Soda Pop Soldier. Nick Cole

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СКАЧАТЬ viewfinders anymore; SoftEyes shows exactly how the shot might be composed.”

      She’s a photographer.

      “I understand that because what’s important to you is important to me,” I say. “But that doesn’t always seem to be the case in reverse.”

      “Okay, okay, enough. Tell me about your bad day playing war. What happened to all your grunts?”

      “They got killed. Happy?”

      “People got killed?”

      “No, my grunts got killed, and every grunt under my command is my responsibility and gets deducted from my total score, which gets deducted from the ColaCorp victory point total, which gets deducted from my weekly bonus.”

      “You shouldn’t let that happen.” Her tone indicates she understands the seriousness of the loss. Or at least that we won’t be getting as much money as we need in next week’s paycheck. “Who killed all your grunts?”

      “Listen, there are real players fighting me online … fighting my team, ColaCorp. Got that?” I feel a rant coming on. I feel an argument in the air. Like an afternoon storm coming straight at you.

      “Yeah, duh! I wasn’t born yesterday,” she snaps.

      And … I love her.

      “Goon.”

      “You’re a goon.”

      “I love you.”

      “I love you too.” She sighs and sits down next to me. “I’m sorry I haven’t been listening. It’s just that this is a really big spread for Vanity. And being an assistant for fashion’s greatest eye, in his very own opinion, is … very … let’s just say it has its problems.” She sighs again, and there is enough in it that I know the world is bigger than me and my problems. I know I’m not here just for me. That … I want to rescue her.

      “I’m sorry,” I say. “I feel bad for just coming in here to vent. It was a bad day all across the board. We were fighting for advertising space at Madison Square Garden and Channel Two. It was kind of a big day.”

      “Is that why they pay you? Because if you and your friends win your little games, then they get to own those places?”

      “Well, they don’t get to own them, but they get the right to pay to advertise in them. Plus LiveNet broadcasts the best parts of the action with lots of product placement.” It’s surprising to me that Sancerré, a trained commercial photographer, doesn’t understand advertising-gaming rights. But fashion seems to be its own little world. Hence the photo shoot last year in which she’d had to hide under a model dressed as an undead Marie Antoinette carrying a light saber as the dust children of Mogadishu ate red apples on a dirty street full of cheap PrismBoard advertising. I think it was an ad for jeans.

      “I guess today was pretty important then,” she offers.

      “Yeah, it was. But forget about it. How long do I get you for?”

      “I’m afraid that’s it, soldier boy. I’ve got to be there early. Miss Thing threatened not to show up over shoes and they want me in just in case she actually makes good and doesn’t show.” She shoulders her bag and checks her makeup in the mirror one last time.

      “Is she really that bad?”

      “Worse. She actually will show. She will get what she wants and then she’ll play the martyr as everyone grovels for her forgiveness. It’s disgusting.”

      “I guess I might just chill tonight,” I say with a stretch and a yawn. “I’m pretty wiped. If you’re back by midnight we can go watch the big PrismBoard at Madison Square Garden change over to WonderSoft.”

      “I wouldn’t count on it. Mario made us clear our schedules. He wants to buy us all drinks at Burnished.”

      “Do I need to worry? I mean, I know you love those things. I’m sorry I don’t have enough. I wish I had more. I’d spend it all on you … honest.” I would.

      “I know you would. You don’t have to worry about those things. Everything will be okay. It won’t always be like this.”

      But somehow I do worry, and I imagine it being much worse.

      Later after she’s gone, I bring up my compilations. I’m feeling very ’Nam. I mix a scotch and SevenPlus, ColaCorp’s new not-cola and light a smoke just as this great remix from the 2030s of “White Rabbit” by the band that first did it comes on. Outside, the late winter sun drops below the horizon. New York locked in winter is even more depressing than getting pwned by WonderSoft. I want jungles and golden sunsets. I want a hot yellow sky and murky haze and gurgling brown rivers. I light some incense, crank up the humidity control, put on an army surplus T-shirt and ’Nam out.

      I settle into the warm glow of the scotch, dragging absently at my smoke. I think about WonderSoft Garage and Kiwi. He’s near the end of a bad streak of getting killed. ColaCorp doesn’t like that kind of thing, and it’s only a matter of time until he gets reduced from professional status back to overqualified amateur. He needs a win. In truth, the whole team needs a win. We all do.

      WonderSoft had come into its own in the past six months of online warfare, dominating most of the battlefields for advertising supremacy. Eastern Highlands was my first campaign as a pro player-officer and already we’d lost some major advertising venues in and around New York. Losing everything to WonderSoft is probably going to get me booted back to freelance, which will cut down on any future campaign actions. Worrying about Kiwi only reminds me that his situation is only slightly worse than mine, and everybody else’s at ColaCorp for that matter.

      My ’Nam set gets psychedelic, cascading over remixed hits almost a century old. I mix another drink and log in to the bunker, the gathering place for ColaCorp professionals after battles. Senior commanders generally don’t drop by after a loss, but after a win they come in and hand out bonuses and slap our backs over the feeds. Today’s beating at Eastern Highlands and the loss of Madison Square Garden and Channel Two ensured we wouldn’t be seeing them tonight.

      It sucks to lose.

      Kiwi’s avatar, large and hulking, shirt off and showing curling tribal tats, leans against the bar talking to JollyBoy, an intel specialist, and Fever, a great medic who’s managed to revive me on the battlefield more than a few times, including one time I swore I was really down for the count. I double-click them and bring up all three of their feeds. Kiwi looks even more frightening in real life than his avatar. Huge, hulking, tattoo overdose, a leering lecherous grin, almost drooling into the monitor. His eyes are the only feature that tell you he’s a friend and not foe. His eyes say, I’m kind; you can trust me, mate.

      “Perfect, Perfect, PerfectQuestion. Did ya make it back to the rally, mate?” he asks me.

      “Cheers, Kiwi. It was touch and go, lost a lot of grunts. But, yeah, we got picked up at the rice paddies just as WonderSoft started dropping their artillery all over us.”

      “We lost three slicks at the LZ,” JollyBoy announces happily. The joker he is never fades, even when he’s delivering the worst of news. Losing three Albatrosses made me glad I was on one of the slicks that got out of there. What a cheap way to get it. It’s one thing to be out there fighting, making a bad choice, getting caught in the cross СКАЧАТЬ