The Players: Staring Contest

[Kaden]

A white room. Two white chairs. A white table between them. It took Kaden roughly one second to get a grip on his surroundings. He did not like them one bit. The PAGER at Kaden’s waist had told him he was walking into a staring contest, he should have expected as much. Unfortunately, his time before stepping through the portal had been spent bracing himself for the almost guaranteed loss in the event, not for the blindingly bright room.

If there was only one thing the courier knew about himself, it was that his mind did not sit still. It wandered. It wandered far and it wandered wide. Sadly, where his mind went, his eyes were almost sure to follow. How do you analyze, scrutinize, and theorize about new things when you can’t see them? Sure, he could just sit and pontificate, but that was just boring. Considering the things in the then-and-there were far more interesting and there was only one such thing.

“Now this doesn’t even seem fair,” the courier began. “You clearly have the advantage.”

Having deduced where his opponent was heading, Orion did not look amused. He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “And why’s that?”

“You could at least pretend to play along,” Kaden sighed, no longer interested in the joke. It wasn’t like keeping one eye trained on the same person was any harder than keeping two. “Otherwise this is going to get really boring really quickly, Orion.”

“Pah. I don’t intend to waste my time with whatever this is supposed to be.” The saiyan began moving, as though to stand up.

“Wait!” Kaden flailed an arm towards Orion, urging him to stop. “Probably a good idea to welcome elimination.”

“The sooner this is over with, the sooner I can get my hands on the pathetic human who put us here.”

“Ah… right. You’re a saiyan,” the courier nodded slowly as he spoke, careful not to let Orion’s eyes leave his direct line of sight.

There was a brief moment of silence while the saiyan settled his weight back into the chair. His gaze burrowed deeper into Kaden, as though looking for something. It was unnerving to the human courier, but he didn’t really have a choice about averting his gaze. In the back of his mind, though, he was thankful that Orion’s eagerness to end their event had abated.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he finally asked.

“Oh come on, like I need to tell you.” When silence took the place of any expected reply, the courier frowned and continued. “You’re a saiyan. Why take a minute to sit still when you could be running off to bash someone’s face in. No offense, but you’re just a different chapter in the same story.”

“You should be careful about who you provoke,” was Orion’s surprisingly even reply.

“Right there! Instead of actually considering what I said, you threaten me. And you sounded like you might as well have been offering me a cup of tea or something. It can’t really be a surprise to you that people think Saiyans are a bunch of bloodthirsty barbarians.”

“And what of you? Just eating the same drivel because everyone else does. Did you never stop to think that such behavior is necessary?”

“So you’re saying… what? Fighting at every opportunity and starting shit for no actually reason is some kind of… what’s it called? Evolutionary imperative for you guys?” Kaden laughed at the thought. “Ever think that you may not need it if you stopped fighting everyone who looked at you the wrong way… or any way, for that matter.”

“You’re a human,” the saiyan said. “How much time have you spent off of Earth?”

“Ah,” Kaden nodded. Orion’s point was obvious. “So I only think this way because I’m naive?”

“I neither know nor care why you think the way you do. The universe, however, is a bigger more violent place than you would like it to be, boy. Fancy talk and a smiling face will not get you very far.”

“Yeah, and I’m sure that’s the first thing you try every time someone comes after you. Saying things are violent doesn’t mean anything when you’re one of the violent ones. It’s just a self-fulfilling prophecy, at that point.”

“Better violent than dead,” Orion hastily replied.

“Yeah, that seems to have worked real well for you.”

Nodding to the halo floating above Orion’s head had been unnecessary. He didn’t need a reminder of what waited for him once he had been released from Gamer’s clutches. As soon as he did it, though, Kaden felt a pang of guilt. He was simply being argumentative for the sake of it. Otherwise, he would go crazy in a white room with nothing else to think about.

