Soda Pop Soldier. Nick Cole

games, then they get to own those places?”

      “Well, they don’t get to own them, but they get the right to pay to advertise in them. Plus LiveNet broadcasts the best parts of the action with lots of product placement.” It’s surprising to me that Sancerré, a trained commercial photographer, doesn’t understand advertising-gaming rights. But fashion seems to be its own little world. Hence the photo shoot last year in which she’d had to hide under a model dressed as an undead Marie Antoinette carrying a light saber as the dust children of Mogadishu ate red apples on a dirty street full of cheap PrismBoard advertising. I think it was an ad for jeans.

      “I guess today was pretty important then,” she offers.

      “Yeah, it was. But forget about it. How long do I get you for?”

      “I’m afraid that’s it, soldier boy. I’ve got to be there early. Miss Thing threatened not to show up over shoes and they want me in just in case she actually makes good and doesn’t show.” She shoulders her bag and checks her makeup in the mirror one last time.

      “Is she really that bad?”

      “Worse. She actually will show. She will get what she wants and then she’ll play the martyr as everyone grovels for her forgiveness. It’s disgusting.”

      “I guess I might just chill tonight,” I say with a stretch and a yawn. “I’m pretty wiped. If you’re back by midnight we can go watch the big PrismBoard at Madison Square Garden change over to WonderSoft.”

      “I wouldn’t count on it. Mario made us clear our schedules. He wants to buy us all drinks at Burnished.”

      “Do I need to worry? I mean, I know you love those things. I’m sorry I don’t have enough. I wish I had more. I’d spend it all on you … honest.” I would.

      “I know you would. You don’t have to worry about those things. Everything will be okay. It won’t always be like this.”

      But somehow I do worry, and I imagine it being much worse.

      Later after she’s gone, I bring up my compilations. I’m feeling very ’Nam. I mix a scotch and SevenPlus, ColaCorp’s new not-cola and light a smoke just as this great remix from the 2030s of “White Rabbit” by the band that first did it comes on. Outside, the late winter sun drops below the horizon. New York locked in winter is even more depressing than getting pwned by WonderSoft. I want jungles and golden sunsets. I want a hot yellow sky and murky haze and gurgling brown rivers. I light some incense, crank up the humidity control, put on an army surplus T-shirt and ’Nam out.

      I settle into the warm glow of the scotch, dragging absently at my smoke. I think about WonderSoft Garage and Kiwi. He’s near the end of a bad streak of getting killed. ColaCorp doesn’t like that kind of thing, and it’s only a matter of time until he gets reduced from professional status back to overqualified amateur. He needs a win. In truth, the whole team needs a win. We all do.

      WonderSoft had come into its own in the past six months of online warfare, dominating most of the battlefields for advertising supremacy. Eastern Highlands was my first campaign as a pro player-officer and already we’d lost some major advertising venues in and around New York. Losing everything to WonderSoft is probably going to get me booted back to freelance, which will cut down on any future campaign actions. Worrying about Kiwi only reminds me that his situation is only slightly worse than mine, and everybody else’s at ColaCorp for that matter.

      My ’Nam set gets psychedelic, cascading over remixed hits almost a century old. I mix another drink and log in to the bunker, the gathering place for ColaCorp professionals after battles. Senior commanders generally don’t drop by after a loss, but after a win they come in and hand out bonuses and slap our backs over the feeds. Today’s beating at Eastern Highlands and the loss of Madison Square Garden and Channel Two ensured we wouldn’t be seeing them tonight.

      It sucks to lose.

      Kiwi’s avatar, large and hulking, shirt off and showing curling tribal tats, leans against the bar talking to JollyBoy, an intel specialist, and Fever, a great medic who’s managed to revive me on the battlefield more than a few times, including one time I swore I was really down for the count. I double-click them and bring up all three of their feeds. Kiwi looks even more frightening in real life than his avatar. Huge, hulking, tattoo overdose, a leering lecherous grin, almost drooling into the monitor. His eyes are the only feature that tell you he’s a friend and not foe. His eyes say, I’m kind; you can trust me, mate.

      “Perfect, Perfect, PerfectQuestion. Did ya make it back to the rally, mate?” he asks me.

      “Cheers, Kiwi. It was touch and go, lost a lot of grunts. But, yeah, we got picked up at the rice paddies just as WonderSoft started dropping their artillery all over us.”

      “We lost three slicks at the LZ,” JollyBoy announces happily. The joker he is never fades, even when he’s delivering the worst of news. Losing three Albatrosses made me glad I was on one of the slicks that got out of there. What a cheap way to get it. It’s one thing to be out there fighting, making a bad choice, getting caught in the cross fire, whatever, and losing your day’s winnings and bonuses. But catching a slick and feeling safe as you hear the turbines spool up and thinking you’ve just escaped one bad day of gaming and that you’re gonna get paid and make it to the next fight only to have it explode a moment later—well, that’s another thing. A bad thing.

      “Any players?” asks Fever. Fever cares little about the fighting. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen him running around with his weapon out. He only carries his med packs, boosts, and revival pads. He cares more about us than the battles.

      “Yeah,” JollyBoy says with a smirk. “ShogunSmile and WarChild …”

      “These laughin’ newboys with their haiku tags. Serves ’em …” Kiwi’s drunk, but just drunk enough to catch himself at the beginning of a lecture on tag choice. His discipline isn’t long for this world.

      “What’re you listening to, PerfectQuestion?” asks Fever, catching the music in my background.

      “Lemme see … ‘Vietnam’ by this reggae guy, Jimmy Cliff.”

      “Sounds good. … feed me.”

      “Me too,” says Kiwi. I patch them into my music, inviting JollyBoy also.

      “No thanks, PerfectQuestioney. The Harlequin likes his industrial trance calliope mixes.”

      JollyBoy is weird.

      We play music for a while and watch funny clips from the day’s battle, usually something we or our grunts did that was dumb. We talk about what went wrong and what we should have done, all the while each choosing a song, not realizing we’re saying something about ourselves, the day, and maybe life. Finally Kiwi plays “Waltzing Matilda,” mumbles something about the long ride to the Wonky Boomerang and logs off without further good-byes. JollyBoy has long since faded into other conversations. Fever smiles and says, “Keep your head down, Perfect,” and is gone. I scan the cantina for RiotGuurl.

      Why?

      Because it was her first battle as a professional. That entitles her entrance into the bunker. I tell my empty apartment it wasn’t her fault that we lost and put on “Black Metallic” by Catherine Wheel. Another drink and I force myself to think about Sancerré and a relationship that’s coming apart at the seams. But my guitar-driven thoughts keep returning to RiotGuurl.

      Who is she?

      Where is she?

      And why do I care?

       Chapter 3

      At twenty to midnight I wake, still sitting, still holding the remnants of a watery glass of amber scotch on my stomach.

      This is my life. Digital death, destruction, and some computerized mayhem by day, long lonely nights with too much scotch and too little of the woman I loved.