There was a long, pregnant pause that not even Holt dared break. He was too busy revelling in his moment, too wrapped up in being the giant douchey wrecking ball that he was.

  But finally, after a moment that stretched for what seemed eons, Rua interrupted it, slicing through the silence with a single word.

  “True.”

  She sounded as if she scarcely believed it herself, but Sami whirled from Holt, to Rua, and finally to Otter, who looked away. She wasn’t sure if she felt ashamed. It wasn’t like she’d actually owed Sami this hurtful, damning truth. She wasn’t that petty. She had no desire to inflict her pain on others.

  “What does he mean, I murdered you?” Sami asked.

  Otter tried shrugging, tried to py it off as if it were nothing. But she couldn’t meet Sami’s eyes.

  Instead she found herself mumbling, “It was the Fives system.”

  “The what? Sami asked, and then recognition hit her. “The training I gave you. The week before you vanished.”

  “What training?” Rua asked.

  “When we used to py Galnt Stand II, it was different than being here. Real life skills transferred over, but it wouldn’t exactly a 1:1 ratio. If you knew swordsmanship in the game, it wouldn’t transfer to the real world. But if you learned it in real life, you could bring it over. But the downside was, you couldn’t learn the special skills that went in-game. The best pyers had to learn how to fight in both.

  “Mayumi’s in-fighting was her main weakness. Put her at range, and she was an rivalled terror, more accurate than any sniper, and more devastating than a hurricane. But up close, she was vulnerable. We both agreed on a training regime to shore up her weak spot.

  “But I don’t get it. You’re alive. You’re right in front of me. I couldn’t have ‘murdered’ you.”

  Otter shrugged, feeling sick. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “It most certainly was,” Holt said. “Imagine, using untested, bck market modifications with no thought to consequences.”

  “How could there be?” Sami snapped. “I used it myself. Someone needed to test it. I was fine.”

  “A sample pool of one. How thorough of you.”

  “The Fives system is harmless. It just lets you be able to act out in the real world while still in the game. Partitions your mind so you can see both worlds at the same time. She trained in kendo in the real world to build up muscle memory while grinding out skills in the game at the same time. We had a guy, Johnny Fives, build it. He said it was safe.”

  Holt spat to the side. “Johnny Fives was fired from the dev team of the dive system Galnt Stand II utilized. Did you never think to ask why?”

  “Of course I did. He said it was because of some HR incident. The man was a creep, I believed him. He couldn’t stop staring at my breasts and whining about his ‘woke cuck boss’ the entire time I did business with him.”

  “And then you paid him money so he could murder the so-called ‘love of your life.’ Very progressive of you.”

  “Stop saying I murdered her. She’s standing right here.” Sami turned to Otter. Her face was calm, but there was an edge of panic in her eyes. “What happened?”

  Otter shrugged. She seemed to be doing that a lot now, in pce of talking. She felt so numb. She found herself sitting down, her mouth moving and words coming out, but no memory of her brain giving her mouth the okay.

  “I was fine the first time. But after the second, I noticed a dip in my accuracy. Thought I was just having an off-day. The third time, my hands… my hands would have a tremor. Nothing big. And it never sted long. Ten, maybe fifteen seconds. Thought it was just nerves. I bcked out on the fourth day. Wasn’t even using it. I was out getting a coffee. The stuff at home didn’t smell right. And I woke up in the hospital. Three days ter, I got my diagnosis. Advanced-stage Parkinson’s.

  “I apparently had a genetic disposition for it, but the doctors said it was tearing through me too fast. It was like it was on steroids, doing more damage than they’d expect from the disease. They weren’t even sure if they were right on their guess, given how out of character it was progressing. They started asking questions. Asked if there were any environmental factors at py. I cimed ignorance. But I knew.”

  Sami looked from Otter to Rua, who nodded, and she fell to her knees. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I thought it was safe. I didn’t think that it’d set something off. I never would have–”

  “It’s okay,” Otter said, smiling despite it all. “I’m still alive, if not for ck of trying on my part.”

  “What do you mean?” Sami asked, steel in her voice.

  Otter shrugged. “Like I said. Parkinson’s, but on steroids. It’s normally not fatal, but the doctors said given the way it was going, there was a real chance it would be.”

  “My doctors confirmed their assessment,” Holt said. “She’s walking around, but she’s not long for this world.”

