Two Can Play (Entangled Ignite) (2 page)

He also had no problem with girls joining the elite ranks of Lounge security. Two of Rena’s Recruits, already top Dome fighters, met the belt requirement and could pass the physical, but too many macho Watchers got their jocks in a twist over girls stepping onto their turf.

The new badass Watchers were the worst. They’d cooked up what they called Actions Against the Life—AALs—and started deducting points from Lifers who broke the “rules.” The Life had principles and guidelines, not rules or regulations, and each one led to stronger, happier, healthier Lifers.

To Rena it seemed petty to rip off points when someone busted curfew or bought from a catalog above their level. AALs were not in the loving spirit of the NiGo Family at all. She’d brought it up in Group, but the new Watchers convinced Maya to give them a trial period. Maya went on about how some Lifers needed more boundaries and what all. God, Rena hated Group—all that dredging up of emotional sludge and whining about hurt feelings and anger triggers.
Get over it, get on with it
was how she saw it.

Besides AALs, another thing that had to go was ladies’ night. She wanted girls in gaming, but ladies’ night put the Lounge barely a wet T-shirt contest away from a Dead World bar. Ladies’ night drew girls who wanted free drinks, not gaming, which defeated the whole purpose.

“You busy after shift? Over,” Zeke purred at her.

“We’re tapped out on points, Zeke. Over.” They’d had status sex months back, then a couple freebies for the fun of it. Repeats netted no points, but Zeke was hot, great in the Dome, and she plain liked him.

“You’re too strict, girl. Over.”

“Rena out.” She gave Zeke the
EverLife
salute—two fingers to the heart, the forehead, then straight out—before handing the headset and walkie-talkie to Gage. “Right away, learn all the games,” she told him, while he adjusted his mic. “That way you can help newbie players.”

“I get paid to game? Not bad.” A smile flashed like the tail of a flare, gone almost before it registered.

“That’s on your own time.” She hoped to hell he wasn’t a slacker after an easy gig. “Who recruited you, by the way?”

“A tall guy with red hair. Skip, I think, was his name.”

“Ah, Skippy. Not so big on the details.” Skippy liked shortcuts and game cheats. He’d sign up anyone who could finger a keypad, she’d bet, now that recruitment points had been tripled to snag employees for the new Lounges. A bad idea, Rena thought, that might bring in people without enough heart, devotion, and skill for the Life. Great Lifers made the Life great.

“You’ll fill me in where Skippy missed?” Gage asked with a smile.

“I’ll do my best.” She didn’t want her first trainee to wash out, of course, but if he was wrong for the Life, he was out of there. “You know about Lifer Mondays?”

Gage shook his head.

“We close the Lounge to gamers so Lifers can play, learn new games, earn points, or rehearse for the Dome. What’s your game?”

“I play a lot of
EverLife
.”

“It’s the most popular with our customers, so that’s good.” Combining fantasy adventure with world-building,
EverLife
appealed to casual players and hard-core ones, which was why it was number one in the world. “What’s your screen name?”

“EyesOnly.”

“Yeah. I’ve gamed with you. You’re a Paladin, right?” That was the same avatar class as Rena’s—Warrior—but in the other
EverLife
race. “You helped us out on that raid on Tragar Village. I’m Astra.” She’d chosen the goddess of stars as her persona because of the heat and light, the fiery power.

“I remember,” he said. “You had a good strategy.”

“Except for the ambush.” Compliments made Rena uneasy. If you let them go to your head, you got careless and lazy and things went way wrong. “Let’s take the walkway.” She led off on a slow stroll, soaking in the beehive buzz of electronics and the trance music that made Rena feel she was somewhere rare and magical she never wanted to leave.

“First thing, check in with your shift manager to see where you’re needed and when. For now, you’ll rove. Main thing is to watch player credit levels. When they dip below ten bucks, wave over a Card Girl.”

She pointed at a girl dressed like a slutty Zelda, skirt barely covering her parts, bare midriff, low neckline, sliding a guy’s Lounge card through the reader unit slung low on her hips, then wiggled and slid around, practically moaning. Gross.

