In the months that followed, Brian worked relentlessly to prepare. He tore through dozens of matches a day, starting as soon as he got home from school and finishing just before midnight. Jane was always by his side, sometimes doing his homework so he could focus on gameplay. She urged him to keep school in mind.
“All these athletic scholarships have a GPA requirement,” she said. “And that’s just the minimum. You need to have something way above that.”
“I know,” Brian groaned. “But my gameplay is in worse shape than my GPA. Not enough hours in the day.”
“Keep trying,” Jane said, massaging his shoulders as he adjusted his headset. “It’ll happen.”
Jane’s own schoolwork was suffering as much as Brian’s. She barely noticed. Brian was the priority. She would make him whole again.
One day, when she got home close to midnight, her parents were waiting for her in the living room. Neither was smiling.
“Jane,” her mother, Andrea, said. “We need to talk.”
Jane lowered herself onto a chair. “What is it?”
“We heard from the school. Your grades are going down. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” Jane mumbled.
“You don’t know?” Andrea pressed. She turned to Jane’s father. “I told you, it’s Brian. She’s spending too much time with him and isn’t focusing on school.”
“That’s not true,” Jane snapped.
“Is there something else, then?” Andrea asked. “Are you being bullied? Cyber-bullied?” Her eyes narrowed. “You didn’t get caught up in that sexting scandal, did you?”
“No, I didn’t,” Jane responded. “I can’t believe you’d even ask me something like that.”
“Just wanted to check. It made the local news, and some of the interviewed parents said they couldn’t imagine their kids getting mixed up in that, until they did.”
“I barely use social media,” Jane said. “You didn’t let me use it until after everyone else, remember? No data plan for my phone. I had nothing.”
“We did that to protect you, honey,” Andrea replied. “Besides, I know you managed to get around that. Finding WiFi spots. We know all about that.”
Jane waved her hand. “Whatever,” she said. “I haven’t sexted anyone, and even if I didn’t, it wouldn’t be any of your business.”
“Jane, you’re still a child,” Andrea said. “It is our business if you’re putting yourself in danger.”
Jane felt her cheeks flush as the anger returned. She gritted her teeth, thinking about Matt at City Day Nursery years ago. He had disappeared suddenly, without warning. If she had obtained something from him, a phone number or a social media handle, they could have stayed connected. Instead, he was gone forever. She had never thought to give him her phone number because she could only call or text her parents with the atrocious device they had given her. And they had forbade her from going on social media until she was in middle school.
“Why are you guys so scared of technology?” Jane asked.
“Jane, we know that the picture resurfaced, the one with you in the backseat,” Jane’s mother said.
Jane rolled her eyes. “So what? I took care of it. It’s not an issue anymore. Is that the only reason why you kept me away from technology for so long?”
Jane’s parents glanced at each other, then back at her. “No,” Jane’s father finally said. “That was just the beginning.”
When Jane was a small child, the municipality of Ragle had seen better times. The farming of the previous century had given way to oil and gas after reserves had been discovered decades ago. A boom period followed. Over time, the fate of the town became inextricably intertwined with the increasingly volatile fluctuations of a global energy market that tinged green. Booms and busts gave way to smaller booms and longer busts. For the first time in memory, property values declined.
Within a year, property values rose. The bottom had passed as quickly as it arrived. Jane’s father looked for a construction job, and was stunned to receive five offers. Activity hummed downtown, as the skyline incorporated a flock of cranes.
Tech had come. Ragle was close enough to the metropolis to be an investment for developers and tech companies, but far enough away to remain a bargain.
Around that time, the mayor gave a speech about the state of the city. Jane’s parents watched from home. The mayor’s words affirmed the feeling of optimism that pervaded Ragle.
Companies were directing their outsourcing to the heartland rather than overseas. Indiana over India. The cost of an American worker against an Indian counterpart had once exceeded 5 to 1, but that ratio had shrunk to 2 because of rising wages overseas. Executives marveled at the advantages of having their entire workforce within two time zones. Linguistic and cultural gaps evaporated. Cheap online tools made coordination easier between Silicon Valley and branch offices. Jobs poured in, and Ragle prospered.
