A SHORT WHILE BEFORE

"So you wanna know what you did wrong?"

"Fuck off and get me a soda, would you?" Idle pulled the helmet from her head and turned to face her best friend, roommate, and Brainhack coach.

"You know what your problem is, Idle?"

"I listen to you too much?"

Spin rolled their eyes. "Take a breather, I'll get you a drink. We'll deconstruct."

"Hurry it up or I'll kick your little boy butt."

"You can lick my little girl pussy while you're at it," they called back from the hallway.

"Yeah whatever," Idle said to herself, looking at the stats on the monitor. There it was, on a blue background in sharp black letters and numbers, the evidence that she had, in fact, slipped into a deep trance and been pushed into a losing state. 29:38. Not a bad time, for a loss. She'd held in there, stuck it out. It was no 33:17, as the meme went, but it was 29:38.

And 33:17 wasn't even a record for the longest match, just an important one, significant even outside the community. It wasn't too uncommon to see someone refer to a "Thirty-three-seventeen" to talk about an important moment. She'd been watching online the previous summer, along with most of the Brainhack community, when after thirty three minutes and seventeen seconds, OhAnnaJ had seized in a match against Caden Collier at AlterCon, and the excitement of that game and the subsequent fallout had convinced Idle to aim at going pro. It was the right time to do it, resource-wise, but it also meant that Idle was part of a massive wave of casual players worldwide looking to sharpen their technique for a chance at being the Next Big Thing. Three major names had left the Brainhacking world at that convention, leaving a void at the top; Caden was permanently banned, of course, for his behaviour at the convention generally, but OhAnnaJ had some medical issues following the match and took some time out, and PartyDancer—fucking PartyDancer, the unofficial queen of Alteration—had decided shortly after that to retire, moving to the sidelines as a coach, advisor, and referee.

"You go in too hot," Spin said from the doorway. "You don't give your opponent a chance to give you an opening."

"Just give me the soda, you tool," Idle replied with a heat she wasn't feeling. Another observer might have heard Idle's tone and assumed she was upset, but Spin knew her better than that, and she knew that Spin knew her better than that.

Truthfully, Idle was listening to her friend's advice. Spin handed her the glass, and spoke as she drank. "We both know there's no stonewalling, but you're going too far in the opposite direction. When someone feels attacked like that, you can't get them to relax, and sure you can bully them into submission but..." They pointed to the screen.

Idle drained the last of the lemon-lime soda and nodded. "I get it, Spin."

"If you just gave Anonyma a chance to breathe, at about the seventeen-minute mark, and took a second to assess yourself, too—"

"I get it, Spin."

"—you might've seen that she was working on your mobility, noticed how your fingers were getting stiff and how you were slowing down on your eye movements."

"Thank you. Spin."

"Still," Idle's roommate concluded, "you almost got there. Your individual choices and executions are great, best they've ever been, but you still don't have a real sense of the bigger picture."

Idle sighed. Same discussion they'd had a few times over the past couple months. "Why don't you just get in the chair and show me how it's done?"

Spin rolled their eyes again. "Told you. I have way more to offer you and the community on this side of things."

"You have one bad match—"

"Can we talk about your match, Idle? Please?"

Much as Idle's façade of irritation earlier hid her genuine attention to her roommate's words, Spin's exasperation was masking real pain. Idle backed down. "Yeah, sure, sorry."

"Here." Spin sat down at their end of the desk, at right angles to the chair with the Alteration equipment attached to it, and started calling up information on their laptop, which had been a passive observer to the contest. Idle watched them, glad for the momentary break to breathe; the battle had been hard-fought.

"Right there." A message popped up on Idle's computer screen, which she almost automatically clicked open. A collection of numbers popped up on the monitor to replace the ones that had been on there. "Right there, fifteen-oh-eight, you switched from attacking her sleep cycle to her nervous system."

Idle thought back. "Uh, yeah, I was..." Between the weird gaps in memory that Brainhacking battles could cause and the simple rush of the competition, it took her a moment to come up with the information. Spin knew it would, so they waited patiently. "I was... I saw an opening."

