Gamerunner by B. R. Collins

what Daed does with his mind. I think I like it better.
    She still hadn’t said anything else, so he took a sip of his tea, finally, and the taste surprised him. It wasn’t bad. The warmth ran down his throat and past his heart.
    Perdita frowned at the sleeve of her overall, folding the fabric into lines. Rick watched her hand, short-nailed and sinewy, and then looked at her face. She was ugly. She must have chosen to be ugly. She was a Creative, after all, she must have got a decent wage. But she’d still got a flat-ish nose and plump cheeks, she’d still got nothing-coloured eyes. Rick wondered why anyone would choose to be ugly. But somehow he was glad Perdita had. He liked the way she looked.
    She caught his eye, while he was staring. She said, ‘You could be in really big trouble, Rick.’
    He felt his eyes narrow. He said, ‘Why, are you going to tell Paz?’
    She shook her head. ‘It’s all on hidcam, Rick. Whatever you did to that poor . . .’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t have to tell Paz anything. Not that I would.’
    He stared at her, hostile, until she looked away. Then he stood up and said, ‘I’d better go. Thanks.’
    And then he started to cry.
    At first he thought he was ill. He knew what crying was, but he’d never done it before — not that he could remember, not like this. It was like vomiting, he couldn’t control it. In the Maze the non-player characters sometimes had water trickling from their eyes when they asked for help; but not like this. They always wiped it away and carried on speaking. No one ever covered their face with their hands. No one ever lost the power of speech. He didn’t know it could happen like this.
    But he wasn’t in the Maze.
    In the Maze the Security man would have got up after Rick hit him.
    Perdita said, ‘Sit down. Breathe.’
    He did. (He might as well do what he was told. He’d made a real mess of not doing what he was told.) And it helped.
    Perdita waited. Finally she said, more gently this time, ‘Rick . . . you know there are cameras. There’s no way Paz won’t hear about what you did. With any luck she’ll be decent about it. But the way things are now . . . with Daed in troub—’
    She stopped.
    He looked through his fingers, at the bench. He said, through snot, ‘In trouble. You know about that, do you?’
    ‘Everyone does,’ she said, because she was the same as Daed, like that, she didn’t believe in white lies.
    ‘He’s working on the expansion, isn’t he? That’s going OK, isn’t it?’
    ‘Yes,’ she said. But her tone wasn’t agreeing.
    ‘What’s wrong?’ Rick said.
    ‘Nothing. With the expansion. But . . .’ She looked at him, and he saw her consider whether to go on, and decide that she might as well, now. Maybe that’s the point of her face, Rick thought. It lets you see what she’s thinking. It’s not a mask, like Daed’s. ‘It’s just that expansions are so . . .’
    She searched for the word. But she didn’t need to; Rick could remember what Paz had said. He said, ‘So flatgame ?’
    ‘Yes.’ She shrugged. ‘Honestly. Daed, designing an expansion? It’s like Aeschylus, writing an episode of Undoners .’
    He didn’t know who Aeschylus was — a genius, presumably, like Daed — but he got the gist. He said, ‘But . . . his contract’s OK, right, he’s still . . . important —?’
    ‘Yes,’ she said, slowly. ‘It’s just that now . . . well, it’s not the best time for you to attract attention. When that gamerunner won in the Roots, everything went . . . Things changed. Daed’s having a difficult time.’
    He looked at the bench, and prayed. Please let that not have been pity in her voice. Please — oh, gods, if she pities Daed —
    He wanted to ask another question. Anything. What relation are you to Daed, anyway? Did he ever say anything about my mother? Do you think he really cares about m—
    Too late. The comms panel growled. Perdita glanced past him and said, ‘Oh, hell.’
    He followed her