne and Devonte shipped a bunch of stuff to my apartment, including a video doorbell thing like they have at the Sixsterhood. It’s like a fort. I’ll be fine.”

  “Someone’s staying with you? Your parents?”

  “I have banished my parents. Don’t worry about that, you won’t have to deal with them.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Devonte is spending the night. On the couch, don’t get the wrong—”

  “Oh, no, I didn’t think that—”

  “Listen, just come over in, like, an hour? Hour and a half? It’s important.”

  “Uh. Okay.” He hangs up.

  When he does arrive, the doorman knows to send him right up. When he walks in the door, we have to pause. Because they each see the other in ways that are valuable to us. Eliza’s face is literally shaped differently. There was so much surgery. The bandages aren’t so complete as to obscure her head anymore, and Jean-Pascale takes in the scars peeking out, the drain taped to her neck, how swollen she still is. It is everything he can do not to sit her down on the couch and start making tea, making soup—but those are hot, she can’t drink them anyhow. The bruises are fading, but they’re still green. When they’re that deep, they don’t go away so quickly. He is relieved to see her mouth still protrudes, but he can’t see what her teeth look like. We know she has no front teeth for now. A cosmetic dentist will eventually fix that and she will receive a handmade pop-up card from Suzanne that says “Happy Dental Implants Day, Remember To Duck Next Time.”

  Eliza hasn’t yet looked at herself in the mirror. She can feel her face is different, but she’s not ready yet. Jean-Pascale, however, looks like hell. He clearly hasn’t slept well; his eyes are surrounded by dark circles, which is—was—normal for Lewis, but not for him. There’s an abrasion on his arm (we know it is from moving Delphine out of the apartment, scraping his skin on the doorframe while lugging boxes, but Eliza doesn’t). And his eyes, on top of the dark circles, are red and sad. “JP. What the fuck happened to you?”

  “It’s been rough since Lewis.”

  “Since Lewis what?”

  They are almost immediate, the tears he tries to corral behind his eyelids. They spring to life when Jean-Pascale realizes the news he’s responsible for. He glances toward Devonte’s face, and it is hardened. He will not do this job, this reveal; he continues to stock the fridge with almond milk, the cabinets with protein powder. He looks away.

  “Jean-Pascale,” Eliza repeats. “What did Lewis do?” JP tries to answer, but as Eliza stares him full in the face, takes it in, she answers her own question. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” And how she knows to jump there, we’ll never know. She’ll never know either. Just a feeling she has, which we suppose makes sense. When two people’s lives are that inextricably linked, when each feeds the other’s flash point until it is blinding, how can there not be a witchy tingle, a sixth sense?

  Instead of them finding a way to awkwardly congratulate each other over jobs well found, the evening becomes one of mourning. “He was a bastard,” Eliza says. “But I didn’t want that for him, not really. Didn’t ever want that.”

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Two

  No one ever searches the Sixsterhood. Suzanne, however, is in so, so much trouble. A lawyer, hired by a mysterious moneybags in rural Oregon, finds her way to Suzanne. A very, very good lawyer. Rather than spending four years in jail or paying five thousand dollars, she is downgraded substantially. A one-thousand-dollar fine later, and Suzanne is free to move to California to start her new job with See No Monkey. Elitism. Money makes everything go away for the powerful.

  Keith Mackey’s parents, however, refuse to pay for a fancy lawyer when they find out what their son has done. It takes months but he finally pleads guilty. He gets a prison sentence; it will be appealed, be reversed later. He fades into obscurity, but we remember him. He’s an example of our finest and of our fears—among us, he alone had the courage to take a stand, to fight a real battle in the war for the latest frontier, for men’s ability to be men in the newest world of our creation. But he doesn’t return to us. We are not sure why—what a waste of all that potential. Perhaps he is simply spent, like a burnt match ignited fast and bright, and we aren’t. We are, in shadow, ruling the most powerful nation in the world. It is an argument for subtlety. We are learning.

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Three

  Lastly, there is this moment, much later, also relevant:

  See No Monkey releases details on Project Roam, now commercially called Zombie Zombie! It is an augmented reality game built for smart watches and phones that requires the participants to take over buildings in their city using location services, to tag other players in the real world by placing their device where another device has recently been.

  “Given your history with location,” Trevor Noah asks on The Daily Show, “isn’t that dangerous?”