Spin nodded. "It worked, by the way." Another set of numbers appeared, with a bunch of them crudely circled in a simple picture editing program. "See? She started twitching. You gave her a nervous tic."

"'Kay, great, so how did that lead to me losing?"

Spin sighed. "You didn't leave it there." A third image popped up. "Eighteen-thirty-four, you're still going after nerves."

"Saw an opening."

Another image. "Twenty-oh-one. Still."

"It... was a big opening," Idle said lamely.

"Don't get me wrong, Idle, each attack was great, brilliant, but you had already won that fight. You kept running after you finished the race."

"A really, really big opening?"

Spin's withering glare said it all, but they still kept talking. "I count sixteen times you successfully made her hands twitch, forced typos, mis-taps and mis-clicks."

Idle's eyes widened. "Sixteen forced errors? That's a good count."

"You don't get it, Idle." Spin sighed. "You forced sixteen."

"Yeah, but—"

"You could have set up the routine, let it run, and got nearly the same result," Spin snapped. "Maybe it would have been twelve or thirteen, but that would still be enough! The problem is that you don't trust anyone. You don't trust your opponent to follow your directions—"

"They're supposed to fight back!"

"—you don't trust the machine to do what you want—"

"Hey! Glitches happen!"

"—and you don't trust your own fat ass to get anything right!"

Idle just glared.

"Sorry, but it's true."

"I know I have a little weight probl—"

"About you not trusting yourself!" Spin snapped again. "And Jesus, you've got like forty extra pounds, who gives a shit?"

"Easy for you to say, you've been a stick since high school."

"Yeah, since you got tits and I didn't," Spin said, pointing an accusatory finger. "And you're changing the subject. You have to learn to trust, Idle. You're the best fuckin' Alterist I know, and if you would just let your subjects do some work for you—like Anonyma just did to you, by the way—you'd win a lot more matches."

Idle was about to answer when her instant message program pinged at her. She clicked it open.

Anonyma1428: God you're tough :) good match, Tebby's tearin a strip off me about everything I did wrong

Idle chuckled and looked at Spin. "I gotta answer this. Courtesy, you know?" and sent a quick reply, knowing her coach would understand.

IdleRichGurl: Spin's putting me through my paces too lmao :D gg and get you next time

Anonyma1428: yeah! gg I dont look forward to the next match! (but I so do cuz im learnin so much from this one)

Idle smiled, reading that message.

"What is it?" Spin asked.

"'Nyma's just being sweet, that's all," she explained, typing a quick send-off. "Said that she learned a lot from the match."

"That is sweet," Spin agreed. "Now you just have to do the same."

Idle huffed good-naturedly. "You think I'm not?"

"Nah, I know you better'n that." Spin gave their roommate a wink. "Just grinding your gears."

"Apparently Tebby's doing the same for 'Nyma."

"Yeah? I'll have to give him a shout-out. Or ask him for advice on how to make his girl a winner."

"I'm not yours."

"When you're in that chair, you are," Spin countered. "You asked me to coach you, and when I do—"

"Fine," Idle said, without emotion. "I need some food."

Spin stood up and closed their laptop. "We are going out for dinner. And drinks. And games."

Idle paused, raising an eyebrow. "Games?"

Spin nodded. "There's a Fives tournament at Abley's."

"You didn't."

"Signed us both up a few days ago. You need a break from having your own brain tortured."

Idle sighed. "What if I don't wanna play Fives?"

Spin tapped the table three times with their index finger. "Then I'll just have to whup everyone else and bring home the trophy."

Idle got to her feet, still a little unsteady from the match. "How many games?"

"Six tonight for our group of four, so we'll each be playing three. And I bet you'n me'll be moving on to the playoffs in two weeks."

"How long has it been since you've played Fives, Spin?"

Idle's roommate shifted uncomfortably. "I've been playing a few rounds online—"

"Really?"

Spin blushed deeply. "I've... been looking at... making my own move..." They trailed off.

Idle offered her fist, grinning. "My coach, looking at branching out on their own."

