SLAY

by Brittney Morris

  “Steph, what are you doing?”

  “Allowed in your room or not, I’m still your sister. And this Negro is about to be reminded of that.”

  “Steph, are you crazy?” I ask.

  “Crazy? What? No,” she giggles. Then she directs the sourest glare she can muster in Malcolm’s direction. “I just suddenly felt like grabbing a nice big ol’ cup of hot coffee.”

  I have to defuse this. If this gets out of hand, Steph might actually throw that cup at Malcolm, in which case my boyfriend would be in the burn unit at the hospital, and Steph would be in jail and possibly forfeiting any chance she has at a scholarship and maybe getting kicked out of Beta Beta Psi.

  “Steph, that’s not necessary—” I begin.

  “Oh, it looks pretty necessary to me,” she hisses, although she hasn’t taken her eyes off him. Her voice has gotten louder and it’s getting louder still. “In fact, while we’re sitting here discussing what it looks like—it looks like this boy is bullying you, which is strictly prohibited at Jefferson. It looks like this boy is asking too many questions. And it looks like this boy is asking for a reason to leave.”

  She holds up the coffee cup menacingly. The whole cafeteria is watching now, and I want to crawl under the nearest table and become invisible. I know what everyone in this room is thinking, and I know what they’re going to go home and tell their parents if something goes down.

  Mom! Dad! The Black kids at Jefferson fought today!

  When Malcolm’s mom transferred him out here, she did so thinking this place would soften him up and allow him time to focus on his studies. But although trouble doesn’t always follow Malcolm, Malcolm seems to always find trouble. He’s staring at me now with his chin high in the air, and I realize his eyes are glistening. He may be angry, but right now all I see is a wounded animal. I see the little boy who was curled up in a beanbag chair, controller in hand, sleeping off the loneliness.

  “What are we, Queen? Huh? What am I to you? Am I your king? Make your choice. I’ll be here when you get your shit together and come back home.”

  He lifts his hands up in surrender and turns to leave the cafeteria.

  I get through the rest of the school day, but not without Malcolm, Steph, Harper, and Dred lingering in my mind all day long.

  14. GAME SHOW

  * * *

  Three hours till the duel, and I’m a mess. I can’t stop shaking even though it was sixty degrees outside on the walk home—warm for Seattle—and I’m sitting on the living room couch wearing sweatpants, one of my dad’s sweatshirts, and my fuzzy socks. With shoe toothbrush in hand, I’m cleaning the gunk out from the bottoms of my white Keds onto a paper plate in my lap. It’s amazing how much dirt and how many rocks can accumulate in the grooves on the two-block walk home. It’s therapeutic, actually—something I can do without having to think. Normally my de-stressing activity is coding, or dueling, or designing Emerald’s outfits, or talking to Cicada about what new weapons or cards we’ll create next. We talk about Hexes and Battles and Defenses, and new regions we want to build—or we did until Wyatt discovered us. Lately, he’s all we have time to talk about anymore. Now I can’t stop glancing at my phone for notifications, not that I’m expecting any. I catch myself biting my nails mindlessly, even though my fingers were just picking rocks out of my shoes. Gross. My phone buzzes on the cushion next to me, startling me, and I’m frustrated at how jumpy I am.

  Steph: Can I watch in your room when I get home, or are you going to throw me out again?

  That’s just what I need. An audience.

  If I text her back, I’m afraid I’ll say something I’ll regret. I already have to apologize to her for yelling her out of my room last night. I don’t want to add to the list of things to feel guilty about. And I have to apologize to Harper, too, for all of those texts Malcolm sent her asking where I am. Just hearing his name in my head sets my blood boiling. He’s such an asshole sometimes. Steph insists he’s antifeminist, and he insists he’s antifeminist, but I don’t think he is. I think Malcolm wants equality for all people—Black and white—but he thinks Black people are owed more to make up for what’s been done to us, like affirmative action and reparations. I don’t know how I feel about reparations. I mean, I’m not going to turn down a check in the mail from the US government apologizing for what was done to my ancestors. If they want to buy me a brand-new car, they can go for it. But I doubt it would solve any of our systemic problems. I want to talk to Steph, but not about the duel. I text Cicada instead.