“She’s workin’ it,” Gage said, half laughing.

“I hate when they use sex like that. The games are plenty hot.”

“You ever been a Card Girl?”

“I was Lara Croft. And I didn’t
work it
.”

He nodded. “Makes sense. You’ve got the height and build.” He scanned her, attraction ticking beneath his words and in his dark-brown eyes.

“I told any guy who looked at me funny that if he touched me he’d walk crooked for a week.”

“You don’t hold back.” He declared it as fact, no smile on his face.

“Not usually, no. I think guys should do card duty, too. You could run a card through a reader, right?”

“I wouldn’t do justice to the outfit.” He nodded at Zelda, grinding away for a customer.

The joke sparked something in her and she found herself joking back. “I could see you as the Prince of Persia.”

A smile twitched, then faded on his face. “The turban would give me hat hair.”

She smirked, then got serious. “If we lost the slut-wear and crotch grinding, carding would be a respectable job for anyone.”

“As long as there are no harem pants involved, I’m there.”

He was humoring her, but she didn’t mind. “You’ll also keep an eye on the equipment,” she said, pointing to a guy lifting the back off a
Centipede
machine in the Retro Zone, which held ’80s arcade games. “Any snafus or lags, get a tech.”

“I worked on computers some, if that helps.”

“We always need techs.” Maybe Skippy had been onto something.

They’d reached the vegan café, Soylent Green. “You’ll likely bus tables here. They get backed up a lot.” It was quiet at the moment, so she led him to the next stop, Blood Electric. “The bartender always needs help.”

The Watcher at the entrance was stone scary, especially with his arms crossed—but a puppy about females. He was side-watching some ASU students with fake IDs sucking down V-Triques in the special martini glass with a blue lightning bolt for a stem. The blue set off the blood-red drink. V-Triques supposedly enhanced playing. The boost-soothe effect let players slide into gaming like a cool pool on a hot day. One of them was a girl Rena had helped out.

“Keep an eye out for possible Lifers,” she said to Gage. “The blonde at that table is a solid
EverLife
player. She’s been coming in a lot.” The day Rena helped her boost her
EverLife
levels she’d noticed that the girl looked lost behind her eyes. It was a look Rena remembered from her pre-Life days.

Rena led Gage to the bar, where Baker, the bartender, was wiping down the blue glass top. He was new to the assignment. “Congrats,” she said. Baker was an Apache so short he had to stand on a crate to be seen over the bar.

“Thanks for putting in the word,” he said. When his app came across the network—Lifers voted on some assignments—she’d pointed out his wicked
EverLife
skills, where he took the Troll avatar and always had your back. She liked that he lived large for his size.

She introduced Gage, then ordered them both Electriques. Baker fetched the cans from the Lifer fridge, marked them off on the inventory, then poured them into two tumblers with ice.

“Electrique is free to Lifers,” she explained as Gage picked up his glass. “But no cans outside the Lounge. The bar code sets off an alarm.”

“An alarm? What’s the deal?”

“There’s been some smuggling. E’s a Lounge-only beverage.” She tapped her glass against Gage’s. “To the Life.”

“To that,” he said.

That
? A shade too disrespectful for her taste. Too cool for school, this guy.

“Once an hour, check E inventory with whoever’s at the bar,” she told him. “You bring up cases from the vault downstairs. A Watcher will let you in.”

A gamer moved a newspaper off a stool so he could sit and set it on the bar. It was
that
issue of
New Day News
. Rena grabbed it to throw away.

“Hang on.” Gage took the paper from her. The cover story headline, “Arcade Chain Spawns Gamer Cult,” hung above a slash-style cartoon of a kid, jaw slack, eyes x’ed out, zombie-walking to a monitor. “This is about Real Life Lounge?”

“He makes us sound like some twisted religion, like we worship Nigel and Naomi.” The idea made Rena’s blood boil. Why did outsiders mock what they didn’t understand? It was envy, pure and simple.

