Page 28 of Off Her Game
“What’d they want?” Asked in a tone that was a little too curious.
“They wanted to know about this and to get my cooperation to recruit Noah to help them since they somehow know you have us playZoneworlds. They found out about our impending date.”
“Why would they want Noah Harrison’s help?”
“Don’t know, but, like me, he was ambushed in D.C. by them. He seemed pissed. They tried to twist my arm into cooperating, but they didn’t have anything on me to do the twisting.”
He smiled a sinister show of braces-laden teeth. “So long as you’re telling the truth.”
“I’m here. I owe Symphis. I know the stakes.” She put her hands on her hips. “I’ve been to jail three times over the Stadium. Have I blabbed once? No. So, back the hell off.”
“Don’t forget what’s at stake.”
“I won’t.” As she sauntered away she saw Rand push his ear and heard something about Jersey. Was Symphis in Jersey? Might be another Stadium event location, though.
She nodded at the familiar faces she passed. None smiled at her. One guy shot her the finger, perhaps because she’d nixed his character last week on level ten. Symphis demanded “cooperative team spirit” within each assigned squad, but nixing the guy’s avatar last week improved the crappy squad’s performance.
Nearby, Jar, her recruiter, accepted something from a known drug dealer. He popped whatever pills he’d acquired into his mouth. Clothes hung off his used-to-be-XXL frame. Stress and drugs made for an unbeatable weight loss program.
“How’re you doing?” she asked him.
Jar vacant stared at her as if accessing memory proved difficult. “Tori, right?”
“Yeah, it’s Tori. You okay?” They’d competed against each other for years with a friendly smack-talk rapport.
Deep bags drooped beneath his eyes. As she brushed past him when he didn’t answer he grabbed her wrist in a brutal grip and leaned in to whisper, “If they offer you drugs, don’t do it. Get out now. Just get out.”
With a yank she freed her wrist. “Uh, okay.”
She wove through table clusters to find the Red Table.
“Aw shit. Tell me, we didn’t get thegirlon our team,” a barely fifteen-year-old groaned.
Ugh.The fifteen-year-old was a notorious hothead who didn’t comprehend the concept of teamwork. Her other three squad mates were mid-twenties greenhorns on their first or second night of play, identified by the nametags they were forced to wear. This group guaranteed a shitshow performance.
She tested the suppleness of the only open chair. It wobbled. Pet peeve number one when gaming was chair issues. She dragged the chair away from the table and exchanged it for one from a nearby cluster. The new one’s wheel squeaked, but it didn’t wobble.
The gigantic countdown timer on the wall signaled three minutes until the competition started. She glanced around, expecting someone to offer to be team leader. Fine, she’d be the one to ask. “Did we already discuss strategy?”
“Fuck you,” the fifteen-year-old muttered.
Tori scowled. “That’s a piss-poor strategy if we’re doing this as a team.”
None of the others met her gaze. Typical. They judged her to be the unskilled token female player. “If you can’t play this game, then tell me now. Assuming you can, I need to know your strengths so we can decide who does what.”
Nothing. One of the guys had the audacity to leer at her chest.
“If we win or place in the top ten, then we’ll get a minimum thousand credits.” It’d get her one step closer to free of debt.
The fifteen-year-old snorted. “We’re not gonna win. Not with this group of dumbasses. So, who cares? We get out there. We shoot and stay alive. Move to the next level. End of strategy.”
“Have you ever played this game? It’s not about shooting hostiles. It’s about—”
A horn sounded. Thirty second warning.
She pulled on her headphones. Too tight. She fiddled with them but in the dark she couldn’t see the mechanism to loosen them.
Double horn blare. Her screen lit up automatically. The game’s intro launched.
