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Chapter 1

 

“What do you want for dinner tonight, Alera?” Her mother called from the kitchen.

It was a Saturday morning, and she was dressed appropriately, which is to say, she had refused to dress at all, remaining in the baby blue pajamas she’d slept in. Alera skipped the last step of the stairs and stuck her head into the kitchen. “How about that new Asian place that just opened? Wong’s or Hmong’s or whatever?” Her mind filled with visions of spring rolls, noodles, sushi—she didn’t exactly know what was on the menu, but it couldn’t be anything less than an improvement on her mother’s home cooking.

“I’m sorry, buttercup, but we can’t afford takeout until I get paid on Monday. It’ll have to be something we can make with whatever ingredients we have.”

Alera suppressed a sigh. Why did you ask me if you knew we couldn’t have what I wanted? She wanted to ask. But she knew it wasn’t her mother’s fault that they were struggling financially. She was barely staying afloat working two minimum-wage jobs. Instead, Alera poked her head into the fridge—there was nothing much to see there, just a bottle of milk and some sour cream. Then she opened the cupboard. Alera shook her head in barely suppressed disgust.

There’s nothing wrong with Mac and Cheese,” said her mother. She had a smile so fake it belonged in a used car commercial plastered on her face. Alera returned the smile, trying and failing to inject some genuine warmth into hers, then shrugged and headed upstairs to her room. Maybe there isn’t, she thought, but it would be nice to have a choice. It wasn’t even that she didn’t have a choice: it was the fact that her mother had inadvertently dangled a choice in front of her, only for her to find out there never had been a choice in the first place.

She shook her head and sat down on her rickety old office chair, prepared to block out the rest of the world until dinner. This was her cave, where she was the ruler and everyone else a humble petitioner. Her mother didn’t approve of the amount of time she spent in front of her computer, but it had taken her nearly two years of working weekends at the local supermarket to afford a computer that could run semi-new games at a semi-reasonable frame rate. Now, she logged into her Vanguard account and tapped in her nickname: Butterfly. Not Butterfly123 or Bu77erfl1. She’d been playing the game since the beta, and she was unreasonably proud that she’d been able to snag such a common word, since every username had to be unique. It was a play on her real name: her mother had named her after a species from the homeland of her great-grandmother, Brazil.

Not bothering with either a shower, a toothbrush or a change of clothes, Alera logged in and jumped into the queue. Vanguard was a one-versus-one real-time strategy game, and this particular morning as she logged on, she was number fifty-two on the grandmaster ladder. Fifty-second best on the continent. She’d tried to explain what a big deal it was for her to be in the top one-hundred players in her region, but her mother failed to grasp the gravity of videogame accomplishments. “Imagine what your grades would look like if you didn’t spend so much time on games,” her mother would say.

Mom, my grades are fine. I got four B’s and the rest were A’s last semester.”

Then you have four chances to improve this semester,” her mother had said. “Look, I’m not saying you can’t play your video games. I’m saying you shouldn’t be playing them eight hours every day. Would it kill you to spend an hour more on homework, and one less on games? Or what about friends? Boyfriends? What’s that guy’s name again...”

Alera had shook her head. “Mom, I’m sure you’re thinking of Patrick. I’ve known him since we were like three years old, and he’s not my boyfriend. And for your information, we do hang out online all the time.”

Kids should really hang out face to face,” her mother had said.

Stop calling me a kid! I’m going to college in the fall,” she’d remarked, and stomped out of the room.

Truth be told, her mother was probably one of her best friends. But she wouldn’t be a Mom to a teenage girl if she wasn’t a bitch every once in a while.

Now, she pushed all that out of her mind and jumped into a game. It was an anonymous barcode account, I|Il|Illl|, and it had a ludicrously high rating and high ping, which meant it might be a Korean. A Korean GM! She had to beat this guy. Every time she got matched against one of those guys, she lost. They were too fast, and their strategies were next level. Before long, scouting, build orders and tech switches had subsumed all her mundane thoughts about annoying mothers or financial woes.

She lost a hard-fought game, but when she reviewed the demo, she noticed a weakness in their strategy: her opponent had left a tiny window of opportunity for a devastating counterattack in the opening. She downloaded several more demos from the same player, and began formulating her counter-strategy. This was where she was most comfortable: analyzing, crunching numbers, coming up with new ideas that no one had thought of before. It was what allowed her to rise in the ranks despite not being the most mechanically skilled player.

After a few hours of refining her new strategy and testing it in ladder games, she noted a certain discomfort in her abdomen. Alera put it to the back of her mind and jumped into the queue again. She was on a roll. She’d won four games in a row, three of them employing her new strategy, including one against the same account she’d previously lost to, and now sat at number thirty-seven on the ladder.

This was her secret: she could focus completely on the game for hours and completely shut out all outside influences and irrelevant sensations. Her back didn’t hurt, even though her chair was decidedly unergonomic. She didn’t notice her stomach rumbling because she hadn’t eaten all day. She didn’t get thirsty, she didn’t go up to go to the bathroom. All of those sensations would be neatly tucked away in the back of her mind, and then, once a long gaming session finally came to an end, all those repressed sensations came rushing in all at once: her back ached like a bitch, her fingers cramped up from holding onto the mouse too hard, her throat was parched, her stomach rumbled, and she frequently had to hobble-run to the bathroom before it was too late.

Around hour six, she felt an unpleasant stickiness around her midsection—sweat, surely, and she didn’t like the way her pajamas clung to her, but she ignored it and kept playing. Her miraculous form was continuing, and she had now advanced to the top thirty on the ladder. The games were harder now, because all her opponents were top players, some of them actual pros, but she kept a winning record. The light outside was fading, but she could barely see it through the blinds nnyway—hers was a classic gamer cave, which meant blocking any stray sunlight from reflecting in the monitor.

