Page 47 of Single-Minded
“It’s cool,” he says. “The clan we’re playing tonight kinda sucks, so there’s nothing to worry about. We’ve got this.”
I tentatively put on the headset as he powers up the other TV.
“You look cute,” he says.
“Thanks,” I say, feeling like I’m back in high school.
“First thing you need is a gamer tag,” he says.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Your screen name,” he answers, looking at me expectantly. “Mine is QB_SNiiP3R,” he says proudly as he selects it on screen. “No pressure, though, yours doesn’t have to be as cool.”
“Lucky me.” I laugh. He’s staring at me, waiting for me to answer; my mind blanks out and I can’t think of anything funny or witty. Actually, I can’t seem to think of anything at all. “Uh…”
“It doesn’t have to be perfect,” he says. “You can always change it after tonight if you don’t like it.” That’s rich, like I’m ever going to need a gamer tag after tonight.
“Uh.…” Jeez. I can’t think of anything. Anything at all. Dane shifts in his seat; he’s clearly getting impatient.
“SparklePony?” I say tentatively. An inside joke with Michael, but it’s the only thing I can think of. I’m terrible at remembering usernames, so Michael made everything from Netflix to our cell phone accountSparklePonyso I wouldn’t forget.
Dane rolls his eyes, but looks amused. “Okay, SparklePony it is.”
He enters my username, picks a generic avatar, and then hands me the controller, explaining rapid-fire how the thing is supposed to work. “This stick is how you move your camera—if you click it, it will do your melee attack or zoom; right stick click is melee so you can beat someone with your gun instead of shooting them in the face. Left stick is move. If you click it you can sprint. If you’re in sniper mode, it holds your breath.Ais double jump to give yourself a little rocket boost,Bis crouch,Xis the critically important reload button,Ylets you switch your weapon. Left bumper is your exo-ability, right bumper is your lethal equipment. Left trigger is ‘aim down the sight,’ right trigger is the most important button of all, ‘fire weapon.’ Those are the basics.”
The basics? He’s practically speaking in tongues. Right button to fire is pretty much all I got out of that. And something about holding my breath.
He points to the top TV screen. “That’s us, D34TH2C@MPERS.” A video feed of Dane’s face is on one side of the screen, the game is in the center.
He points to the other TV below “That’s you.”
“Death to campers?” I laugh. “I mean, I hate camping as much as the next person—especially the sleeping outside part—but I don’t wish a zombie apocalypse on them or anything.”
Dane responds without taking his eyes off the top screen, “Not that kind of camping. ‘Campers’ hide in one spot trying to kill you when you respawn. Or they’re in a shitty spot where you can’t get to them, and they kill you a bunch of times. Not cool.”
The game hasn’t started yet, but comments start scrolling on the right side of the screen, mostly in jibberish. Except one.
?upernatura?P?ragon:SparklePony? What kind of lameass brony name is that? OMFGQB_SNiiP3Ryou brought a CHICK
~*?tomicChimera*~:sparklepony???? lmao is she gonna make us sandwiches at intermission? WTF?
I’m hearing stereo, Dane next to me, and Dane through the headset, “Be cool, you guys. You can’t be talking about my special lady like that, you douchebags. Matty’s out with carpal, we need a warm body. You wanna cancel the stream tonight?”
Dane is defending my honor against these sexist little monkeys, which is kind of sweet. Except he did it by calling somebody a douchebag, which is pretty awful. I’ve only been here ten minutes and it already feels like the longest date of my life.
~*?tomicChimera*~:Move the camera, lets see how warm she is.
Ba?Frenzy:Shut up and play
“Just ignore them. They’re a bunch of immature assholes. Ready?” asks Dane.
“Ready or not,” I say.
“Just stick with me.”
The action starts. And it does not go well.
It looks like we’re in a jungle or something, but full of sand and overturned trucks and bombed-out buildings. All I can see is the end of the gun my character is carrying. In the headset, all the guys are talking to each other, talking smack, telling each other what to do, swearing up a storm, which makes it even harder to remember which buttons to push to make myself move or shoot. At first I can’t figure out how to move my character at all, and then once I do I just keep running around, trying to follow Dane’s character, which isn’t as easy as it sounds.
