Enter Into The Game: War Hero Reborn

Larry Elvis wheeled the last garbage bin up to the curb on Elm Cross Street at 4:07 a.m. There wasn't any motion in the city of Texas at this time. No vehicles. No voices. The scrape of plastic wheels on concrete and the sound of a highway three miles away. Larry has been on this route since midnight. Four hours in and two to go. He was twenty-six years old and he reeked of trash. Removing his gloves he rolled them up and stuffed them in his vest pocket. He looked at his phone. 4:09 am. He still had fifteen minutes before his next shift. He sat on the back step of the truck, unscrewed his water bottle and downed half of it in one gulp. His cell vibrated. He stared at the screen. Unknown number. No contact name. The message was a lone line of text with a hyperlink. It says: Rebirth of War Heroes Private Tournament Prize: $100,000. To accept you have 60 seconds. That was a countdown beneath the text. We were already on 51. Larry looked at the display. He knew War Heroes Reborn. He'd been playing it for three years. A battle game, with Roman gladiators, where two fighters entered an arena and only one emerged victorious. Twelve warriors. Fully AI-built. Custom attack routines. Increasing challenges. The developers had boasted that no single gamer had ever defeated all twelve in a row. Larry had defeated all twelve. Twice. We hit 30. He pressed Accept. The message was gone. The link had gone dark. The unknown number was already missing from his call log like the message had never been there. Larry paused with his phone in his hand, then tucked it into his pocket, got to his feet, re-donned his gloves and finished his shift. He got in at 6:40 in the morning. The apartment was two bedrooms on the third floor of a building with working elevators exactly half the time. Larry took the stairs. He went past his mother's door. Her door was open two inches the way she left it after a bad nighther way of speaking to him without speaking. He rolled it back. She was awake, sitting upright against the back of the bed, the table lamp on the bedside table casting a dull orange glow. Name's Donna Elvis. Aged fifty-three. She'd had stage three breast cancer for about fourteen months now. The chemo was working, but slowly, and the bills weren't. "You're back, " she said. "I have returned, " said Larry. She gave him the same look she always did when he returned from a midnight shift scrutinising his face for bruises as though the city might have gotten to him. "Eat something, " she told him. "Yes, I will." "Larry." I'll do it, Mom. He moved toward the kitchen. There on the table sat the new bill from the cancer center, typed, and paper clipped to the insurance summary. He didn't need to read it. He knew the number by heart. Ninety-four thousand dollars remained. That was what was left after the insurance. After the payment plan. After everything he had borrowed. Everything he had set aside. Ninety-four thousand dollars. And his mother had her next round of treatment in eleven days. He made two eggs and ate them while standing over the sink. 9 AM he took his seat at his desk. Everything else in the apartment was cheap. Larry had bought himself a sleek, custom-made PC that he'd spent eight months saving for. Two large computer screens, a mechanic keyboard, and a headset. This was where Larry Elvis was not a waste packer. This was where he was something else. War Heroes Reborn - he started War Heroes Reborn. The game appeared on the familiar main menu. He looked at his profile. It recorded all the 12 kills. His rating was unclassified the game's euphemism for none of its categories having a label for what he had done. He opened the tournament tab. Normally, it was emptyWar Heroes Reborn did not host public tournaments. This time but there was an entry. A single listing appeared with no host name, no player roster, and no bracket details. Only a title: Final Circuit. Beneath it, his username was already shown as a confirmed participant. Begin time 72 hours from now. He sat back in his chair and looked at the screen for some minutes. One hundred thousand dollars. He did the math the same way he always did, the fast way, the way his brain had gotten used to doing it these past fourteen months. One hundred thousand minus ninety-four thousand was six thousand. Six thousand dollars left over after paying off everything. Enough for three months of living expenses while he figured out the next move. He went on to do what he did before every fight. Research. He found footage of every champion match he'd ever been in. He hadn't thrown any of it away forty-seven hours' worth of footage on twelve fighters. He launched a new document and started a fresh guide file. Attack patterns. Timing windows. Each champion's one weakness. He worked for a uninterrupted two hours. His phone vibrated again at 11:15. Unknown number. A number, but not the same as the first. The message was: Bring The Headset. The new one. Not the one you have. Original: then: It's at your door. Larry got up and went to his front door and opened it. In the hallway, on the floor, was a nondescript black box unmarked no shipping sticker, no return address. He lifted it and carried it into the house. He cut the box open on the kitchen table. The interior was a VR headgear. Sitting sleek and matte black, with not a trademark nor serial number anywhere you looked. Lighter than it seemed. The interior padding was firm and moldable, like it was custom made for someone. Beneath the headset was a solitary index card. Written in blue pen, block letters: WORSTXRD ETGA JACKET PUT IT ON WHEN THE MATCH STARTS. NOT BEFORE. Larry read the card twice. He put it down. He looked at the headset. Then he returned to his desk and continued working on his strategy file. He couldn't sleep. Seventy-two hours.