Around eight hours after she’d sat down to play, her hair now plastered to her skull with sweat, her armpits emanating an unpleasant odor, Alera was startled by a pitter-patter on the floor. She tore her eyes away from the rankings on her screen and looked down and—Oh no. No, no, no!

Her back chose that moment to act up, sending a shiver of pain radiating out from her spine, up to her shoulders. It was the cherry on top of an already awful sensation. Alera looked down at herself, at the once-blue crotch of her pajamas, which was now almost black, with streaks going down her inner thighs. Around the edges of the new wetness, which was glistening in the light from her desktop lamp, there was a slightly faded oval of drying wetness. She’d peed herself—no, she’d drenched herself, and from the looks of things, she’d done it twice. The stickiness from before which she’d filed away at the back of her mind as sweat must have been an earlier accident, and now, she’d lost control completely. Her socks were soggy, her feet placed in a puddle that extended all the way under her desk, and she shivered as the cool air from the vent passed over the partially dried accident from earlier, cold and wet. Her bum and the center of her crotch was unpleasantly warm, like she’d stepped into a pool fully clothed on a warm summer day, and her panties clung too tightly to her, giving her a cameltoe.

Alera’s cheeks warmed. She looked down on herself, at a loss for what to do. She’d gained a new peak rating, she’d developed a revolutionary new strategy that nobody had figured out how to counter yet, but all of her excitement faded in the face of this simple fact. In order to do so, she’d completely neglected her basic bodily functions—she’d peed herself, at eighteen years old, and like a baby, she’d been too focused on her game that she hadn’t even noticed.

Alera! Put away your game, dinner’s ready!” Came her mother’s voice. And—no, no, no! The voice was far too close. She wasn’t downstairs, she must be standing just outside Alera’s bedroom door. Which meant…

Alera, come on, dinner’s—oh my god! Did you pee yourself?”

Alera’s cheeks blossomed further. She sheepishly swiveled her chair around, making sure not to meet her mother’s gaze. Instead, she looked down at herself, at the evidence of her accidents, and that was almost as bad.

Oh my god, honey, what happened? Are you sick?”

Alera forced herself to meet her mother’s eyes. She could feel tears welling up, but she would not cry. Not in front of her mother, anyway. She’d put that desire away the same place she put her hunger and thirst and bladder when she played her game, and unbottle it all when she was alone. Then she’d have a good cry, she decided.

No,” she said, her voice curiously brittle. “I just… forgot.”

You forgot to go to the bathroom?” Her mother eyed her suspiciously.

Y-yeah.”

Oh my god,” said her mother, burying her head in her hands for a moment. “I thought it was just a myth, but you’re honest-to-god addicted to video games. I can’t believe I let this go on for so long.”

Mom! No! I’m not...” A surge of anxiety rose in her throat, and she felt like she might pass out, or vomit, or maybe one followed by the other. All color was drained from her cheeks now. She must look hollow.

That’s it,” said her mother. “This can’t go on. You’re not to play any more games—the computer’s off limitsand on Monday, when I get paid, I’m booking you an appointment with a psychiatrist. Good god, what that must cost, but I swear to god I’ll do it...”

Mom, no!” A couple of tears broke free despite her best efforts. Her mother had just told her that she was taking away the one spark of joy in her life, the one thing she did that made her forget all the crap in her life.

Clean up, honey, and come eat with me before the dinner’s cold,” her mother said. Her tone had shifted from threatening to comforting. Perhaps it was the tears that did it. Alera hadn’t resorted to them in a long time, and today, it hadn’t been deliberate. But in the past, she’d abused the fact that her mother could be strict, very strict, in fact, but she never could maintain that in the face of her daughter’s tears. Alera closed her eyes and waited until her mother’s footsteps faded. Then she opened her eyes, rose from her soggy chair, and set about removing her sticky, wet pajamas.

She caught a look in her mirror and noted that her entire backside, including the bottom part of the pajamas top, was soaked, an oval wet butt-stain that traced the contours of her body. She shook her head and peeled off the shirt, then the pants, and finally, her panties. She dropped the wet clothes into her puddle with a plop. Fuck this, she thought. I’m not giving up this easily.

Dinner was a muted affair. Neither mother nor daughter had much to say. Alera had opted to quickly shower and hadn’t even bothered to dress properly: she was now sitting in a clean pair of panties, a white tank top over a white bra, and nothing else. Her mother hadn’t questioned her choice of apparel. Alera raised her feet up on her chair, and she sat there hugging her knees with one hand, eating with the other, and said nothing.

Once she was done eating, she cleared away her plate without a word and raced upstairs. Her mother hadn’t had time to make good on her threat to remove her computer, so she logged on and found the one person who would understand: Patrick. Her oldest friend, the boy next door—well, technically, four doors down the street. The one her mother was convinced was her secret boyfriend. She didn’t know that Patrick was gay as hell and Alera hadn’t yet figured out if she was into boys, or girls, or neither, but he was still the one constant in her life outside her games.

Patrick’s face flickered onto her screen. “Hey, Al, what’s up? Have you been crying?”

She wiped her face on her sleeve. “You could tell?”

I can always tell,” he said. “So, tell me, what’s up?”

Y-you know how I get really into games, right?”

I may have noticed,” Patrick said with a smirk.

Alera wrinkled her nose. Despite copious amounts of air freshener, she still felt like there was a hint of stale urine in the air, underneath it all. She reached over and cracked the window open.