  Me: Do you believe in reparations?

  Cicada: Do I believe in them? Like I believe in the Easter Bunny?

  I roll my eyes, set my shoes on the floor, and lean back against the sofa.

  Me: No. Do you believe in them, as in, do you believe we should get them?

  Cicada: I’m not American, and I’m only half-Black, so I’m not really qualified to answer that, “Black enough” or not.

  It stings, the phrase “not really qualified,” but I guess since she’s not American, that’s fair. She’s typing again.

  Cicada: I didn’t mean for that to hurt. Sorry. I just meant that since I’m not American, I don’t know if my opinion on reparations matters.

  Something’s different about what she’s typing. Something’s grayer, duller. Sadder. I ask her something that I think will cheer her up. She always perks up when we talk about each other.

  Me: What do you like to do? I mean besides SLAY. I feel like we don’t know enough about each other to convince people we met three years ago.

  Cicada: I don’t have time to do anything but study and SLAY.

  I don’t believe that, and I’m not giving up that easily.

  Me: Well, I like to shop. I like to cook and read. I like to clean my shoes, which sounds neurotic when I type it out like this.

  Cicada: I like to shop sometimes. Sorry, I don’t feel like talking.

  Me: Are you okay?

  She takes a while to text back, but when she responds, I understand why.

  Cicada: I didn’t know how or when to tell you, but my mom died last night.

  I don’t know what to say. It’s weird, but Cicada has always been this invisible force on the other side of the world, like an android that I check in with that helps me keep SLAY running, so it hits me hard when she tells me this.

  Cicada: I was on my way to the train station to see her when her doctor called me and told me the news.

  I don’t know what to say. I start typing and then delete, type, and then delete.

  I hear the front door unlock, and my own mom’s voice echoes through the foyer.

  “Hey, girls, I’m home,” she says. I hear her handbag as she sets it on the console table, and she begins her afternoon ritual of sorting the mail.

  “It’s just me, Mom,” I say loud enough for her to hear me but not loud enough to be a classified holler. “Steph is at chapter meeting.”

  “On a Monday?” she asks as she slides out of her slip-proof shoes and steps into the living room. “Since when does she have chapter meetings on Mondays?”

  I shrug and glance at her as I text Cicada back.

  Me: I’m sorry, Cicada.

  Cicada: My name is Claire.

  Something swells in my chest, and I feel strangely lighter.

  Claire.

  Not sure why, but Cicada never really sounded like a Claire to me. A Victoria maybe, or a Trixie, or a Jacqueline. Something sharp. Claire sounds so sweet, so gentle, so . . . something.

  Me: Claire is a nice name.

  Do I tell her mine? Before I have a chance to think, Mom is sinking into her favorite armchair across the room from me and letting out a loud sigh that demands my attention, signaling she’s about to talk to me about her day, and my day, and I’m going to have to find something to talk about that’ll convince her nothing is wrong.

  I can feel her staring at me.

  “You okay, sweetheart?” she asks. I feel bad for her. If I had a daughter who suddenly checke
d out for days, stopped eating her favorite foods, started neglecting her appearance, and stayed in her room all the time, I’d suspect drugs.

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” I say. “Just tired. Math exam today.”

  “How’d it go?”

  Same as it always goes. “Aced it. Harper did too, actually.”

  “Guess that girl finally found a way to study without you.” There’s a smile in her voice, but I’m not convinced she’s not thinking quietly to herself, It’s about time that girl stopped taking my baby’s help for granted.