Interestingly, Orion’s counter-arguments had made a lot of sense. It stood to reason that the Saiyan’s general bloodthirst was the result of their environment, otherwise why would all of them end up that way. Sure, there were probably some who took advantage of their perceived barbarism for their own gain, but the same could be said of humans. Ultimately, it came down to the fact that Orion was right; Kaden had no first-hand knowledge of the way things worked beyond Earth’s atmosphere.

“Sorry about that,” the courier finally spoke. It had been awkward keeping eye contact with someone who looked like they were about to punch his face in. “You, uh, died during Friend or Foe, right?”

“… yes.”

“Yeah… I thought so. I mean, it’s hard to forget seeing someone shot right in front of you.”

“…” the saiyan remained silent. The courier obviously had a point to make, and he wasn’t interested in prolonging the conversation.

“I didn’t really get a chance to say anything back in the Carnival, but I… gah. I don’t know. I’m kind of sorry, I guess. I mean, I know it’s not my fault you died… at least I don’t think it is, but all I could do was watch as it happened. I think that, if it happened again, like now, I’d be able to do something. I’d be able to… protect you.”

“I don’t need your protection,” the cycloptic saiyan said. “If you think you can help someone, then help them. If you have the time for half-assed apologizes, then spend it figuring out how to keep yourself from making the same mistake twice.”

“… right.”

Curiously, the courier felt like he was ten years old again, listening to his father. There was someone with a wealth of experience sitting before him and the best thing to do was give his advice the weight it deserved. Kaden didn’t think he had apologized, but if not, then what had he been doing? Trying to console himself? Looking for absolution for something that couldn’t be changed? Asking forgiveness for his previous powerlessness? They were all pathetic alternatives. As Kaden stared at Orion, something flitted through his eye, as though he had more to say; his silence, however, pressed the courier to move on.

“Y’know,” Kaden began again. He ignored Orion’s annoyed sigh. “I have to admit that, deep down, there’s a part of me that likes this kind of stuff.”

“You mean the ceaseless blathering?”

“What? No. That’s just me trying not to be bored. I mean stuff like this,” Kaden waved an arm to their surroundings. “Getting kidnapped and thrown into this kind of… game. It’s happened more times than I would prefer, sure, but… y’know.”

“Not sure that I do.”

“Come on, that’s how, well, I met you. And Piper, and Ashe, and Sage, and Szar, and… well… half the people who are stuck here, actually. I’m not saying that meeting all of them is a good thing, but the people I actually like… well… I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”

“Don’t meet a lot of people?” Orion’s voice had been fairly deadpan, but Kaden could have sworn it was a joke.

“Sure, but most of them are… boring. Someone who you can run through a desert with and fight off giant mutant scorpions isn’t really the kind of person you just stumble upon in the bar.”

“So this has just been a meet-and-greet for you?”

“Of course not. This shit’s dangerous, no doubt, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the good things about it, right? If all I did was sat around digging myself into an emotional hole… well… I’d wind up getting dropped into a dunk tank, with my luck. But, yeah, it would be nice to meet the same people under more… favorable circumstance.”

The saiyan declined to respond, instead leaning further back in his seat. After several silent moments passed, Kaden leaned forward, placing his arm on the table, and propped his chin up with his hand. Simply staring into Orion’s eye had slowly transcended from being awkward to simply… being. The act no longer prompted any kind of emotional response in the courier. To his surprise, though, Orion finally broke the silence.

“Why did you stop me, earlier?” the saiyan posed.

“When you were about to get up, you mean?”

“Yes. I would have lost the contest and you would have won, putting you one step closer to Gamer, if his words are to be believed.”

“They probably aren’t, but… well… why eliminate yourself when you may not need to?” Kaden answered the question with a question of his own. “In something like this, you have to hope for the best and plan for the worst, right? So, I’m assuming that anyone who gets eliminated ends up dead.” It pained Kaden to say such a thing, knowing some of those who had been cut from the game. “And the more people that are dead, the harder it will be to break out of this bullshit.” A smile crossed the courier’s face as he spoke. “I’m going to make sure we get as many people out of here as possible.”