Well, sometimes I… forget to do things when I’m gaming.”

You mean you don’t eat. I’m always telling you, you gotta eat and hydrate. Take care of yourself, girl.”

Yeah, yeah,” she said. “But also… other things.”

You’re being a bit cryptic, Alera.”

I peed myself, Patrick! That’s what happened!”

She buried her face in her hands. She could hear Patrick’s girlish giggle over the video call. “It’s not funny!” She shouted, but the sound was muffled by her hands.

It’s just, that’s such a you thing to do,” Patrick said. “Let me guess, you just found a new strategy that you just had to perfect, right, and then you forgot that you’re a human, not an A.I., right… Anyway, that’s nothing to cry about. In a week’s time, that’s gonna be a funny story.”

Wait till you hear the next part,” Alera said. “My mom, she caught me. She caught me and now she thinks I’m addicted to video games, and she said she’s taking my computer away and she’s setting me up with a shrink!” She was almost out of breath, the words pouring out of her. It felt good to unburden herself to someone else.

Oh shit,” Patrick said. “Now I understand.”

I’m not addicted to video games, Patrick!”

Um,” Patrick said. He was pulling some kind of face, but she couldn’t read it. “You kind of are. And I’m probably enabling you.” He shrugged. “You’re a bad influence on me, you know, Al. I played games for four hours straight the other day.”

Four hours is amateur hour,” Alera said, before she could stop herself.

See, now, case in point,” Patrick said. “Your addiction is out of control. It’s like hearing a junkie talking about how many grams they shoot up every day.

Not funny! Let’s just, like, focus on the problem at hand.”

Okay, okay,” Patrick said, holding his hands out in front of him like a peace offering. “Look, you just have to, like, convince your mom this was a one-time thing. And then maybe cut off a few hours in your training regimen, until she calms down.”

Alera blushed.

Wait,” said Patrick. “Wait, hold up. It was a one-time thing, right?”

Alera’s cheeks turned a deeper shade of crimson.

Oh my god, it wasn’t, was it?”

It’s happened before,” she admitted, biting her lip. “Except this one was pretty bad, and she’s never caught me before.”

Oh my god,” said Patrick. “You’ve had this problem, how long? And you never told me!”

I was embarrassed,” she said, shrugging. Finally, her dirty, wet secret was out. She felt like a butterfly slipping its cocoon.

How often?” He asked.

I don’t know...” Her eyes flickered up as she tried to recall. “Maybe once a week. Twice, sometimes, if you count little leaks on the way to the bathroom. I kind of repressed it.”

My god, this changes things,” Patrick said.

It does?”

Yeah. I know of one solution, but you’re not gonna like it.”

Tell me!”

I think it’s better if I told you in person. Meet me at my place when we get off this call. But now, I had another idea. You need to convince your Mom that you’re not wasting time playing Vanguard.”

I’m listening,” she said. She felt a knot tie itself inside of her—what was that about her not liking his solution to her problem? But if there was one thing Alera was great at, it was putting away irrelevant thoughts and feelings and focusing on the issue at hand.

Well, didn’t you win an online tournament last month?”

I didn’t win it, I got third. This guy all-inned me and I just...”

Listen, that’s not the important part. Wasn’t there a cash prize?”

I talked to some guy on e-mail and gave him my address. He said he was gonna send me a check, but it never arrived. I figured it was a scam. I wasn’t really doing it for the money anyway.”

Listen, you’re gonna send that guy another e-mail right now and confirm that he’s actually sent the check. And then you’re gonna pray it arrives soon, and you’re gonna show it to your mom and prove to her you can actually make this a career, potentially.”

Okay...”

Send that e-mail now, then you meet me at my house.”

Okay.”

Patrick is an amazing friend, she reflected. She had a preternatural ability to focus, but she sometimes focused on the wrong thing—as evidenced by her history of accidents. But when she was with him, he somehow managed to turn that laser focus around and onto the correct target. If I ever go to a LAN, she mused, I’m taking Patrick as my coach.

 

You’ve got to be kidding me,” Alera said. They were standing outside a pharmacy. They’d loitered outside for half an hour while Patrick tried to talk her into his plan, and now, it was almost closing time.

Listen,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders. “You know it’s the only way if you don’t want to lose your game forever. Now, quit being a baby and follow my lead.”

Ironic.

She nodded, and together, they stepped into the pharmacy.

Ahem,” Patrick said. His voice was a lot less confident now that they were actually doing it. A matronly woman around her mother’s age turned around.

May I help you?” She asked.

I’m looking for, uh, adult diapers...” Patrick hesitated. “For my friend. She’s...” He gestured towards Alera, who tried to suppress a blush. “It’s not her, but this friend...”

Let me guess,” said the woman. “This friend of yours is a young woman with a build very much like the young woman who’s with you now.”

Patrick blushed. It was cute, she reflected. Then she realized that she probably ought to be more embarrassed than him, and now it wasn’t cute at all, it was horrifying. Patrick nodded. “Right, right...”

And this friend of yours, is she dealing with small leaks? Or full-blown wettings?”

Patrick looked toward her, struggling for words. “Uh, both?” She whispered.

Both of those, erm,” Patrick said. She’d spoken so silently that the woman must not have heard it.

I see,” said the pharmacy woman. “And this friend, has she been to a doctor about this little problem?”

Patrick shook his head. “Then,” the woman said, fixing Alera with her gaze, “I would strongly suggest she does so. She may have a perfectly treatable urinary tract infection, but UTIs get worse if they go untreated. Now, in the meantime, you are looking for a temporary solution to this issue, am I right?”