Gage flipped to the story and ran his eyes down the page. “Do you know this Angel? The Lifer he quotes?”

“It’s a fake name.” Supposedly because “Angel” feared punishment for revealing the “secrets of the cult.” As if Nigel and Naomi would hurt a hair on their heads. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a fake person,” she added. “The reporter was a complete snake, hanging around, not saying who he was. I even gave him game tips, I realized.” Cassie had hit on him. She got kind of slutty when she drank.

“You think the reporter made up his source?”

“At most, it’s one of the Lost Lives.” When Gage lifted his brows, she explained. “Lifers who don’t fit and leave us. We call them Lost Lives. Maybe this Angel is bitter about not making it.” She’d heard rumors that some Lifers actually got kicked out. She couldn’t imagine anything worse.

Rena took the paper from Gage and tossed it into the trash behind the bar. “You ask me, NiGo should sue or demand a retraction at least.”

“Doesn’t look like it’s hurt business any.” Gage nodded toward the arena. “The place is filling up.”

“Always on Fridays, yeah.” There was a crackle in the air like sparks from a carpet and adrenaline bubbled in Rena’s blood. She felt Gage’s gaze on her. “What?”

“You love it here.” He seemed almost surprised—puzzled at least.

“Of course. Who wouldn’t?”

“I guess.”

Wrong answer. You fell in love with the place, played your heart out, then counted your lucky stars when a Lifer noticed and signed you up. She hoped point-pig Skippy hadn’t made a mistake Rena would pay for.

“Finish up,” she said, nodding at Gage’s hardly touched Electrique. Hers was long gone. “We should head to the Dome. I’m in the first battle.”

Gage pushed the glass away and they left to walk the rest of the way around the curve to the Dome theater, where the riser seats were filling.

Rena noticed three Hispanic guys in the front row. They were former gangbangers she’d tutored in math at the NiGo Charter School. They were great candidates for the Life after they graduated. The Life would save them from drugs, prison, or death. That was the miracle of the Life, how it took people who were lost or alone or in trouble and made them Family, united by a love of gaming and each other.

“That’s a lot of ink,” Gage said.

At first Rena thought he meant the crude gang tats on the homeboys, but then she saw he was nodding at her shoulder.

The black lights of the Dome made the fluorescent ink of her tattoo seem to vibrate on her skin. “That’s my status tattoo,” she told him. “Each color represents a Level. You’ll get red once you’ve earned First Level Quarters. We get them done at Body Artist, a special tattoo place.”

“You’ve got…what? Five colors? So Level Five?”

“Yep.” It had taken hours of pain and nausea to acquire the hypnotic rainbow mandala that proved her devotion to the Life. Well worth it.

The fanfare blared from the overhead speakers. “That’s my cue to battle.”

“I get to watch?” He took a slow look down her length.

She felt a rush of heat. The air went tight and her knees got loose.

He’d be good in bed.

“Sure. You can start your shift while I’m upstairs.”

“Sounds good to me.” He turned to find a seat five rows up, where he stood out from the crowd of Deads fresh from work in their golf shirts and khakis. Maybe it was the bomber jacket, his jet-black hair, or the miss-nothing gaze. Whatever it was, there was more to Gage Stone than met the eye. He was sexy, sure, but something about him made her uneasy. He didn’t fit. He was off somehow.

What was he doing in the Life?

Chapter Two

The crowd noise was deafening as Rena loped across the stage to the dressing area. Men called her name in sex-husky voices, but she kept moving.

“Kick ass, Astra!” The female squeal made her turn to greet a half dozen girls, who stared at her with shiny eyes. She shook their hands and spoke to them one by one:
Stick to it… Be a better gamer… Push ’til you win… Never sell yourself short or settle for less
. She wanted girl gamers to advance. Corny as it sounded, she wanted to give back some of what she’d gotten from the Life.

Astra had fan sites and chat boards and though the fame embarrassed her, Rena knew to her soul that girls needed heroes.

