Chapter 11: Victory

Chapter 11: Victory

Haha! Look at that one! It totally looks like Cullen in the face!

Maggie stared questioningly at the baboon that Joe was pointing to.

I suppose there is a loose resemblance.

Hold on, I need to get a picture of this. Hell get a kick out of it later.

The man waved over one of the hovering camera drones. He stood in front of the monkeys cage, flashed a silly open-mouthed grin, and held both thumbs up to his face. The machine understood the intent, took the picture, and instantly e-mailed it to Joe. He was eager to see how it turned out, but not so much as to run to the nearest public access data terminal right at that instant. It was a potentially wise decision, as the humorous nature of the image was somewhat undermined by the seething hostility on Maggies face. Seeing that would have surely ruined his good mood.

Nice. Hope it also caught your pout. Youre unexpectedly cute when youre mad, you know?

Or perhaps not.

It is somewhat soothing that my ire entertains you, she replied flatly.

Was was that sarcasm?

Sarcasm is a form of irony. Irony is a form of lying. For you to even suggest I would resort to such means is offensive.

Sarcasm isnt lying, though. Well, I guess you kind of do say the opposite of what you mean, but you make that clear by also using the right face and tone. Know what I mean?

Maggie blinked at Joe as she tried to process his poorly structured argument.

So, by making the deception obvious, it is no longer considered deception?

Exactly!

This concept appears to be dangerously subjective.

Oh, yeah. Lots of people cant read sarcasm. Especially if they have to read it. Er, in text, I mean. A lot of it has to do with body language and stuff.

Curious. Would these animals be considered a form of sarcasm, then?

Uh I mean, Ive never really thought about it, so maybe?

Sarcasm is a more complex subject than I had initially assumed. I must research it in greater detail.

Joe felt pretty good that he somehow managed to cheer Maggie up a bit, if her softer expression was any indication. Admittedly her thinking face didnt look all that happy, but it was a marked improvement from the dead-eyed scowl she had for the past twenty minutes. He understood her frustration, of course. The girl was quite excited to see some real life animals, but what she found instead was robotic replicas. Joe had no idea how she could tell, because he absolutely couldnt. He had no idea until she pointed it out, in fact. Whoever made those beastly androids had really gone all out. They not only looked the part, but completely acted like the real deal, too. They even had wet tongues and hot breaths and all the other observable vital signs of a living creature. It was somewhat impressive in its own way.This chapter is updated by nov(e)(l)biin.com

Maggie, on the other hand, was far less appreciative. Yes, the lifelike machines were pieces of precision engineering that fulfilled their functions flawlessly, but they were also fallacious in nature. The biggest issue was that nothing in the zoos promotional material mentioned that their animals werent real. It made sense why theyd use substitutes, of course. Machines required zero supervision or care from staff, and whatever maintenance they required was likely cheaper than food, medicine, and other expenses their real counterparts would incur. The biggest one was that none of these creatures were native to Butterpond-4, which meant they had to be imported from off-world whereas the replicas could be manufactured locally.

That said, just because she understood it was logical hadnt stopped the zoos inherently deceptive nature from angering her tremendously. Especially since she had gotten her high hopes dashed a second time in one day.

Lets go check out the terran snake exhibit. Im pretty sure AzgodKalar will be stoked to see his relatives!

And yet her bondmates relentlessly cheerful attitude was rubbing off on her. Maggie did not understand where his childlike mirth was coming from, which merely added to the compelling mystery that was Joe Mulligan. Just when she thought she was getting a grasp on this curious humans thought process, he displayed an entirely new array of puzzling behavior.

Unbeknownst to her, what was giving Joe such immense joy was the thought that he was on an actual date. He hadnt really thought about it until today, but even though he and Maggie were in some weird astral covenant that he chose to interpret as a romantic relationship, they hadnt done much as a couple. Admittedly they played many games together, discussed a variety of topics, steadily got to know one another, and generally spent a lot of pleasant time in each others company, but those didnt count. Those were all things Joe could do with the lads, but getting a pointless picture in front of an android monkey was the sort of silly thing reserved for couples.

Blimey, those are some long sneckos, he exclaimed upon seeing the ball pythons. Thick, too. Theyd probably snap me like a twig if they tried!

Constrictor snakes do not kill through crushing force, Maggie corrected him. They seek to either suffocate their prey or to cut off blood circulation to the brain. It is a hunting technique that relies more on accuracy and anatomical knowledge than brute strength.

Thats pretty cool, too, in its own way. Think your little friend will learn to do that someday?

It is somewhat regrettable, but judging from what Ive read online, AzgodKalars subspecies has had most of its ferocity surgically removed.