Ahem, yes,” Patrick said. He was now red as a tomato, and he was stuttering. It would have been adorable, if he wasn’t talking about her needing… Diapers.

Okay,” said the woman. “One final question: is this issue strictly urinary in nature, or is there also bowel incontinence?”

Alera frantically looked around for a basket or a hole in the ground she could hide in. None presented itself. Instead, she whispered to Patrick: “Only pee.”

Only, ah, the first one,” Patrick said. He wouldn’t meet her gaze.

Then I have just the product for you, young man,” said the woman. “You’re a good friend, supporting her in this, and I’m sure she must trust you a whole lot,” here her gaze flickered over to Alera, “to tell you about such an embarrassing problem. Now, I must stress, you must convince your friend to book an appointment with a urologist pronto.” She guided them towards the back, to a shelf lined with adult incontinence products. These products were not in the same aisle, Alera noted, as the baby diapers, which were displayed separately near the front of the shop. She wasn’t sure if that made it more or less embarrassing.

Patrick paid for the items without even asking her, which was nice of him. He must know she couldn’t afford to pay for herself, although she dearly wanted to.

Well, that went smoothly,” Patrick said as they exited the store. He broke into a fit of giggles, and she found she couldn’t quite maintain her composure either. Soon, both of them were laughing so hard they were crying. It felt like they’d pulled off some sort of heist.

 

Alera put the package of diapers in the back of her closet. She hadn’t quite worked up the courage to open it by the time Monday rolled around. Worse yet, she hadn’t received a reply to her e-mail from the tournament organizer. Alera could barely focus in her classes, which was unusual for her. Her mother had told her that she was taking her computer down to the basement later that day, and it wasn’t coming back until she’d seen a psychiatrist for at least a month.

She and Patrick didn’t speak of their little pharmacy adventure all day, although they hung out between each class. Instead, he was a trooper, keeping her mind occupied with everything that had nothing to do with gaming or her… little issue.

When she got home from school, she almost passed by the mail box. “Nothing good ever comes in the mail,” her mother would say. “It’s bills, and credit card scams, and more bills, and sometimes advertisements for things I can’t afford unless I sign up for one of those scams...” But as she passed the little box, she thought better of it. Maybe, just maybe, there are some good things in the world after all. She opened the mailbox.

There was a letter to her there. Alera never received any mail. It can’t be… Can it? She ripped open the envelope. Inside were two pieces of paper. She fished one of them out. It was a long, thin slip, thicker than ordinary paper. It had her name on it. And it read Alera Valdez, $1,500.000, then, on another line, 3rd-4th place in the Loot.bet Vanguard Rising Stars Spring Series. Her eyes glazed over. She couldn’t believe it. It had actually arrived! Actual, real money—a lot of money, too. All because she was good at video games.

Alera fished out the other piece of paper. It was a long document, and it took her a while to grasp its significance. She was invited to the Vanguard Rising Stars Spring Finals. It was a LAN tournament happening the upcoming weekend—in a city five hours away. And first prize was $15,000.

Well, Alera thought, a smile creeping onto her lips, not even my mother could be so heartless as to deny me this opportunity.

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Thanks, guys.

Chapter 2

“Let me get this straight,” Alera’s mother said, “I tell you I’m worried about your health and that you’re not to play any more video games, and your response is to tell me you want to travel hundreds of miles, stay in a hotel for three days, and play video games?”

“Mom, you’re not getting it. It’s an invitational tournament. There’s money on the line just for showing up. If I lose all my games, I still get enough money that the trip practically pays for itself. If I win, I get fifteen thousand dollars. And I can pay for the trip myself.” She’d waited to gauge her mother’s reaction before she pulled out her real trump card. Now, with a flourish, she produced the check for fifteen hundred dollars. She handed it to her mother without a word.

Her mother said nothing. She held the check up to the light, as if to verify that it was a forgery. She looked at the blank back. She peered intently at one part of it that, Alera guessed, said how much money she had won. Finally, her mother put the check down on the table.

“Alera,” she said, “is this really true? You didn’t make some kind of fake check to fool me into letting you play more?”

“It’s true, mom,” she said. “That came in the mail today. Remember when I told you last month I had placed third in that online tournament?”

Her mother nodded.

“That’s what I won. I thought I got scammed, because it never showed up in the mail, but it came today and it’s real.”

Her mother shook her head. “This is a lot to take in,” she said. “Let me… think about it.”

As long as you don’t take my computer away, Alera thought, think about it all you want. I’m eighteen years old, and you can’t stop me. Even if I have to steal your car, I’m going to that tournament.

She left the check on the table and walked upstairs to her room. Her computer was thankfully still sat in its usual place. She almost sat down to log in, but then she remembered what she’d hidden at the back of her closet. The solution to her little problem. The one that Patrick nearly died of embarrassment to get for her, and even paid for with his own money. How many hours had Patrick spent working in the bike shop just to pay for her… Diapers? She’d been too embarrassed to look at the price, but she could imagine they weren’t cheap. She took a deep breath, then plunged her head in among her old coats and dresses that were too small on her, and fished out a large plastic package. The front of it displayed a plain white rectangle suspended between the legs of what looked to be a quite mature lady. She shuddered. These were meant for old people. Not teenage girls who were overly obsessed with video games. Alera almost chucked the package back in the closet, but then she noticed the back side. It was a similar picture, showing the offending undergarment suspended around the midsection of a woman, but this woman looked like she was Alera’s age, and she was smiling. Incontinence protection for women of all ages, read the label.

