GOTCHA

When Mark finally went through the doors labeled B23 he found Angie crying. Many people were busy working with equipment and stuff. They kept stealing glances at Angie. A man and a woman were trying to console Angie.

"What's wrong?" his "dad instinct" kicked in. This girl had been to his house on breaks. He had taken her and Sarah to the city a few times. It wasn't like watching his own daughter cry, but close enough.

Angie looked up. "People are jerks." Mark nodded. Angie continued, "The only people I thought would be OK players want me to pay them A LOT of money."

"Oh." He didn't really know what that meant, but it was probably bad. "Anything I can do to help?" Please, please don't ask for A LOT of money.

She made a sad chuckle-choke kind of sound. "Have you ever been in the military?"

"No," he answered hesitantly.

The guy, Mike, answered the unspoken question. "The rules of this competition say that no soldiers or veterans are allowed." Mike read the confusion on Mark's face and started talking again. "The actual main game Space Opera game is different, but this scenario is special so special rules apply. It is primarily a test of equipment, so..." He left the rest of it unspoken.

"Gotcha," he muttered unhappily. Sort of gotcha anyway.

"So you'll do it?" What's her name? Heather? One of Sarah's friends anyway. She had never been to the house, but he had seen her on social media. Uh-oh. Everybody in the room had frozen and looked at him.

"Do what exactly?"

Angie jumped back into the conversation. "Mr. Smythe, will you join our team? I need another in-game player."

"In game? Like playing one of those Star Marines?" This was out of left field.

"Exactly."

"Uh, Angie could choose one of the team-" he swept his arm to encompass everybody standing around watching, "but nobody else has much experience playing so if she can get you, it saves her from losing another experienced technician."

"I, I don't know, I've never played the game."

Heather chimed in. "Hey, I'm better than nothing and you can be too."

Angie was full of hope as she looked up into his face. Mark shrugged his shoulders. "I hate being nothing, so, sure, why not?"

She ran up and hugged him. "Thank you, thank you, thank you." She stepped back and turned to the guy. "Mike, can you get him registered. Billy Long Hair, he's about the size that Flanni was, use his pod." Angie whirled to face Janet. "Janet, we need to go over the Felding Code." Janet's eyes flicked to the side. She did it again. When Angie didn't respond, she add a head twitch. Angie looked and finally noticed her entire team was drifting closer.

Oh, Angie thought, I didn't prepare anything. Standing up as straight as she could, Angie turned to the assembling team. A clock on the wall showed the time. "We have lots and lots of stuff to get done and it is T-minus one-hundred minutes and counting until..." Angie was trying to find the right words, to everybody else it seemed like a dramatic pause, "the winning team takes the field."

The team cheered.

What the hell have I gotten myself into? Mark wondered.