Preface

"Hi, Viktor." The chairman, who was also the managing director of our team, met me in his office, with a lawyer sitting by his side. I knew that man was a lawyer; I'd met him at our training base before. My heart skipped a beat.

Why is he here? I went over all of my recent blunders, but no ready explanation came to mind. The past fine? I paid it in full. The European tournament? We won it. The taxes on our prize money? Paid. I was at a complete loss why the boss had called me in so suddenly, interrupting my vacation.

"Sit down." He pointed at the armchair facing his. I obeyed, sweating slightly.

"You've delivered a good performance over several past seasons," he started. "The team's happy with you. But, you see… After we won the CIS championship, HiG, of the Empire team, approached us, wishing to become our player. He's trying to make the global top with his team for the third year in a row, but every time they only score second. First outperformed by Zealots, then by Sheas, and this year's championship is likely to become ours. He's craving to become a world champion even if that means changing teams. Taking him on board will make Drones much stronger. And we must do it now. Before it's too late to request a player replacement."

"But he's their captain! Their best player. Their linchpin." I knew Nikita in person. We weren't friends, but we weren't foes either. Our relationship could be best described as a mutual respect between two pros. "And he's ready to become our fifth?"

"He's a great sniper." The chairman reached for a pile of papers on his desk—and pushed them, with a pen, towards me. "No. He's the world's best sniper. We need him. You saw the stats. Nikita's ahead of you this season by whole five percent in hits."

My back grew cold as I took the thin paper pile. I did my best to conceal my feelings. This team had been my life for the past seven years. The dream I had pursued playing at pubs and climbing up the rankings, year after year.

That dream was now falling to pieces.

The document in my hands was a mutual contract termination agreement. I was to receive $100,000 in exchange for not playing for any other professional team for the next three years—and for handing my player account over to my past team.

"But what about our recent victory?" I still couldn't believe that this was happening to me. It couldn't be true. It just couldn't!

"I assembled the team yesterday. Asked whether accepting HiG would be a wise choice for our team. Everyone voted for him."

Masha did go somewhere yesterday, I recalled. She kept joking when I asked where she was going. She came back in the evening, casting strange glances at me and kept silent despite all of my attempts to get her to talk.

"I don't believe they would do that to me," I said firmly. But my confidence was gone in a moment as the lawyer showed me the meeting minutes signed by all the team members. Masha's playful flourish was there, too. Seeing it hurt me more than looking at the other three.

"What if I refuse?" I managed to say after a minute of silence.

"Then you'll be fired. After that, you may try your luck elsewhere. In Empire, for example. They'll need a fifth soon," the lawyer replied instead of the chairman, smiling a predatory smile.

He knew I would never do that. Drones were the world's best team. Downgrading just for money was not my cup of tea. I'd rather not lose to my past team every time I faced it in tournaments.

"Why do you need my account? You'll have Nikita's, won't you?"

The chairman winced as if he got a sudden toothache. "Unfortunately, his player account is Empire's property. In order not to waste time on leveling, we need yours. Having it, we'll just have to change the ship and pilot name."

"The amount of compensation we offer is very generous," the lawyer intervened again. "One hundred thousand dollars is the best price you can possibly get for this account."

"Oh, really?" I said angrily, retrieving my biometric access card. "I'll put it up for auction and see."

"Viktor." The chairman glanced at the lawyer who stopped short. They needed HiG, but more than that, they needed my ship for him to fly without altering his mix of skills. Our fighters belonged to the same class, so he would spend no more than $4,000 on adapting my ship to his particular build. That was nothing compared to the cost of leveling a top account from scratch.

"Viktor," the chairman said again. I have never heard him sound so gentle. "You do understand that we're not offering this money just like that. The team needs your ship to become stronger. Isn't that what you wanted when you joined us? I remember you working for six dollars per hour under your first contract. Now you make almost $72,000 excluding prize money."

"I wanted to make Drones stronger, yeah. But you say that they gave up on me yesterday." As I cited the chairman's recent words, his face twisted. "Why should I give a damn about them?"

"Good." He looked at the lawyer. "We can give you $140,000. But not a cent more."

I thought it over. Another pro team could easily pay $70,000 or $80,000 for my account: a top player's ship, with top-level skills and legendary gear. But I doubted that I could sell it for a hundred thousand, let alone hundred and forty. Finding anyone willing to pay that much would certainly not be easy or fast. That's really a lot of money.

I realized that I was considering their offer. Five minutes ago I couldn't so much as think about parting with my ship. But now, after my team had betrayed me, dropping me for a player whom they thought stronger, I really wanted to forget everything just to avoid seeing their lying faces ever again.

The last week we'd been reveling and drinking together, celebrating our victory, swearing eternal friendship and love to each other. Two days later, they dumped me as if I were a piece of trash.

Despite the air conditioning being on, my back was covered in sweat. This account was the only thing I had. I had invested about $40,000 and seven years of my life into it.

Back in high school, I started to seriously play Starry Sky; it had just opened for beta testing. Once the game had rapidly started to gain popularity, after that big campaign and the first world tournament, I decided to become a professional player. I trained fourteen hours per day, enduring heated arguments with parents about me dropping out of college. I had no social life outside the cyber world.. Three years later I had been hired by Drones, a starter team then, as their fifth player. We trained and grew together, winning our first CIS championship, and then scoring third at the world tournament. What a celebration we had then.

The victories and defeats of the past few years flashed before my eyes.

I made up my mind.

"Hundred and sixty," I said, putting the key card onto the desk, "and we have a deal."

Refusing to believe his ears, the manager exchanged glances with the lawyer who hurriedly retrieved his tablet to fix the figures despite his loud announcement a moment before that hundred and forty was their limit.

Looks like they care more about my ship than about me, I noted sadly.

The printer in the corner spat out the sheets of paper. A small office robot fetched them on a tray. Skimming through the new agreement, I wrote in the date, signed, and put my finger onto the scanner circle at the bottom of each sheet.

"When should I come for access transfer?" I asked. I knew that transferring the game account access rights was a lengthy procedure, particularly when the account was biometrically verified like mine was.

"Tomorrow. Or we can do it today. Nikita's just popped in to sign the papers." The manager handed me a copy of the agreement. He looked as pleased as one could get.

"Well, let's do it today then. I'd rather finish it and never see you again."

The hatred I felt toward these two ugly mugs, and the team that did not care enough to warn me about my replacement was suffocating me. All I wanted was to get rid of my ship and forget about the game and the lying bastards who called me their friend all these years. I wanted to forget them for good.

I exchanged brief greetings with Nikita, but we didn't talk as we both felt awkward. I was in a horrible mood. Once everything was done, I left my key card at the checkpoint and received a recommendation letter from the team. Once outside, I tore it to pieces, and threw them into the bin at the entrance.

My hands were shaking with anger so badly that I failed to hit the taxi call button on my smart device. I had to calm down a bit before making another attempt.

When the e-car arrived, I got in and put my smart device to the autopilot screen. The robot pilot calculated the cost of the ride and charged me. I decided not to pay extra to take a top-level road and save myself an hour of transit; I needed this time to calm down so that I don't end up attacking my girlfriend, who joined my team in betraying me. I'd rather just look her in the eye and ask her about it calmly, without going hysterical.