On Ray’s monitor, dozens of Sobrukai troopships were descending from the sky. These massive, gunmetal gray octahedrons were what the enemy used to deploy their ground forces once they reached Earth’s orbit. Each one had automated sentry guns mounted all over its heavily armored hull, which was nearly invulnerable to laser fire. Of course, in typical videogame fashion, these ships had been engineered with a glaring weak spot: their engines were unshielded and vulnerable to attack—a fact I knew well from playing Armada. When one of these diamond-shaped troopships made landfall, it would impact with enough velocity to bury its lower half into the surface, like a giant spike. Then the pyramid-shaped top half would open like an enormous four-petaled metal flower, and the thousands of Sobrukai drones packed inside it would pour out, like an army of newborn insects bursting from a broken egg sac, intent on devouring everything in sight.
In the distance, a swarm of Sobrukai Glaive Fighters streaked across the sky, banking in unison to change course, like a school of piranha in search of prey. Viewed from above, the Glaive’s symmetrical fuselage resembled the blade of a double-headed axe, but seen edge-on, its profile distinctly resembled that of a flying saucer from an old sci-fi film—a detail that had worked its way into my earlier hallucination.
I’d destroyed countless Glaive Fighters during the three years I’d been playing Armada. Until now, I’d never found them especially frightening or ominous. But today, just seeing the background animations on Ray’s screen filled me with a sense of dread, as if the ships really were somehow a threat to everything I held dear and not a harmless collection of textured polygons rendered on a computer display.
Ray power-leaped his ATHID off of the burning rooftop and onto the back of a Sobrukai Basilisk, a reptilian-looking robot tank with laser cannons for eyes. Ray power-jumped into the air again, spinning his ATHID around 180 degrees just before he brought the huge metal Basilisk down with a single well-placed missile shot to its segmented abdomen. It exploded beneath him in a huge orange fireball, and Ray had to fire his ATHID’s jump jets again to land clear of it.
“Bravo, Sergeant,” I said, using his rank in the fictional Earth Defense Alliance.
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” he replied. “I’m doing my best, sir!”
He grinned and raised his right hand off of his mouse long enough to snap me a salute before refocusing on the battle.
According to the readouts on his HUD, his squadron had already lost all six of their hover tanks, and both of their Titans. They only had seven ATHIDs left in reserve, and the pulsing icons on his tactical map indicated these were stored inside a nearby EDA weapons cache that was already under attack by a swarm of Spider Fighters. Ray’s squadron was fighting a losing battle at this point. The city would fall to the Sobrukai any minute now. But as usual, Ray kept on fighting, even in the face of certain defeat. It was one of his most endearing qualities.
Ray was, by far, the best Terra Firma player I’d ever seen in person. A few months ago, he’d finally managed to earn membership in “The Thirty Dozen,” an elite clan of the best 360 players in the game. Since then, I’d seen him logged on to Terra Firma’s servers every day, playing one high-level mission after another. And since he wasn’t burdened with distractions like school or homework, Ray could devote his every waking moment to the game, so he’d logged more combat time than me, Cruz, and Diehl all put together.
“Son of a bitch!” Ray shouted, hitting the side of his monitor. I glanced over and saw that the Sobrukai were currently overrunning the surviving members of his squadron and exterminating the last of their drones. A few seconds after Ray’s last reserve ATHID was crushed between a Spider Fighter’s vise-like mandibles, the words MISSION FAILED flashed on his display, and then he was treated to a cut-scene animation of the Sobrukai’s forces destroying downtown Newark.
“Oh well,” he muttered, shoving another mouthful of Funyuns into his face as he pondered the city’s smoking ruins. “At least it’s only Newark, right? No big loss.”
He chuckled to himself as he wiped simulated-onion dust off his fingers and onto the legs of his jeans; then he gave me an excited grin.
“Hey, guess what came in today?” he asked. Then he produced a large box from underneath the counter and set it in front of me.
If I’d been a cartoon character, my eyes would have bulged out of their sockets.
It was a brand-new Armada Interceptor Flight Control System—the most advanced (and expensive) videogame controller ever made.