"It's just a side gig," Spin said, tapping Idle's fist lightly and reluctantly with their own. "Besides, it's easier on me than..." they waved at the Brainhacking setup.

"I keep telling you, you could get back into it—"

"Yeah, no. Caden might be banned, but he wasn't the only one like him out there."

Idle shrugged. Wasn't the first time they'd had that discussion. "Each to their own." She checked the clock. "What time you wanna eat?"

Spin pursed their lips. "Tourney's seven 'til midnight, so dinner at five-thirty. There's snacks and shit at Abley's for players who aren't on."

Idle did a bit of math. "So that's like two hours to get showered, changed, and..."

Spin nodded. "Got us a reservation at The Wing Hut."

"On a Friday? Maybe you're good for something after all."

Spin laughed. "Yeah, I make reservations, sign you up for tournaments, and teach you how to kick Brainhack ass. And it's more like ninety minutes, so hit the showers."

Idle nodded. "You got it, coach." She peeled off her t-shirt and tossed it in her chair, and started unhooking her bra as she walked down the hall. She was hungry, sure, but the shower was going to feel fantastic.

"I also clean up after you," Spin said to themself, looking at the abandoned shirt, knowing where the bra would be in the hallway almost to the millimetre. "And cook for you, manage your career, pay your rent..."

The shower started up audibly. Uncharitable, Spin thought. Idle is a damn good friend, accepts me as I am, and contributes as much as I do. Spin had barely washed a single dish in the two years they'd been living together. Idle enjoyed that chore, in a meditative sense—and at her direction, Spin often reinforced that feeling through Alteration, as well as a couple others that made their lives together as frictionless as possible. And Idle had done the same for them in return.

It wasn't an uncommon arrangement, when two Alterists shared space, each of them working on the other. A lot of the time it would lead to other things, too, but Spin was simply not interested in sex, and Idle knew them well enough not to bother asking, if she had even been curious in the first place.

Other than their love of Alteration, the two roommates could not have been more different. Idle was gregarious, beautiful, outgoing, optimistic, and highly mechanically-minded. Spin, meanwhile, was sullen, often pessimistic, and much more analytical and creative. Idle liked to say she was "Irish as fuck," with long dark-red hair, bright green eyes, and pale freckled skin that burnt if the sun so much as looked at her sideways. Spin had a darker colouration from their Middle-Eastern father, with messy black curls and dark eyes. Idle dressed to accent her significant curves; Spin hid their slender body behind bulky oversized clothing. And yet, they'd been fast friends since they first met. Something about their personalities, their senses of humour, their senses of self, just clicked with one another.

The three-bedroom apartment they shared was more than enough space for the two of them, with the master bedroom converted to a computer room and Alteration studio. That part was on sketchy legal ground, given the electrical rewiring that Idle had done—quality work, to be sure, and knowing Idle it would be absolutely up to code, but probably very much against their lease. Most bedroom circuits just wouldn't handle Idle's two powerful state-of-the-art desktop computers, Brainhacking chair and custom rig, as well as Spin's own laptop and Alter gear, and a heavy-duty window-based air-conditioning unit which could only barely keep the room livable in the summer. The two roommates had often sat in the room for hours in their underwear with that A/C unit blasting, and still sweating like crazy and drinking gallons of water.

Spin had drawn the line at putting a bar fridge in. Idle had said it was possible, and there was space (barely), but being forced to get out of that sauna once in a while and go to the kitchen was a good idea. Spin also forbade any food in the room, with an occasional exception for long-session snacks; it was enough trouble to vacuum as it was, with wires running everywhere. Idle had tied and stapled as much as she could, but they still had a large table and a bunch of electronic equipment bisecting the room.

It felt like plugging in so much as an alarm clock would trip the circuit breakers, or possibly start a fire and take the whole building down. Spin didn't understand enough about electrical work to know for sure, so they trusted Idle's extensive and eccentric education—and so far, almost two years later, the only issue had been a power failure in a thunderstorm the previous summer, so it seemed to them that things were just fine.

