SLAY

by Brittney Morris

  “I’m not answering any interview questions,” I say. I didn’t come over here to play games. I came over here to relax.

  “What are you doing home, anyway?” asks Harper, catching my drift.

  “Jeez, a man can’t come home to his own house without being interrogated?” he asks with a roll of his eyes. He folds his arms and steps down into the study in his blue-and-white Jefferson Eagles practice jersey, soaked with rain, still wearing his cleats.

  “We got rained out. They canceled halfway through practice. Which I’m cool with.”

  He plops down into the third brown leather chair in this room, filling the room with the scent of grass and mud, grabs the remote, and switches on the TV.

  “Wyatt, really? We were talking in here. And take your shoes off and go shower before you get the carpet and the chair dirty.”

  Wyatt glares at Harper with a look so sour, for a minute I think he’s about to launch into a full-on rant about how she can’t tell him what to do. But instead, he kicks off his cleats, sending tiny clumps of mud across the carpet, swings his feet up onto the edge of the pool table, and clicks the volume-up button until the newscasters could be heard through the rest of the house if anyone else were home.

  “Come on, Kix,” says Harper, scooping up the bowl of popcorn and the plate of cookies and making her way to the door. “Let’s go hang out in the piano room instead.”

  I barely hear what she says. My eyes are glued to the TV where two newscasters sit staring back at me. The reporter named Jan speaks first.

  “And Dr. Cannon, what is it about SLAY in particular that caused this incident in Kansas City? We’ve reported on several violent video games like this before, but few that have resulted in cold-blooded murder.”

  The camera pans to a white man in his early thirties with huge red glasses, almost exactly like Steph’s big round ones, except his are rectangular and wire-thin. He has a narrow nose and dark, beady eyes, but when he speaks, he speaks with the authority of someone who, oh I don’t know, actually programmed the game.

  “Well, you have to look at something like this from multiple angles, Jan,” he begins. A banner appears below his face: Dr. Brandon Cannon, associate professor of civil rights law, Sutton University.

  Sutton University.

  I swallow a lump in my throat. That’s the school that gave Jamal the scholarship. He might have gone to this school if given the chance. He might have actually met this man. He might have shaken his hand onstage at his own graduation ceremony. I have to take a deep breath and focus to keep the burning in my cheeks at bay. Harper is silent behind me. Wyatt has sat up a little higher in his chair and is watching on curiously.

  “We have to consider the demographic this game is targeting.”

  Targeting? I never targeted anyone with my game.

  “The game is free, and it features exclusively characters with dark skin tones, meaning the kids most likely to identify with it are underprivileged kids from low-income families in impoverished areas. As long as they have the virtual reality gear—headset, gloves, and socks—these ‘SLAYers,’ as they like to call themselves, can access the game whenever they want.”

  None of that is true. You can pick characters who are as light or dark as you want! And I can’t believe this guy is really on national TV telling people SLAY is targeting underprivileged kids. Yeah, sure, kids play it. But those kids who approached me in the grocery store asking me if I eat meat were wearing private school uniforms. Cicada goes to one of the best schools in Paris, for God’s sake. She said they only take two hundred students a year! Even Annette Coleman, CEO of her own law firm, SLAYs. This Brandon Cannon really wants the world to think we’re a gang of potential criminals just waiting for something to incense us.

  Brandon—I’m not calling him “Dr.”—glances down at the reference materials on his desk before continuing.

  “This game is absolutely dangerous,” he says. “It prompts users to initiate these ‘duels’ in which two players fight to the death using powers wielded from Black icons, including law-abiding American citizens who would never approve of this kind of simulated violence—Maxine Waters, Oprah, Angela Bassett, and Dr. King himself. This game is a slap in the face to everything Dr. King stood for, everything he said.”

  What, I think as I feel my throat close up with rage, that riots are the voice of the unheard? For a professor of civil rights law, he knows jack shit about the Dr. King you don’t find in a high school textbook, the Dr. King that Steph had to school Holly about, the one who would be first in line to create a SLAY account today if he were here.

