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It’s a melee from the moment we begin. Rafe, Nix, and Sabrina are fresh out of Marksmanship class, and I hit the range three times a week. We’re obliterating bad guys before they’ve halfway popped their heads up on screen, the scores tallying so rapidly that the numbers flow by like a ticker tape.
Rafe is steady and relentless, Nix aggressive and utterly locked in. Most of my attention is on Sabrina—she flicks her gun across the screen so fast I can hardly follow her, anticipating the movement patterns of the characters, focusing on headshots for the highest point value.
She doesn’t know this game as well as I do. The little gold relics are key to scoring bonus points. Sabrina hits three, but I nail six in total, beating her score by two hundred.
This angers her. As playful as Sabrina can be, in competition she’s deadly serious.
“Let’s play again,” she barks.
“There’s a billion other games,” Nix says, pulling Sabrina along so she’s forced to drop her plastic gun. “Come on, I wanna race in Mario.”
Sabrina takes the first round ofMario Kart, ruthlessly nailing Nix with an exploding blue turtle shell an inch from the finish line and zipping past her with a cackle that shows her complete lack of remorse. Rafe wins the next round, via some bullshit with a POW Block.
Then Nix takes us to school on a carnival-style game where you throw plastic balls at ugly grinning clowns that pop up from all corners of the marquee.
When we switch toWalking Deadit’s my time to shine. It’s a two-player game, so Rafe and Nix split off to shoot dinosaurs onJurassic World, while Sabrina and I slaughter zombies head-to-head.
Sabrina is good at shooter games, but she’s not as familiar with the crossbow console. She hisses in fury as I sweep the first round, obliterating 128 zombies to her paltry 96.
“Next chapter,” she orders, swiping our cards again.
This time she’s locked in, finger curled on the trigger, nailing zombies dead between the eyes the instant they appear on-screen. She’s so aggressive that each zombie is a race to see which of us can strike first, the shambling figures lighting up in blue or green, depending on whose arrow hit home first.
I start out ahead. As the level progresses, she creeps up on me—28 to 21. Then 44 to 39. Then 60 to 58 …
“I’m gonna get you, motherfucker,” Sabrina mutters, sparing no glance away from the screen.
She’s about to pass me when the NPC jumps directly in the way, taking an arrow to the head that Sabrina intended for a SWAT zombie in riot gear.
“You dumb bitch!” Sabrina shrieks at the hapless avatar.
The game deducts points for executing a human, and I get the credit for the SWAT zombie instead.
“Aww, so close,” I say, as our round ends 132 to 131.
Sabrina is pissed. She wants to win every minute, all the time. And she particularly wants to beatme.
I fucking love it. There’s no on and off switch in my head either—I’m full-throttle. I’d never take it easy on her. I’d never let her win. I couldn’t be with someone who would expect that of me.
“Halo?” I say.
Sabrina doesn’t answer—she snatches up our card and marches directly over to theHaloconsoles.
There are two types of game on offer: classic arcade or team battle, where you can access the online database and play with anyone from all over the world.
I’m pleased to see that Sabrina selects the latter. Team battle is more complex and challenging. You’re not just shooting aliens—there’s real strategy involved.
“Should we play together?” I ask Sabrina.
“You fucking wish,” she says, swiping our card.
As the game loads, I cast a quick glance at Sabrina, separated from me by a partial barrier that prevents me looking at her screen. I can still see the curve of her back and the long fall of her hair, densely black like coal, thick and textured.
She’s nothing like a Russian girl. In spirit, she’s all American—boisterous, overconfident, ambitious. In looks, she’s a citizen of nowhere. I’ve never seen anything quite like her, not even at Kingmakers where students hail from all over the globe.
Sabrina was judging my reflexes—now I’m running an evaluation of my own.
Video games are more useful than an IQ test. Assuming everyone knows how to play, the smartest person wins. That’s how I first met Chief — I watched him run train against Andrei and Hakim in Halo. Despite his awkwardness and the wardrobe literally picked out by his mother, I could see how brilliant he is. I called him Master Chief after the main character in the game. He loves the nickname — guys like him don’t always get the respect they deserve.