The tiny serpent was an orb python - a genetic offshoot of its bigger cousins. Its kind were specifically bred and genetically modified to make them suitable companions for the latest, space-faring iteration of humanity. They were, among other things, smaller and more docile than ball pythons, though they did retain an endearing amount of feistiness. It was also worth noting that they were far from the only type of animal to receive such treatment. Over the last few centuries humanity had forcefully adapted over a hundred species in similar ways as part of Project BFF. The endeavor was actually part of a serious effort to stop people from taking in and adopting uniquely dangerous extraterrestrial lifeforms just because they looked kind of cute.

Humans were weird like that.

Nah. Hell definitely grow up big and strong, Joe proclaimed with unfounded confidence. How could he not with such an incredible owner looking after him?

I have studied forty two different tutorials and guides detailing the games features, content, and mechanics, the girl proclaimed. I will have no difficulty putting that knowledge into practice.

The group looked to Joe for confirmation. He would know best whether she could back up that boast, and they trusted him not to try to shoehorn his girlfriend into their small social circle just to spend time with her. All three of them knew Joe was the kind of shameless guy that would rather make an ass of himself than inconvenience someone else. That and he readily admitted to his mistakes, which was something he had to do with alarming regularity.

Mmm, now that I think about it, this might be tricky, he crossed his arms and looked at her. Dont get me wrong, Maggie, youre a fast learner and youve got some serious skills when it comes to reflexes and accuracy. Issue is you suck at strategy, and arent too great at teamwork.

The girl had nothing to say since this was Joes honest assessment of her abilities as a gamer after watching her go through his library of interactive media.

Heres an idea, we can have her take over Cullens position as the roamer, Huey suggested.

Ugh, that means I have to be support, though! the man whined. I hate playin fooken support.

Its fine, I can do it if you take over as tank, Benny weighed in.

Yeah, alright.

Sound good, Maggie? Joe asked. You think you can manage the roamer position?

Even though the game was a hyper-realistic space combat simulator, it was very rare for competitive matches to take place in open space. The virtual battlefield was either filled with obstacles and hazards, such as asteroids or proximity mines, or took place inside vast cavernous planetoids riddled with tunnels and passages. This made navigation and flanking vitally important skills, and it was the roamers job to keep the enemy from sneaking up on the rest of the team. It was a perfect fit for the lone wolf types, which was what Maggie seemed to be, based on Joes description of her playstyle.

Very well, she agreed. I shall accept the solitary vigil.

With the role reshuffling concluded, the team immediately got into it. To start with, they played against some AI-controlled opponents to get Maggie accustomed to the game. She was ridiculously incompetent her first few matches, but rapidly improved as she got used to piloting her starfighter. Calling her a fast learner was a woeful understatement of her processing capacity. Within hours she was pulling off evasive maneuvers that made her nigh-untouchable in one-on-one dogfights. She was even able to hold her own when fighting two opponents at once, albeit with understandable difficulty. Her accuracy was likewise impressive, despite the varying speeds and strange angles her craft flew at.

Since her mechanics were on-point, the team focused on trying to patch up her dismal strategic flaws. Maggie sometimes lost track of the big picture, which led to her team failing an objective even though she won her fights. Also, much like with a certain fighting game, she fell for all the tricks and feints that Joes team threw at her. For instance, one would open up with a suppressive volley that forced her to evade right into the path of anothers line of fire. Maggie wasnt too mad about those underhanded techniques, as she recognized that misinformation was a powerful weapon in both war and combat. Though she disliked the deceptive tactics and refused to use them, she would not bemoan the others for resorting to such means.

All in all, Maggie was able to get nearly two weeks worth of practice within the time-accelerated virtual reality before the big day arrived. Though the others called it a big tourney, the event in question was actually that years annual installment of Blastopia - a massive galaxy-spanning contest that took several months to run its course. Teams competed to be declared champions of their respective mega-city, then had to fight for the planetary title, then the star cluster title. If they made it that far they moved onto the national level before culminating in a grand show-off for the honor and glory of being named Galactic Champions.

Joes group had no such aspirations. There was no way a bunch of nobodies from an ass-end people farm like Butterpond-4 would win against the military flight squadrons and space pirates that often competed in Blastopia. Their goal was to make it to the top eight of mega-city Dave-156, which was already going to be tough. With over a hundred teams in their bracket, they had to win four consecutive best-of-five elimination matches to make it that far. Thankfully it was unlikely they would run into any big-shots in these local preliminaries, so they felt they had a decent chance at succeeding.

Joe, Cullen, Benny, Huey, and Maggie arrived at the virtual meeting area for the Dave-156 bracket of the tournament. It was a huge chamber with an orbital station theme. There was ample seating for thousands of people, and the ridiculously tall walls were lined with plenty of monitors for spectators to watch the matches live. It was also where participants would wait until it was time for them to compete, at which point they would be called in by tournament officials. As the one in charge of registration and the teams official captain, Huey had chosen Triple Misfire as their groups name. Looking at the line-up it would appear their first opponent was Dangerino Dongerino.