  “If we are ever to have equality in this country,” continues Brandon, “we must eradicate every exclusionary group, including this online Blacks-only gang.” His face is turning a bit pink now as he lifts an accusing index finger to the camera. “Emerald is a dangerous character, and he should—no, must—be held responsible for perpetuating racism and inciting violence.”

  “I’ve never seen a video game that’s specifically designed to target low-income youth of color,” says Jan, stoking the flames. “It sounds like it feeds off their anger at racial inequality in this country—”

  Brandon interrupts her.

  “And breeds further divisiveness at a time when we need unity.”

  Wyatt’s voice echoes his.

  “Further divisiveness at a time when we need unity,” he says, raising his hands in the air and turning to me. “What was I saying the other day?”

  I want to dive over this pool table and punch him so hard he forgets what he was saying earlier. But Harper interrupts my thoughts.

  “Speaking of what you said the other day, Wyatt,” she says, setting the popcorn on the seat cushion beside her and folding her arms across her chest. “You owe Kix an apology.”

  “I’m not about to apologize for having an opinion,” he says.

  “And I’m not about to ask you again,” snaps Harper.

  My eyebrows fly up. Harper may have the blondest hair and the whitest skin and the bluest eyes, but she has the resolve of a Baptist church deacon who just discovered a tiny servant of the Lord stealing extra Communion crackers after Sunday service.

  “Then don’t,” says Wyatt. “I don’t even know why I’m entertaining this conversation with either of you. Like you two know anything about game programming.”

  I almost bust out laughing. He plays hours of Legacy on the weekends, but I’d bet a hundred bucks he doesn’t know vectors from vertices. Ooh, I wish I could wave it in his face that while he’s been screaming at his computer and losing campaigns, I’ve been designing campaigns.

  Jan is talking again.

  “I mean, something like this can’t continue indefinitely, Dr. Cannon. There has to be a party working to stop this . . . this . . . well, most accurately, this gang.”

  “I haven’t heard reports of anything yet, Jan, but in my professional opinion as a man who’s spent the greater part of twelve years studying American civil rights, I can tell you it’s only a matter of time before someone rises up and brings litigation against this Emerald character on discrimination charges.”

  “Hell yeah!” exclaims Wyatt. “What was I saying on Friday? Harp, I talked to Dad and Duncan on FaceTime last night, and they said it’s totally a valid case.”

  Okay, now I have to ask.

  “Who’s Duncan?”

  Wyatt rolls his eyes as if I’ve asked something asinine.

  “Our family’s lawyer.”

  Harper and Wyatt’s parents have a personal chef, a driver, and a maid. Would it be that much of a stretch for them to have a family lawyer? I think of the CEO of NoonMoon, who could buy the services of whatever lawyer he wanted, and I wonder, if he knew he might get caught, might he have had an attorney at the ready beforehand? Would it be that outrageous for a rich father to let his son borrow that attorney over a video game dispute?

  “This SLAY thing will be gone in a few months tops,” he continues.

  “Oh yeah
?” I ask. Now he’s gone and pissed me off. “And Legacy won’t?”

  “Uh, no,” he chuckles. “See, the only thing that makes SLAY different from Legacy is that it’s apparently no whites allowed. This Emerald guy thinks he’s so exclusive, so elusive. Untouchable. But it’s soooo easy to get a SLAY passcode, seriously. I have one.”

  It feels like someone has just punched me square in the gut.

  He . . . has one?

  I glance at Harper, who’s looking at me apologetically, probably since she couldn’t get him to apologize to me. But an apology from Wyatt is the furthest thing from my mind right now. How the hell did this boy, who’s made it very clear that his only Black friends are me, Steph, and Malcolm, get a passcode to my game? Who the hell gave him access?

  “No, you don’t,” I say. He has to be bluffing.

  “Uh, yeah I do. Sixteen digits. Always starts with a one. Got it from some guy in a Legacy chat room.”

  I feel like I can’t breathe.

  Wyatt looks up at me and shrugs.

  “As long as I live in a free country, I can play whatever game I want. All I need is a passcode.”

  Why does that sound familiar? Where have I heard that before?

  It hits me when I remember Dred’s words: As long as I live in a free country, I can inbox whoever I want. . . . All you need is a passcode.

