The phone went silent. Jane stared at it, shook her head in disbelief. She thought for a moment, then called Becca.
“Hello?” Becca said.
“You won’t believe what just happened,” Jane said, then filled her in.
Becca laughed. “Such denial that her son’s a creep. Lots of parents are like that, you know. Don’t want to take responsibility for their kids being fuck-ups.”
“Yeah, what a bitch,” Jane said. “I can see where the son gets it from.”
“I know for a fact that he’s sexted other girls out of the blue. At the same time he was sexting you, actually.”
“Are you serious?”
“Oh, yeah,” Becca said. “Boys don’t bother going on social media, unless they’re on the prowl. And they’re never communicating with just one girl. They hit up multiple girls for pics in the hopes that one will give in. It’s a numbers game for them.”
“That’s depressing.”
“All boys are like that, Jane. It’s normal now.”
“Brian wasn’t like that,” Jane said, wistful. “He never pressured me to do anything.”
“Sure, there are a few who won’t,” Becca said. “But nobody’s perfect. Brian took advantage of you in a different way. He used your gaming skills to get himself ahead.”
Jane sighed. “I know. What sucks is that I took a selfie with Mark to make Brian jealous, but all I ended up with was being sexted and harassed, getting yelled at by the harasser’s mom, and to top it off, I miss Brian even more.”
“Girl, snap out of it. You need to block Brian on all your social medias asap. You should have done that a long time ago. That’s the only way you’ll get over him.”
“But I can’t,” Jane said.
“Why not?”
“If I block him, he’ll know that his post affected me, that I cared enough to do that. I’m trying to show him I don’t care.”
Becca snorted. “That’s nothing. You know what my ex did? When he posted a pic with his new girlfriend, he tagged me in the picture to make sure I wouldn’t miss it. What a mindfuck. Here’s what you should do with Brian. Mute him. You’ll stay friends with him, but his posts won’t show up on your feed.”
“But what if he direct messages me that he wants me back?”
“He’ll text you that, not send a direct message.”
“But might be more subtle,” Jane insisted.
“What do you care? You don’t want him anymore.”
“Yeah, but I need to know if he still wants me.”
Becca snorted. “I don’t even know what to say right now. Social media is screwing with your mind, and you have no idea.”
“I don’t agree with that,” Jane said. “Social media is giving me a lot of confidence.”
“What do you mean? In what way?”
“I’m joining gaming-related discussion groups. There aren’t a lot of gamers at school, but online there are a ton. And people value the tips I give, the videos I post. They’re following me. They’re fans.”
“Okay,” Becca said. “Well, at least that’s good. Focus on that part and forget about Brian. Maybe you’ll find a guy through that. Gamers are all guys anyway. Your odds are good.”
“True,” Jane said, “but the gamers on my caliber tend to be . . . Well, let’s just say the odds are good, but the goods can be odd.”
They both laughed. Jane wrapped up the call, then went back to her gaming. There was a lot to like about games. Once you became familiar with them, they were orderly and predictable. Unless someone was hacking, no one could cheat their way out of the consequences of their fuckups, like in real life.
The games also filled a void Jane had felt for some time. In the aftermath of Brian’s injury, Jane had faded from the social scene. Now that he was permanently gone, and she was frequently absent from school to sneak in more gaming, Jane’s exclusion was complete. She saw plenty of get-togethers on social media, events she was not invited to. They had forgotten about her.
But she was also forgetting about them. In the gaming world, Jane was gaining attention fast. Online, she was more popular than ever. And she didn’t need Brian to climb the social ladder. This achievement was hers alone.
She was no longer Jane, or even Rain. Online, she called herself Rainmaker. Every weakness in the real world translated to an advantage here. For example, gamers could communicate with each other via either microphone or typing. She had stuck with typing for a long time, but finally switched to the microphone so she could play and chat at the same time. It was the best decision she ever made.
hey rainmaker u using a vocoder? how ur voice sound liek dat
ur voice sounds freakin badass
love ur voice
She sat, stunned, as the comments rolled in. Her character was killed by an incoming grenade, but her eyes were riveted on comment after comment about how cool her voice was. For the first time, she felt the way she had back at City Day Nursery. Playing with Matt without a care in the world. No more self-conscious neuroticism. She was free to be herself, express every part of herself without holding back. Screw Brian and his hang-ups. She was now with her tribe.
As she became closer to the other gamers, they sometimes asked to connect with her on social media. She directed them to a throwaway account she used just for this purpose. The account didn’t feature her picture or any other personally identifiable information. She wanted no overlap between her shitty real world and this paradise.