Despite their situation, a surprising amount of confidence filled Kaden’s voice. He obviously had no better idea than anyone else on how to get free, but he seemed certain that something would present itself.

“You mentioned things like this,” Orion waved a hand to the white room, mimicking Kaden’s earlier movement. “They can definitely be good. They show a person for who they really are. Grow, adapt, or die. Those are your options at times like these.”

“So…” Kaden considered the statement. “You think I’ve grown or adapted?” By Orion’s logic, it had to have been one of those two, since he wasn’t dead.

“How would I know?”

Fair enough. Kaden and Orion hadn’t exactly kept in touch since Friend or Foe… since the saiyan had mostly been dead. While the courier liked to think that he had grown, he was hesitant to convince himself that were the case. Every time he had been in a dangerous situation, every time he had been thrown into some kind of psychotic event, he had had people there to help him… people to lean on. He never would have survived Friend or Foe without Piper’s help. In Dante’s Abyss he would have probably been curled into a fetal for the duration had it not been for Ashe and Sophia. Even in Kill Town, the courier had all of the above to rely on, in addition to Belle, Szar, and, in a weird way, Juno.

To Kaden, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with looking to other people for help. It was ridiculous to think that one person would be able to solve any problem on their own. Why forgo the help of others when it wasn’t necessary? Some would say that doing as much would stifle the growth of each individual, but that never made sense to Kaden. Working with other people, studying them, learning from them, helping them, all of those things could help people grow much stronger. If not physically, then at least emotionally.

The talk between the two died down as both seemed intent, for the moment at least, to process their own thoughts internally. Eventually, though, Kaden’s boredom won out. It only took so much brain power to mull over someone’s words, and the rest was becoming quite restless. With no other interesting outlet coming to mind, Kaden resorted to his fall-back cure for boredom. Between himself and Orion, hovering above the table, a small orb of cerulean ki burst to life.

Though neither saiyan nor human diverted their gaze to the ball of ki, it was obvious that both became interested. The ball began to move slowly through the air at the courier’s mental prompting, leaving a trail in its wake. Swirling through the air, the courier began tracing out aimless designs for a while before simply letting it all fade away and starting over again. Eventually a memory flashed to the forefront of his mind.

“You’re pretty good with energy, right?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Excellent. Up for a game?”

At first, the saiyan hesitated, but eventually gave in. Following Kaden’s prompting, the saiyan created a small wall of energy that he freely maneuvered through the air. The human referred to it as a “paddle.” At one end of the table sat Orion’s paddle, while Kaden materialized his own on the opposite end. The small ball of energy began moving towards Kaden’s paddle, only to bounce off of it and slide towards Orion.

The saiyan picked up on “Pong” quickly enough, maneuvering his dark blue paddle of ki as well as Kaden guessed he would. Back in Friend or Foe, the courier had taken note of the saiyan’s expert manipulation of energy, learning a trick or two. While Pong was a cure for boredom, it also made maintaining eye contact that much more difficult. At every bounce Kaden to fight the urge to follow the ball’s path. Eventually, though, something else drew his attention.

“That’s odd…” he mused.

“You just noticed?” Orion replied.

“I noticed a couple minutes ago,” the courier admitted. “But I thought it was just my peripheral vision playing tricks on me. No doubt about it now, though.”

“Indeed. The room is growing. Quickly.”

Hesitantly, the courier smiled. While he hadn’t exactly been testing Orion, he would have been surprised if he had failed to notice the change in their surroundings. His experience with the bloodthirsty saiyan Vad, had taught Kaden that the warrior had a keen sense of his surroundings. Since Orion was also a saiyan warrior, the courier extrapolated and was thankful to be proven correct. He was far from a trained fighter himself and was prone to missing things that other warriors would know to pick up on. If they were going to break out of the game, Kaden knew they’d need every skill available to them.

“What do you think is going to happen?” the courier asked.

“Not sure.”

“Well, we should be ready. I get the feeling something’s about to happen.”