She put the package on her desk. It was big enough that she needed to use both hands to carry it. Just how many… diapers… were in this thing? She shot a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure her mother hadn’t somehow sneaked up on her, then she grabbed a pair of scissors and cut open the package. She stuck her fingers in and managed to wriggle loose one of the tightly packed diapers. She pulled hard, and the thing came loose so suddenly and violently that it flew out of her hand and nearly knocked over her desktop lamp. Alera picked the diaper up off of the lamp and placed it on her bed.

It was a huge rectangle. She couldn’t imagine how she’d possibly wear that under clothes without looking like, well, like she was wearing a diaper. The front had no colorful designs, like baby diapers; it was plain white, except for a yellow strip on the front. Alera blushed when she realized what that was for: it was a wetness indicator. To show off if and when she used her diaper.

She took the cursed thing and flung it off the bed. Fuck this. I’m not a baby and I don’t need it. But then, as she was about to stomp on the diaper in defiance, her eyes flickered to her laundry basket. Alera walked over and took off the lid. The pungent aroma of old urine invaded her nostrils. There lay the evidence of her latest accident, which she’d been so upset about that she’d forgotten to put in the wash. Rummaging under the smelly, wet pajamas, she found two other pairs of panties with faded stains in the gusset from when she’d leaked on the way to the bathroom after a long gaming session. Cursing herself, she carried the whole pile of wet clothes into the laundry room and put them in the wash. Then she returned to her room and picked up the diaper.

If I win fifteen thousand, who cares if I do so wearing a diaper? She gingerly unfolded the diaper. If it looked huge when folded up, when she’d unfolded it, it looked positively gargantuan. Do I even have any clothes that could cover this? Alera pulled off her jeans, then, with a sigh, she threw off her panties. They were light pink, and when she studied the insides, she saw, to her horror, that there was a discolored, faded stain in the middle. As if even her underwear was trying to tell her she needed this.

Alera realized she had no idea how to put on a diaper. She had changed her baby cousin’s diapers, a few years ago when visiting her aunt, but one, he was a baby, and two, she wasn’t putting it on someone else, she was putting it on herself. And the thing she was currently hovering her bare butt over was about ten times the size of her cousin’s baby pants. She lowered herself onto it. It was surprisingly soft, like sitting on a pillow. Except normally, one didn’t strap a pillow between one’s legs and keep it there for the rest of the day, which was what she intended to do. She tried to pull the thing up and fasten it with the four tapes, but she couldn’t get it to sit properly on her hips. Alera cursed inwardly. Why is this so complicated?

She only had a limited number of hours in the day, and if she was to have any shot at winning the fifteen thousand dollar grand prize, she needed to practice all night for the rest of the week. She didn’t have any goddamn time to spend on putting on this goddamn diaper. But on the other hand, if her mother caught her in wet pants again, she wouldn’t be able to practice at all.

Finally, she’d fastened the tapes well enough that the diaper didn’t slide off. But when she rose from the bed, the thing sagged on her hips, and she could see downstairs to her nude crotch in the gap between her belly and the waistband. This thing was bone dry and it was already sagging like, well, like she’d used it. Twice. Which meant she’d probably done it wrong.

Sighing, she waddled over to the computer. It wasn’t that the diaper was too thick to walk in normally; it was thick, and kept her legs uncomfortably apart, but not quite that thick. It was more so the fact that it hung so loosely on her hips that she felt like it would fall off if she didn’t waddle like she’d crapped her pants.

Alera dialed up Patrick on a video call. She wasn’t looking forward to this conversation, but there was nobody else she could talk to about this stuff.

As she waited for Patrick to answer, she noticed that he’d sent something to her. It was a YouTube link to a cartoon video about an obsessive gamer who kept a “shit bucket” next to his computer, so he didn’t need to leave the game to crap.

“Ha. Ha. Very funny, Patrick,” she said as his dirty-blonde hair and grinning face showed up on the screen. “For your information, I have never crapped myself.”

“Just thought it was funny,” he said, doing his best imitation of an asshole teenage boy who had somehow body-snatched her best friend. “Come on, you gotta look on the bright side.”

“Says you, and you’re not the one who has a goddamn diaper strapped to her waist.”

“Oh, good, you put it on?”

Blushing, she stood up and angled her webcam so he could see.

“Oh my god,” he said. “One, that’s truly adorable.”

“Adorable? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“No, I mean that. But you interrupted me. One, adorable. Two, you appear to have put it on the wrong way.”

She looked down. Goddamn it. There was a very clear word, “BACK”, written on the front of her diaper. So that’s why the thing sags like I poured a bucket of water into it.

“Hold on, I’m coming over,” Patrick said.

“What? No, no, you can’t see me like this.”

“You already showed me. And somebody needs to make sure that thing is put on right.”

“You’re not getting to see me naked, you perv!” Alera almost yelled, but managed to modulate her voice in time not to alert her mother downstairs.

“Low blow, Al,” he said. “You know very well I’d never look at you in that way.” She did, at that.

Fine,” she said. “But only if you promise me you’ll finally ask James out this week.”

The color drained from his face. “Alera, I can’t do that, you know why...”

“We both know you want it. Why not?”

“What if he’s not...”

Honey, we both know he is. You’re just afraid of rejection.”

“Al, I don’t know...”

“You get to see me literally naked if you’re willing to be emotionally naked for one goddamn second and go get the guy of your dreams. Seems like a fair deal. I don’t even get a fairy prince at the end of this, I only get, like, a fucking diaper put on the right way in case I piss myself.”

“Oh… kay,” Patrick said. “Hold on, I’m coming over.” And he cut the connection.