Long-time residents, including Jane’s parents, grumbled that the best jobs were being taken by newcomers, highly educated refugees from the high cost of living in Silicon Valley and other coastal tech hubs. Yet, they were heartened by the mayor’s declaration that each tech job generated five additional jobs in the city, from construction and hospitality to childcare and waitressing. A small share of something outweighed a large chunk of nothing.
The mayor also explained the virtues of bigness. Internal corporate pay scales anchored each other, so a lower-paid worker in the right company would make more than an equally skilled counterpart in the open market. Jane’s mother, Andrea, cheered when she heard that line. She had landed a janitorial job at the Ragle branch of one of the country’s biggest tech companies. Having done similar work before, she was stunned by her take-home pay, which vastly exceeded anything she was accustomed to.
Everything was turning around. Andrea and her husband could enjoy normal lives again, with the exception of the trip to the methadone clinic early every morning.
Andrea’s new job was a dream. The building contained yoga and meditation rooms. Although her shifts were later in the day, plenty of people would remain in the office, coding and conversing. The employees whose workspaces she was responsible for, all tech workers, lived in High Falls and showed up to work in sparkly electric vehicles. Apprehensive about how the geniuses would treat her, Andrea was pleasantly surprised by the collegiality. Everyone smiled, politely rolling their chairs aside so she could empty out wastebaskets and tidy up. Her boss infused his bland pronouncements with multi-syllabic euphemisms. Not once had anyone yelled at her, which was sublime. She felt like a human being.
The conversations Andrea overheard were unlike any she had previously encountered. Lots of chatter about private schools and grumblings about five-figure tuition bills every three months. Bizarre musings about Soylent and placenta smoothies. Worries about their kids using too much tech. Wistful murmurs about low-tech schools.
“You won’t believe it. We caught the nanny using her phone again during her shift. Why can’t they take our guidelines seriously?”
“That’s awful, and with all the research on small children becoming stressed if their caregiver is distracted by a phone.”
“Borderline child abuse.”
“I’m enrolling my kid in Da Vinci. Only way to go. No tech until ninth grade.”
Andrea had previously assumed that Jane’s school-issued tablet would give her an educational edge. Now, she found herself questioning that view. At a recent school board meeting she had attended in South End, a group of parents had protested the newly introduced tech in classrooms as harmful to the students’ learning and privacy. Other parents had dismissed them as Luddites, but perhaps they had a point.
At the office, fears about privacy regularly surfaced among employees. Concerns about tech in general, which Andrea found bizarre. Isn’t that their profession? Why are they so paranoid?
The central conference room was a sight to behold. A sleek oak table surrounded by plush chairs with adjustable heights and inclines. At the far end was a massive display that took up over half the wall. The room was always occupied when Andrea entered. What she witnessed there over time made her as anxious as the brainy bigwigs she overheard.
A darkened map peppered with tiny, brightly colored dots that moved to and fro. Each time Andrea entered, she would be occupied with cleaning and clearing the space. Each time, however, she picked up a sliver of insight about what exactly was happening.
The city was Ragle, that much she knew. The dots that clustered in particular spaces for a long enough period of time soon changed color, and as they dispersed throughout the map, swirls of colors crisscrossed each other in a pointillist quilt. Then other regions were examined, including sections of the metropolis. The dots morphed into different colors during each analysis. Workers studied the display intently. Some adjusted the code, while others formatted tables in a sprawling spreadsheet.
Then one day, the map was gone. In its place was a scene from a film with muted sound. Futuristic soldiers repelling an alien invasion. The one constant was the array of dots overlaying the video. As the scene progressed, the dots regularly clustered around the flashiest action on the screen, although smaller clusters lingered elsewhere. On the top righthand corner of the screen was a number that changed constantly. 844. Then, a couple of seconds later, 856.
