Page 42 of Played By Design

I pull the tablet back out of my pocket. The game is still running. The Sentinel still stands in the alley, frozen.

I shut it down without saving and open Pulse Riot instead.

The hexagons glow across the screen. A beat-map loads, one of the warm-up tracks, nothing challenging. My thumbs find the strike zones by muscle memory.

Thumb, index, middle, ring.

The combo starts clean. Green, green, green.

At combo forty-seven, my ring finger misses by a quarter-beat, and the streak shatters into a red ripple.

I slam the tablet down, and the sound cracks through the quiet office. Kain’s shoulders twitch, and his head turns a fraction, revealing his profile and the dark five o’clock shadow on his jaw before he returns to his work.

He doesn’t ask if I’m okay.

I pull at my sleeve again. The fabric stretches between my fingers, then snaps back when I release it. I do it again. Stretch, release. Stretch, release.

My jaw clenches, the muscles along my neck corded tight, the same tension that builds during tournament play when I’ve been staring at the screen too long.

Usually Kain notices. Usually his hand settles on the back of my neck, and he works the knot loose while he tells me to take a break.

His hands stay on his keyboard.

I push up from my chair, the beans whispering as they slide in to fill the hollow my body left in the center.

Kain doesn’t turn.

I shuffle in place for a second before my sock-covered feet carry me out of the office and down the hall to the gym.

Bypassing the treadmill and the dance pad, I go to the VR platform with enough room to move freely. I lift the headset from its charging dock and slip it on.

The headset settles heavily over the bridge of my nose, the straps cinching around the back of my skull as I adjust the fit. The world goes black, then bright, the headset’s internal display igniting with the loading screen of Critical Extraction.

The gym dissolves into polygons. The rubber floor becomes a textured black surface, and a virtual warehouse materializes around me.

I take the gun controller from the rack, wrapping my hand around its solid grip, and enter the red polygon on the floor. It turns green, and the sound of dripping water and groaning metal fills my ears.

Pipes run along ceilings, security cameras sweeping predictable arcs. I’ve played this map two hundred times. I anticipate every enemy spawn, every ammo cache, and every choke point that will kill me.

I move through the first corridor, the gun raised, its virtual shape turning to real steel in my vision. The sights align with the first guard’s head, and I squeeze the trigger.

The guard drops with a thud that reverberates in my skull.

I advance, turn left, and crouch behind a crate to wait for the patrol to pass.

The second guard rounds the corner right on schedule.

Headshot.

He crumples.

My breath stays even, my heart rate flat. The motions are all muscle memory, a perfect run with no spark, no adrenaline. It’s just movement, hollow and mechanical.

Because Kain isn’t playing.

No quiet warning.

Bunny, your left flank.