Alera smiled. Although she wasn’t looking forward to her best friend coming over to diaper her, she was very happy that Patrick had promised to finally ask James out. He was a boy Patrick had been crushing on for half a year, and she’d tried for half a year to convince him to ask the guy out, but Patrick had a pathological fear that not only would he be rejected, he’d be rejected because James wasn’t into his gender. Except both of them were 99% sure James was, in fact, gay, and Alera was almost as certain she’d caught the boy sneaking shy glances at her friend when he wasn’t looking.

Ten minutes later, there was a knock at her door. Alera had huddled up under some blankets on her bed, hiding the shameful, back-to-front diaper from view. “Hey you,” Patrick said, as he opened the door. “Your mom let me in. I swear, the way she looks at me, you’d think she thinks of me as her son-in-law.”

She’s convinced you’re my boyfriend. I’ve told her a thousand times it’s not like that, but she’s so happy I’ve got a real friend to hang out with IRL that she refuses to listen.”

“God, you’ve definitely spent too much time on the internet,” Patrick said, rolling his eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“You just said Aye Arr Ell out loud.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Alera said. “Just come over here and let’s get this over with.”

She pushed the blankets out of the way, exposing her bare midriff where her shirt rode up, and below it, the poorly attached, sagging diaper.

“My, my, you made a mess of this, and you haven’t even pissed in it yet,” Patrick said.

“Please, let’s pretend you’re a nurse and be… professional about it,” Alera said.

“Funny,” he said. “Okay, I think you need to take it off, you’ve ruined the tapes.”

“Are you an expert on adult diapers suddenly?”

He blushed. “No, but I can tell they’re not properly attached. Come on, off you go,” he said, reaching over to unfasten her tapes.

“I can do it myself!” She nearly shouted. Carefully, slowly, she peeled off the tapes, and then, closing her eyes and blushing, she pulled the front of the diaper down, exposing herself to him.

“You can keep your eyes closed if you’re embarrassed,” he said. “But just know I’m only looking at you for strictly, uh, medical purposes.” She heard the rustle as he pulled another diaper out of the pack. Then he instructed her to lay down and lift her bum as he slid the ruined diaper out from under her and replaced it with a fresh one.

“Just for the record, this whole situation is super weird,” Patrick said. “Just so you know.”

Alera felt his knuckles touch her belly, and she shivered. She kept her eyes closed, unable to meet his eyes as she worked on fastening her into her diaper. She wondered, idly, what it would be like to be touched down there by somebody she was in love with. She wasn’t in love with James, at least not romantically; even so, it felt good, somehow, someplace deep below the humiliation of it all, to be touched so lovingly by someone she loved, even if she wasn’t in love with him. He was gentle, and quick, and he made sure not to touch her more than absolutely necessary. Before she knew it, she felt him grab her under the armpits and hoist her up to a seated position.

“All done!” He said. “You can open your eyes.”

She did so, and looked down to see the diaper taped with the front actually placed in front of her, as intended. She rose from the bed and gave her hips a tentative shake. The diaper moved slightly, with an embarrassing plastic rustle, but it hung firm to her hips.

“Oh my god,” she said, studying the diaper. “You’re brilliant. Do you really think I look, uh, adorable like this?”

“You do look cute,” Patrick said. “Very cute, but not, like, in the same way...”

“Not handsome and sexy, like James, you mean?” She winked at him. It was her way of reorienting the conversation from something that embarrassed her to something that embarrassed him. She could only bear for her childish underwear to remain the topic of conversation for so long.

“Oh, don’t get started,” he said, affecting a childish pout.

“You are going to ask him out, like you promised?”

“I don’t know, Al,” he said, shrugging.

“Patrick, for the love of god, you just saw me naked, you just touched me down there, and you just put a diaper on me, and all you have to do is ask your dream guy out on a date, which I know you’ve wanted to do for six months. Now, will you do it?” Alera put her hands on her hips, which looked quite silly, she reflected, when those hips were covered in baby underwear.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Patrick said.

“For real?”

“I’ll do it the day after tomorrow. We have a class together on Wednesday.”

“Good.” She nodded. “Now, uh, sorry to shoo you away, but the whole reason I put this thing on was I need to practice. I know I was kind of vague earlier, but I won a bunch of money, and they invited me to this LAN tournament where there’s fifteen damn thousand on the line for first place. So I kind of need to get my practice hours in.”

“Wow,” Patrick said. “Congrats.”

“It’s this weekend. Oh, Patrick, will you come with me? As my moral support and, like, coach or something?”

He shook his head, less a gesture of disagreement, more one of confusion. “Alera, I’d love to, but look. I’m Silver rank in Vanguard. I don’t know shit about high-level strategies. I don’t know what possible use I’d be to you in a tournament, as a coach.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Silly, I’m not asking you to teach me strategy. I need someone as a moral support. To keep my head straight. And just maybe, keep my diapers facing the right way. I’m not asking you to be something you’re not. I’m asking you to be my friend, and help me focus on the right things, like you always do. But the letter said I can only bring one person backstage with me as a coach, so I’d have to register you as a coach.”

“Okay,” Patrick said, as if she hadn’t just dumped a whole lot of responsibility on him with no promise of any particular reward. She felt her shoulders relax as he nodded.

“In that case,” Patrick said, “as your coach, here’s your first order: You gotta find a practice partner. I may not know what the best strategies are, but I know you’re brilliant at finding them, and I know it’s not a great idea to reveal them all on the ladder before the big tournament.”