  Eliza Bright shakes her head. Her scars have a weird effect—the deepest cuts had formed an arch on either side of her mouth; she looks as though she’s carved a smile into her skin. Disconcerting. Like the Joker. Even when she is being serious, she is grinning, dimpled. “No, it isn’t dangerous—players can play in general population, or they can opt to completely separate and play the game only with their friends. And”—she does smile here, in a real way—“when you’re within ten blocks of your apartment or any other location you select as frequent and important, ‘mystery mode’ is automatically activated—and you can increase that radius as well. It’s also part of the world of the game—I won’t tell you why, that’ll be spoilers—to delay in-game reactions by twenty-four hours. It makes sense in the plot, but it also serves so players can play without giving away who they are and where they are right away. I made this game with people like me in mind—once it happens to you, you can’t really turn that mindset off.”

  “So why do this, then? Make a game that’s playable in the real world, instead of another VR game?”

  “I’m going to push back on calling it
the real world, Trevor, because the virtual world is just as ‘real.’ The consequences of it are still very real, though its virtuality attempts to convince us otherwise. It’s a dangerous thing, to fragment our society even further by actively turning that part of our brain off, the part that connects with other people in the flesh, and to convince ourselves that the things that happen in games and online aren’t important. The lack of community in meatspace—”

  “Meatspace, is that what you call it? That’s absolutely disgusting, I do not like that.”

  The audience laughs and Eliza continues. “Yes, meatspace, physical space, whichever you like. The lack of community in physical space is what gives rise to stalkers like Keith Mackey, and what gives rise to the weaponized nerd populations today. The lack of human interaction is how young white men can be radicalized on the internet and turned into real, violent white nationalists.” We boo, we hiss at the television. “So that’s why, I suppose, I couldn’t resist making something you play in person, that encourages you to interact with the physical world around you, where you live. It might seem like flirting with a personally dangerous concept, and perhaps some of that is true. Perhaps I just like danger. But really, when it comes down to it, I want to use gaming and technology to bring people together. Not to isolate them further.”

  The audience applauds and Trevor Noah continues. “So when will this game be available?”

  “Actually, we’re releasing the beta versions now, as I’m on the air. If you go to See No Monkey’s website, you can register to be a beta tester in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City.”

  “So I could play this game right now?”

  “Yes, if you wanted. In fact—” Eliza touches her smart watch. “I’m taking over your building right now, in New York City, and I don’t even live here.” The studio audience laughs and applauds.

  We vow to never play it. Or we download it to our phones right then and there. Trevor Noah continues: “That might not have been the greatest sales pitch, because, and I say this with complete respect, no one is going to fuck with you.”

  Tonight, some of us are running around New York City, finding each other in bars and theaters and parties, anonymous like spies and giddy in telling no one who we are, seeing slow wars over buildings and points, hits and takeovers rack up. In the spaces where everyone knows each other, perhaps some of us ask, “Are you playing right now?” But part of the fun is in not knowing who is who, who might “bite” and make us into Zombies.

  Eliza Bright looks straight into the camera. “Come get me, Zombies!” Fearless.

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  Acknowledgments

  A writer never writes alone, or at least I certainly haven’t. Total myth that it’s a solitary gig. I have an embarrassment of riches in terms of community and a scroll long enough to stretch to the moon of folks to thank.

  A huge thank-you to all the professors and workshop leaders, both at The New School and not, who have impacted this book and the way I approach writing—Helen Schulman, Luis Jaramillo, Laura Cronk, John Reed, Sharon Mesmer, Honor Moore, Susan Bell and Namwali Serpell. A special thanks to Shelley Jackson, your two-page literature seminar assignment turned into my graduate thesis when I simply never stopped writing it, and to Tiphanie Yanique, thank you for advising me on that thesis, which eventually became this book.

  Massive gratitude to my thesis group for helping me solidify so much of this text through your generous praise and critique—Julie Goldberg, Catherine Bloomer, Brady Huggett and Erin Swan. An extra-huge thanks to Randy Winston for doing all of that and also, somehow, being physically next to me in space during every major milestone from finishing the book to selling it. I can’t wait to buy you lunch while you hyperventilate because your book just sold; I can’t wait to write in Hungarian Pastry Shop with you again.

  And thank you to my writers outside that thesis group—to Cory Saul, thank you for reading this book through just to tell me that I had not made the Reddit voice too mean; to Calvin Kasulke, I will never forget the way you helped crystallize the Sixsterhood voice by saying, “these are the kind of people who have soft-core porn Instagrams by accident because they never wear clothes”; and especially to Nat Mesnard, thank you for reading multiple drafts over weekly beers and pointing out every time I got something grievously wrong about the making or playing of video games (any errors that remain are mine and mine alone).