  Otter waved him off. “I dropped everyone. And I mean everyone, ghosted friends and family and went into hiding. Just to keep you from finding out. I hated you at first. Thought I was getting some kind of vengeance, and then I thought I was just doing what a wounded animal was doing, and going to hide in a dark corner until I got better or died. But I wasn’t doing either.

  “I still loved you. Love you, I guess. You were my best friend, even before we started fucking. I hid away to keep you from finding out. If no one knew I was sick, the info could never get back to you. But I was kind of screwed.

  “No support system. Couldn’t game anymore. My hands don’t do what I tell them to these days. The tremors are really bad. I’m stuck in a wheelchair on my bad days, and I have a lot of bad days, surviving as a shut-in, living on take out, no friends, no hobbies, no job, burning through my savings and just waiting to die. Oh, and smoking a metric shit-ton of weed.”

  “I didn’t ask you to do that. You could’ve stayed with me. You didn’t have to martyr yourself, just to spare my feelings.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not exactly known for my intelligent life-decisions, am I?”

  Sami took in a deep breath, and studied the ground for a long moment. “How… how much time do you have left?”

  “A lifetime,” Otter said with a smile.

  “This isn’t funny.”

  “It’s not a joke.”

  “She’s telling the truth,” Rua said.

  “I’m not sick here,” Otter said. She held out a hand, palm down, fingers spyed. It stayed still. “Out of everyone here, I’m the only one not scared of Holt’s death game. At least, not where my own life’s concerned. Because he’s given me the one thing I didn’t have before.”

  “Time,” Holt supplied. “I’d been researching Johnny Fives when developing the system for Fell Champions. When I heard about Mayumi, I reached out to her specifically.”

  “The time dition effect,” Sami said after a beat.

  “The what?” Rua asked.

  “When we’re logged into the game, we’re only here for seconds, by our world’s standards. We plug in, we py for a few moments, but our minds are processing everything at a phenomenal rate. Simir to how people can have thousands of dreams in one night of sleep. Seconds in our world, but we experience years here.”

  “A lifetime,” Otter repeated, sounding more confident. More strong. “Everyone else here agreed to join Holt’s game to be at the entrance to the next big thing, or for clout. I agreed to be here to get a second chance.”

  “But the tech is new. We have no idea what it would do to someone with a neurological condition like Parkinson’s.” Sami rounded on Holt. “You accuse me of murder, while you’re making the exact same mistake.”

  “There is no mistake,” Holt said. “Tell her.”

  “I signed a waiver,” Otter said. “A lot of paperwork. Everything I could to legally absolve Ashes2 and Holt of any damage, should something happen. And then signed more paperwork ciming I was healthy, alongside some falsified medical records, effectively lying about my condition. They get to cim ignorance.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because Fell Champions is giving me a life, repcing the one I lost. And after a lifetime here, when I log out, it’s projected I’ll die in minutes.”

  “Minutes is being generous,” Holt said. “My people said it’s more likely the system will tear through the tattered remains of your mind, and you won’t even wake up upon logging out.”

  Otter felt something through the link without even questing for it, something white-hot and filled with fury.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Rua asked.

  “Because I won’t really die until after I’m done here, and I won’t be done here until I’m dead. I’ll die of old age, or from standing in fire, or from fall damage, or from doing something really stupid, before I return to a life in a wheelchair, barely able to shit, my hands not listening to me, my skin fucking… ugh. I might hate my real body and have some unresolved issues with it right now. Mayumi’s already dead. I long since accepted that. But Otter is here to stay.”

  “That isn’t good enough,” Sami said. “Some of us care for Mayumi.”

  “Well, she’s already gone. Better to accept that now.”

  “I can’t.” Sami sniffed, a long and gross affair, her sinuses begging to empty themselves in the presence of tears. Sami took Otter’s hands in her own. “If Mayumi’s gone, then I really did kill her.”

  “And technically gave birth to Otter, which would make you my mommy.” Otter waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Yeah, that’s fair. If it makes you feel any better, I forgive you. Did a long time ago.”

  “It doesn’t. Forgiveness has to be earned. It means nothing if it’s just given away wholesale.”

  Otter didn’t know how to reply to that outside of a crude joke, so she wisely kept silent.

  “Then earn it,” Rua said.

  DorenWinslowe