The Game (11 page)

  “I kind of said the same thing to my Mom earlier,” I say.

  “Well then, you’re kind of smart,” she says.

  When it’s time for the blue belts to perform, we start off as a group and go through the
kata
for our level. There are about 20 of us; Danielle and I are the youngest. Usually a kid is around 12 or 13 to be at the blue belt level, but I practice a lot and Sensei says that I earned the early advancement. Danielle must have done the same. I go through my forms, watching her out of the corner of my eye. She’s good.
Very
good. Strong, crisp, also relaxed in her style. It looks like she’s been doing karate her whole life. She told me she’s only been at it for two years. I've been practicing four years.

  We form a ring around the outside of the mats, waiting for our turn to spar. At this level, we don’t need the headgear. Head contact isn’t allowed and we all know how to make sure the punches don’t connect. Watching the little ones spar is cute. Watching
us
spar is better. Not as good as the highest level belts, but I’ve sparred with brown and black belts and even won, so the parents will get a good show.

  Danielle and I go last. I walk to one side of the mat and she goes to the other. We face each other and bow. She looks very intense. I have a sudden feeling I might lose. Locking eyes with her, I quietly use my imaginary power and whisper, ‘You can’t win this match, Danielle.’

  Her eyes squint and she freezes in place. She quickly looks around then her gaze snaps back to me. “Hey, what did you just do?” she asks seriously.

Stephanie

  “Hey!” Raphael exclaims in a loud whisper. “Did you just see that?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “How long has he been able to do that, Stephanie?”

  “Couple years. But you know how it works, Raph. Most kids can do it when they’re young. Life and experience eliminates the Talent soon enough. He thinks it’s just his imagination.”

  Raphael laughs, keeping his eyes on the kids as they get ready to spar. “It
is
just his imagination!”

  I scowl. “You know what I mean. He doesn’t believe in it, so soon it will fade, same as always.”

  “Maybe,” Raphael sounds doubtful. “But Danni just spotted it, and that’s likely going to be a problem for me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she can do it too. And I don’t know how she actually recognized Trew doing it just now, but I know her. There’s no way she’s going to stop believing in it after this.”

Trew Radfield, age 9

  “I didn’t do anything,” I say.

  “Yeah, you did.” She shrugs, “Okay, don’t tell me. I’ll figure it out soon enough. Let’s rock.”

  I get into a guard stance and she does the same. We circle each other for a couple of seconds, neither of us retreating or giving ground. I’m usually the more aggressive one in a match, which often forces my opponents to take a few steps back. Danielle must play the same way, because we both stand our ground and take small steps forward, waiting for the right opening to attack.

  She drops her shoulders and makes it look like she’s going to throw a right punch straight to my stomach, I step sideways and block downwards; it’s actually her left foot that kicks out and I gently push it aside. She’s very fast.

  The match is two 90 second rounds and it goes by so quickly that I can’t seem to remember it. I’ve practiced so much that I can let my mind relax and just feel my way through the sparring.

  She attacks, I defend.

  I attack, she defends.

  I watch the video later and can’t believe how good she is!

  It’s a close match, but I manage to win by one point. I guess I must be pretty good too. The person on the video looks like me, but I’ve never seen half the moves that either of us use.

That happens to me sometimes. Sometimes I’m there, then a bit of time passes and I’m not really present. Suddenly I’m back. I’m not sure how it works, but it’s very cool.

  I do remember bowing to her after the match, and her saying, “Well, that was awesome!”

  We all go back to our spots on the mat, and about an hour later the testing is done. Kids go to their parents and I quickly run over to ask mine a question.

  “Hey, guys, there’s a girl from the States here and she’s pretty nice. Can we ask her to come have ice cream with us, please?”

  “Which girl would that be, love?” Mom asks with a smile. She knows, she’s just messing with me.

  I play along. “Um… that one over there. I think she’s a blue belt too.”

  Dad laughs. “Sure, pal. Ask her to come along.”

  I quickly run over to find Danielle and she’s standing with the group of ten American students who made the trip. “Hey, today’s my birthday and we’re going around the corner to have cake and ice cream. Is there any way you might be able to come join us for an hour?”