Spin put her hands on the back of the armchair, looking at the standard headset attached to it, thinking back to that match. One bad match, Idle had said. One bad match that had left Spin shaking in the midst of an emotional breakdown, that inspired months of night terrors, that required long visits with a therapist.

And then when Spin went over the numbers, went over the fight and the action and the information, and they realized that that harm was intended, intentional, that just made everything that much worse, triggering a relapse. The idea that someone might be so full of contempt, of hate, that someone could pervert such a beautiful art to such terrible ends, sent Spin into a depression that took a lot of work—and a lot of support from Idle—to shake off. Even just reading some of the accounts of people who had fought with Caden Collier, even now, months after he'd been banned and almost two years after their match, was rough.

It wasn't like they hadn't known discrimination and hate in the real world—people still weren't universally okay with simple things like nonbinary pronouns and chosen names—but the idea that Brainhacking might not be a safe haven from such things set Spin against ever going back to the game again even with the positive changes since Caden's departure. Coaching Idle was fine, but putting her own mind in the hands of strangers was a step too far. They would be just fine playing Fives and Quiz and other such Altersports.

Spin unplugged their laptop, not just from the power but also from the various peripherals it was attached to, intending to return it to their room. As they tucked it up under their arm, they heard the shower shut off, and moved to meet Idle in the hallway. They spotted Idle's bra on the ground near her bedroom.

Predictable.

The bathroom door opened and Idle emerged wrapped in a large towel, long hair still dripping wet.

"Hey Idle?"

"Hm?

"We need to talk about nothing."

Idle's expression shifted from a little distracted to completely neutral. The towel she was holding fell to the floor from limp hands, leaving her damp body exposed to Spin's view.

"Hey, good job, there, Idle." Spin stepped up to an arm's length away from her friend. "You really did well in the match."

Idle mouthed the words, and possibly whispered, "Thank you," but if she gave voice to the words, she did it so softly that Spin couldn't hear.

"And you're still following the programming we've established."

Idle nodded, barely.

"You're a fuckin' champ," Spin said with a bit of a grin. "So tonight..."

Abley's Theatre was about three-quarters full of Alteration fans waiting for the first Fives match of the night to start, with maybe a hundred people in the space. The crowd was in good spirits, and the buzz of conversation was at a reasonable level. Idle sat alone at a table about half way between the stage and the entrance, an empty seat beside her and no one else sitting too near. She had drawn the second, fourth, and fifth matches of the night, while Spin was on for the first, fourth, and last. Both lineups suited the roommates well, with Spin getting lots of time between their matches to process and Idle having them practically back-to-back to help her keep focus.

The first set of five volunteers made their way onstage from the wings, as the announcer began explaining the rules for anyone who might not be familiar with them. Idle knew the process, and so was daydreaming a little; her next Brainhacking match was Wednesday, so she had five days to prepare, and there was the interview and deconstruction livestream before that, Monday evening. That gave her the whole weekend to relax, maybe source some materials for another shelf she'd been asked to put together for a friend.

A pleasant, light, feminine voice over her shoulder interrupted her reverie. "First time?"

Idle turned to look, and was met with a pair of deep blue eyes set in a dark black face framed by short, bright pink hair.

She smiled. The dark face smiled back. "No, I've been here before, it's just been a while." Turning awkwardly, she offered her hand. "Name's Idle."

"Nice." The hair bobbed as its owner nodded approvingly, taking Idle's hand. "I'm Midnight. So is that 'Idol,' like a singer?" Midnight slipped easily into the seat next to Idle, facing the stage.

Idle shook her head. "Nope, it's 'Idle,' like someone lazy."

Midnight laughed. "I'm guessing that your parents gave you that one same as mine gave me mine."

"A lot of us pick our own names, I guess. Mine just became more important to me than the legal one."  Idle grinned. "Are you an Alterist, too?"

"Interested enthusiast," Midnight replied. "I've been under a lot, and love it. But they didn't need any more volunteers for tonight so..." She waved casually towards the stage. "I get to see it from this side. And I saw you with an empty chair, figured I'd meet someone."

"Well, it's not really empty," Idle explained. "My roommate's up there."

