Chapter 1

Seeing me at the threshold, Masha rushed to apologize. "Oh, dear, please forgive me. The manager prohibited me to tell you anything." She tried to embrace me; I evaded. "He threatened to fire me! Please understand. He'd rather you didn't know about that meeting."

"You could have told me in secret. Given me time to prepare..." Kicking off my shoes, I walked into the living room. She ran after me.

"Oh, forgive me, dear. Please, please, please. Do you want to hear the recording of him threatening me?"

The smart device let out a squeak. Retrieving it from my pocket, I saw that the agreed sum was deposited to my wallet. Now I was officially jobless and wanted by no one. Perhaps I was wanted, but the agreement prevented me from joining any team for the next three years, which was ages for a pro player; the game would change completely during that time.

The money will run out one day, I reminded myself. $160,000 seems like a large sum, but I'll spend most of it on mortgage. And the rest on paying my bills until I get a new job.

"Dear." Masha tried to kiss me, but I wanted no intimacies after what had happened.

"Please leave me alone." Without looking at her, I waved my hand, turning on the video wall.

"Okay," the girl gave up. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her retreat into her bedroom. Shortly after, I heard the entrance door slam, which meant that I was left alone in the apartment we shared.

"Breaking news!" Switching through the channels, a news clip about Starry Sky caught my eye. "The gaming audience is shocked by Nikita HiG Ostrovsky, Empire's leader and longstanding captain, striking a deal with the Drones to become their sniper. With the world tournament around the corner, such a move will definitely strengthen Russia's best team. The fate of their current fifth, Viktor L0St Maximov, is still unknown. We've contacted the team headquarters, but they had no comments about this transfer. We'll be watching how things unfold—and try to get any feedback from Viktor Maximov and the Empire team."

The news agencies learned about that at roughly the same time as me, I snorted. My friends—or rather those who called themselves that—told me nothing.

Once the news had ended, my smart device exploded with calls that kept coming one after another. Craving for my attention were all sorts of folks, from past team mates to some undefined numbers. I responded to no one, and put the device on airplane mode.

Turning off the video wall, I walked into my bedroom habitually, as I always did, to get some flight practice. But once the capsule was activated and I ran the access card through the identifier, the red flash harshly reminded me that I no longer had any game accounts. I had sold my only one just a couple of hours before. I hadn't played any other games in the past two years, and had deleted all of their files and saves.

That was when I fully realized what had happened. All that was my life for the past seven years was now gone. My ship. My team. My game. Everything vanished.

***

In the morning, I woke to something preventing my body from rolling over. Opening my eyes, I saw Masha sleeping with her arm and leg over me, still fully clothed; she must have come home late. Taking care not to disturb her, I released myself from her grip and stood up. I didn't feel like sleeping, particularly with the strong reek of last night's liquor coming out of her mouth. Apparently she had a merry night.

I looked at the girl. The yesterday's anger went away, giving place to disappointment, sadness, and annoyance. On the other hand, Masha was a professional gamer, too. Just like me, she had never been anything else. So a threat to take everything away from her was more than enough to scare her into obedience.

"Home," I addressed the apartment AI. "Make me fried eggs with bacon."

"We're out of bacon, Viktor," the AI informed me calmly. "I ordered it yesterday. Delivery expected: today at noon."

" What about tomatoes and cheese?"

"We have both," the voice didn't change a tiny bit. "Would you like fried eggs with tomatoes and cheese?"

"Yes, please."

"Estimated cooking time: five minutes. Would you like a coffee?"

"Tea. Black. As always." I sank into the armchair and waved my hand at the wall. The vigorous voice of the morning news anchor filled the living room.

"Baby!" a displeased scream came from the bedroom. "Quiet, please."

I moved my finger twice to reduce the volume, and started switching through the channels in search of entertainment.

"Fried eggs are ready. Should I serve them?" the AI's voice came out of the floorstanding speaker next to my armchair.

"Yes. Serve them here."

Soon the robot tray came up. I had to move the food from its top to the table myself. Just like the AI, this tray was a rather old model; the newer ones were more humanized to provide full table service. I just didn't have enough money to buy those, using all my earnings to repay the mortgage for this apartment in a wealthy district next to a large park and the city's historical centre.

"Oh, breakfast!" Masha, nude and disheveled, suddenly plumped down by my side and took my plate away. She washed the food down with my tea.

"Masha," I said angrily. "You've got a lot of nerve."

"Oh baby." She waved her hand. "I got so drunk yesterday because of you; my head's killing me now."

"Because of me, huh? Or because you didn't warn me about my dismissal?" I decided to remind her of the real reason behind our yesterday's quarrel.

"I love you." She blew me a kiss. "Don't be angry, please. I know you have a forgiving nature. I've apologized to you so many times. After I finish your tasty breakfast, I'll give you some more apologies in bed. Will you forgive me then?"

Glancing at her naked body, I sighed. "That depends on how hard you try."

She used the bread crust to collect the yolks smeared across the plate, then wiped her lips with a napkin. "You will give me a moment. I'll use the bathroom and come back."

The lustful glance she gave me made me realize that I wasn't angry with her anymore. She was just as much of a victim as I was. Both of us had been forced into this.