“No way!” I whispered, examining the photos and stats printed on its glossy black box. “I thought these things weren’t supposed to hit the market until next month!”
“It looks like Chaos Terrain decided to ship them early,” he said, rubbing his hands together excitedly. “Want to unbox this bad boy?”
I nodded my head vigorously, and Ray grabbed a packing knife. He cut the box open and then instructed me to hold on to its sides as he pulled out the Styrofoam cube housing the controller’s various components. A few seconds later, everything was freed from the packaging and laid out on the glass countertop in front of us.
The Armada Interceptor Flight Control System (IFCS) contained an Interceptor pilot helmet (incorporating a set of built-in VR goggles, noise-canceling headphones, and a retractable microphone) and a two-piece HOTAS (Hands-On Throttle and Stick) rig, comprised of an all-metal force-feedback flight stick and a separate dual-throttle controller with a built-in weapons control panel. The stick, throttle, and weapons panel all bristled with ergonomic buttons, triggers, indicators, mode selectors, rotary dials, and eight-way hat studs, each of which could be configured to give you total control of your Armada Interceptor’s flight, navigation, and weapons systems.
“You likey, Zack?” Ray asked, after watching me drool over it for a while.
“Ray, I want to marry this thing.”
“We’ve got over a dozen more back in the stockroom,” he said. “Maybe we can build a display pyramid out of them or something.”
I picked up the helmet and hefted it, impressed by its weight and detail. It looked and felt like a real fighter pilot helmet, and its Oculus Rift components were state-of-the-art. (I had a half-decent VR headset at home that Ray had gifted me, but it was a few years old, and the display resolution had increased drastically since then.)
“These new helmets can read your thoughts, too,” Ray joked. “But you have to think in Russian.”
I laughed and set the helmet back on the counter, resisting the urge to try it on. Then I reached out and rested my left hand on the throttle controller while I wrapped my right hand around the cold metal of the attached flight stick. Both seemed like a perfect fit, as if they’d been machined to match my hands. I’d been playing Armada for years, and the whole time I’d been using a cheap plastic flight stick and throttle controller. I’d had no idea what I’d been missing. I’d coveted an IFCS ever since I heard they were coming out on the Armada forums. But the price tag was somewhere north of five hundred bucks—even with my ten percent employee discount, that was still way too rich for my blood.
I reluctantly slid my hands off the controllers and shoved them into my pockets. “If I start saving up now, I might be able to afford one by the end of the summer,” I muttered. “That is, if my crapmobile doesn’t break down again.”
Ray mimed playing a violin. Then he smiled and slid the helmet across the counter to me.
“You can have this one,” he said. “Consider it an early graduation gift.” He elbowed me playfully. “You are going to graduate, right?”
“No way!” I said, staring at the controller in disbelief. Then I looked up at Ray. “I mean—yes, I’ll graduate—but, you’re not kidding? I can have this one? For reals?”
Ray nodded solemnly. “For reals.”
I felt like hugging him, so I did—throwing my arms around his thick midsection in a fierce embrace. He laughed uncomfortably and patted me on the back until I finally let go of him.
“I’m only doing it because it’s good for the war effort!” he said, straightening his flannel shirt and then ruffling my hair in retaliation. “Having your own flight control system might make you an even better Interceptor pilot. If that’s even possible.”
“Ray, this is way too generous,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Ah, don’t mention it, kid.”
Although I’d been worrying for years that Ray’s runaway altruism would drive him bankrupt, and that I’d be forced to go find a real job somewhere, it didn’t stop me from accepting his latest extravagant gift.
“Want to head back in the War Room and give it a spin?” He motioned to the small, cramped back room where dozens of linked PCs and gaming consoles were set up. Customers rented the War Room out for LAN parties and clan events. “You could work out the kinks before that big elite mission later tonight.…”
“No thanks,” I said. “I think I’ll just wait and try it out then, on my home setup.” Because I might flip out or start foaming at the mouth the next time I see a Glaive Fighter coming at me, and I’d rather be alone in my bedroom if and when it happens.