"Oh yeah? Which number?"

"Oh, they're not one of the numbers." Idle pointed at the isolation booth on the left side of the stage.

"Omigod you're Spin's roommate?" Midnight gasped, followed by, "Oh, shit, you're that Idle! Well now I feel like an idiot. There aren't a lot of people in the world named 'Idle,' I shoulda picked up on that quicker."

Idle couldn't help but laugh. "IdleRichGurl at your service." She nodded her head in a fake bow.

"Haha, I'm MidnightRose online, we just all call you 'RG' or 'IRG,' so I guess that's my excuse for not being faster."

"No worries, it's pretty rare that you get to see our faces instead of our avatars or hear us talk without a mic or anything I guess." Idle's smile was broad and genuine. A fan in real life was a pretty rare thing, even in an Alteration theatre like Abley's.

"Sure is! Wow, I'd love to talk more, if—"

Midnight was cut off by the announcer counting down the last ten seconds until the two Alteration consoles in the isolation booths activated, connecting the two competing Alterists with the five volunteers on the stage. A symbol appeared on the screen above each booth, a blue triangle for Spin, an orange octagon for their opponent, corresponding to the two oversized buttons on a centre-stage console facing the audience. Above the console, the twenty-minute timer started counting down; once that was finished, each volunteer would be put through a five-minute wake-up cycle and directed to that console, to push one of those two buttons. The idea was to get more button presses than your opponent by whatever means possible.

Over each volunteer's Alteration chair was a monitor, showing their important statistics and who's console was connected to them at that moment. The two contestants could work on the volunteers individually or in batches. Idle watched as Spin's opponent, an older man who went by Bard, started jumping back and forth, selecting individuals and testing quick suggestion vectors. Every so often a voice came over the speaker system, the voice of that middle-aged man, saying things like, "the light of the sun shines across your face," or, "the beautiful taste of a Christmas morning," or simply, "Think orange."

"I'm glad they got the sound system working," Idle said. "It's nice hearing what the players are saying in the ears of the contestants."

"Spin hasn't done anything yet," Midnight whispered back. "They're just monitoring them all."

Idle smiled. "Spin's patient. They're waiting. Don't worry."

A casual calm fell over Idle as she watched the two contestants. She could sense Midnight's nervous energy mingling with the anticipation in the crowd. All eyes seemed to gravitate towards Spin, who was sitting unmoving in the isolation booth, just watching the screens before them. They remained almost perfectly still until ninety seconds had passed, and then they leaned in to the microphone that connected the Alteration gear to the sound systems in the chairs and in the room.

"Let me tell you a story."

Those words felt very familiar to Idle. She had heard them, in that gentle, deep tone, many times. She'd no doubt that the volunteers would hear them again in their match, as well as in Spin's final match of the night.

Spin's hands weren't at the console, but they were connected to all five Alteration chairs. They were just talking.

"A story about the sky, and the ocean, and how they met."

A strange silence fell over the crowd, which, paradoxically, agitated Idle. She looked around to make sure that Spin hadn't just hypnotized the audience with some sort of sorcery.

"The ocean was big. So very big. The ocean was the biggest thing anyone had ever seen. It was as wide as wideness itself and as deep as imagination. But the ocean knew that it wasn't as big as the sky. The people of the world, at that time, they couldn't see the whole sky. They could only see those parts of the sky that weren't covered by the clouds and weren't blocked by the trees, and so they thought that the ocean, which stretched out all the way to the edge of the world, was bigger, and that the sky was small, and quiet."

Spin's voice was that of a beloved grandparent telling a child the story of their youth, despite their being the same twenty-eight years old as Idle. It was a mode of speech that the expert Alterist had perfected through years of practice.

"Damn, they're good," Midnight breathed, not wanting to break the spell.

"Round and bright and juicy," came Bard's voice on the speakers. He was only speaking to two of the volunteers, presumably the two that he figured were most responsive to the imagery of a literal orange. It was enough of an interruption to Spin's pattern to make several people in the audience laugh out loud.

