FSE

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Rakim felt a cold bead of sweat dripping down his back.

"Feel your 'sins crawling down your back,' buddy?" The bat looked up at her, mouth agape.

"Huh?"

The hare winked at him. "Relax, I'm just kidding around. Good luck, man!" she chirped.

"Oh!" he smiled back awkwardly. "Thanks. I'd wish you good luck, but I don't think you need it," Rakim chuckled. Was his apprehension that transparent? Not that he wasn't full of anticipation as well. He'd trained for this for a very long time indeed, and he was looking forward to showing off everything he'd learned. It wasn't going to be easy - he'd be up against both world champions. He looked up to them - being up against them proved a humbling experience for him. Beyond that, of course, he'd had to work his way past a lot of anxiety to be there. It'd recently been becoming a lot riskier for his kind to fly, and fast. His name didn't look so good on flight registers anymore, and his own wings now inspired more than simple envy.

In some, they inspired hate and fear.

Rakim had also heard that a few trolls had started showing up deadnaming people, so he'd hesitated a lot. Beyond that, of course, was the simple apprehension of knowing that, since the run would be recorded and broadcast, any mistake he made that night would be recorded for posterity as well, but Ogun had eventually talked him into going. If the bat never went, he'd have regretted it all his life, the chimera had assured him. He'd watched the event so assiduously since its inception that looking forward to it excitedly and looking back on it fondly had become part of his yearly cycle, like birthdays and holidays in their time. Rakim and Ogun watched it together, so much that it had become part of their 'couple time.'

He wasn't about to let them take that away from him.

"Haha, I guess not," the hare smirked. "Still, you're no slouch if you're here, I'm sure. Break a leg." She seemed pleased to note that, this time, his smile in response seemed more genuine.

"We'll see! Gosh, there are a lot of people here," he remarked. "It's different than playing online, even when you know people are watching."

"You get used to it," she shrugged. It wasn't her first year, and probably wouldn't be her last. He squinted for a moment - was the tortoise talking to the person in charge? It looked like he was. He seemed kind of ticked off about something but, even with his bat hearing, Rakim couldn't quite make out what. His heart started beating faster as he walked away from the hare toward the tortoise and person in charge.

"Is there a problem?" The tortoise gave him a dirty look.

"I'm not playing against it," he told the person in charge scornfully. "I'm just not."

The bat blinked. "What's wrong?"

"Why not?" the person in charge asked the tortoise.

"This is supposed to be an any percent, glitchless, three-way race by *people*," the tortoise answered, pointing at himself and at the hare for emphasis. "The TASBot block was yesterday. If *it* missed it, *it* can always reapply in six months for the next race!" He shook his head. "That's not my problem."

"What seems to be the matter?" the hare asked. The tortoise glared at her. Six months ago, she'd handed him his ass during the previous race, for the second time in a row. He indicated Rakim with his head derisively.

"This guy here wants you and I to race against this *TASBot*," he spat, "you and me, the world's best runners, up against this... *contraption*."

Rakim frowned. "Hey! I do have feelings, you know," he tried to play off as lighter than he meant it.

"No you don't," the tortoise retorted, "TASBots don't have feelings."

"Hey now," the hare said gingerly, "let's not say anything we're gonna regret. Why are you calling him that?" She wasn't about to let the tortoise's flattery get the best of her.

The tortoise scoffed. "Isn't it obvious? This thing's a cyborg! You and I train with our brains, with our hands, like real people, and they want to pit us against this thing that's only been *programmed* to play a certain way. It doesn't *mean* anything when this thing wins or loses. It's just on whoever programmed it. What *is* that, even?"

"Are you concerned the race wouldn't be *fair*?" the hare asked him, half-looking at the person in charge along with the bat as she spoke. The person in charge seemed to think about it while the tortoise sputtered a bit at the implications of what she'd said.

"Well, let's see, Rakim... Let me ask you something, okay?" The bat nodded, his heart racing. "You're a cyborg, right?"

Rakim nodded. "Y... Yes, sir," he admitted, as though he were confessing a sin.

"What are you cyborg enhancements for? What do they do?" The bat scanned his mind looking for the right answer.

"They make me better at martial arts... they make me harder to kill in general I guess." The person in charge grunted thoughtfully.

"Do they make you better at video games, in *any* conceivable way? Be honest."

"... No. They don't." Ogun still wanted to win against him *sometimes*, didn't he?

"You've recorded your own runs of this game before and put them up online, haven't you?" Rakim nodded. "More than once?" The bat nodded again. "Have either of you ever seen these runs?" The hare nodded.

"I have."

"Let me ask you something, champ: were both runs exactly alike, the way a machine would perform the same task the same way, regardless of any other factors?" She shook her head.

"No. He made mistakes in different locations in both runs. He made *mistakes*. A machine doesn't make mistakes." The tortoise seemed outraged.

"You're stretching the truth! We all know machines don't always do everything the same way, it's just like getting different patterns from a boss! It's just RNG but it doesn't mean the machine wasn't *programmed* to do it!" Rakim was mortified. He didn't want to be causing such a scene but everyone in the room had their eyes on him now.

"That's the thing," the hare replied slyly, "as runners we're up against 'the machine' every time we play. If it's not so different from what we always do, what are you so scared of? Are you still having such a hard time recovering from having lost to a girl that you can't imagine having to deal with losing to a machine?" The tortoise looked at her, furious.

"I'm not afraid of anything!" he gritted his teeth.

"Well, then..." the person in charge started, trying to regain control of the situation, "it comes down to this: are you two willing to play him, or not? We can't have a two-way race."

"I am," she said immediately, not giving the tortoise a chance to answer first.

"I'll beat them both!" the tortoise felt grudgingly corralled into agreeing to save face. The three of them sat down in front of the game screen as the announcer reminded everyone of the donation incentives for the race.