Reaching the dressing area, she pulled on the skin-colored bodysuit. Once in the theater, her avatar would be projected onto the reflective fabric in a hologram. From the various padded batons on the table, she selected two—one coded as an axe, the other as a sword. Finally, she grabbed a shield—a padded disk with a handhold like those used in martial arts training except wrapped in reflective fabric to display her crest. Equipped, Rena headed out.

Pausing just outside the fight field, she closed her eyes and recited her silent mantra:
You have all the power you need. You stand strong and free. You are more than enough.

Finished, she looked across the space to her opponent, a Jamaican named Boscoe, who flashed a grin and motioned at her
. You’re going down
.

Rena grinned back and made a throat slice.
You first, mon
. She signaled the Dome Commander in the control booth that they were ready. He dimmed the lights and engaged the projectors that would light their suits as well as the green screen behind them, making it appear that they stood in a clearing in the Forest of Atalan.

Rena stepped onto the hushed battlefield. Now she was lit up as Astra, the star goddess, with golden armor, and rays of white light extending from her head, hands, and torso. The crowd cheered and she rose to the balls of her feet, feeling as weightless as the light streaming from her body.

She hoped the Blackstones watched from the closed-circuit TV in their Quarters. Nigel was fond of the Dome and had sparred in the early days. Rena’s feelings tightened like flexed muscles. Maybe wanting to make him and Naomi proud made her weak or vain, but for once, she let the feeling alone.

The horn sounded and she and Boscoe moved into the center of the field. Dome battles were a blend of kickboxing and tae kwon do. Fighters halted each move just short of contact, which required intense control, balance, and dexterity. Mistakes were easy and warriors often got hurt. The best players came thrillingly close.

Astra executed her signature move, spinning her axe, then whipping it down inches from Boscoe’s nose. Points zinged in the score box beside her screen-shot photo. The crowd roared its approval. Before Boscoe recovered, she performed a series of kicks, spins, and short punches.

Boscoe brought down his spear toward her shoulder, but she ducked away, scoring more points than he had for the attempt. She came back at him with a double blow—an axe swipe, followed by a kick to the head that sent him reeling, the beads in his dreads clicking madly.

“Why you workin’ so hard?” he muttered. “It’s early, girl.” He swung his chain at her—chains were real and hurt like hell when they landed.

“Can’t help it.” Rena never took it easy. She wouldn’t recognize herself if she did.

They battled for long minutes until both were drenched in sweat, the air between them muggy with heat. Pushing herself, Rena twisted, then flipped, ending with a leg thrust that swept Boscoe’s feet out from under him. He thudded to the mat and Rena pointed her sword at his throat, breathing hard.

“Vicious bitch.” He grinned up at her. “Next time, no mercy.” When she removed her sword, he bounded up and the crowd went wild. The two of them gave the
EverLife
salute to each other and the audience, then left the field.

Rena hugged Boscoe, slapping his back, making his chain rattle. “Good fight.”

“Beat by a girl. I’m a real pussy these days. I even signed your damn petition.”

“Good for you, Boscoe.”

“She wouldn’t give me sex points if I didn’t sign.”

“Whatever it takes.” Most girl Lifers had already signed petitions of support on the Girl Power Project website. Little by little, they were bringing in guys. “Girls rule,” she said, banging his knuckles.

“They do when you’re horny, yeah.” He waved her away.

After she changed, she headed out to meet Gage.

“Very impressive,” he said. “You have a lot of grace.”

“Dance lessons as a kid, I guess.” She’d always wanted to be a dancer. As a toddler, “’rina” was the closest she could come to saying ballerina. The house staff called her Rena ever after and it stuck.

“You interested in learning to battle?” she asked him.

“If you’re the coach, sure.” The sex-heavy words zinged like a sniper shot to her core, hitting her hot and hard.

“You could use the points,” she breathed, not thinking of battle points at all. “We’ll get to that, for sure.” She got a little shiver of anticipation. “At the moment, I’m due upstairs and you should hit your shift.”