"But the ocean," Spin's voice came back over the speakers, "the ocean stretched all across the world, from shore to shore to shore, and wherever it was, the sky was overhead. And the ocean knew that when the sky was hidden behind the clouds, or when a great flock of birds obscured it, or even when the ocean passed under a cliff face and there were rocks between it and the sky, the sky was always there, always bigger, always brighter."

Spin had yet to lay a finger on their controls, other than the microphone. It must have been perplexing for Bard, seeing no material changes that he wasn't performing himself, nearly a third of the way through the match. It started to show in his voice, a little trembling in those short statements, his voice a little faster, his rhythm noticeably odd. Idle found him more easily ignored as the match continued.

"Have they actually done anything yet?" Midnight asked, barely above a whisper.

Idle nodded, her own voice near silent. "That's what the story is. It's them doing something. Something their opponent can't see, since they don't hear what we hear."

Spin hadn't stopped talking the whole time, their voice continually gentle and slow. "The waves of the ocean tried their best to touch the sky, to grasp the magnificence above, but the sky was always beyond the ocean's reach. Then the ocean tried to spread itself out, to match the sky's area, but wherever the ocean could climb onto the land, the sky was already there. And finally, the ocean looked deep down, within its own depths, to its darkest corners, to see if it could contain more than the sky, but it realized that while it was amazingly, astoundingly deep, while its depths could be impossible to comprehend, they were still contained, while the sky carried on infinitely and without end."

"There," Idle whispered, pointing subtly at monitor number four, for Midnight's benefit. "They're touching very lightly there. Whimsy, emotional imagination." Spin was still connected to all five volunteers, but with number four their work was showing a noticeable effect.

"Such a small change," Midnight whispered back.

Idle nodded and smiled. "Just watch."

"The ocean then came to accept its limitations. Oh, first it raged and stormed and cried, but in its time, it came to accept that it was bounded, and the sky was not. Wherever the ocean looked, there was the sky. Wherever the ocean went, there was the sky. Wherever the ocean searched, there, too, was the sky. But the ocean did not despair. The ocean did not fall into depression, or seek redress for not being the larger than the sky. The ocean accepted the situation, and what it could do, it did.

"And what it did, was celebrate the sky. Reflect the greatness of the sky. The ocean became the greatest disciple of the sky, intent of showing the sky to all people, to tell them of the sky's infinite, uncontained glory. And so the ocean gathered itself, and it changed. It turned itself towards the sky, and learned what it could, and what it learned, was colour. The water drew the colour of the sky over itself, and already it found that in reflecting the power of the sky it had gained a sudden purpose. Its own depths seemed deeper, its breadth broader. And all it took was a choice, a decision."

Without turning to look at her, Idle was able to clearly picture Midnight's deep blue eyes. Aiming to distract herself, she looked up at the game clock. A little over eight minutes remaining.

A hand was in hers. She looked down. There was something beautiful and poetic about the way the black fingers curled around her white digits.

"They really are amazing," Midnight said, awed.

Idle nodded again, not daring to look at Midnight's face. "I'm not looking forward to our match."

"I wouldn't either, if I were you."

"I have a few of my own tricks up my sleeve..."

Midnight squeezed her hand. "I won't ask. I'll see 'em soon enough."

Idle shifted closer to Midnight, who did the same to accommodate. "Maybe even after the games."

She looked.

Midnight's blue eyes weren't pointed her way, but the admiration and awe in them was more than evident. Without turning to Idle, she nodded. "I would like that."

Spin had stopped talking, and it seemed like the only sounds in the room were the hum of the equipment, the fans, and the collective breathing of the crowd. Bard's little interruptions had stopped, and he seemed to be much more focused on the mechanics. But Idle knew that the mechanics weren't the point, not any more. An idea had been seeded, and the question now came down to whether or not the volunteers accepted that idea or rejected it, and that's where the decision would be made.

Neither of them knew what the other had said, or even if the other had said anything at all, but in those crucial first moments, those ninety seconds where Spin had sat and watched, had told them the direction of Bard's planning, and they had shaped the story in that way, focused themselves entirely on colour, and did almost nothing with the Alter gear but piggyback on Bard's work.