  “Let me ask my Sensei.” She walks over and talks quietly with her Sensei, who looks over at me and nods with a smile.

  “They will be here for another two hours before we go home. So if you can have me back here before that, then Sensei says I can join you!”

  “Okay, come on, then,” I say and lead her towards my family. My Sensei is standing with them and she smiles when we come over.

  “Well done, Trew,” Sensei says. “Your
kata
was clean and very powerful. The sparring…” She looks at me and Danielle and just shakes her head.

  “Was the sparring not good, Sensei?” I ask.

  “The sparring between you two was like watching magic,” Sensei says. “If someone had told me two children your age could put on such a display of martial arts I wouldn’t have believed it. It was incredible, Danielle and Trew. Thank you for allowing us to witness it.” Sensei bows formally, and we both bow back.

  “Mom and Dad, this is Danielle.”

  My parents smile and both say how nice it is to meet her. Then they tell her how well she did today. Danielle turns a bit red and says thank you. Everyone seems to be getting along just fine.

  “Well, we are glad you can join us for ice cream, Danielle.” Mom says.

  “I’m happy to be invited,” Danielle says.

  “Don’t worry about not bringing a gift for me,” I say as a joke. “Since we just met, I’ll forgive you.”

  Danielle looks hurt. “But I did bring a gift for you.”

  “Really?” I ask.

  “Oh, yes. I let you win that sparring match. Happy birthday, Trew!”

  Everyone laughs and we leave the Dojo to go for ice cream.

Chapter 20

  From time to time, people try to find ways to hack into the Game. In order to discourage this from happening, the Mainframe maintains a tight watch on all systems to ensure outside tampering doesn’t occur. Any unauthorized data entering the system is detected immediately. Mainframe quarantines the data and removes it from play. Games Masters are then alerted and the authorities trace the hacker back to the source and deal with them severely. Imagine someone being able to change the outcome of events in the Game? There is no crime more serious on Tygon than attempting to hack into the Game. Punishment for this crime is death. No one has ever succeeded in hacking the Game. Early in the Game many tried; all of them paid the price.

Excerpt from ‘How Safe is the Game?’

  Everyone sat silently in their chairs. All screens showed Trew at his ninth birthday party; smiles, ice cream and kids walking around talking as they moved from seat to seat. Brandon looked at the screen with a pleasant expression on his face. Beside him Michelle occasionally switched between looking at her tablet, and glancing at Brandon. Everyone else looked down at their tablets, as if they were the most interesting things in the world. Brandon might look pleasant, but no one made the mistake of thinking he was happy with what he was seeing on the screen.

  Danielle walked up to Trew and whispered something. The two of them laughed and Danielle sat down in the empty seat beside Trew. Brandon’s cheek twitched. He turned away from the monitor and looked at Michelle.

  “Michelle?”

  “Sir?”

  “Can you call the hospital, please? Tell them I’ve had a stroke and somehow believe I’ve travelled back in time to an event that didn’t happen.”

  Michelle said nothing.

  “Can anyone tell me who’s playing this excellent joke on us? We tried to hook this up a few plays ago, didn’t we? The poor girl spent all her credits for just this kind of a scene, right? Even in our wildest dreams the two of them wouldn’t have gotten together so well.”

  “Yes, sir.” Brandon held up his hand, stopping Michelle from saying anything else.

  “But for this play, we don’t want her anywhere
near
Trew! She isn’t part of our plan. She left the Game and we have no idea why she’s back. She’s a loose cannon, with not enough credits to be anything but dangerous. She could die crossing the street, for God’s sake. What if Trew is caught in that mess of a life she’s living?” Brandon stopped talking and closed his eyes, rubbing the back of his neck.

  “Look, people, you’ve all worked with me before. You know I’m not the kind to get crazy and start shouting and throwing people out of windows,” Brandon smiled. “We are the only ones that know for sure that Zack is making a play for number one. Raise your hand if you have bet everything you own on Zack pulling it off.”