Alera shook her head. She hadn’t thought of that. “I don’t know who that would be,” she said. “I don’t really communicate with the other top players, outside of typing ‘gg’ after the end of a game.” Then she had an idea. “Wait! I know who to talk to! Thank you again, Patrick, you’re brilliant!” She sidled over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she noted that her initial embarrassment about wearing the diaper in front of Patrick seemed to have vanished. As if, somehow, this was how things had always been between them. She sent him on his way, and then she sat down by her computer.

Alera found the anonymous account she had beaten with her new strategy the other day, the one she was pretty sure belonged to a Korean grandmaster. She composed a personal message to the player:

 

Hello, this is kind of strange, I know, but we played some games on the ladder this weekend. I am going to be playing in my first LAN tournament soon, and I’m looking for a practice partner. I think you might be Korean, and so we won’t be competing at the same tournaments, so you and I can both benefit from this. I know this might seem strange coming from a stranger, but I really enjoyed our games this weekend, and I believe you are one of the best players in the world, and I really need to practice against the best to be the best. Also, I beat you with that tech-delay timing attack, and if I were you I would want a chance at revenge.

Sincerely, Butterfly

 

She hit SEND. Then she sat staring at the screen. No response message was forthcoming. Of course not. The few times she received PMs, she took hours or even days to respond. Usually, they were from salty opponents who had lost to her, and were now there to insult her intelligence, her looks (even though she didn’t have any pictures of herself on her profile), her skills, or to accuse her of being a cheater. And if the anonymous account really belonged to one of the best players in South Korea, as she suspected, they must receive a lot of hate messages and a lot of stupid fan messages.

She hopped into a ladder game, but for once, she was unable to focus on the game. She only managed to win because her opponent made a stupid mistake. She looked at her opponent’s profile. Hmm. Number sixty-seven on the ladder. Somehow, in the past few months, she had gone from being in awe at the top 100 players, when she herself was just breaking into that world, to now, somehow beating a solid top 100 player even though she was unfocused and played below her usual level.

Ping! The little message bell rang out in her headphones. She quickly opened the message. It was written in very broken English, with passages that looked like they were taken straight from Google Translate. But as she pieced together an understanding of the reply, a smile crept onto her lips. The anonymous player confirmed that he was Korean, and said that he usually didn’t practice with players outside of his team—confirming, without a doubt, that this was an actual, honest-to-god professional—but that he was very intrigued with the strategy she had identified to exploit the weakness in his opening. “American players very bad,” he wrote, “I only play there sometime for relaxing. But you only one found good strategy.” They sent a few messages back and forth, and agreed that he would practice with her for a few days, in exchange for her finding a way to plug the hole in his opening strategy that she’d identified.

Hands shaking with excitement, she typed: “What is your real nickname?”

Three dots appeared, indicating the mysterious Korean grandmaster was typing. A single word in reply: Saehwong.

Oh my fucking god. Alera opened the Korean ladder. Number one, Saehwong. 6900 Elo. She navigated to Liquipedia, the esports encyclopedia, to confirm her memory wasn’t playing tricks on her. She opened the page about the recent Vanguard World Championship. Runner-up: Saehwong.

“Oh my god,” she said out loud. “The second best player in the world is going to be my practice partner!”

The two of them played games together for five hours. She lost most of them, but she didn’t care. She was practicing against the best possible opposition, short of the actual world champion. And as she continued to play, she felt her confidence surge. She wasn’t as fast as him, and her strategies weren’t as refined, but by the fifth game, she no longer felt out of her depth. She never felt as if she didn’t understand why she lost, and she was able to implement immediate improvements to her game as a response. Some small-scale NA players are gonna be easy after this, she thought. As a final test, she said good-bye to Saehwong for the night and loaded into a ladder game on the North American ladder. She won, easily, using a strategy Saehwong had just used to beat her. Then she looked at her opponent’s profile. Number nine in North America. And I just beat him easily. He never had a chance!

Alera knew her hopes of winning the tournament were slim. She had never played a LAN tournament before. She’d never played in front of a crowd, on a stage, with fifteen thousand dollars on the line. But for the first time since she received the invitation, she felt like it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.

By that time, it was almost midnight. For the first time in many hours, Alera’s thoughts were pulled back to what she was wearing. And what she wasn’t wearing. Her diaper, thankfully, was dry, but her bladder was aching, and she knew she probably had no more than five minutes before it was too late.

She also knew that in order to actually rush downstairs and pee, she needed to put on some pants. In her excitement, she hadn’t remembered to put any on after Patrick left.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Chapter 3

By Wednesday morning, Alera had deep bags under her eyes, and she could barely keep awake through her classes. She’d stayed up until 2:30 AM playing practice games against Saehwong, which must be a lot earlier his time. The moment she got back from school, she’d sat down to fulfill her end of the deal: She needed to come up with an improvement to Saehwong’s opening strategy that nullified the counterattack she’d come up with. After a few hours, she’d come up with a partial fix. It didn’t completely rule out that her counterstrategy would be successful, but it made the timing window for it to succeed much smaller. She sent her notes on the newly improved strategy to Saehwong, who popped online an hour later, and spent thirty minutes picking apart the weaknesses in her approach. My God, she thought, he’s amazing. The way he analyzes strategies is on another level. She would ask, what is wrong with what my opponent is doing, and how can I counter that? Then she would be satisfied when she found the answer. He would ask, supposing there is a way to counter this, can I fake that I’m countering, and bait my opponent into countering my counter, only to secretly switch into an entirely different strategy? Could you do the same, and how could I identify that? For every answer, he had another question. It required an extreme kind of focus, difficult even for her, to keep up with the Korean phenom’s rapid stream of thought. It didn’t help that she spoke zero Korean, and his English was rudimentary at best. At least he knew most of the game-specific terms in English, even if all the bits in-between required a while to parse.

