“God damn it,” Ryan says furiously while taking the VR headset off, flinging it to the ground. Soon, the sound of the headset cracking is lost among the cheers of the audience who are gathered in the indoor amphitheater.
The board above them shows the scores:
00:00:00
Kathy, The Sexy Fox 9.82 vs. Ryan, The Brave Lion 9.81.
Covered in blood, Ryan’s avatar on the board is flashing red, which is a long-standing tradition in GameCon, the national tournament in virtual reality games. That is meant to humiliate the loser. It is working quite effectively on Ryan—compounded with the audience’s cheers that could have been for him.
Kathy, The Sexy Fox, is still lying in her recliner. Biting her tongue, her gloved fingers are pressing hard against the recliner’s armrest as if she is choking someone in the game. The game is finished, but apparently, she cannot resist having fun with the corpse of the underdog, The Brave Lion.
Her growl growing into a roar, she jumps up from the recliner. The VR headset still covering her eyes, she stands before the applauding audience. The large screen above her cuts from her avatar sitting on The Brave Lion’s chest to herself standing on the stage. The cheers amplify when she throws her fists in the air. With a smile of victory on her face, she bows before the fans who congratulate her win.
Breathing heavily, Ryan bolts upright. His eyes fall on the broken headset that lies on the dark green stage. He wishes he had not done that. If GameCon decides to charge him for the damage, there is no way in hell could afford it. His eyes downcast, he rushes for the exit door.
Ryan stops the moment he faces the standing audience, not a single of them rooting for him. Their eyes covered by the VR headset, like androids, nine hundred game enthusiasts are chanting for Kathy. Although the system is rendering nothing but Kathy standing on the stage right before them, they would rather watch the reality through their virtual-reality headsets! That infuriates already-raging Ryan. These idiots should be chanting for him instead.
While rushing up the stairs, he takes off the VR gloves and flings them to the ground. It feels lonely and alienating to be surrounded by people unappreciative of his talents. “These ungrateful blockheads,” Ryan thinks, “don’t know the reach of my powers, the extent of my potentials, or the real me.” Not to see the irritating face of the cheering audience, he keeps his eyes lowered.
Ryan trips, somewhere midway up the stairs. His hands are too late to save his face from the impact, leaving him with a bleeding lower lip. Teeth grinding, he turns back and finds a red high-heeled boot sticking out in the walkway. The boot and the blue miniskirt are the only garments covering the otherwise long, naked leg.
Ryan peers at her face to see who this clumsy moron is.
With her middle finger extended, she waves her hand while peeking from the corner of her VR headset.
Is she for real? If they were in a video game, she would be a stereotypical villain NPC—Non-Player Character—designed to piss the players off. Ryan would guess she is Samantha if she did not have the brown mole on her chin.
“Bye-bye, loser,” she says and turns her face back to the stage, where the winner is standing tall. Putting the VR headset back on her eyes, she joins the audience in applauding Kathy.
Ryan’s face wrinkles in humiliation. GameCon fans are mostly of the excitable type, but this jerk has gone way out of her way. What makes it more hurtful is that the same jerk would be worshiping Ryan now if he had scored 0.02 points more. But this is GameCon, where the winner takes it all.
With his clenched fists pressed against the ground, Ryan pushes himself up. I’m done with this ridiculous game, he thinks. The sooner I’m out of this damned place, the better. He sprints up to the exit door.