Each day, there was a different scene. A reality show, a cartoon, a documentary, a movie trailer. Each scene had dots superimposed upon it, colored dots that assembled in moving clusters like a swarm of bees. One day, there was a scene with an attractive woman gazing into the camera, as if making eye contact with the viewer. Andrea stopped cold at the door after entering the meeting room. Something about this one was off.
The employees, engrossed in their work, failed to notice her. The woman on the screen was whispering something, but the muted volume prevented Andrea from hearing what it was.
“No language necessary,” an employee said.
“The international language,” his coworker said with a laugh.
The woman began to remove her clothing, article by article, in a slow, teasing fashion. The dots clustered upon the newly exposed skin, like bees drawn to honey. Before long, the woman was completely nude. Dots moved up and down in a vertical line, like two-way traffic on an expressway. An employee tapped a key, and the dots morphed into either of two colors.
On the upper righthand corner was the number. 342. An employee pointed at it. “How could someone ignore this?” he asked.
“Who knows. Probably distracted by something in the real world. But here’s what’s really interesting.” He tapped a few keys, and suddenly the dots changed color. Most turned blue, but a few were pink. “You see the breakdown, what the female viewers are doing?”
“Wait, this has female viewers?”
“Oh yeah, there are always some. So, anyway, you would expect that women would spend more time looking at her face, and that men would look at her body. But it’s the opposite: male viewers check out her face more, while females are ogling her body big time.”
Silence. “Truth is stranger than fiction.” Laughter. “I swear to God, this is the most entertaining assignment we’ve had. What’s it for, again?”
“Virtual reality. Next big thing. Feels like she’s right there with you.”
Andrea could hardly breathe. Male viewers? Female viewers? She heard a clattering sound and winced. Her box of wipes had slipped from her hand. The employees nearly bolted out of their chairs. They stared at her, wide-eyed, as if caught with a trove of fentanyl.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said an employee. “Didn’t know you were here.” While still looking at her, he tapped his keyboard with his fingers and the video cut to black. “We’ll, ummm, get out of your way.”
“Oh no, I’m sorry,” Andrea said, just as flustered. “No need to move, I can clean just fine. In fact, I can come back. Let me do that.” She grabbed the box, opened the door, and walked away as rapidly as she could, never to return for the remainder of her shift.
The following day, Andrea dreaded going to the central conference room, but knew she had to. She had failed to clean it the previous day, and her boss would say something if it happened the second time in a row. Gritting her teeth, she gingerly opened the door. To her relief, only one employee was there, and he had not been there yesterday. Moreover, the large display had switched back to a map, complete with the ubiquitous colored dots.
He glanced up at her, frowned, then turned his attention back to the display. She had come across this kind of response before, though not often. It meant he did not want to be disturbed. He looked exhausted. Dark circles ringed his red eyes. It looked like he had been crying. She went about her business quietly and efficiently.
Just when she was about to leave, he spoke up. “What do you think this is?”
She turned around. “I’m sorry?”
The man gestured toward the display. “This. What do you think it’s showing?”
Andrea shrugged. “Don’t know. Above my pay grade.”
The man smiled. “Would you like to know?” Before Andrea could answer, he continued. “Obviously, it’s a map of Ragle. I’ve seen you glance at it before. You’ve probably wondered what the dots are. Well, I’ll tell you. The dots are its residents, identified by data collected from apps on their phones. That includes you and me. Well, not me, because I’m smart enough to avoid certain apps and nitpick all the settings. Still, I know my location data is being stored in some way, even if it’s not visible here. I don’t trust anything.”
“Wait a minute,” Andrea said. “You’re telling me that each of those dots is a person?”
The man nodded. “The app makers send us the data. We spruce it up, make it as useful as possible, then pass it on to advertisers. It’s good money. Pays our mortgages in High Falls, with plenty left over.”
Andrea remained silent as she heard the confirmation of what she had suspected but had been unable to articulate. “That means they know everything about us,” she said.
“Correct.”
“What about the videos?” Andrea asked. “What do the dots represent?”
