Last Light of the Gaming Legend Son-In-Law

Chapter 6: Playing in the Dark

By nine o’clock on Saturday night, the King’s Gauntlet had shrunk from five hundred and twelve players to sixty-four, and LastLight was still in it.

“Round of sixty-four,” Maggie said, leaning over my shoulder in the back room. “A Brazilian kid, number nine on the South American ladder. Fast hands, bad temper.”

“I’ve seen him play.”

“When?”

“An hour ago, while you were ordering pizza.” I rubbed my eyes. “He gets angry when he’s losing. Make him lose early.”

She laughed. “You haven’t changed at all.”

But I had. I’d been staring at a screen for most of the day, and Respawn’s back room had only one dim lamp, because bright light made the pain worse. Every hour, I closed my eyes for ten minutes like Dr. Morgan said; every hour, when I opened them, the world was a little darker at the edges.

The Brazilian kid lasted twelve minutes. The next player, a German, lasted fourteen. By eleven o’clock, there were sixteen players left, and I was one of them.

The last round of the night would decide the final eight.

“Last match of the night,” Maggie said. “Win this, and you play tomorrow.”

“Who is it?”

“A Korean pro on loan to a team in Los Angeles. People are calling him the best player in the tournament.” She paused. “After you.”

My phone buzzed on the desk. It was Sienna.

Where are you? Mom says you skipped dinner. She’s telling everyone you ran away.

I typed back with one thumb. Out with an old friend. Back late.

A minute passed. Then: Since when do you have friends?

I put the phone face down.

“Your wife?” Maggie asked.

“She’s starting to ask questions.”

“Good,” Maggie said. “Somebody in that house should.”

The match started, and for the first five minutes, I was ahead. The Korean player was as good as everyone said, calm and clean, never wasting a single move; twice he baited me toward a wall, and twice I stepped away at the last second, because I’d seen that bait before, years ago, from players who’d learned it from me.

Then my eyes began to fail.

It started at the edges, like always, a slow gray fog creeping in from the sides of the screen. I blinked hard. The fog stayed. Then it crept further, past the corners, over the bottom right of the screen, where the small map sat, the map that showed where every enemy was, the most important thing in the whole game.

It was gone. I was staring right at the place where it should be, and all I saw was gray.

“Cole,” Maggie said quietly. “Your hands stopped.”

“I can’t see the map.”

“What?”

“The map’s gone, Maggie. I can’t see it.”

On the screen, the Korean player was moving somewhere I couldn’t see; in a few seconds, he would find me, and I wouldn’t even know which way to run.

My chest went tight. My breath came short and fast, the way Ethan’s had in the parking lot that afternoon.

And then I did what I’d taught him.

I closed my eyes.

In through my nose for four seconds. Hold for four. Out for six, slowly. Name three things you can hear.

The fan of the old PC. The music, low and steady. And, far away, faint, a soft click.

The south side of the map.

“He’s coming from the south,” I whispered.

“How do you know?”

“I can hear him.”

Another click, closer. Then the hum of the river, which meant he was crossing the water, which meant he’d come up the small path on the left, because it was the only path from the river that a careful player would take.

I didn’t open my eyes. I moved my character to the left, set a trap on the path where the sounds said he’d walk, and waited.

One second. Two.

The trap snapped.

I opened my eyes just in time to see the bright red flash in the middle of the screen, where I could still see, and the words that came with it.

VICTORY.

Maggie let out a breath like she’d been holding it for three years.

“You played that with your eyes closed,” she said.

“Part of it.”

“Cole, nobody plays like that. Nobody.”

“Somebody does now,” I said, and pulled off the headset.

On Maggie’s laptop, the tournament chat was moving so fast she couldn’t read it out loud. She just scrolled and laughed and shook her head, and every few lines, the same word floated past in capital letters. MONARCH? MONARCH? MONARCH? My hands were shaking now, after it was over, the way they never did during a match.

I was in the final eight.

For three years, I’d told myself that my game was over, that a man who couldn’t see the corners of a screen had no business touching a keyboard. Tonight, with my eyes closed, I had beaten one of the best players in the world. I didn’t know yet if that made me brave or stupid.

I put my drops in and leaned back while Maggie checked her laptop. For a while, the only sound was her fingers on the keys.

Then they stopped.

“Uh-oh,” she said.

“Read it to me.”

“Better if you see it.” She turned the laptop toward me and made the window big, right in the center where my eyes still worked. It was a clip, short and already spreading, with thousands of views and climbing.

A man was sitting in front of a camera in a dark room, wearing a team tracksuit, his black hair tied in a small knot. Round silver glasses. Sharp, quiet face.

Kai Tanaka, head coach of Iron Dynasty, live on his own stream.

He was watching my win against the Korean player. He played it once, and said nothing. Then he played it again, slower, leaning closer. Then a third time, frame by frame, stopping on the moment I set the trap with my eyes closed.

Then, slowly, he took off his glasses, and he sat there, staring at the screen, without saying a single word.

“He knows,” Maggie said.

“He suspects.”

“Suspects?” Maggie snorted. “He took his glasses off, Cole. Kai only takes his glasses off when he’s done thinking. That’s Kai. He sat next to you for five years. If anyone can tell it’s you from the way you move, it’s him.”

I didn’t answer. I was thinking about four stolen moves, and about the team Kai coached, and about three words in a game chat.

“Something else,” Maggie said. She opened a new window. “Nina Park posted twenty minutes ago.”

I knew the name. Everyone in esports knew the name. Nina Park was the most famous gaming journalist in the country, the host of The Final Frame, the woman who had exposed two cheating scandals and a fake charity in a single year.

Her post was only four words long, with a picture of my player name.

Who is LastLight?

It already had three hundred thousand views. By morning, it would have a million.

“Two hunters,” Maggie said quietly. “On day one.”

I looked at the frozen image of Kai Tanaka on her screen, his glasses in his hand, his eyes fixed on mine through the camera as if he could see me.

“No,” I said. “One hunter, and one traitor. And tomorrow, I’m going to find out which is which.”