[Brackets] (15 page)

Second, he needed to do some research on college basketball.

.

[
West Division
: Elite Eight]

[Saturday, March 28]

Very early on Saturday morning, the General sat alone at the Tribal Room table, studying the dynamic table map. What they were planning to do, he now realized, was cowardly. It was the smart and logical move, but they were giving in
to pressure
when a bolder choice was on the table. It didn’t sit right with him. Nevertheless, he had made his decision, and a good l
eader stuck
to his decisions. Wasn’t that right?

The chime from his e-mail box
sounded. He glanced at his
personal
monitor.
Really?
he thought.
After reading
the message a
few times, he slowly d
on
ned his mask and controls and descended into the northeast end of the city
for an unexpected meeting
.

On the outskirts of the walls of the Old City was an amateur Ullamaball court, a dusty, miniature street version of the big professional courts like the one in the Montezuma Arena. A few players were tossing the ball back and forth around the hoop
s, not very well, and they
paid
no attention either to him or the person he was meeting as they approached each other near a clump of palm trees just outside the tall, grey wall.

“Hey, Ohmen,” the General greeted his old teammate
cautiously. He stopped short when he noted that his former teammate was wearing
red and white armor.

“You tr
aitor! You joined the Scarmada?
” He whipped out his gun to shoot Ohmen on the spot when four other Scarmada warriors surrounded him, gun barrels pointed at his head. The General kept his weapon up but didn’t fire.
He couldn’t believe he had fallen into such a simple trap.

“Sorry
for the ruse, Studblood,”
Ohmen
said coldly. “I guessed that you wouldn’t show up unless you thought I was still on your side. I have a message for you.”

“OK,” said the General, calculating the ways that he might be able to shoot, run, and survive.

“You aren’t welcome in the Mascaab Alliance. We know you’re interested, but don’t bother. You can’t join.”

“Says who?” the General
asked resentfully
.

“Says the Scarmada. We’re in, we’re running it, and we’ve united enough tribes that we can be choosy about who
else
joins.”

“I thought the Mascaab ran the Mascaab,” said the General.

Ohmen scoffed. “The Mascaab leadership
isn
’t interested in leading battles and coordinating alliances. They’re in this for the money, not the power. The real
leadership
goes to whoever can actually unite the tribes in purpose. We’re it. We’ve chosen who gets in, and we’ve chosen who stays out. You’re out. You have no say in it.”

The General stood there contemplating his former subordinate, desperately wanting to shoot him.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Of course not. You’ve never listened to me before. But the Scarmada wanted to warn you as a sign of respect to your seniority, so you wouldn’t have to lose face later on. Someone of your experience could do well as one of the second-tier tribes in the city. You might even keep your DR in the top twenty.”

The General opened his mouth to argue back, but stopped himself. This was a trick—a very obvious, uncreative trick—to keep him away from the Mascaab, but he wasn’t exactly sure what was and was not true. Getting into a yelling match wouldn’t do any good.

“So why go through with this thing at the Montez
uma if the tribes are already picked
?”

“The introduction to the city is still necessary for establishing the superiority of our alliance and the inferiority of the rest
of you
. The whole city will be able to tell the difference
by the end of the day
.”

“Then what’s stopping us from going to the Ahtzon and telling them about you? You know they have a reward out.”

Ohmen shrugged.
“We know.
Feel free to
tell them what you want. We will allow you,”
he said, as aloof as a king granting a peasant’s request. He turned
away.
“That’s all. Have a good weekend, General.”

The other four
lowered their weapons and followed, leaving the General to think alone, bristling.

*
             
*
             
*
             
*

The Montezuma Arena was one of the
must-see sites
for first-time visitors to Kaah Mukul. The glistening exterior of the dome was stunning, but the best word that the General had for describing the interior was
seismic
.

The inside of the arena was
much bigger than the outside—
a little physics mi
schief by the game programmers—
and entirely dazzling. The professional Ullamaball court itself was rectangular, surrounded by a high stone wall that slanted out at an angle on all sides, with two thick-rimmed hoops that jutted out vertically
toward
the center court. At one end was a pair of doors from which the players entered for the game. At the other end was a single door, which opened into the tunnel that led up to the altar of the Central Temple. All of the big Ullamaball tournaments were single elimination. Many of the pro players had death tallies in the hundreds, which wasn’t a big deal since that was the price they paid to be there. For the General and his tribe, the stakes of death were much higher, a fact which lingered in his mind.

The stands overlooking the court were formed by a long, single walkway that coiled along the elliptical interior, forming continuous tiers that were connected at regu
lar intervals by long vertical
stairways that sprouted from the center like spokes and ascended on all sides to
the
highest levels.
Because no one ever
needs
to sit in a virtual world, there were no seats; the pathway allowed fans to move around the arena at will, or as much as the density of the crowds allowed. Fan bases established themselves in clumps of flags and team colors. Ahtzon officers wandered sporadically throughout the
spectators
.
At this game, the crowds were unusually large, and t
he General noted a sizeable contingent of Ahtzon standing together
in a section close to the floor, not far below where he stood
. Halley was present in the platoon,
just
as the General had
requested
. At any
time
, the General could
make his way
down, report to Halley, and it would all be over.
Maybe.