The man smiled. “Where the viewer is looking. Everything has a camera: your phone, tablet, laptop, television. The number on the upper righthand corner tells us how many viewers are not looking at the screen at all. Obviously, our clients want that number to be as low as possible. They’re also interested in what the viewer is paying attention to. You know, on the screen. Then they can adjust their programming to give viewers more of what they want. Not only that, but we’re slicing and dicing the viewers into narrower categories. Race, age, gender, that’s just the start. We’re now going into things like facial expressions and pupil dilation to detect engagement, so we can induce more of it.” The man leaned back in his chair. “What do you think? I’d like the opinion of someone who’s not contributing to it.”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Andrea said.
The man laughed. “Be assured that I feel much worse.” He switched back to the map, zoomed in on a neighborhood in High Falls. “It’s easy to tell which dot is my wife. I started paying attention to her movements about a week ago, just for fun. She visited the usual places: the vet, yoga class. Then she went to a house I didn’t recognize. When I got home from work, I asked her where she had gone. She mentioned the vet and the yoga class, but not the house. In recent days, I’ve noticed her go there two more times.”
A lump was forming in Andrea’s throat. She was chilled by what she was hearing, and even more so by the man’s calm, unhurried tone.
The man continued. “Now, there are three dots in that house at night. Three people live there. I kept an eye on that location. And I saw that she only went there when one dot was at the house, not the other two. Kinda strange, huh?”
The man lowered his head for a while. When he looked up, his eyes were moist. He had indeed been crying.
“I don’t even know why I’m telling you this,” he said. “Part of me is grateful to all this tech that allowed me to find out, but the other part of me feels like we’re cursed by what it’s revealing about us. How we really are, you know?”
“What are you going to do?” Andrea asked. “Hire a private investigator?”
“No,” the man said. He gestured to his laptop, to the large display. “Don’t need one. This was my private investigator. You know what hurts me the most? We have a one-year-old son. And she did it anyway.”
“Well, I don’t think you should jump to conclusions,” Andrea said. “Maybe she’s visiting a sick friend. You should ask her point-blank to give you a full explanation. And if it’s what you feared, then it’s time for a lawyer, I guess.”
The man remained motionless. Then he lowered his head and sobbed. Andrea sensed that he knew more than he was telling her.
Just then, another employee entered the conference room. “Sorry I’m late!” he exclaimed.
The seated man hurriedly wiped his eyes with his sleeve while Andrea seized on the moment to get the hell out of there.
Andrea did not see that man the next day, or the day after. Business resumed as usual. On the third day, however, she overheard whispers near the water cooler. A sense of gloom hung over the office. As she went about her work, she picked up fragments of conversation.
“Can’t believe it.”
“Two counts of attempted murder. Two. His wife and her lover.”
“Refuses to say how he found out. But it’s obvious how.”
“Management told us to keep our mouths shut.”
“I liked him. Seemed like such a nice guy.”
The following day, Andrea told Jane’s father everything. They decided to keep Jane away from tech for as long as possible. At the next school board meeting, they joined the coterie of parents who pushed for a low-tech learning environment, citing the prevailing trend in High Falls. They decried the cuts in funding for arts and sports to pay for tech that tech workers eschewed for their own children. They cited research showing that white children spent less time exposed to screens than black and Hispanic children, that school districts where tech was introduced showed no measurable increase in standardized test scores, that screen time had a negative effect on children’s ability to understand nonverbal emotional cues and was correlated with depression. They prevailed. Tablets were removed from classrooms.
Jane did not receive a phone until she was in middle school. When Matthew Kane suddenly disappeared from City Day Nursery, Jane, at nine years old, had no way to reach out to him. And now she knew why.
Jane was silent as she took it all in. She shook her head slowly. “I knew it was bad,” she said, “but I didn’t know it was that bad. How much we’re tracked, how much they know about us.” She grimaced. “It’s crazy.”
“And it’s only gotten worse since then,” Andrea said. “We were just trying to protect you.”
Jane thought about the slut page she had seen on Brian’s phone. The bullying, the harassment. People at each other’s throats over the smallest things. Because her parents had shielded her during her most formative years, she knew what life was like without constantly being plugged in. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.
