VRTP:RABBLEVSRISTO.PLAY/BASTILLE/ENDGAME.VR
Rollander Erwitz is in care and stabilized in Pretoria. The message was an unnecessary reminder of the Blade’s obligations. They were tasked with drawing out the fight as they defeated the Rabble, tasked with standing up for royal rule.
Succeed, and their family would be restored.
Gimlet hadn’t required blackmailing. Opposition had only to ask them, nicely, to play.
But they hadn’t asked, had they? Risto and friends had simply bully-bribed Gimlet into helping sell the Pale rescue narrative. And they’d gone along—allowed Allure to insinuate that Rubi helped facilitate Frankie’s abduction, that the Crane app was #killertech …
The concession made Gimlet ill.
A minute after Rubi’s player identity had been revealed, a last surge of vote markers poured into the game, latecomers tagging in at the end with their last save versus death, looking to get selfies showing they’d made the final battle.
It was a chance to say “I was there!”
They threatened our family.
Oversight’s decision to trade votes for gaming perks meant the battlefield numbers were enormous. Combatants surrounded the castle, filling the streets of virtual Paris. A full-scale tournament played out, skirmish by skirmish, on the ground. Casinos threw out complicated odds both on the BallotBox vote and Rubi’s dark-horse chance to defeat Gimlet.
Gamblers who’d correctly guessed Rubi’s identity donated their winnings to rebuilding the carbon sinks. When they found that fully funded, they’d invested in buying back some of Rubi’s hotly traded favor tokens.
Debt forgiveness as a thank-you. All very prosocial.
Bets were flying. People were anteing carbon, cash, and favors, pouring resources into two outstanding questions: could Rabble free the Dauphine, and how would the global flashvote go?
Here, outside the castle, players grouped in teams, brawling, dueling, casting spells. Fire confronted ice, anarchy versus order.
And here she was, Rubi Whiting herself, sparkling like a fairy-tale vampire as her graphics manager made the most of transforming her from a generic Goldilocks toon back to a feline, Rabble-branded ragamuffin.
Someone cast flame on her middling, quest-earned sword.
Gimlet, naturally, hadn’t given up any of their advantages. They wielded a proper magic blade, a one-of-a-kind object loaded with hard-earned bonuses. Its black steel was so cold that wisps of condensed moisture furled around it. Snowflakes formed from thin air on the edge of its blade as they drew it out of the heart of a major Rabble boss monster, the showrunner Manitoule in his disguise as the spy, Goyette.
Hurling the limp body over the castle battlements, Gimlet whisked their sword for effect before striding out to meet Rubi.
Hint of a bow on both sides. No smiles, but Rubi’s eyes crinkled. Fondly, Gimlet thought. Their blades crossed. As fire met ice, a shock wave of magic burst from the collision, tumbling other players to a distance of fifty feet.
@Bastille announcement. Sudden-death overtime has commenced. Players have until battle is called to finish ongoing quests.
A screen of snow and sparks at their perimeter formed a fighting ring, a barrier that prevented the mages from casting more helper spells.
“Win conditions for final duel,” Gimlet’s Coach said. “Prevent the Dauphine’s escape with Rabble forces. Defeat, disable, or kill the upstart ragamuffin.”
Gimlet crooked an eyebrow at Rubi.
Shall we?
They circled, blades crossed, each making a visual sweep of the field. It held the usual collection of endgame obstructions and opps—a ruined, rusty cannon with one wheel missing, a pile of flour sacks, one low wooden beam in which two arrows were embedded.
Sun burned down, merciless; Gimlet would bet that the drones above numbered in the hundreds, each with a spotlight of its very own.
As for the Dauphine … Gimlet looked up at the tower, a rather wobbly-looking structure, as stone went. It was at the ten o’clock position in the ring. The young player within wore a blue silk dress and a domino mask made of parrot feathers and diamond.
“Dialogue suggestion,” Coach said.
Gimlet read off the prompter: “We meet at last, mademoiselle.”
Rubi feinted, diving in to test their defenses. Fire hissed against snow as thrust met riposte. Gimlet shoved hard, creating distance.