Not that it was perfect. Far from it, especially in the beginning. The trash talk during matches could be horrendous.
pwned dat n00b
yea suk it
we’re gonna rape those motherfuckers!!!
The frequent talk of “raping” the other team bothered Jane. She initially spoke out against using that kind of language, but was accused of “virtue signaling” and being an “SJW moralfag.”
And still Jane played, despite the acrimony. She was especially infuriated by trolls who thought it would be hilarious to suddenly start fragging their own teammates, including her, deliberately throwing the game for the enemy to win. She reported every troll she came across, but there would always be more to take their place. Others were sore losers. One mistake was enough for them to stop playing and trash talk (or trash type) everyone and anyone for the remainder of the match. Everything was someone else’s fault. When the loss was clearly on them, they would resort to whining that it was “just a game.” Any feedback Jane tried to sprinkle in would be met by accusations of being an “esports tard” or “tourneyfag” who was in it not for the love of gaming but for the ego boost of winning.
And still Jane played, despite the acrimony. If she was learning a new game and picking up the ropes, she was mercilessly savaged as a “n00B.” If she played a game she had built a decent competency in, she was accused of “hacking.” Soon, she saw the frequent accusations of hacking as a compliment, a sign that she was on the right track.
It got easier over time. She began staying in touch with a selected few who had reached a similar level of performance. Playing with people she trusted erased the concerns about trolling that had marred earlier matches. She was with people who cared just as much as she did, and it was glorious.
Over time, they started playing matches at established times, not just whenever. Jane soon emerged as the de facto leader of the group, yelling out orders during gameplay. There was still plenty of trash talk, but this time, when she called out the more egregious comments, they listened. She had clout with them. She had never felt more confident. Sometimes, after the end of the match, with the enemies vanquished, they would continue to chat. The intense coordination gave way to lighthearted camaraderie. The other players began to share details about the nongaming aspects of their lives, grousing about bills to pay and chores to do.
Jane listened intently, but never shared anything about her personal life, in keeping with her decision to keep her online and offline worlds separate. Part of it was caution, and part of it was that she had nothing good to share.
Her relationship with her parents was deteriorating. It escalated one day when Jane picked up her phone and saw a notification from her social media app. Tapping it, she saw a picture of her mother’s face. Puzzled, she searched online for an explanation. Her confusion gave way to incredulity, then anger. The app had a “mug shot” feature that surreptitiously snapped a photo of anyone who tried to access it with an incorrect password. Jane’s mother, Andrea, was snooping on her.
This was a red line. Jane marched down the hall.
“Mom!” Jane shouted.
Andrea poked her head out of the master bedroom. “What is it, dear?” she asked.
Jane stopped cold. Better for Andrea not to know about the “mug shot” feature.
“Ummm…” Jane stammered. She turned, walked away. “Nothing,” she said over her shoulder. She went back to her room, curled up on her bed.
Andrea poked her head into Jane’s room. “What is it, Jane?”
“Nothing!” Jane snapped.
Andrea came over, sat down on the edge of the bed. “Jane, something’s happened, hasn’t it? Tell me.” When Jane said nothing, Andrea continued. “Jane, I think I understand now why you don’t like going to school. Before, I thought it was just the video games, but I know it’s more.”
Jane looked up at her mother, puzzled. What on earth is Andrea talking about? Of course, it’s just the video games.
Andrea reached out, put her hand on Jane’s shoulder. “Jane, I heard from Mark’s mom. She told me everything. It’s okay to admit you’ve sent pictures of yourself to several boys.”
Jane’s eyes widened. Oh, god. Mark’s psycho mom is still on the warpath. What a hot mess.
Jane took a deep breath, then told her mother everything. She pulled out her phone, showed her mother the full text conversation between her and Mark. Thank goodness she had saved it all.
Andrea’s brow furrowed as she took it all in. “And his mom saw all this?”
“Yeah.”
Andrea looked up from Jane’s phone. “How could she misinterpret it?”
“She’s in denial.”
Andrea tapped Jane’s social media app. The login screen popped up.
“I tried getting into your account earlier today,” Andrea said. “I’m sorry, I just had to know what was going on. You’ve become so secretive recently.”
Jane feigned shock. “You invaded my privacy!” she said.
“I know, Jane,” Andrea said. She handed Jane the phone, with the login screen still displayed. “Can you please just show me your account, so I can have some peace of mind?” she pleaded. “I’ve been having trouble sleeping because of this.”
Jane grabbed her phone, let out a long sigh. “This is so ridiculous,” she said.
Jane typed a password into her phone, tapped Submit. Handed it back to Andrea, who scanned one post after another.