"And... start!"

They were neck to neck for the entire first stage - then for the entire *second* stage. Rakim couldn't believe it. This time, his heart raced from elation, as he found that he could keep up with both top runners in the world, just like that! There were so many opportunities in life that were closed to him, so many things that he knew that he'd never be able to do. To be able to perform, before the crowd's cheers as he struggled to keep up, as though he were a hero going into battle made his blood feel like it was on fire. The sense of mastery that he felt over this world that didn't even really exist was just such an intense, organic thrill. It was like *flying*, and he should *know*. He was so excited he forgot the tortoise's rivalry altogether.

"A-ha!" the hare grinned proudly. It started with just a few seconds' lead - she was able to first cycle an obstacle that the bat and tortoise had to wait for the second cycle to get past. The tortoise grunted, frustrated. The next time the obstacle came up, the tortoise and hare both managed to first cycle it whereas Rakim did not. The tortoise chuckled, with just a small enough trace of meanness that he had plausible deniability for it that wouldn't make him seem like too much of an ass on the air, but enough that the bat could tell it was meant to cut him a bit more sharply. Somehow, he just didn't care. Eyes on the game, he told himself, remembering his training. The hare was now first, the tortoise second, Rakim last, by seconds.

"Aww!" The bat was the first to take a death. This time it was a bit harder for the tortoise to keep the meanness out of his snickering, although he struggled to. The people who ran the event worked hard to keep people sportsmanlike - it proved more difficult for the tortoise to contain his aggressive competitiveness than for most players. He was a sore loser. The bat grit his teeth - it was going to be difficult to catch up to them now, even though he hadn't been very far into the level when it happened. Their chances of making a mistake were lower than his. They'd been playing it for just a bit longer than him, but when the race was as close as it was, it could be enough to make a difference.

"All right now, she's about to try a very difficult clip..." the announcer explained to everyone.

"Huh?" Rakim didn't know about any clip in this area. The tortoise rolled his eyes.

"And... she *made* it!" The crowd cheered! "Now, let's see if he'll be able to..." The tortoise tried the clip... and missed his mark! "Aw, he didn't make it!" He almost swore when he fell into a pit, having to restart the stage altogether. "That's okay. He can still make that up. It *is* a very hard clip." The bat was just a few seconds ahead of him at that point. When he reached the point where the hare had clipped ahead, he began to sweat. He'd never trained for it! All he'd done was see her do it. Was he going to be able to do a frame-perfect trick just like that, just from having seen her do it, without practice? Was that... Was that, in fact, something that only a machine could have done, his heart sank a little as he asked himself?

He shook his head. He couldn't allow hesitation to distract him. It skipped an entire section. He couldn't *possibly* afford to fall behind. He tried the clip...

He made it.

"Oh, *man*!" This time even the tortoise couldn't contain his grudging admiration. The bat had gotten it on the first try! Shaking his own head to concentrate on catching up, the tortoise came up to the clip point, and made it this time. The hare was already coming up to the final boss of the game. The tortoise first cycled another obstacle where Rakim was forced to wait and the tortoise finally caught up with the bat, determined to prove his superiority to the cyborg once and for all. The tortoise cursed under his breath as the hare beat the final boss while he and Rakim were fighting it and took a hit before regaining his concentration. "Damage boost," the tortoise stuck his tongue out as the bat stared ahead and played unerringly.

When the boss was down to just one hit, Rakim grunted when he got a bad pattern, forcing him to wait through a cycle of the boss' attacks that were easy enough for him to dodge, but that forced him to wait until the boss would be finished with it before he would be vulnerable to attacks again. It was while the bat waited through his bad pattern that the tortoise's cry of victory echoed in his ears next to him. Yet the irony of the role of RNG in his own victory did not escape the tortoise. Very well then, Rakim told himself, pursing his lips. It's me against the machine now. Finally, the last boss' pattern ended, and the bat finally finished him off, less than ten seconds after the second best player of the game in the entire world.

"And... Time!"

This was enough of an achievement that, even though the tortoise had won, he was still a little insulted. He couldn't complain of an unfair advantage having cost him his victory, yet it was still way too close for comfort. He should have won by a lot more than that. The crowd was already cheering when the announcer added, "Let's hear it for our runners!" They announced which donation incentives had been met, which game was going to be run next, then it was time to interview the hare about her victory, and the announcer handed her the mike so that she could speak to the crowd. She gave Rakim a meaningful look, looked back the crowd and, with confidence that belied her nerdy origins, began to speak.

"This is a great event. Many of us here grew up being told we'd never amount to anything. Now, here we are, showing the world we can make a difference after all, about the most important thing in the world: saving the lives of our fellow people." The crowd was hanging onto the hare's every word. "But beyond that," she continued, giving a side glance to the bat again as she did, "there have been too many divisions in the gaming community these past few years," she lamented, "and beyond that," the hare continued, "I'm proud to show the world we can all put our differences aside like this and come together for the same goal." It was only marginally easier to address them the third time, but she hid it well.

"Growing up playing games as we did, all of us, for a moment, imagine what it's like to be a hero, to be on a quest to fulfil some kind of greater purpose, something we can be proud of. Not everyone can play games as well as we do, but everyone can donate. Everyone can do *something*. Everyone can be their own kind of hero. So here's my quest for you all tonight, fellow gamers: let's show the world that *everyone's* welcome here tonight, regardless of anything else about them." She smiled at the bat. This time he smiled back at her. "So let's hear it for our second place winner," she indicated the tortoise as they applauded, "and let's hear it for *Rakim*!" she added, raising his arm over his head as the crowd erupted into louder cheers.

"... and let's kill those fucking animals," she grinned.

Rakim and the tortoise both laughed.