  But I’ve never felt like Harper takes me for granted. Harper’s just one of those people who doesn’t know when to stop asking people for things, and I don’t mean to say that she’s selfish. She’s one of the nicest girls I know. She just doesn’t know where the line is. I’ve had to bail her out of situations more times than I can remember. I remember the day she discovered the Harlem Shake—not the real Harlem Shake, but the meme-ified one where you grab a dozen of your closest friends and get one of them to do something weird like hump the wall while the rest of you freeze, and then when the music drops, you all act like you ain’t got no sense. A bunch of sophomores, including the girls of Beta Beta, roped me into filming a Harlem Shake video with them in the east wing, which we all forgot was dangerously close to the library. The superintendent leaned his head out the door, and while the rest of us scrambled to stop whatever weird dance moves we were doing, Harper was all by herself with her legs up the wall, twerking with a beach ball strapped to her butt for a solid ten seconds. Harper asked me to accompany her to the administration building myself just to talk the superintendent out of giving her a week of detention. I talked him down to two days. Harper later told me she couldn’t hear us over the music, but I still say she should’ve been paying attention.

  Cicada—I mean Claire—texts me again.

  Cicada: You don’t have to tell me yours if you don’t want to.

  I type, Sorry, I was just talking to my . . . and then I remember what she just said about her own mother, and I abbreviate my message to:

  Me: Sorry.

  And then I tell her.

  Me: My name is Kiera Johnson.

  Cicada: Kiera is a pretty name. Nicer than Claire. And I’m jealous of your last name. Mine is Chappelle. Imagine having to explain to everyone you meet that you’re not related to the only Black Chappelle they know. You’d be surprised how many French people love Dave Chappelle.

  I smile as I text back.

  Me: I never realized Chappelle was a French name. Guess that makes sense.

  “What did Malcolm say when you told him about Spelman?” my mom asks with a grin. My smile disappears as quickly as it came.

  “We’re not talking.”

  “Oh,” she says. “Everything all right?”

  “Yeah,” I say, hoping she’ll take the hint. “I just don’t have time for him right now.”

  It’s only half-true. I have time for Claire, for Steph, and for Harper, and for hundreds of thousands of people I’ve never met, but not for my own boyfriend. Or whatever he is to me now. Maybe he’ll forgive me for neglecting him. We used to spend every other evening together. I rarely saw Steph. I rarely saw my parents. It was just me and Malcolm, or me and SLAY. They’d never competed before, but they certainly do now—now that a real-life boy in Kansas City is dead because of my virtual world, and now that that virtual world is putting real-life me in the crosshairs of a choice—no, an undeniable responsibility—to be un-silent about the real-life consequences of it.

  It was easier to balance real life and SLAY when SLAY wasn’t so big. When it wasn’t so heavy. I just need to beat Dred—Wyatt—so things can go back to normal. I look up at the ceiling fan, watching it spin and spin, and I run through the cards in my head. Do I know them all? All 1,245 of them? How can I be sure unless I study them? If I can just look at their names before the duel, I’ll feel a lot better.

  “Hey, Mom, I’m going to lie down for a bit. Not feeling well.”

  Mom has been quiet for a while, and I didn’t notice. She’s staring down at a small white envelope with burgundy letters in her lap, and I run through the list of schools I’ve applied to with red in their school colors. Harvard. Stanford. University of South Dakota. University of Georgia. Illinois State. Boston University. I’ve been accepted to every single one of those, all acceptance letters except the one from Harvard. Which one am I forgetting?

  Then a thought crosses my mind. Holy shit. Is that a letter from Wyatt’s attorney? My heart starts pounding and I begin to feel dizzy as Mom pries the top open and tears the envelope with her finger. Then she notices me staring.

  “What?” she asks. “Honey, are you okay? You look sick. What’s going on? Talk to me.”

  “What’s that?” I ask, trying to sound as relaxed as possible.

  “It’s your father’s bonus check,” she chuckles, but I can tell it’s because she’s shocked that I would be so freaked out over an envelope. She slips out a single sheet of paper with a check attached at the bottom, and I blink a few times in disbelief. What’s wrong with me? Normal Kiera wouldn’t be this panicked, this jumpy, and normal Kiera would’ve probably realized immediately that it’s impossible for Wyatt’s attorney to send me a summons when (1) he’d be suing Emerald, not me, and (2) he would have to know that I’m Emerald to know to send it to my house.

  “I’m going to go lie down,” I say again before retrieving my shoes from the couch and tossing them into the foyer.