  A massive thank-you to Christopher Hermelin—a better agent for me and for this book does not exist on this planet or in the multiverse, if I’m honest. Your astute feedback, belief in the project and perennial ability and willingness to correct people who misgender me is unparalleled and highly appreciated. (And a massive thank-you to Lexi Wangler and Alexandra Franklin for both reading the book in its early stages and helping me seek representation without sounding as zany and anxiety-ridden as I likely am.)

  Thank you to Millicent Bennett and Seema Mahanian—y’all’s incisive edits and deep understanding of what the hell it is I’m trying to do here have impacted me and my work deeply. Seema, you have helped make this book great in ways I never could have done without you and I will be grateful forever.

  Thank you to D. J. Capelis and The Octagon, for inspiring the Sixsterhood and letting me sleep in your elevator shaft that one time. And to Bren Christolear, for being the first friend who read the first tiny bit of this book. And to every single nerd who has ever played Dungeons & Dragons with me.

  Thank you to Richard, Berit and Dave Osworth for making me into a person who can take insane creative risks while only flinching a little; it’s y’all’s fault that this book is so hard for me to describe to other writers in bars.

  A thank-you so large I couldn’t wrap my arms around it to the friends who came to my rescue at the tail end of making this book real: Nate Zeiler, Quinn McIntire, Megan Skwirz and Sam Komenaka. Thank you for letting me do the last round of edits in your house during a pandemic. And additionally, thank you to the countless friends who stayed up late and talked me through every last-minute meltdown, made sure I could both eat and cry when I needed: Adrian White, Abby Ryan, Carolyn Yates, Eli Stevens, Jeanna Kadlec, Carmen Rios, Carrie Wade, Keely Weiss, Isaac Fellman, Angus Andrews, Archie Bongiovanni, Sarah Hansen Shields, Liz Rubin, Chrissie O’Neill, Gavin Greco, Orion Guerra, Lou Bank, Vanessa Friedman, Bridget Sullivan, Brian Doyle and Renée Stairs. And thank you to everyone else who has listened to me endlessly process this book for six entire earth years; I am sorry if I missed your name here.

  And finally, thank you to Laura Chrismon, my heart-friend. You have been my strongest, most steadfast support for twenty-three years. May we play Gloomhaven and watch The Labyrinth and shout at each other for another twenty-three to come.

  Reading Group Guide

  Discussion Questions

  1. We Are Watching Eliza Bright is mainly narrated by the collective voice of men’s rights activists and incel Redditors. Discuss the ways in which collective voices in society often influence our reality, the way we look at the world and the choices we make.

  2. The narrators of the novel are constantly watching Eliza and the other characters. In reality, people are leaving a digital footprint and being surveilled at all times, whether or not they realize it. While increasing action is being taken by companies and individuals to combat invasions of privacy, do you think we have reached a point of no return?

  3. Suzanne, Devonte and Eliza are known to the narrators as the the ‘Diversity Squad.’ When Eliza faces discrimination due to being a woman working in a male-dominated industry, each person reacts differently, with a different idea of what Eliza should do in the face of Lewis and JP’s harassment. Discuss how their viewpoints are born from their own experiences with oppression.

  4. Preston, who believes that he is the kind of person who is doing the right thing, is blind to how h
is behavior and actions allow workplace discrimination. Discuss the ways in which Preston often tries and fails to understand his mistakes, and why that is the case.

  5. We Are Watching Eliza Bright is set in the post–2016 US election world, and shines a light on how radicalized communities operate, especially those made up of young white men. Discuss the historical, political and cultural forces that have worked to embolden these points of view.

  6. The novel is narrated by two contrasting collective voices: of the Redditors and the Sixsterhood. Discuss the stylistic ways in which these voices differ and how they altered your reading of the main characters and the plot.

  7. By novel’s end, we realize that perhaps events didn’t necessarily transpire in the way we were told. What are some of your favorite examples of unreliable narrators in other books and film?

  8. If you were playing Guilds of the Protectorate, what kind of villain or hero would you create? Good, evil, lawful, chaotic—what would your character’s alignment be and why? And what would their superpower be?

  9. Gaming is integral to the lives of the characters in We Are Watching Eliza Bright, and we learn about their history in video games and how that’s shaped them into who they are as adults. Can you point to specific works in any medium—video games, music, books or film—that have influenced your life to a similar extent?

  10. We Are Watching Eliza Bright is not only a thriller but a look at the way systems and institutions shape the way we view the world and other people. What did this novel reveal to you in terms of understanding how other people think?