Bard worked to sensations, so Spin created a story where sensation was a choice, and choosing to reflect the sky was presented as a good, noble, and powerful thing.

Not for the first time, Idle noticed Midnight's blue eyes. It seemed like Midnight was aware, because she turned and gave Idle a full view of her face.

"They've already won," Midnight said, eyes locked on Idle's. "Number three might turn."

"It's only one out of five," Idle replied, not looking at the stage. "Bard doesn't understand what they've done."

"Anything he does now will only make their work stronger."

Idle nodded, saying nothing.

"Does that make you as hot as it makes me?"

"Probably more," Idle admitted. "At least, with such a beautiful person beside me."

Midnight chuckled, breaking the spell somewhat. "Too bad that you're up in twelve minutes."

Idle leaned in for a little kiss, which Midnight granted. "Promise of more to come."

"After you win," Midnight said with a wink. When Idle raised an eyebrow, Midnight just shrugged and said, "Hey, I'm a fan. I believe in you."

A murmur ran through the crowd, causing Midnight and Idle to turn back to the stage. With a little over six minutes left, Spin had triggered the waking cycles on the volunteers in chairs number one and five, perfectly legal by the rules. It sent them into a five-minute wake-up program, which immediately locked Spin out of their controls and gave Bard only ninety seconds of full options and ninety more of limited access before the system kicked him out too, to give the volunteers a proper waking. It was a power play, to be sure, a very confident move—but also a strategic one. Spin had now forced Bard to pay attention to the two waking volunteers, while they still had full access to the other three and couldn't do anything about Bard's actions with the other two anyway.

Spin made a couple more quick adjustments to Volunteer Number Three, and then triggered her wakeup cycle as well. Bard's voice came over the speaker system. "The setting sun, the warmth of the sky..." There was a hint of desperation in his voice. Idle suspected that it was a useless effort; Spin had already won the battle for sense and story, as far as she was concerned.

She could see Spin's confident smile in the isolation booth as, with the most dramatic motion they had made in fifteen minutes, they pushed a single button with a flourish and sat back in their chair. The remaining volunteers started to wake.

Midnight squeezed Idle's hand. "Never seen anyone do that..."

Idle chuckled softly, "Spin's always played by their own rules. Some of that rubbed off on me, too."

"Looking forward to seeing that."

"Good. Me too."

Midnight laughed aloud at that, then covered her mouth in the somewhat hushed arena. Idle chuckled again and squeezed her hand back. The sound seemed to release the audience's own reservations, and the background noise of conversation started to rise from a dull hum, mirroring the slow waking of the volunteers.

The crowd's growing freedom to converse made Idle and Midnight lapse into a comfortable silence, or at least allowed for it as they counted down the last minutes that Bard had to frantically work as much as he could. Even Bard's slightly anxious voice drifting over the speaker started to feel like part of the ambient noise.

And through it all, Idle held Midnight's hand, and watched Spin's relaxed demeanour. Her mind drifted to her own upcoming match. Despite this having been Spin's idea, Idle's sense of competitiveness pushed her to focus on her own contests more than the resolution of this one, more even than the beautiful woman holding her hand. Midnight seemed to be aware of some part of this, and stayed still in her seat, a quiet support to Idle's inner thoughts. It was a lot like the first moments of a Brainhack match, listening to the subtle clicks and hums of the gear warming up, which inspired an anticipatory calmness in Idle—which she could also recognize as mostly Spin's influence.

The first volunteers to wake sat up in their chairs, and a hush came over the crowd. It was considered bad etiquette for the audience to try to influence the decisions of the Altered, and proper to keep quiet and let them make their choice. Number One got up as instructed by the referee, came forward to the console at the front of the stage and, with no hesitation, pushed the blue triangle button. Polite applause broke out for the volunteer at their choice, the audience thanking them for their service. As he went back to his chair, Number Five got up and repeated the process once Number One had sat down, also pressing the blue triangle, and earned the same applause.