  My heart is pounding. It all makes sense. Dred, after Dred Scott, and after the dreadlocks debate. Dred, who clearly has experience playing MMORPGs, like Legacy of Planets. I feel dizzy as the full realization sinks in.

  Wyatt is Dred.

  Wyatt, whom Harper and I used to babysit. Wyatt, who used to beg to come to the movies with us and then threaten to tattle if we didn’t buy him popcorn. He’s now kicked it up a notch and infiltrated my greatest accomplishment, harassed me online, for not letting him play a video game.

  I give Harper a half-assed excuse as to why I have to go home that minute. I don’t even remember putting on my Keds or walking out the front door to my parents’ SUV in the rain. All I remember about the drive home is feeling myself transitioning from shocked to angry. He’s put the whole game in jeopardy. He’s put my friendship with Harper in jeopardy. I want to tell Steph so bad, but if I do, she could never look at Wyatt the same way, which would put strain on her and Harper’s relationship, so her sorority would suffer, which would mean her scholarships could suffer, which could mean her college prospects would suffer. I absolutely can’t tell Steph, but maybe if I take her advice and battle Wyatt—I mean Dred—he’ll go home and lick his wounds and forget that he ever tried to challenge Emerald. Maybe he’ll be so miserable and embarrassed after losing that he’ll go away on his own. I can go back to playing my game in peace, and nobody will have to hate anybody.

  The minute I’m home, I sneak down the hall to my room and shut the door carefully before booting up my computer.

  I open my SLAY inbox and find Dred’s message and begin typing: You want control? You want attention? You want to be included? I’ve got a proposition for you.

  But I don’t send it. This isn’t the way to do this. If I send a private message, he’ll be able to archive this conversation and use it against me. I can’t sound threatening just because I know Dred’s identity. He still doesn’t know it’s me. I could tell Wyatt it’s me, and he might drop the charges, or he might tell the whole world my identity.

  Think, Kiera, think.

  Then I remember Spade’s words.

  You are a queen, and this is your game.

  I know what to do.

  I unlock my bottom drawer, pull out my headset, my gloves, and my socks, and take my place in the middle of my room. I click the announcement bell in the top right corner of my screen—the bell I use to direct everyone to City Hall in the Central Plaza, where I make all my important announcements. Usually I reserve City Hall for game-changing news, like when I release a new update, or do a giveaway of new weapons to beta testers, or change the game rules or something. But today I’m saving the integrity of the game itself. Today I’m going to address what I should have addressed last week. Today I’m going to salvage what Jamal’s killer almost destroyed.

  I pull my trigger finger, sending Emerald sailing through the air. The northern lights are still aglow on the horizon, sending red and purple flames in ribbons across the sky. I fly over the snow and ice, watching the characters below make their way through their villages and huts. Some carry firewood, some carry swords, some carry staffs and shields or baskets of rice. I think about how much time each of them must be spending each week to build a virtual life for themselves, building up their characters and buying them clothes, forging weapons and textiles and other tradable goods, carefully managing their inventories and dueling other players to earn coins. Here, we all get to be the same. We all get to be “normal” in our own fabulous uniqueness.

  Whatever happens between me and Wyatt, I’m proud of what I’ve created. I’m proud to know that I’ve given my people a space where we can be ourselves without limitations, regardless of shade or financial ability. Nobody has to worry about real-life problems here. The police don’t profile us, people don’t gentrify our neighborhoods, and we don’t have to remind people not to touch our hair. And if experiencing that here in my game, just for a moment, makes even one SLAYer rethink their role in the world as a Black person, if it gives them the power to face whatever they have to in the real world, that’s enough to make all of this worth it.

  Just as I reach the Central Plaza, which is made entirely of marble and has been lovingly nicknamed King Jaffe’s Palace after the king from Coming to America, my door creaks open.

  I rip off my headset so fast it takes a couple of hairs with it.

  “Whoa, whoa, it’s just me,” says Steph.

  I breathe a sigh of relief, but I also want to kill her. “What are you doing just walking into my room like that?”