“How far you’ve come!”
She was alight, jubilant, as she had been back in the werewolf scenario. “I like a challenge.”
“Uphill both ways?”
“With a headwind.” Rubi came again, more cautiously. Quick attack, parry, attack again. She had always been the better fencer, though Gimlet practiced endlessly to narrow the margin. Now, though, they were fresher.
Couldn’t have asked for a better match.
She was the one reading dialog now: “You’ve advanced, too, monsieur,” she said. “Final defender of a corrupt Regent. Perhaps you know you’ve chosen the wrong side.”
Gimlet whipped their sword at her ankles; she jumped, coming down in a whirl, momentum powering her blade.
They lashed out, burning a line of blue frost into her shoulder blades. Rubi shrieked, handsprung, found her feet.
Gimlet gave chase. If she gets the sword up before I close, she’ll skewer me …
Instead, she scooped up a handful of ice, seeming ready to throw it in their eyes.
At the last instant, though, she hurled herself out of their path, tossing the opp away.
Did she just periscope?
Both players ended up crouched, with swords crossed. Panting as they straightened, they held each other at bay.
Now she was the one raising brows. Offering a chance to surrender?
Gimlet hissed at that, and she laughed.
It’s sweet harmony!
They saw it hitting her, too.
They could do this all night: speak untranscripted volumes, with small moves and partial utterances. All while pretending to kill each other.
Rubi’s eyes filled a little. Were they happy tears? Yes, Gimlet was certain of it.
How singular!
They felt, in their marrow, the strength of her emotional response. Rubi must have thought this was impossible for her. The inherited legend of the MadMaestro had held her at arm’s length, even from her @CloseFriends. The overwhelming needs of a troubled parent …
“Concede, mademoiselle.” Gimlet snarled into her face. “You are weary. It is over.”
She hitched a breath, as if banishing a sob. “You must finish me on my terms!”
With that, she sprang past Gimlet, running for the tower, the Dauphine. Gimlet snatched up a brick, hurling it with a yell.
Rubi dodged before it could hit her; there was an anachronistic, metallic clunk when it hit the tower.
Something about that seemed … relevant. Important.
“Periscope to surface,” Gimlet said.
“Don’t get distracted,” Coach replied.
“I should—”
“Your target is on the move!”
“Cancel periscope.” Gimlet considered. Wear her out with a frontal assault? Fencing was exhausting. But no—she had reserves, determination. And she was having fun, which made her especially dangerous.
Slow her down, then—let her tired muscles think they were on the edge of a rest? Drag the pace, let the lactic acid build? A protracted fight would make their sponsors happy, and fatigue would defeat her in the end.
She’ll know what I’m thinking if I play it slow.
Rubi whipped around the far side of the tower, daring them to pursue.
Sneak attack it is, then.
Gimlet snatched one of the arrows stuck into the wooden beam, tucking it into their sleeve, a makeshift dagger. They rounded the corner …
Rubi was gone.
Gone?
No. Several of the rabble Gimlet had killed today had been carrying invisibility potions.
The tower shivered.
Of course. Rubi’s win conditions would require her to free the crown princess.
“Get the Dauphine down, by all means.” One of them had to, after all. But where would Rubi need to take the princess?
They scanned, finding a crumbled break in the ramparts, terrain held by the mob. The staircase of broken blocks led down and out to the city.
Was the tower getting shorter?
“That’s peculiar,” Gimlet murmured. The prisoner—the princess—was clambering from the shrunken turret.
This would be the last breather anyone got before the finish. Gimlet checked inventory, real and virtual, swallowing two fruit cubes—printed pear with cream cheese and a last hit of buy-in meds. In-game, they popped two potions, flasks looted from the thousands of Rabble dead. As the flasks broke, smoke billowed. The space between the stub of a tower and the Dauphine’s escape route filled with copies of themselves, tall and pale, pulsing amulet at their throat, white lace cuffs artfully blood-soaked.
Rubi strobed and became visible again, protecting the Dauphine as the two of them reached the ground. Her gaze cut through the fakes, finding Gimlet immediately.