The screen over Spin's head changed slightly; two little tick marks appeared to indicate the two volunteers that had chosen that blue triangle. It was entirely possible that neither of them knew why they preferred it, just that they did, which was the point, and why the Alterists were disconnected from the final steps of the waking procedure. They weren't able to see the choices that the other volunteers made. The referee even wore special polarized glasses which blocked light from the screens, preventing him from seeing which button belonged to which Alterist to avoid subconscious direction (which also had the practical effect of keeping him from being accidentally hypnotized by anything happening on the volunteers' screens), although he wasn't made deaf, and hearing Spin's story about the sky and the ocean would make just about anyone realize which colour button they were hoping would be chosen.

Bard and Spin were sitting in their isolation booths at this point, watching the proceedings. Bard seemed a bit agitated, Spin as calm and confident as ever. Both of them were aware that the first two volunteers had pressed the blue triangle and not the orange octagon. Idle knew that Spin was, justifiably, feeling secure in their position, and was probably deliberately saving their energy for their next two matches.

Volunteer Number Three was next up, and she hesitated, before pressing the orange button and earning her smattering of applause. Spin's only reaction was to raise an eyebrow, while Bard seemed a little relieved that he wouldn't be shut out. And sure enough, as the remaining two volunteers walked to the console, Volunteer Number Three would be Bard's only point.

Idle got to her feet as Bard and Spin came out to take their bows to the cheers of the crowd. The crowd then cheered the five volunteers, then Spin again as the winner. Always the proper order, always the etiquette; it was part of the game, and an important part of it, to those who played. Midnight followed as Idle moved to the closest side door of the theatre. The announcer had taken the stage again, thanking the volunteers and the two contestants, introducing the next batch of volunteers and getting them into the chairs, informing the audience where to purchase their snacks and drinks and how long they had to use the restroom. Idle was directed down a side corridor and headed behind the stage, Midnight following along behind.

The large backstage waiting area, the green room, wasn't empty. As Idle and Midnight walked in, three heads turned to face them. Idle knew Spin and recognized Bard immediately but the other woman standing there was unknown to her. The blonde gave her a shy smile and held out her hand, crossing the room. "You must be Idle. I'm Tailor."

Idle took the manicured hand and assessed its owner. While she'd taken the name "IdleRichGurl," Tailor gave that impression far more that Idle. Everything about her seemed perfectly made-up, from the light touch of silver in her blonde hair giving her a halo-like glow, to the silvered rim of her small glasses highlighting her blue eyes, to exactly the right amount of blush to make her look young and energetic. She had the sculpted impression of effortless beauty, at a sharp contrast to the other four people in the room—Midnight, with her brightly-coloured hair and outfit; Idle's red cascade and dark clothing; Bard and Spin, subdued and a little awkward. In the moment she had to think about it while they were shaking hands, Idle couldn't come up with any reasonable situation where Tailor would look out-of-place, which definitely impressed her.

"Pleased to meet you," Idle replied, and before she had time to say more, the stage manager popped his head in the other door.

"Idle? Tailor? Ready to go?"

Both women nodded. "Good luck," Tailor said.

"Thanks," Idle replied. "I probably need it." She had no idea of Tailor's ability, it just seemed a polite thing to say.

Ben sat in Abley's theatre, considering not just the Fives match, but the Brainhacking game he'd watched earlier. He reviewed every part of it in his mind, start to finish. He'd analyzed, figured, run the numbers and checked his math. He needed to be sure, to be certain that it was his time to act. Too much had gone into this plan to move at the wrong time.

He was certain he could beat Idle. That much, more than ever after watching the match, wasn't in question. What he needed to be sure of was that the rest of his plan would work out.

There was so little left to do. Just sit through five more games of Fives. All his pieces were in place. Everything had been made ready. Soon it would be time to act. That tension made it difficult for Ben to sit still, especially when he saw how quickly Idle and Midnight took to one another.

Another two hours. Three at most, he thought, as Idle and Tailor took the stage for their competition. And then...

All it would take was a simple message to put into effect weeks' worth of preparation.

All that was left, then, was the right timing.