Page 65 of How We Play the Game
Emilia is halfway out the door when she stops herself—“Oh, wait. One more thing. Ivan asked me to tell you something before I left.”
“What was it?” Clive asks, fists clenched at his sides. I think my uncle might actually try to kill Ivan?
“He said, ‘Too many people and twice as many eyes.’” With that, she leaves, and something like a plan takes shape in my head.
Clive takes that in for a beat. “Your generation baffles me.”
“We baffle ourselves,” I agree. “But we’re trying our best.”
“I was too, you know,” Clive says, suddenly serious. “Are you really going to take that mentorship after this? After—”
“Hey, Unc.” I stand on my toes to give him a kiss on his newly shaven cheek. “I got this.”
For the first time this summer, I know exactly what’s going to happen when the cameras turn on.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
IF MY WALK to the top of the Wizzard Theater were a third-act movie moment, here’s how it would go:
Cue “The Final Countdown” with its sick synth riff. Roll the camera, red RECORD light nice and steady up top, gliding in front of ZORA on a dolly. Catch the movement in slow motion as I rise from my chair and walk the bright halls of the Wizzard Theater to hit my mark at the top of the amphitheater’s left-side aisle. Each time I pass a thematically significant location from this summer past, cue a split-second flashback: static, sepia reminders at the overlook to the black marble lobby where I dropped the VIP Wizzcon lanyard, at the doors to the players’ lounge where we raised the curtain on the VANE and ZORA show, on the gold nameplate outside a private viewing box that bears Brian Juno’s name.
The camera’s focus would catch the moment I settle into place behind the door at the top of the left-side stairs, the same one Cass failed to close quietly on the first day of the academy. Five weeks ago could have been five minutes. Time,like everything I’ve done this summer, is just something people make up to give structure to our stories. My eyes, shaded dark in the already dark hall, would glance to the other theater door, the one that leads down to the right-side aisle, and catch the slightest glimpse of a brown-haired someone over the shoulders of my entourage. Push focus, fade my face into the foreground, bring him into the light. Make sure his face gets nice and clear, along with the unsubtle roll of his shoulders. He does not look at me, so I stop looking at him. This is how the story is supposed to go.
Through the metal doors we hear, off-screen: Brian Juno. I cannot see him, but I know what he looks like. I know how he grips the mic with both hands and rumbles through his boxing-announcer voice to get his show on the road. Brian’s tailored suit, rectangular face, and tall hair are exactly as they look in every promo in which he’s ever starred, every faux-candid fan interaction, every con panel for decades. Everyone knows what propaganda is; they just don’t know what they know.
“Please welcome to the stage, mad as heck and ready to kick some butt, the one, the only—Zora Lyon!”
The first time I walked through this door, the theater felt light and airy, with house lights on and barely a tenth full of just the academy students milling around, and my grand entrance was met with unknowing stares until Ivan broke the silence to greet me. Today it’s immersed in an artificial midnight, with only the blue-and-purple LED strip lighting on the floor to guide me as I glide down through the aisle step by step. The spotlight is so tight it only illuminates a precise circle around wherever I step, making me feel like the steps don’t exist until I put my foot out to meet them.
And then there’s the noise. All summer I’ve thought of Wizzard’s fans as nothing more than numbers on a screen, points to earn and calculate as I level up with each interaction. Now that I hear them in person and feel their breath moving real air around the arena, it strikes me that the academy students weren’t the only people Brian lied to this summer. Everyone who participated in the competition on the other side of the screen got scammed as well. They thought they were voting with their attention and having any impact on what happens behind the scenes at their favorite game company. Except the whole time, their attention stayed exactly where Brian wanted it, boosting and demoting everyone’s WiTch accounts at his will.
When the small pool of my spotlight touches the stage, my feet deposit me at the ground level, where my second mark awaits. The stage itself seems somehow undressed with only two stations set up for play instead of fifty. The distance to my seat feels the same, though, and when I spin around and raise my arms to acknowledge the real people behind my rise this summer, their bellowing cheers push me back into my seat. I can’t see a single one of their faces from here and feel a pang of guilt, but I know I’m doing the right thing.
Highlight, copy, paste the section again. Replace Zora with Ivan, maybe swap the color scheme in his sequence to really push the me vs. him narrative. He comes to the stage, he walks to his seat, and for the first time in a week he and Zora are alone again. Her, the warrior who planned on brute-forcing her way toward a finish line barely worth crossing, and him, the ruthless bard who dipped and swerved his way around the truth to achieve the exact same worthless goal.
And of course we aren’t alone. We are two people onstage in front of hundreds who boo for him as loudly as they cheer for me. I wonder if Brian is watching from up in his suite by now, waiting for his two prizefighters to start tearing each other apart live on the streaming service he created. It’s fine for him to wait. It will all be over soon.