After about ten minutes of scrolling, Andrea handed the phone back. “Thanks,” she said. “I feel so much better now.” She kissed Jane on the forehead, then headed out of Jane’s room, closing the door gently behind her.
Jane waited until she heard her mother’s footsteps recede into the distance, then logged out of the account. She had entered the parent-proof password, which sharply curtailed access to all but the most mundane, anodyne posts. Jane entered the real password, which gave her access to much more, including the flood of posts and shares about everything esports.
Despite the gradual esports takeover of her primary social media account, Jane kept it separate from her esports avatar, Rainmaker. It was just better that way. The picture of five-year-old Jane in the backseat of the car, with two addicts in the front seats, was still floating around online. Moreover, a pall had fallen over the gaming community. A heated exchange between two gamers had escalated when one asked the other for his address. The latter gave him a random address, which he used to make a hoax call to the police to send a SWAT team. When the oblivious homeowner opened his door, his hand inadvertently moved toward his belt, which resulted in law enforcement shooting him dead. Although the caller was arrested and charged, many gamers felt it was better to lay low and not take any chances.
Besides, there were bigger issues to worry about. Jane buried herself in figuring out how to get into Tunnel, a feeder circuit that served as an incubator for players on their path to the elite tier. Although Tunnel teams were not provided a team house or salary of any kind, they could keep the prize money from competitions Tunnel cosponsored. Plus, entry into Tunnel brought with it many intangible benefits, such as the opportunity to interact with talent scouts and scores of preprofessional players.
Before Jane could muscle her way into Tunnel, she had to designate her six-member team on the admissions application. The problem was that there were seven in their group, one too many. Jane racked her brains over how to winnow it down. A player could have excellent stats on his own but not mesh well with the team as a role player in the areas where it mattered most. And each player took on more than one role over the course of a gaming session in order to maintain versatility and throw off the other team. The same player could enhance the team in one role and be mediocre in another, but that determination also hinged on who held other roles. The permutations were seemingly endless. Jane scribbled diagrams with names, arrows, and stats.
Worse, the decision was not merely a technical challenge. Jane had gotten close to her teammates after countless hours of communication and coordination. Among the others, the awareness of the impending triage had grown as well, because everyone was noticeably less chirpy during matches. Jane was torn between her impatience to qualify for Tunnel and her dread of throwing out someone who had become like family.
At wit’s end, Jane reached out to Chalice. The Speedrun Queen agreed to a short video conference, but only after Jane agreed to send her half a dozen short videos of gameplay beforehand.
Chalice materialized on Jane’s display. Her broad shoulders contrasted with her lip piercing, nose piercing, eyebrow piercing, and pink-streaked blonde hair. Jane loved the way Chalice looked. She’s such a badass.
Before Jane could speak, Chalice lifted her hand to silence her.
“Get rid of Big Shot,” Chalice said.
“Big Shot?” Jane said. “But his stats are strong. Why him?”
“Trust me, girl,” said Chalice. “He’ll only drag you down. By the way, what are you using to make your voice sound like that? It’s really cool.”
Jane struggled to keep her expression neutral. “This is my real voice,” she said. “I had throat surgery when I was young.”
Chalice blinked in surprise. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
“No worries,” Jane said. “Anyone else you recommend thinking about dropping?”
Chalice waved her hand in irritation. “Just Big Shot. Everyone else is good on the plus/minus.”
Jane struggled to understand. “Plus/minus? What’s that?”
“The only stat that matters for your team,” Chalice said, waving her hand in irritation. “But enough of that. The bigger question is why you’re aiming for Tunnel.”
“Well, I know it feeds into the elite tier. Lots of alumni are pro gamers.”
“Yes, but you’re not thinking big enough. There are no hard and fast rules on this, Rainmaker.”
Jane shifted in her seat. “What are you proposing?”
“Go straight to the top.”
“But how? We haven’t competed in enough tournaments. We haven’t even finalized our team.”
Chalice smirked. “If I kept telling myself no as frequently as you’re doing, I’d still be stuck in a shitty relationship with no future.” She leaned into the screen. “Signing off. Too many little girls like you bugging me for advice. Gotta move on to the next one. Make it happen, Rainmaker.” She vanished from the screen.
Jane sprawled onto her bed, face up, stared at the ceiling. Twirled her toes in a circular motion. Tried to process what she had just heard. Chalice thinks I have a shot at the elite tier. She wouldn’t say that unless she saw something in me, in the team.
Jane rolled over, buried her face into her pillow, screamed into it. Lost herself in the giddiness. I’m gonna make it to the top.