  She shrugs and produces a headset of her own from behind her back.

  “My SLAY sister Q.Diamond sent me a Discord message that you’re about to make an announcement. I’m guessing it’s about how you’re going to drag that asshole so hard it’ll give his children road rash?”

  Discord is the communication app, mostly used by gamers, that Cicada and I would be using if we didn’t have secret identities to maintain.

  “You’re on Discord too? Since when?”

  “Since I found out about SLAY a couple of months ago.” She’s smiling proudly and shaking her head. “I still can’t believe you’re Emerald. Does this mean I’m kind of a princess? Sort of ?”

  “You know there’s no official hierarchy in SLAY, but if you stay on your best behavior, I might just make you a mod.”

  She squeals so loud I have to remind her that our parents are just a few rooms away in the dining room, and they know Steph and I don’t have enough in common to be in the same room squealing about anything. She nods and pulls a pair of hot-pink gloves and socks from the back pocket of her jeans and slips them on. Then she situates her matching pink headset over her hair and pulls the goggles down over her eyes. I smile at the wise allowance investment. She’s got the 3500 series—the two-hundred-dollar set that launched two months ago.

  “Don’t you need to be near your computer to interact?”

  “Oh, yeah!” She pulls off her headset again and swings the door open. “I was so excited I forgot!”

  She slams the door and I hear her footsteps fly down the hallway. If Mom and Dad don’t ask her what she’s doing making all that noise this late at night on a school night, I’m going to wonder if they’ve fallen asleep at the dining table.

  I pull my headset down over my eyes again and look out over the plaza steps. It’s sunrise in SLAY, and the sky has turned purple, fading into orange. I check the Central Plaza chat, and it reads fifty thousand. My hands are getting clammier as that number ticks up to sixty thousand, but I tell myself that if MLK can improvise a speech in front of two hundred fifty thousand people, I can ce
rtainly type out some text in front of sixty thousand in a world where no one knows my name. I tell myself this, but it doesn’t make me any less nervous.

  I begin typing.

  “I will make the announcement in two minutes.”

  The crowd roars to life as if I’m announcing a duel. Text bubbles appear in a rainbow of colors above their heads, hurling questions at me, with some characters jumping up and down to catch my attention. I read a few to get a feel for the general sentiment.

  “LONG LIVE JAMAL! LONG LIVE ANUBIS!”

  “New mod?”

  “CAN I BE MOD?”

  “ANUBIS!!!!!!!!!”

  “Will we have an Anubis memorial?”

  I hadn’t thought of an Anubis memorial. That’ll be first on my to-do list as soon as I save this world from total destruction. A bright pink message catches my eye because it belongs to a character that hasn’t stopped jumping up and down since I announced the two-minute countdown.

  “EMERALD, IT’S ME, HYACINTH!”

  It’s so strange to see my sister in the game! Her character suits her, though. She’s wearing a hot-pink catsuit, long thick hair tied up into a huge braid interwoven with flowers, over-the-knee diamond boots, and a black top hat. Why so extra with it, though? I wonder if she’s ever been to Cicada’s house. I have a feeling they’d get along just perfectly.

  It’s been two minutes, and I step forward and raise my arm for silence. Characters stop jumping. The ones who have their headset mics enabled go mostly silent. Some sit down. I take a deep breath and begin typing, hoping I don’t say something that’ll make this lawsuit worse.

  “Welcome, kings and queens!”

  The audience bursts into applause and I keep typing.

  “Today I have a special announcement to make. You’re all aware of our fallen brother Anubis. Many of you in the Desert region hailed him as your leader. While I never dueled him personally, I know he was a valiant fighter and a humble soul who was widely revered throughout the SLAY universe. He will be missed.”

  My jaw is aching from holding back tears, and I didn’t even know this boy. Then, in a stroke of sheer impulse, I open Google and search “Jamal Rice.” I see all those identical pictures of him, holding up a peace sign in front of that Ping-Pong table, probably at an after-school club in Kansas City, where he thought he’d get to grow up. I wonder who is across the table from him about to spar, and I wonder if they’re a SLAYer too, and if they’re watching me—Emerald—right now.