But that was then. This was now. She was older, wiser.
“I appreciate what you did for me,” Jane said. “But I can handle myself from here. I know what I’m doing.”
Andrea sighed. “Jane, we know all this video gaming is affecting your grades. That’s not okay. We want you to go to college.”
“I am planning to go to college,” Jane insisted. “I know how important it is.”
Jane’s father, who had been silent for some time, spoke up. “I don’t think you do. Let me tell you something, Jane. College gets you places you can’t reach any other way. I’ve worked for a bunch of construction companies, and I remember a time when the best worker got promoted, up and up, all the way to the top. Doesn’t work that way anymore. The people at the top are always coming in from outside, with degrees from fancy business schools. There’s a ceiling for guys like me who never went to college. If you knew how important college truly was, you wouldn’t waste a single minute on games.”
Jane held up her hands in defeat. “Okay, I get it,” she said. “I’ll try harder in school, and I’ll spend less time on games.”
Jane trudged to her room. After flopping down on her bed, she immediately got on the phone with Brian.
“I can’t keep carrying you,” Jane said. “You need to step it up. My grades are aren’t so great, and my parents are getting on my case.”
“I’m trying,” Brian said. “Believe me, I am. My fingers hurt right now.”
Brian did his best to ramp up his efforts. Jane tried to focus more in class, but distractions got in the way. Brian was not on track to be a competitive applicant, and they both knew it.
Despite her promise to her parents, Jane found herself logging into Brian’s account during any spare moment she could find. She and Brian operated almost on shifts, with one taking over when the other logged off.
“Focus on school,” Jane told him one day, despite her misgivings. “I’ll take care of the gaming.” They had approached this moment gradually but inexorably. Jane’s gaming skills were simply far better.
Brian said nothing. Got up, limped over to her. Kissed her on the cheek, making it turn red as she blushed. Despite everything they had gone through, they were closer than ever. Matt barely registered in Jane’s mind.
When application time came around, Brian’s game rank was in the stratosphere. With Jane’s arms draped around his neck, he tapped the Submit button for each application, murmuring prayers under his breath.
Business resumed as usual. Jane dove back into her classes with a vengeance, desperately trying to cram everything she had fallen behind on. She found herself spending more time at home, frowning with concentration as she tried to absorb the periodic table and integration. Brian’s place was far too distracting for serious study.
At last, responses arrived. Fat envelopes crammed Brian’s mailbox. They all wanted him.
Jane’s phone pinged with each new acceptance. Contrary to his usual self, Brian was going crazy on social media. Lots of exclamation marks, emojis. It was the cutest thing ever. After months of moping at the bottom of the school hierarchy, Brian would leave the way he came in: on top.
After the initial euphoria faded, however, Jane noticed Brian’s face take on a somber expression. When she asked him what was wrong, he demurred. On the outside, he was a high school rock star. In private, unease prevailed.
Finally, he blurted it out. “My parents want me to go to the west coast, not the metropolis.”
“Why?” Jane asked, taken aback.
“The school is higher ranked. You know, more prestigious. They’re pressing me hard. They’ve already told all our friends that I’m heading to the west coast.”
“Well, tell them you want to be close to me,” Jane said.
Brian sighed. “It’s not that simple. That school on the west coast, it was my dream school for years.”
“Oh,” Jane said.
When Brian failed to elaborate further, she realized he wanted to go out west just as much as his parents wanted him to. “But then how would we hang out?” she asked, a tremor in her voice. Brian remained silent, his head bowed in resignation. He had already made up his mind.
“I mean, we can do long distance, right?” Jane said.
Brian looked up, a smile creeping across his face. The smile that had captured her heart at the beginning, at the school rally. “You’re down for long distance?” he asked.
“Of course! I love you. I want you to go to your dream school, and I want to be with you, even if we can’t be together physically.”
“Yeah, I’ll have you visit as often as possible,” Brian said, speaking faster with excitement. “And we’ll talk every day. Besides, it’s only a year before you join me. Your gameplay got me in, and your grades and test scores are better than mine. You’re basically guaranteed to get in too.”