  “Honey,” she calls after me just before I can disappear down the hallway. I look over my shoulder as she asks me, “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

  I shut my eyes and take a long, deep breath. I want so badly to be able to tell her. SLAY is the best and hardest thing I’ve ever done, my best accomplishment. I want my mom to know about it, to see it, to experience it one day. I want her to be proud of me. I want to show her all that I’ve had to teach myself just to program a game like this, to create a virtual world for over half a million people. But if she doesn’t want me saying “ain’t,” if she thinks glasses with tape on them are tacky, if she has to consciously focus on avoiding the word “ghetto,” I don’t know if she’s ready to see the range of Blackness that SLAY covers. I’m already getting used to the fact that Steph SLAYs. I’m not ready for my mom to know too.

  “Yeah, Mom. I know.”

  When I get to my room, I lock the door immediately and go straight for my bottom drawer. I realize that I haven’t texted Steph back that no, she absolutely cannot come into my room and watch me duel. She’ll inevitably start talking to me, and I need absolute silence to concentrate. What if Wyatt was able to study all 1,245 cards today? He would have had twelve hours to study the deck if he woke up at six and studies till the duel. That would be about a hundred cards per hour. A card every forty seconds. That’s long enough to read all of them, and if he stayed up all last night with them too . . .

  He could know them as well as I do.

  I log in and see my logo—SLAY—appear on the screen inside my goggles. I slip my gloves on as I step back into the center of my room. I wonder for a minute if this is the last time I’ll get to put these on. I wonder if this is the last time I’ll get to play my own game. But I can’t let myself wonder that or I’ll start psyching myself out. I bounce my feet over the carpet nimbly like a boxer, taking a deep breath in and blowing the air between my lips until they flap. It loosens me up a bit, until I notice the chat count.

  In total, 500,637 people are online right now, waiting for the duel to begin. That’s almost every single person with a SLAY account, even the inactive ones who haven’t logged in for months. Instantly, the nerves are back.

  My fingers fly to chat, and I type in D-R-E-D. He’s grayed out, indicating he’s offline, and somehow that brings me some comfort. I search C-I-C-A-D-A, and she appears green, which brings me even more comfort.

  Me: Hey.

  Cicada: Hey.

  Me: I just thought of
something. If he wins, we’ll still talk on WhatsApp, right? You won’t hate me for losing?

  Cicada: Of course. You’re the sister I always wished I had. ♥

  It occurs to me that I’ve thought of Cicada as a kindred goddess and fellow developer all this time, but never as a sister. I guess I’m as close to a sister as Cicada’s probably ever had. Correction: as close to a sister as Claire Chappelle has ever had. I raise my hand in the air and pull my trigger finger, sending me sailing through the air. I’m in the Rain Forest, where I was surveying a new kind of miniature chimpanzee we released into the jungle, and I’m flying over the canopy now, which I probably made a little too close to lime green. I’ll correct the color later, if there is a later. If Wyatt wins, who knows? I descend and my feet meet the ground. I move forward and keep typing.

  Me: My favorite color is green, but you probably knew that.

  Cicada: Would never have guessed. ;) Yellow for me. Have you always loved green?

  I think hard about her question. Have I always loved green? I think so.

  Me: I think it started with the first time I saw The Wiz.

  Cicada: Never seen it. I wish I had a story that interesting, though. I think I’ve liked yellow best since the first time I saw the sun.

  I smile, and I imagine what it would be like to be in the same room with her, side by side, watching The Wiz together, her for the first time, me reliving the wonder of the Emerald City all over again. And then that, thinking of the future, makes me wonder something else.

  Me: Will you still SLAY if he wins?

  Cicada: Hell no.

  I laugh, basking in the satisfaction. Wyatt can have it all—the servers, the domain, the designs, the ideas, and even the cards—but he can’t force the players to stay. I find myself hoping that if he wins, every player on this server deletes their character and boycotts SLAY until he’s dethroned. That thought brings comfort over me like cool medicine. Even if it all goes to Dred, even if we lose everything today, he can’t take everything. He can’t have this community. He can’t have our experiences here. He can’t have Claire. He can Columbus the game, but he can’t Columbus us.