A little tingly from that exchange, Rena jetted up to her Quarters to shower off her battle sweat and gear up for the visit with the Blackstones. She’d barely dressed when Maya knocked at her door. Maya would green-light the elevator to the penthouse for Rena.

“Are you ready?” Maya pressed a strand of Rena’s hair deeper into her braid. Maya was short, with upturned green eyes that missed nothing, and a small, serious mouth.

Rena nodded, prickling with nerves, her stomach jumping madly.

“Breathe for me then.” A therapist in the Dead World, Maya was tuned to mood, attitude, and emotion. In the Life, she ran Group and looked out for Lifers’ well-being. It was so much better than the Dead World, where you were on your own, sink or swim, with no one to throw you a rope before you glugged out for good.

Rena exhaled, taking in the sweet patchouli of Maya’s scent on the next inhale. She loved that smell. It made her remember turning her life over to joy. Rena’s one lucky moment had been the black night of her twenty-first birthday when Maya had scooped her drunken ass out of the path of a semi and showed her the Life. Rena had wanted what Maya promised so bad it made her ache. It had been forever since she’d wanted anything. “I’m ready,” she said.

Maya squeezed her shoulders. “Of course you are. Nigel saw your potential from the beginning.” Maya had introduced her to Nigel in Blood Electric and they’d shared something from the Blackstones’ private reserves. Fizzy and hot, it had made Rena and everything around her glow. Nigel had invited her into the Life and Rena’s gray world went full color overnight. She never looked back.

Now Maya gave her a quick hug, the obsidian earrings Rena had given her tickling Rena’s neck, then smiled. “Good luck, Rena. Trust Nigel.” Maya passed her key card over the elevator security sensor, which flashed a green that matched the swirling shade of her mood ring. Green for
go, go, go
.

The door closed and Rena soared upward, her heart rising, too, as if it wanted to fly from her chest. At the top, the elevator opened onto a hall leading to a door painted red with a black border of carved dragons.

Before she could knock, her cell phone beeped, signaling a low battery. Cassie had dropped it a few times, cracking the screen, and dunked it once, weakening the battery. When Rena had the spare points, she’d replace it. The beep reminded her to silence the phone. It wouldn’t do to have a call interrupt her precious moments with the Blackstones.

A tiny Asian woman opened to Rena’s knock and bowed. Naomi? No. Naomi’s hair was red, not black. She motioned for Rena to enter. The museum-like space was open and bright with light from overhead skylights. Wind chimes tinkled and she smelled sandalwood. She liked the smell, but it sometimes made her dizzy. Plasma TVs ringed the room, silently flashing the colors and lights of
EverLife
.

She turned to ask where to go, but the woman had disappeared. Rena moved slowly past a giant red-and-gold Buddha, water bubbling from its base into a box of fist-sized black stones, on her way to a seating area at the far end of the room. She realized her mouth hung open in awe.

“It is an honor to have you in our home.”

Rena spun to see Nigel bowing before her. Where had he come from?

“It is an honor to be here,” she blurted. At the last second, she jerked into a bow.

When she righted herself, Nigel’s eyes bore into her, the shiny black of the Buddha stones.

“And you are enjoying your work for us, yes?” His long white hair hung loose over his jade tunic and his razor-edged beard and soul patch made him look like an
EverLife
magician, which delighted her.

“Very much… Very much.”

“And your living circumstances please you?”

“Oh, yes…yes.”
Stop repeating yourself.

“We have followed your progress closely.”

“You have?” There were hundreds of Lifers across America. How could Nigel and Naomi possibly track each one? Maya must keep them informed since Rena was her Recruit. Or maybe the Blackstones’ love was so large it blanketed them all.
They’re not gods
, Rena reminded herself, though deep inside she wanted to believe love could be that big.

“I am grateful to be here.” Her throat tightened and her nose stung. Where was her control? She called up Astra’s hot, white light to calm herself.

“As we hoped. Always we aim to create enriched lives for our Family. As the American Indians believe that every stone has a spirit, we believe the same of man-made objects. Each results from an act of creation, the application of human brainpower and energy and love. We celebrate that spirit by acknowledging the life force in all material goods.”