  Hands shot up around the room. Of the thirty-one people present, thirty had their hands up. Brandon nodded, his was the only hand not raised. He had more than just a fortune riding on this, but no one could know that. “You were all top players in the Game, and this is absolutely your best chance to double your considerable fortunes. We all know the rules. There’s no hacking into the system to affect the outcome of the Game, but we also understand there are many things we can do to help our player within the rules Mainframe has set. We’ve spent considerable time and money putting supporting players in place with
millions
of credits spent. We have thirty years of experience to try and figure out how Zack can score the best from the life he chose to play. Yes, the Game can decide none of it’s important and score him terribly, but we know how to play the best odds. Each step he takes can lead us down an alternate path, and we’ve taken thousands of them into account.
Not one single path
includes this girl, however. If he ends up with her, we need to do a complete new set of strategies. So the easiest option is to get her out of his life. Michelle, is that going to be possible?”

  Michelle looked around the room quickly. Brandon’s speech had calmed them all down. He really was the best man in the world to work for. He always called it ‘working with,’ but they all knew who the boss was, and they loved him fiercely. She looked back and met Brandon’s eyes, dark brown with flecks of gold that seemed to be swirling around quickly at the moment. “I don’t know, sir, but we are sure going to try.”

  Brandon nodded. “That was definitely Raphael outside the dojo. Can anyone explain to me how Alex got herself an Eternal to watch over her? They are the most expensive purchase in the Game, and Raphael is one of the best.”

  Michelle looked to Kate questioningly. “She didn’t have the credits to purchase an Eternal, sir,” Kate said. “The only answer we can come up with that makes any sense is a very wealthy fan or group of fans made the purchase
for
her.”

  One of the young men spoke up, “Can we get Stephanie to ask Raphael to keep her away from Trew?”

  Brandon sat down and grabbed his tablet, tapping out commands to view statistics. “Yes, that’s one option. I also need to know what Stephanie and Raphael were talking about. Maybe there’s some information there to help us decide how to proceed. Tell Angelica to watch that feed and set up a meeting with her and me and you, Michelle.”

  “I’ll talk to her immediately, sir.”

  Brandon looked up and met eyes with the spiritual expert of the group. “Sean, Zack’s displaying the Talent. I need to know the best way to foster that. He’s close to the age where he’ll let it fade away, and we can’t have that. We also can’t let him develop it too much, or it could alert the Mainframe and it will shut him down. I need you to give me a strategy for moving forward by the end of the day.”

  “I’m emailing it to you now, sir.” Sean said.

  Brandon nodded. Once your player went into the Game, time was precious. Taking too long on Tygon would mean missing key points in the Game. This team truly was the best, and therefore the fastest.

  Brandon stood up to leave. “Okay, people, it looks like we all have work to do. I’ll be back in a few hours. I’m sure we’ll talk before then.”

  “Brandon?” Michelle looked pale as she looked up from her tablet. “We’ve discovered who purchased the Eternal for Danielle.”

  Brandon looked at her with interest. “Great. Who was it?”

  “Um… it was the Mainframe.”

Chapter 21

  “Joining me today in the studio is Brandon Strayne. Brandon, it’s great to see you again.”

  “Thanks, Lisa. It’s good to see you as well.”

  “Brandon, I know your time is short, so let me get right to the questions everyone is asking.”

  “By all means.”

  “Trew Radfield is 11 years old in the Game. We have witnessed some exciting developments since he started this play, but the event that’s being talked about the most is his meeting with Danielle Benton at his ninth birthday party. Did the two of them spend credits to attempt another relationship in the Game?”

  Brandon smiled secretively. “We learned our lesson the first time on that scenario, Lisa. We spent no credits on this play to get them together. Of course, I can’t speak for Alex or her camp. If she
did
arrange for a meeting, I’m glad that this time it worked out for her.”

  “Trew is doing very well in the rankings so far. Can he keep it up?”

  “Of course he can. The first week is pretty slow, and already he’s doing well. Scoring floats all over the place as the players do their thing, but a strong start is important and Trew has started very strong.”