The General hadn’t told anyone yet, but his meeting with Ohmen had prompted some internal debate about what had, just yester
day, been a final decision. He knew
that he
couldn’t take
Ohmen
’s threats
at face value. The Scarmada were trying to play him, obviously. They didn’t want him near the Mascaab. Why? Did they want him away from the arena altogether? Was it a power
thing? Were they afraid he’d split the alliance, or worse, cut them out? He absolutely would, given the chance, and regardless of what happened in the arena
that day
, his second highest priority was making sure to put as many bullets as possible into as many Scarmada as possible. He was uneasy about not having the answers he wanted, but he was sure that he could outmaneuver anyone in the game.
No, not a game
, he corrected himself.

“Everybody in position?” the General called over his comm link, suddenly full of fire for things to get started. They had mustered every one of their tribesmen, all twenty-four of them, and had recruited a good deal more from across the
arena
for the hour. The possibility of fighting in a place like the Montezuma had made the request an easy sell, and he would see to it that they were all rewarded for their obedience. A good leader knew how to take care of those who fought for him.

“Everyone, we have less than sixteen…uh, fifteen minutes, so listen carefully,” the General articulated dramatically. “Things will be happening quickly, and we need to strike fast and strike together when the time comes. Stay close to the officers at all times. Got that? You all ready to make this day go down in history?” He heard cheering through his headset, and then he felt a tap on his shoulder. His real shoulder. He jumped out of the city and removed his interface mask. The clerk was standing there.

“Stud, you have a visitor,” the clerk announced. “Some Asian guy in a suit.”

He’s here.
“Send him in!” The General cleared his throat and tapped on the shoulders of his counselors. It felt right, somehow, the creator of his whole world about to witness his greatest moment as a leader.

Myung-Ki Noh strode in with subdued ease, his hair looking slightly less wild than it appeared in his pictures, his body more compact and muscular than might be expected from a world-class software engineer. The General bowed slightly as Noh walked directly up to him and shook his hand. His officers handled the meeting with somewhat less poise. Noh graciously accepted all accolades, then addressed them smoothly and authoritatively.

“I don’t want to interrupt you too much. Where are you now?” He took an empty chair while an imposing assistant placed a
metal briefcase in front of him on the table.

“In the Montezuma,” the General said, faltering a little at the nervous glances of his two officers. “We’d normally be, you know, patrolling our territory, but this is kind of a recon op.”

“Excellent,” Noh said, removing an interface that was more advanced than anythi
ng they had ever seen. “The
tournament
of Maak Suun
is today. Who is playing
now
?”

The General drew a blank. Killergremlin spoke up just in time.

“Uh, the Dead Scourge just beat the Hobo Lobos. Really good game.”

“That is unfortunate,” replied Noh, “I had money placed on the Lobos.” He donned his mask without another word, and the four descended back into the throbbing chaos of the virtual super-arena. Eight minutes until noon.

“Did you know our designers spent more time on Montezuma Arena than on any other aspect of the City?” Noh commented with some pride, his avatar standing beside the General and gazing out at the two teams that had just begun the next match. The General actually had known that. “It is designed to hold millions of people at a time, to host the largest worldwide gatherings in history. And this is just the beginning, what you see. I am proud of many things in Kaah Mukul, but I am most pleased that the arena has become a reality.”

The General’s mind raced back to
Noh’s
interview and his
own
conversation with Killergremlin. “When you say that, do you mean like, it’s a reality like how reality and Kaah Mukul interact? I heard the interview you gave in London. You were saying that about reality and art, right? Or about life and art? I was talking about that with Killergremlin, and we were trying to figure out if you were saying that stuff that happens in Kaah Mukul really happens in real life, like if this arena is a reality somewhere else?” By the time he had finished the sentence, he could tell that he sounded like an idiot, and he let his voice descend to an imperceptible mumble. Noh looked at him blankly for a solid ten seconds, then turned back to the Ullamaball game.

“I merely meant that I was pleased that we
had
executed the design for this arena. But I know what you are referring to. The real
-
world manifestations of what the Montezuma represents have yet to be seen, but they will appear, soon I hope. In that interview, I was speculating about cases in Kaah Mukul
that
have interesting analogues with real life. You, for example.” The General felt a sudden flush of self-consciousness. Fortunately, the faces of avatars didn’t turn red. “You have been a tribal general for eighteen months, during which
time
you have won an impressive number of battles and
earned
a top five dominance ranking. I do not yet know if you carried that capacity with you into the city, or if you developed it because the city impelled you to develop it. More likely, the process is reciprocal. That is why I’ve taken such an interest in you, and why I believe that your remarkable b
asketball tournament
picks are not
entirely
disconnected fr
om your work in the Tribal Wars
.
There may be something special about you…
” Noh’s voice seemed to recede as the speech progressed deeper into his own thoughts, but he quickly reacquired his focus.