She nodded.

“Ah, but I am not your sensei, as Naomi points out whenever I start my little talks.” He chuckled. “You are here to learn about your future. You are anxious to achieve?”

“I strive to be better each day.”

“You have blessed our Family with exceptional members.”

“My Recruits? Yes.” Cassie, of course, and eleven others, eight of them girls. “And I became a Mentor today, too, which is a great honor.”

“As Naomi says, everything is unfolding as it should.” He smiled, then motioned toward the low table surrounded by jewel-colored cushions. A tray with fragile-looking white teacups and a matching teapot easing steam had appeared, as if by magic. “Naomi sends her best to you on all you have achieved.”

“Thank her for me.” Naomi wasn’t coming. Rena felt a throb of disappointment. She’d only seen Naomi once—at the launch party for the
EverLife
Expansion Pak—and that was from the mezzanine where she stood with Nigel to wave. Rena adored Naomi.

Half Japanese, her features were a pretty culture mash-up—slanted eyes with thin black brows, high cheekbones in a square face with long auburn hair. In the photo of her and Nigel that Rena kept near her computer, Naomi wore a silver medallion that said
tranquillity
in Japanese. It was the perfect word for her. Rena fought to replace her own restless turmoil with Naomi’s easy calm.

Choosing the jade cushion, Rena folded her legs under her, while Nigel poured tea, then nodded for her to drink. He left his own cup empty. The lip of the teacup was thin as paper and the tea tasted of peach and tingled on her tongue. She felt Nigel’s eyes follow her every move, though he held his silence.

She sipped again.

More silence. Was he waiting for her to speak or was this a moment of Zen awareness?

Rena didn’t do Zen. She jumped in, moved, took action. Should she ask about Girl Power? She fingered the brochure she’d slid into her pocket to show him when the time was right.

Everything is unfolding as it should.

Patience was a Life lesson Rena needed, so she kept still while the tea warmed her insides. A wave of dizziness washed through her. Sandalwood again.

“Ah,” Nigel said, as if prompted to speak. “To reach the point. Naomi and I invite you to accept a Quest.”

“A Quest? Oh. Wow. Thank you.” So the meeting wasn’t about Girl Power. She felt a jolt of warmth and her head seemed to float above her neck like a balloon.

“You are aware, I assume, of that despicable reporter and the hostile stir his story has created against us?”

She nodded. “Yes. It was terrible. Will we be taking action? Filing a lawsuit?” Serenity was useless when an injustice had been committed.

Nigel smiled faintly. “We are strong and we will
sobreviver
, as the Spanish say—
over live…survive.
The many loyal, loving members of the NiGo Interactive Family cannot be harmed by lies.”

“But a lawsuit would tell the world that they can’t mess with—”

Nigel stopped her with a raised hand. “Your eagerness is admirable, but our task is to address this ‘Angel,’ this Lifer who has stepped outside our loving arms. Karma has a Gantt chart of its own, but we must act for the good of all.”

Oh, no. Angel was real. Not made up.
Rena felt sick and even more dizzy. “A Gantt chart?” she asked to cover her distress.

Nigel smiled. “A business reference. Naomi reminds me to consider my audience. My most prostrate apologies.” She loved how humble Nigel was—gentle and coaxing and full of love. “A Gantt chart, Genevieve, shows project deadlines on a timeline. My meaning is that karma has its own pace.”

“That makes sense.” She was startled he’d used her real name. She went strictly by Rena and had changed her last name to hide her adopted father’s famous one, choosing Novo, which meant
new
in Portuguese. Rena must have used Genevieve with Maya back before she got sober.

“Karma and Gantt notwithstanding, it is better for all if she leaves us.”

She?
Damn, damn, damn. Angel was a girl. “Who is it?” Her voice seemed too loud in the still room.

“First, the Quest,” Nigel said. “You are to evict her from her Quarters and ban her from Real Life Lounge forever.”