***

"May I use your capsule, dear? You don't need it right now, do you?" Masha asked after our reconciliation during which w discussed the whole matter and reached a common conclusion that the team manager was a total jerk.

"Sure you may," I waved my hand, thinking what to do next.

I knew pretty well why she asked for that; my capsule was the newest generation, much more advanced than hers. I had used all of my prize money to buy it. She could have done the same with hers, but she bought an e-car instead, while I invested in upgrading my main money-making machine and remained a taxi driver.

Getting a grateful kiss, I was left alone as Masha went into my bedroom to tinker with the game console and the capsule. Shortly after, I heard the sound of the lid closing, followed by dead silence. Masha was in the game.

Switching through the TV channels, I found nothing worthy of attention. I was itching all over to fly. Glancing around furtively, I softly called: "Home. Show my capsule's screen."

"Access password?"

I dictated my intricate password. My state-of-the-art capsule allowed remote access to the player screen, so I could see everything Masha was seeing.

The wall flashed with bustling spacecrafts and darting missiles. She was in the thick of the battle, as befitted the third player, the team's tank, shielding the leaders who were trying to shoot the other team's ships.

The breath-taking maneuvers and somersaults looked so different on the video wall than they did from the capsule. I was overcome by regret and sadness. To fly a ship like the one Masha was flying, I had to invest at least $60,000 and several years into leveling.

Just when I was about to switch the screen off, an oh-so-familiar voice came from the speakers: "Hi Masha. How's Viktor?"

I turned the volume up.

"Oh Styopa. We had such a shitty quarrel yesterday." Despite being engaged in action, she replied to the team leader who was now her opponent in a combat. "He's a bit better today, but he's still upset. Don't call him. He turned his smart device off. He'd rather not talk to anyone."

"Masha. I know he's your boyfriend, but you must understand. HiG is much better. With him, we are bound for championship! Just imagine: the first Russian team ever winning the Starry Sky World Tournament! This year's winner will get thirty million dollars in prize money only. Not counting sponsorships, advertising income, and stuff like that."

"Styopa. I know that. But it's not helping." As she was distracted, one of the leaders under her guard got hit by a missile. The speaker belched out filthy swears.

"Shut up, you blind idiot!" she barked back, vividly describing the teammate's genealogy. "If not for your miss, third in a row, we would have long finished this sparring."

They started arguing, but once the leader's voice came again, Masha muted the other man despite his yelling. "Do you know what he's up to?"

"No," her voice became sad. "I won't bother him with it for a couple of days. He needs time to get over it and move on."

"Keep in mind the new training schedule. We start on Monday." Saying that, the leader destroyed Masha's ship—I could tell that by her evil hissing—then did the same to the rest. The battle was lost. Grinding her teeth, Masha reported those who played badly in her opinion, and started to look for a new game. This was no longer interesting; I disconnected and had the AI wipe the logs.

I can repay the mortgage in full, I thought, plumping down onto the sofa and taking the smart device. At least some good can come out of this money.

***

Four weeks later

"Baby, I can't." Masha released herself from my embrace, and rushed over to the capsule. "I really can't. We have a tight training schedule, you know. HiG has to be re-trained to work with our team. That's not easy."

The sound of this name stabbed me like a sharp knife.

"How good is he?" I asked with feigned casualness. "Better than me?"

She looked away and said nothing.

"He's different." Seeing how hard I tried not to take offense at her silence, she tried to fix it. "Just different. Not better or worse. Developing effective co-operations between ships takes up a lot of time. I really must go, dear. Styopa will be pissed off if I'm late again."

Once I let go of her hand, the girl put the access card into the capsule and dived in, closing the lid behind her so as to prevent me from intervening.

I loitered about the apartment for a while, watching the news—where they discussed nothing but the three upcoming major game tournaments of the year—but then I broke into my bad habit again.

"Home," I said. "Capsule screen."

I did my best not to spy on Masha too often, containing the urge whenever I could. But sometimes, like now, I just couldn't refrain from it.

The video wall exploded with Masha's apologizing voice. Scared, I hurried to reduce the volume, which was pointless since the capsule was soundproof. There was no chance in Hell that she could possibly hear me.

"Oh, Styopa, stop that! I'm only two minutes late." She took her place in the ship, ready for a start. "Two. And you've already wasted five grumbling."

The other team members did not interrupt them; by the occasional giggles in the voice chat I could tell that the guys were on her side. Everyone was, naturally, fond of the only girl in the team. I never stopped wondering how she came to be with me and not, say, with Styopa. I never showed her my love, or flirted with her like the other guys did. Her announcement in the team's voice chat that we were officially together came suddenly. It startled me so badly that I barely managed to avoid crashing into the gate as I was flying my ship out of the carrier and into the space.

Once we got out of the capsules and into the real world, I made no objections to Masha's proposal. Shortly after, we moved in together into the apartment I had bought. A year had passed since then.

"How's Viktor?" the first player, the team's best attacker, intervened.

"So-so. Hasn't entered the game since then." Masha took off, following the first numbers and keeping slightly behind them.

"Can I call you? I have been feeling awful since then. I could talk to him. Maybe that helps."

"Yeah, sure. This weekend. I'll try to prepare him." She sniffed, but the enemies had already appeared on the screen and the chat fell silent. There had been enough talking, it was time to get serious.