Morning hit Mal like a train. He wished he had it in him to sleep more, but he could never figure out how to shut the blinds completely. He thought he should probably start this routine on his seed. He didn’t know how so he did it the old way. He moved to the terminal he brought from home and checked his schedule. It was Friday and he didn’t have any classes but there were still things to do. He was in a new town and the sun was out. He wasn’t sure if he should buy paper books or not. His professors had put course packs on the net and had told him it would be easier to print them as needed.
Other than the mall the place everyone kept talking about was Babbage Avenue. The union was on that street but it also had a bunch of stores and restaurants. There was also a huge diagonal public square right between the union and the library on the street. This early in the semester there was bound to be some concert or fair there.
Walking around Mal wondered what everyone was doing right now. He thought they were probably doing the same thing as he was walking around. Walking down the street, Mal passed an Arcade. He had never been in one before so he didn’t know what to expect as he walked in.
There were old school terminal games but there were also plenty of seeders. In the middle of two small arenas there were holograms of people playing the games.
Alley Cat and Silver Cat were playing a game of basketball. On the screen there were five copies of each girl. Katrina was winning. Each copy of herself seemed to move almost as an individual, while some of Alex’s copies wouldn’t move as she focuses her attention on controlling the ones closest to the ball. Just then Mal saw Henri.
“Hey What’s up Henri” How you doing Mal. Seamus normally hangs out here. I guess when we find him us and the girls can head to the diner.”
“Alley really needs some practice.”
“Yeah so which one is the real one?”
“They all are I guess. A skilled person can use each one of those players almost like a limbs, but from the looks of it Alley isn’t used to it yet. Oh well.”
There were two minutes left on the clock. Katrina was ahead by 15 points, but Alley had no intention of giving up. Suddenly one of her player’s stole the ball and passed to the other end of the court to a copy of herself that was in the air. The copy in the air without landing then slammed the ball into the basket.
“Wow. I thought that Alley would be to short to pull of a move like that.”
“In real life maybe but she’s in one of the games, still though I wouldn’t have expected her to be able to pull off that move”
A buzzer rang. Alley and Silvia opened their eyes in a corner of the arcade where they were sitting.
“At least you’re getting better, but you still need tons of practice,” Silvia said.
“Yeah” Alley said bitterly. “Anyway Mal and Hammer are here.”
Mal and hammer went over to sit with the girls.
“So what do you guys think we should do? We still have a while before we said we would officially meet and we can’t do much until we catch up with Forge and Mr. Universe.”
“Who’s Mr. Universe?” said Alley
“A disgusting pig,” Silvia replied.
“ Eh I’ll admit he can be a bit crude but he’s alright. And if you have a sense of humor, which sorry Silvia you don’t he’s a barrel of laughs,” said Henri.
"Anyway," Alley interrupted, "He'll probably be at the dinner. We should head over there. See you later Henri."
"See You guys letter."
The party decided to wait outside the dinner for Mr. Universe, who arrived 15 minutes late".
"Good evening ladies and Gentlemen. The lord master of everything has arrived. Lets get this party started. Eh who are these people"
"Meet Mal, a friend of mine and Alley, Silvia's little sister"
"Hey I met you before? Yeah on the first day of classes you were talking on a phone."
"I have no clue what you're talking about. Anyway let's eat."
"So what will it be? " a waitress asked the group.
"Flapjacks for me," says Seamus
"Its almost four. I never get how you can eat breakfast at dinner, by the way a fish sandwich for me", Silvia said
"Simple this place serves the best pancakes I'll have the flapjacks too", Alex said
Everyone else ordered a grilled cheese
"So what's the plan Silver" Mr. Universe said
"The first thing is that we need to brief the newbie's. Forge"
"I'm on it. Okay so over the summer Henri and I designed this game together this is kind of a beta test. It's your standard FPS with a few exceptions. The map will be chosen randomly but I was the guy who designed that part of the game so it gives us a bit of an advantage. The way it works is one team defends and the other attacks. The defending team will have 30 minutes to set up their traps, and their vehicles and starting position. Both teams get to choose their weapons using points but the defending team gets to chose the location of their vehicles, ammo, and guns. The other team has to carry theirs from a random spawn point Henri and I programmed.
"Doesn't that put the attacker at a disadvantage?", Alex said.
"That brings me to my next point to be fair I told Henri we would be the attackers for the first round because I know so much about the maps. That said this will be a two out of three match. And whoever wins each match earns the right to be the defender. Also everything you do in the game earns points, kills, stunts, you get the picture . We can use those points in the second and third games to get more firepower. Even though Henri's team is the defender if they get lazy and just dig in it will eventually give us enough points to overcome their position through firepower, but in the spirit of fairness if the gap between the two teams points gets to high the game resets them both to 200.
"So any ideas on how to attack this." Alley said.
"It's your standard FPS so I say we all just do not mother fucking die." Silvia said.
"Speaking of which what happens if we die," Mal said.
"You're out for 10 minutes or when the round ends, which ever happens first. The round ends when all the players on one side are dead at the same time. While you're out of the game you get to hang at this nifty player lounge we created. The AIs can't get into the game proper but if they want they can hang back at the lounge and watch. I figured Circe, Artemis, and Thor would get a kick out of that. It's rare they get to hang out together these days. Each team also gets a war lounge. You could spend your time in the common lounge or the war lounge." Forge said
"Wait there's five of us isn't that unfair to Henri." Alley said
"No prob. Its been a while, and I hate to say it but he has a new crew running with him. I've met a few of them their alright guys but they don't stand a chance." Universe said. "Oh by the way one of them is his girlfriend. I saw them snogging. Another is a cousin of his. "
"That would be Zach." Seamus said. "It's his freshmen year too. He's a spitfire. Seen him play a few games with the ole hammer. Dude is all heart and no brains. He doesn't know when to hold and when to fold."
"He fights when he ought to run huh." Mal said.
Seamus nodded
"So in the second round how are we choosing to use our points." Silver asked
" I don't know. For now I say we split the points into 7ths. each of us get one seventh and then they remaining two can go towards common things like vehicles. It seems fair but if we want to change up we always can in the war lounge. By the way I say we meet up there a half hour before the game field can be seen from the lounge and looking down will give us a better idea of a plan."
"Deal." Universe said. "So a you two ready to get your battle cherries busted"
"Don't worry they're game." Seamus said.
"I don't know what happens but it's only a game right," Mal said. Silvia raised her left eyebrow and glared at Seamus.
"Hey all of our pride is on the line. I say we kick ass harder than it's ever been kicked. Show them exactly who the hell we are," Silvia said.
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