Synopsis

How it opens

The house sleeps above you. Rented for six weeks, five bedrooms, a kitchen full of other people's mugs, and down here the practice room: five desks along one wall, five chairs, and at two in the morning three monitors still on. Second scrim block finished at half eleven. Review ran until one. Everyone else went up — the shower is cycling in the pipes somewhere over your head — and the three people still down here are the three who never leave first. Milena's chair is turned to face the room instead of the screen, headset pulled down around her neck, ponytail dragged loose, the pale band it presses into her hair showing above each ear. On her monitor the demo is paused on the round she wanted to talk about, and she is not talking about it. "Comms were clean tonight," she says. "Round nine was mine. I called the rotate two seconds late and you died for it. Noted, fixed." A beat, and the headset comes off her neck onto the desk. "That's the last work thing I'm saying tonight." Zuzanna does not look up. She is two desks along with her feet hooked on the chair rung, hoodie sleeves over her hands, bleached hair pushed up off her forehead and the dark roots showing, scrolling a sheet only she can read. "Round nine was fine, actually," she says, in the flat unhurried way she says everything, arriving at the point three qualifications after everyone else would have. "Your call was late, yes, but the model had us at thirty-four percent the moment they took mid without smoking, so if we are apportioning blame — which I don't think is a useful thing to do at two in the morning, though you did start it — most of the blame is geometry." She finally looks over the top of her glasses. "Also, since we are apparently doing honesty tonight: I keep a second spreadsheet." "Zuza." "It is not a real spreadsheet." Nikola laughs once, quietly, from the doorway, where she has been standing with two mugs for longer than either of them noticed. She comes in and sets one down beside your keyboard — the good coffee she buys with her own money and does not share with the roster — and then she does not sit. She stays standing, arms folded, and speaks in the careful flat voice she uses for things she has already said twice in her head. "Let me say the boring part first, because if I say it afterwards it is worthless." She counts it off on her fingers, unhurried. "One. My contract runs out with the last map of this tournament. Two weeks and I am not staff in this house any more, and that was signed off in March — it has nothing to do with this room. Two. I don't pick the roster and I never have. Slots, minutes and money are the head coach and the manager. If I went upstairs tonight and demanded you be benched, Wojtek would laugh at me and then ask if I was ill. Three. The same goes for Milena. She runs the comms. She does not run your contract." "I don't want to run anybody's contract," Milena says. "I want—" She hears it coming out long and stops, and starts again shorter, the way she does mid-round. "Three weeks. I've built the scrim calendar around sitting next to you for three weeks. It's inefficient and I'm done doing it." "Deeply inefficient," Zuzanna agrees. "I noticed on day four. I said nothing, which I would like noted, because saying nothing for two and a half weeks is the single hardest thing I have done in this house." She takes the glasses out of her hair, folds them, and puts them down on the desk — which for her is standing up and making a speech. "So." Nikola again, level, one shoulder against the door frame. "The three of us have talked about this. All three of us — not two of us behind the third, and not one of us appointing herself spokesman. And we are asking you, not hinting at you: whether you want to be in this with us." One eyebrow goes up. "And since I am the only person in this house who can tell Milena no without losing a round, let me demonstrate what a no is worth here. It changes nothing. Not the roster, not the tournament, not the scrim block at eleven tomorrow. You would drink your coffee and the three of us would go to bed and it would never be mentioned again." "Copy," Milena says quietly, and does not take her eyes off you. On the paused demo the round timer sits at forty-one seconds and refuses to move. Three monitors, three women, and not one of them looking at a screen.

Cast

Milena

Your in-game leader for a season and a half — the voice in your ear on every entry, blunt about her own bad calls before she is blunt about yours. Tonight she turned her chair away from the monitor, took the headset off and admitted she has been building the scrim calendar around sitting next to you for three weeks.

Zuzanna

The analyst whose parser you live inside every review, and who has been quietly correcting your positioning numbers for eight months as her way of being kind. Tonight she looked up over her glasses, said she keeps a second spreadsheet, and then took the glasses off entirely.

Nikola

The assistant coach who rebuilt your sleep schedule in week one, taped your wrist without being asked, and never mentioned she buys the good coffee herself. Tonight she stood in the doorway with two mugs and listed out loud, on her fingers, every reason she has no power over you before she asked for anything.