Once the game finished loading, I spent a few minutes customizing the button configuration on my new throttle and flight-stick controllers, then logged on to the Armada multiplayer server.
I immediately checked the EDA pilot rankings, to make sure my ranking hadn’t slipped since my last login. But my so-cheesy-it-was-cool call sign was still there, in sixth place. I’d held that spot for over two months now, but a part of me was always still shocked to see it there, listed among the top ten, alongside the game’s most famous—and infamous—players. I scanned the familiar collection of call signs, listed in what had now become a familiar order:
01. RedJive
02. MaxJenius
03. Withnailed
04. Viper
05. Rostam
06. IronBeagle
07. Whoadie
08. CrazyJi
09. AtomicMom
10. Kushmaster5000
I had been seeing these ten call signs almost every night for years, but I didn’t actually know who any of those people really were—or where they lived, either. Aside from a few casual acquaintances at school and work, Cruz and Diehl were the only Armada pilots I’d ever met in real life.
The game had over nine million active players in dozens of countries, so clawing my way up into the top ten had been no easy feat. Even with what I’ve been told is a natural talent for videogames, it had still taken me over three years of daily practice before I even managed to crack the top one hundred. Once I’d crossed that threshold, I finally seemed to find my groove, and in the months that followed, I made a meteoric rise into the top ten while also rising up the ranks of the Earth Defense Alliance, earning one field promotion after another until I was promoted all the way up to Lieutenant.
I knew Armada was only a videogame, but I’d never been one of the “best of the best” at anything before, and my accomplishment gave me a real sense of pride.
Admittedly, all the time I’d had to devote to the game had shaved a full point off my grade average, and it had probably cost me my relationship with Ellen, too. But I’d already vowed to turn over a new leaf, I reminded myself. After tonight’s mission, no more Armada for at least two full weeks—even if that meant sacrificing my position in the top ten. No great loss, I told myself. The higher you were ranking, the more trash talk, friendly fire, and accusations of cheating you had to endure from the other players.
Case in point—the Armada pilots currently ranked in the top five were easily the most loathed players in the game’s brief history. This was partly because the top five ranked pilots had the honor of “painting” their drones with their own customized multicolored designs, while the rest of us flew plain old stainless ones. That was how the top five had earned their nickname “The Flying Circus.”
A lot of posters in the Chaos Terrain forums seemed to believe the top five pilots were just too good to be real players, and that they had to be NPC bots or Chaos Terrain employees. Others theorized they were an elitist gamer clan, because the five of them never responded to messages or in-game chat requests. Of course, that may have been because N00bs were always accusing them of cheating, by using some sort of client hack to auto-aim or give their shields infinite energy. But it was all bullshit sour grapes. I’d been going head-to-head with RedJive (aka “The Red Baron”) and the other members of the Flying Circus on the free-for-all death-match servers for over a year now, and I’d never once seen any sign they were cheating. They were just better than everyone else. In fact, studying their moves and learning from them was how I’d climbed into the top ten. I still found their general arrogance obnoxious, though—especially RedJive, who had an infuriating habit of sending the same text message every time he shot someone else down in the game’s player-versus-player practice mode: You’re welcome.
Those two words would flash on your screen, accompanied by a blood-boiling BEEP! RedJive obviously had a macro set up to fire that message like a missile, right after he blasted your ship to bits—literally adding insult to injury. I knew why he (or she) did it, too. It was a tactical move designed to anger his opponents and throw them even further off balance right before they respawned in another ship. And it worked, too. On everyone. Including me. But one of these days, when I finally got RedJive between my crosshairs, it would be my turn to send one of those infuriating texts: No, no, no, RedJive. You’re welcome.