Rainmaker called a virtual meeting. Mandatory attendance. Once everyone was on the voice chat line, Rainmaker made three announcements.
“One. I dropped out of high school.” After a moment, everyone cheered. The text chat onscreen filled with emojis of birthday cakes, pom poms, and smileys.
“How did your parents react?” Pwner asked.
“Ummm . . . they don’t know yet,” Rainmaker said.
The voice chat line exploded with laughter and whistles.
“Second announcement,” Rainmaker said. “Big Shot, I’ve spoken with the other team members, and we’ve all reached a consensus.” She had begun with dropping out to lighten the mood before dropping the other shoe. “You’re an amazing gamer, but we don’t think you’re the best fit for our team’s current composition.”
There was a stunned silence. “Are you guys being serious right now?” Big Shot asked. “Or are you trolling?”
“We are serious,” Rainmaker replied. She had agonized over the wording for hours. “This is a tough decision to make, and it has no bearing on your credentials as a player.”
“Yeah, I know,” Big Shot said. “I’m better than any single player on this team, except maybe Dread Lock. I’m at least tied with Rainmaker.” An excruciating silence followed. Big Shot sighed. “Well, it was nice knowing ya’ll. Nothing more to be said. Signing out.” There was a chime as he left.
More silence. Rainmaker had to change the vibe before it got worse. She took a deep breath. “Big Shot will be missed. Moving on to my third announcement.”
“Oh yeah,” said Pwner. “There were three announcements. What’s the third one?”
Rainmaker cleared her throat. “I ended up not submitting the application to Tunnel.”
“Wait, what do you mean?” asked Dread Lock. “You were on our asses about it for weeks. Why the delay?”
“It’s not a delay,” Rainmaker said. “It’s a cancelation.”
“Rainmaker,” said HaXor. “You’re scaring us. What’s going on?”
Rainmaker took a breath. “We’ve been invited to join Lazers.”
“What the heck is that?” someone asked.
Rainmaker explained. Nearly every owner of a major sports team was feverishly putting together an esports team. Interest was higher than it had ever been. Lazers was being launched by a cabal that also ran franchises in football, basketball, and soccer. But this was no ordinary group. They applied Moneyball algorithms to identify promising assets, latent talent, diamonds in the rough. In their sweep for undervalued talent, they asked the Speedrun Queen if she had any recommendations. She forwarded them the gameplay videos that Rainmaker had sent her, and they reached out to Rainmaker directly, asking for more footage. She sent them everything she had.
“They finally got back to me this morning,” Rainmaker said, “and they said teams in Tunnel and other feeder circuits were better than us, but that at our current rate of improvement, we have the potential to exceed them. They’ve decided to snap us up right now. We’ve been drafted.”
“Oh my god,” whispered Dread Lock.
“If this is a joke, it’s not funny,” said Pwner.
“Yeah,” said HaXor. “Are you honestly telling me we’ve been drafted by a pro team?”
“If you have any doubts,” said Rainmaker, “here are the documents.”
Paper icons popped up on the digital dashboard. There was a pause as everyone scanned the documents. Skepticism gave way to euphoria as it sank in. They were going pro.
Suddenly, the chat screen froze. No more audio. Rainmaker tapped the screen a few times. No internet. She got up and headed to the living room, where the router was. Stopped in her tracks. Her parents were standing in front of it. They had deliberately disconnected it. She was back in the real world, and she was Jane, not Rainmaker.
“Jane,” Andrea said, with a tone of voice bordering on fury. “We just heard from the school. You dropped out?”
“Yes,” Jane said. “I was going to tell you sooner.”
Jane’s father shook his head. “This is your final semester, and you’re dropping out? Why not just spend a few more weeks to finish?”
“Not a good use of my time,” Jane said.
“Well, until you change your mind and re-enroll, there will be no more internet, no data plan, nothing,” Andrea said.
Any day prior to this one, Jane would have been beside herself. She would have thrown a tantrum, then begged her parents to reconsider. She would have even considered going back to school. But not today.
Today, she realized that her parents no longer exerted any real control over her. She was a professional, an esports athlete. She would have a salary with full benefits. She would have a shot at fame and fortune. A surreal feeling came over her, like when Brian had serenaded her at the school rally, back when she was still unsure of herself.
No longer. Jane began to laugh. Her parents exchanged baffled glances between themselves.
“Jane, this isn’t funny,” Andrea said. “Why are you acting like this?”
“Because where I’m headed,” Jane said, between giggles, “the WiFi is included.”
Part 7: https://medium.com/@phenomgamer/game-on-part-7-63021d8d4b36