I’m proud of Ivan for coming back, for standing across the stage from me and looking me in the eye. I’m proud that he’d take this reputational bullet for me just to make sure I came out of the academy on top. I’m glad he found a way to start making his mistakes up to Emilia, and I’m even gladder that he found the strength to turn this whole stupid deal with Brian down. Eventually. No credit awarded for getting into that mess to begin with, but I didn’t ride here on a mile-high horse either. A mini horse at best. Or not a horse at all. More of a skateboard.
Are we awful people? I don’t know. Being with Ivan didn’t feel awful, even when I thought he was faking everything. Those little bursts of pleasure I felt when one of his compliments slipped under my radar and made me believe he was serious were real. It was my confusion, my anxiety that made those nice things sound discordant. Ivan took me seriously the whole time. If I had taken him seriously too, maybe this summer would have gone a little differently.
Who am I kidding? This is where we’re meant to be. Across the stage I lock eyes with my … fake real ex-boyfriend. No, my ex-real fake boyfriend. My—Ivan. The boy’s name is Ivan, and he knows what I’m thinking because he always does, somehow. We finish each other’s sentences, for Pete’s sake. So let’s finish each other’s stories.
Every round ofGuardians League Royalestarts the same way, but1v1mode is different. Instead of crowding just two players on the enormous starting barge, we have our own little mini barges that soar in from the opposite sides of the map. Mine is green and more heavily branded than a racing car. I don’t bother to look at the logos; I didn’t have any say in what they would be. I do look through my character’s spyglass to see where Ivan’s barge is coming from, and if he’s jumped out yet.
His barge is purple, for what it’s worth. Figures he’d get my favorite color and I’d get the color of his eyes. Our headphones block the sound of the crowd, but since I’m just cruising at in-game altitude, I chance a peek up to see if my eyes have adjusted enough to spot anyone in the audience. I don’t, this shit iswaytoo bright, but in the movie I’d see Clive in the front row, sharing a bucket of popcorn with Cass. Emilia and Jake would be there, Kavi and Trieu, of course. Chaz, for sure. But he’d have spilled a big red slushie on himself or something so he looks ridiculous for a comedic beat. Poor Chaz. I cast him as a total sideshow without ever getting to know him. Will I try to get to know him after today? Absolutely not.
By now the crowd must be getting suspicious. I’m still sitting pretty in my barge, and as far as I can tell, Ivan is too. I just think it would make for a better ending if we both did it at the same time, you know? Ivan seems to think so too. A nice, clean landing. Right below the spot the barges cross … in the center of theGuardians League Royalemap.
VANE jumps; then ZORA jumps too. We pull our parachutes together and land right where it all started. Where it started twice, now that I think about it. It really does look likethe one in Central Park—or is that just how I see it in my memory? For the sake of the story, let’s say that it does. Let’s say they’re identical, so whenIvan and IVANE and ZORA land on its tower and the battle horn finally rings, it makes a good image for the cover.
The clock starts ticking, there’s a loot chest right there, but neither of us take it. Both VANE and ZORA begin to idle on-screen, their digital puppet-selves bounding on heels that don’t exist and swinging arms made of nothing but refracted light.
Pause. Back to the script. Let the cursor blink here once, twice, as long as it takes to get the next part right. Because this isn’t a movie moment. It’s a video game. And that means I’m in control of what happens next. There are so many people, with all of their eyes trained on me, on Ivan—on us. I wonder for a moment which pair they’re watching more, the two fake avatars on screen or the two real people on stage. I wonder how many of them care about the difference.
Because, as I’m realizing now … I don’t. Not anymore. Brian Juno’s game can go to hell. He can go with it, and after I start telling people what he pulled this summer, he just might.
Okay, Ivan. Let’s beat this level and end the game for good.
VANE and ZORA are still motionless on screen, but Ivan and I are on the move. We take off our headsets, stand up from our desks, and walk center stage together to cue up our finishing move.
Ivan’s hand feels strong and warm when we clasp hands, bring our arms up, and swing them low to bend our backs in a theatrical bow. The hands stay clasped as we walk offstage, ignoring the chaos as people around us scream and stomp,pointing madly as they wonder why we’re throwing everything away. Great question, by the way, and the answer comes to me when Ivan pulls me through the stage door and out onto the sidewalk. The afternoon sun temporarily sears the sight from our eyes, but it’s okay, because Ivan and I could find each other blindfolded and spun around in the dark or too-bright light. We can sense each other because I know what Ivan’s done and Ivan knows who I am. We’re the only ones who know why we are like this.
There are plenty of people passing by us on the street, but no one blinks an eye when I kiss Ivan. They don’t care when he kisses me too, and they don’t hear our earnestly murmured “I’m sorry”s and the few whispered variations on “me too, it’s fine, shut up.” Everyone who would want to see or hear this is still inside the theater, and Ivan and I are finally offstage.
Game over. Roll credits. But before we go, I have the answer to that question: Why throw everything away?
Because sometimes, the only way to win the game is not to play at all.