Jane laughed. “A year is nothing. It’ll fly by.”
The year indeed flew by. Jane buried herself in classes, standardized exam prep, and gaming. She struggled under a double load of playing for herself and for Brian. She used a virtual private network to log in to his account so it would seem as if she was connecting from his dorm, to evade suspicion. Had her skills not skyrocketed in the preceding months, allowing her to play more efficiently, she would collapsed from sheer exhaustion.
Jane visited Brian as often as he could. As a esports athlete, he had access to many of the same perks as his physical counterparts: personal trainers, psychologists, a room specially designed for video review sessions of gameplay.
Yet, his skills hardly budged. Jane wondered why he had plateaued. He had once been about as good as her, but that seemed like a lifetime ago.
Brian made new friends at college, both guys and girls. During Jane’s visits, they would all hang out together in the common room of the dorm building. This group was different from his old high school football buddies. Their deep intellectual conversations wowed Jane. At first, she felt intimidated, but she soon found herself keeping up with them as they conversed and debated. During those moments, she would catch Brian gazing at her, starry-eyed. She would feel her cheeks redden. It still felt like they were in the honeymoon phase.
“Brian,” a guy asked during one intense philosophical brawl. “What do you think?”
“Sorry,” Brian said. “What was the question?”
“Brian’s too busy thinking about his next esports match,” a girl interjected.
“What’s your secret, Brian?” the guy asked. “How are you so good?”
“Yeah, how am I so good?” Jane asked, giggling.
All eyes turned toward her. “Are you his coach or something?” the girl asked.
“I guess you could say that,” Jane replied. “I’m sort of his everything.” She turned to Brian to laugh with him, then stopped cold. His face was contorted, his eyes narrowed in rage. She snapped her head back to the group. “Just kidding, of course. I’m his emotional support.”
A couple of minutes of light banter followed. Brian was silent. Then he got up. “I’m going back to my dorm room,” he said.
Worried, Jane got up. “I’m going with him,” she said.
“So soon?” a guy said. “It’s only ten. Too early to go to sleep.”
“If they’re going to bed this early,” a girl said, “they’re not sleeping.”
The room erupted in laughter.
“Sweet dreams, lovebirds,” the guy said.
“Oh, shut up,” Jane said over her shoulder. She quickened her pace to catch up to Brian.
Back in Brian’s dorm room, he chewed her out. “Why did you say that?” he demanded.
Jane, annoyed, said, “I mean, it’s true, isn’t it? I’m helping you.”
“Yeah, I know,” Brian said, refraining from looking at her, “but you could get me expelled. It’s supposed to be a secret.”
Resentment bubbled up in Jane. “So, no one can know. I’m toiling away to keep your rank up, on top of everything else I’m doing, and the moment I make a hint about it, you’re all up my ass.”
Brian winced. “I’m sorry, Jane.” He looked at her finally, pulled her in. Hugged her tightly. “I appreciate your help so much.”
Jane felt his body enveloping hers. Her own body relaxed, as she tried to tamp down her negative feelings. Long distance had been more of a struggle than they had anticipated. She noticed that when they met in person, they would snap at each other more than usual. But the months had flown by, and she would be preparing her applications soon. Before long, she would leave Ragle and join him and this temporary juncture would be far behind them.
Although Jane’s rank was significantly higher than Brian’s at the time of his successful application, she still applied to several other colleges because her parents urged her to have alternatives lined up just in case. At school, teachers lectured about not succumbing to senioritis, but she found it hard to care. She had no interest in confidence intervals and mass times acceleration. She was going to become an esports athlete, just like Brian. It was a done deal.
That certainty made the rejection letters all the more painful. Not just from Brian’s school on the west coast, but every other school she applied to. One college in the metropolis granted her admission, but without the esports scholarship. Her grades and test scores were not high enough for any merit-based scholarships. There was some need-based aid, but she would need to work and take out lots of loans.
How did this happen?
Part 5: https://medium.com/@phenomgamer/game-on-part-5-2a7c12082db3