Much like the name suggested, this lot turned out to be a joke team that wanted to make asses of themselves for a few cheap laughs. Their sense of humor proved to be incredibly crude, as well. They showed up with five phallic spacecraft dyed hot-pink that were equipped for maximum self-destruction. Needless to say, Triple Misfire won three-to-nil with absolutely no difficulty. Though it was a free win, the nature of it left a foul taste in all of their mouths. Except Maggie, of course. She perfectly understood the vulgarity of the situation, but instead chose to tackle the incredibly puzzling question of why anyone would show up to a contest with the intention to lose.

Thankfully the second match was a proper one. Peter & Friends tried their best, but hadnt practiced anywhere nearly as much as Triple Misfire, and it showed. They managed to scrape by with a win when one of them clipped Joes engine with a lucky shot and made his craft spin out of control and collide with Bennys support vessel. Without the latters energy and ammo refills, it was just a matter of grinding the others down through attrition. They lost soundly the other three rounds, which was a far more satisfying victory than that farce of a first match.

Spirits were high as they went into their third match, only to find that their opponents - team Galactic Murder Power - were employing a so-called off-meta strategy. The generally accepted line up in competitive Un-Yo-Bee was a fairly balanced one. There was one agile roamer managing the flank, which was Maggies job. Cullen was his teams tank, which involved piloting a heavy gunship that served as mobile cover and weapons platform. Huey and Joe were the offense-oriented interceptors that put pressure on the enemy. Last but not least, Benny was in charge of the support vessel and responsible for keeping everyone else in the fight while also hindering the opposing team with cyberwarfare attacks.

However, Galactic Murder Power had taken the unorthodox approach of deploying with five gunships. It was an intimidating amount of firepower protected by thick armor and high-capacity force fields. Their major drawback was mobility, but that didnt seem to matter when they turned any enemy target they met into scrap metal in a matter of seconds. It was some scary stuff when considering it usually took anywhere from one to five minutes of combat for a ship to be destroyed.

Having failed to investigate their opponents beforehand, Triple Misfire were caught off guard and lost spectacularly in the first bout. The team had a frantic strategy meeting in the two-minute pause between rounds, trying to figure out how to counter that absurdity. The obvious solution was to employ hit-and-run tactics and slowly wear down the enemy gunships. The issue with that was that it would take so long that the thirty minute time limit would run out, resulting in a draw. And since the enemy had a win on their side already, a draw might as well have been a loss.

Surprisingly enough, it was Maggie that gave them the answer. When a team lost a round, they were allowed to change up their loadout between rounds in an effort to come back against an opponent that they were initially ill-equipped to handle. The girl took advantage of that rule to swap her agile fighter-class vessel for an arbalest-class. This type of ship was best described as a massive ion cannon with a few engines bolted onto the side. It was sometimes employed in ten-on-ten or twenty-on-twenty matches, but never in the competitive five-on-five format. Not because it was banned by the rules, but because its limited mobility and lack of armor made it easy for roamers and interceptors to pick it off. The rest of Triple Misfire had almost forgotten such ships even existed, and therefore failed to consider them until Maggie pointed out they were the logical counter to the enemys stratagem.

Team Galactic Murder Power had also neglected the existence of the arbalest-class and had their gunships completely shredded by Maggies arbalest-class long before they got into effective range. That giant gun was so stupidly destructive it even blasted through any asteroids they tried to use as cover as well. Round three saw them abandon their off-meta composition completely and they fell back on the standard arrangement. The winning team could not swap out their loadouts, so they figured targeting the fragile cannon would net them an easy win.

That did not happen. Galactic Murder Power underestimated the arbalest pilots proficiency and had their support vessel annihilated in the opening seconds of the engagement. They did manage to blow up Maggies ship, but the rest of Triple Misfire were able to clean them up without issue. Those back-to-back defeats were so humiliating that Galactic Murder Power - who, incidentally, were talking mad shit over the open comm channels during the first round - forfeited the match immediately.

Since they had finished up unexpectedly early, Triple Misfire returned to the main lounge to wait for their next match.

That was awesome!

Bloody brilliant!

Gee gee, ee zee!

Upon entering the common spectators area, they were suddenly met with a small round of cheers and applause. It wasnt often one got to see an arbalest-class employed in a five-on-five match, let alone to such spectacular effect. Their performance had therefore earned them a few fans. There was even a highlight reel playing on one of the monitors that showcased Maggies deciding strike at the start of the third round. The girl herself got plenty of attention, not only because of her unique display of skill, but also because of her virtual appearance. The half-woman half-horror look was thoroughly unique, after all.

The gang naturally felt pretty good about all this, but Maggie was especially happy to have experienced something new yet again.

Namely, the thrill of victory.

And it felt good.