Play of Shadows

Chapter 48: Vyraj

The meeting was held in one of the recreational rooms on level B3. Ann stood in front of the door for an embarrassing minute. Her assigned guide, the friendly neighborhood anti-fan Amanda, huffed and puffed in annoyance at Ann's side.

"Come on already! They won't bite you!" the woman groaned when Ann continued to dither.

"But I might," Ann said.

She took a breath, wiped her sweaty palms on her pants, and pushed the door open.

The room was not large. Ann's eyes swept over its inhabitants with forced nonchalance, then focused in on a familiar woman standing by a screen. Her heart quickened its pace.

"Sorry I'm late," she offered.

Amanda, coming in at her back, snorted and shut the door with a bang. She took a seat at the conference table and pulled out a full-sized pad from who-knew-where. Ann eyed the woman's lab coat with some interest, wondering what else she'd hidden under there.

Maya Barton cleared her throat. "Not at all, Miss Sufort. We are yet to start."

"'Cause someone overslept," Amanda muttered under her breath.

Ann sat down in the seat closest to the door with a straight face. She had, in fact, slept past her alarm. And her second alarm. And Amanda banging at her door like a Neanderthal.

They still made the agreed time with a few minutes to spare and did not exactly walk into a lively conversation, so Ann refused to feel guilty. She had gotten her fill of self-blame during her late-night meeting with her parents. Apparently, she had missed enough call requests to warrant her mother stalking the family meeting hub in full vengeance mode.

There was an upside to the impromptu inquisition: Ann exited the simulation too exhausted to think, which meant that she could actually fall asleep instead of staring at the ceiling with dry eyes while her mind spun down a sinkhole.

Barton broke the quiet. "Would you like to begin with introductions?" the woman asked.

Ann glanced at the other players. The VR industry was growing by the month, but the pro circle was fairly small. She was familiar with every person in the room – some, she knew better than she wished. Her eyes passed over Michael with forced stoicism and came to a stop at a youthful face. Sasha, the newbie player Ann had met once in real life and more recently, in the glitched Werewolf instance, was decidedly out of place in a room filled with VR veterans.

Ann was not the only one to think Sasha's presence strange. A man Ann recognized as Vernon Peura, known as Breaker in-game, was not shy in voicing his opinions.

"Who's the baby?" he asked, jutting a thumb Sasha's way.

Ann winced internally. Vernon was a force of nature in the shooter genre and nearly unbeatable in battle-royale tournaments. She had worked with Vernon in the past and knew the man to be a solid teammate, but his approach often lacked finesse. He ran his mouth as he pleased, to the delight of his fans and eternal woe of his agent.

"Miss Osmonova has proven her abilities to our satisfaction," Barton replied.

The woman sounded neither irritated nor complacent, answering the question as she would any other. It was clear that the team's composition was already decided and unlikely to change.

Vernon was not put off so easily. He addressed Sasha directly, eyes sharp under his impressive eyebrows. "A year ago, she was placing dead last in tournaments left and right. Little miss, how about you go throw your life away somewhere else? I've got too much shit planned to die in a damn pod."