Playful whisk of sword: Come get me, then.
She laughed. Clear-eyed, cheery, she swept her blade—the flame spell was abating, taking bonuses with it and forcing her to work harder—through a pair of the decoys. She sprang onto the tipped cannon to build momentum. Launching, she flipped in midair and came down with a kick that flattened a doppelganger.
Gimlet was ready.
Rubi snatched up an ice javelin. She paused—almost leaving herself open—to stare at it for a second.
Periscoping again, Gimlet thought. I should—
She flung it, straight at their head.
She’d given them plenty of time to dodge. The spear whisked past their temple, pixelating as it passed.
Gimlet closed in.
Defend, retreat. Jump forward, parry. Feint at the Dauphine. They forced the royal prisoner and her would-be liberator away from their exit portal, toward a freezing castle fountain filled with ravenous skeletons.
Swords clanged like bells, ringing a punishing series of chimes.
Panting, slick with sweat, Rubi blocked a blow and then threw a roundhouse with her fist. Gimlet dodged, barely. Their arms crossed, swinging wide, leaving them eye to eye, blade to blade.
Palming the arrow they’d grabbed earlier, Gimlet stabbed Rubi, neatly, under the left rib.
Thunder rolled above.
“Ah!” Rubi’s face paled and she dropped her weapon. Beautiful performance.
Gimlet drew back their sword. “No breaks, no mercy, no thrown games. A fair fight or not at all, oui?”
“Oui.” Strain in her voice. Playing it to the hilt.
Gimlet drove the magic blade straight into Rubi’s gut, all the way to the hilt of the baton, skewering her. Their knuckles sank into her belly and she collapsed against them.
Body heat. Victory. They savored the illusion, the heat of blood over their fingers.
She’ll have to play a villain now, they remembered.
“Check your hand,” she said, teeth gritted.
Gimlet’s throat closed.
“Coach. Periscope.”
Old Central Park overlaid the castle. Rubi was here, right here, in Gimlet’s arms on the Great Lawn. The castle tower, over Rubi’s shoulder, was a refurbished construction cherry picker from the olden days.
The blood, on their hand, was no illusion. Gimlet had embedded a rusty spike—the arrow, they had thought—in Rubi’s side.
Frankie was beside them, gaping as blood ran down Rubi’s hip.
Gimlet’s jaw dropped. “I’m—”
Little smile. Rubi wasn’t angry.
They blinked in the sim. She was still collapsed against them, but now she had her fingers curled into the chain around Gimlet’s neck, fisted around the pulsating amulet embedded in the skin between their collarbones.
“Run!” she shouted to the Dauphine.
The child—their child—bolted for the Rabble portal.
Rubi tore the beating amulet off Gimlet’s chest, dragging long, bloody taproots from their breast, and let herself fall backward.
All Gimlet’s magical abilities went haywire. Their skin turned to ice; the ice started to melt. Graphic sequences designed by the opposing game companies triggered special effects.
Big finale. Orchestral music swelled. Fire and ice mingled. Ice and fireworks sprayed from the amulet. The sparks outshone the stars as the archenemies lay side by side, in a half-real pool of blood …
The Dauphine was already gone, raised on the rabble’s shoulders, sequel-ready.
No, that was a toon. Frankie was … was she here?
“Mada! Mada?”
“Oh,” said Gimlet, blinking away the implosion of virtual France. “Franks?”
Reality swam back. It was early evening in the park. Drones all but blocked the summer sky, casting hot, overlapping spotlights, burning every prospect of a shadow.
Frankie, dear precious Frankie, was alive and well and in their arms. If only briefly. She pulled back—the better for Gimlet to check for bruises and cuts.
“Rubi’s hurt!”
“She—”
Rubi staggered upright, filthy and bedraggled. Her eyes were shut against the sun; muck was ground into her patch of beads. Some of the gold paint had rubbed off of them, revealing raw wood beneath.
The spike in her side dropped, tumbling, to the ground. Blood spread down the thinned skin of her primer.
“Frankie,” she said. “Sweetheart. Where’s my dad?”