All of this was possible only because her mother had relented, slightly. When she came home from work, she’d called Alera down and told her they were going to have a serious talk. Trembling with anticipation, she made her way downstairs. Thankfully, she hadn’t put on a diaper yet.

Alera, I’ve thought about this a lot,” her mother said. “You’re serious about this? Making money and… a career in video games?”

It’s called esports, Mom,” she said. “But yes. I am. And I intend to go as far as I can go with it. I’m already one of the best players in the country, Mom. And this tournament I’m going to,” and here she refused to even acknowledge the possibility that she wouldn’t be, “is small fry. It’s a gateway. If I do well there, I will be invited to even bigger tournaments, with even bigger prize pools. And if I show what I’m good for, I may even be able to get a sponsor or two. You could get that back surgery you’ve been putting off for two years because it’s so expensive, and we could eat at Wong’s or Hmong’s or whatever, whenever we want. I want this for me, but I also want this for you.” Alera almost wanted to pat herself on the back for how grown-up and mature she sounded.

Her mother sighed. “Okay, here is how I’ve decided it’s going to go. You can continue playing your games, and go to your tournament, provided you pay your way there yourself. If you agree to see a counselor after the tournament, to make sure your games aren’t having a negative impact on your health. You will continue to see the counselor until he or she says that you no longer need their help. You understand?”

Alera nodded. She felt giddy already. She’d been ready to defy her mother, to run off to play in this tournament, but it had been a girl’s fantasy. She didn’t really know if she had it in her to pull it off, and she hadn’t even considered that she needed a home to get back to after the tournament was over.

Good. Also, you will not slack off on schoolwork and you will finish high school. You will improve at least one of those B’s from last semester into an A. If I think you’re not putting your all into school, I’m pulling the plug on the games. Understood?”

She nodded. Thankfully, she’d finished most of her homework for that week during home room and over the lunch break. She’d anticipated that she needed every waking hour that she wasn’t at school practicing.

Okay. And for the love of all that is holy,” her mother said, “go to the bathroom if you need to pee. I do not want to find my nearly grown daughter sitting in a puddle of urine because she was too obsessed with video games to go to the potty. Ever. Understood?”

Yes, Mom. It was a one-time thing, and it was really embarrassing, so can you please, like, not make such a big deal out of it?” She let her lip tremble slightly, as if she were about to cry. It was an old trick she’d perfected around the time she was twelve, to disarm any motherly disappointment with a show of vulnerability. She felt dirty, manipulating her mother emotionally like this, but it was necessary.

I’m sorry, honey,” her mother had said. “I know that must have been really humiliating. I won’t mention it again, if you make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Alera nodded. Mom doesn’t need to know I’m making sure it won’t happen by wearing adult diapers.

She trudged upstairs again to practice more with Saehwong, only to realize that now she needed to actually put on the diapers, and she had no idea how. She’d kept her eyes closed when Patrick put them on her the previous day, and her own attempt had been a disaster. Finally, she decided it was time to get professional help. She called up Patrick on her computer, and had him guide her through how to put it on. Alera spent most of the call motivating her friend to actually go through with his promise to ask his crush out the next day. In between all that, he managed to guide her into putting the diaper on herself. It didn’t fit quite as snuggly as it did when Patrick put it on her, but it wasn’t sagging down her thighs, and she thought it might actually be good for something if she did have an accident.

This time, she reminded herself to actually put on some pants, in case her mother unexpectedly showed up while she was deep in a game. She found a pair of sweatpants that sat loosely on her. Almost too loosely, as she’d lost a little weight recently, something Patrick attributed to her obsession with games interfering with the natural instinct to eat when you’re hungry. It’s not like you were fat before, Alera, he’d said. You were skinny and now you’re even skinnier. You don’t need to lose weight, and you definitely don’t need to lose weight because you were too obsessed with Vanguard to remember to eat.

She blushed at the thought. Did she really have a problem? Was she actually, truly addicted to video games? Alera took the thought and stuffed it into the back closet of her brain. Now, she needed to focus on her practice games.

Around midnight, Saehwong told her in his usual broken English that he needed to take a bathroom break. At that point, she realized that she, too, seriously needed to pee. In fact, she wasn’t sure that she hadn’t already leaked a little into her diaper. It was so absorbent that she figured she’d need to pour—or urinate—a whole milk-glass’ worth of liquid into it before she even noticed it was wet. Alera shifted in her seat, trying and failing to ascertain the state of her diaper. What an absurd situation, she thought. One week ago, I would have called you crazy if you even suggested I’d even be in this dilemma. What was certain, however, was that she was desperately in need of a restroom break. And her practice partner had just gone for just such a break. It was perfectly reasonable for her to do the same. Why, then, did she not feel like it?

I’m wearing this because I expect to use it sometimes, she reasoned. And I have yet to actually do so. I don’t even know if it will hold a full bladder. What if I’m in the grand finals of a tournament, and I wet myself thinking I’m safe, and the diaper leaks all over my pants? What if I win, and during the winner’s interview, my wet pants are on display for half a million viewers on Twitch.tv? It was, she had to admit, an absurd kind of logic, but it made sense nonetheless. I should really test this thing to make sure it actually holds up under pressure.

And so she resolved to deliberately pee her diaper. It was stupid, from an outsider’s perspective, with the bathroom a mere twenty feet away. Just down the stairs and to the right. But it made sense to her. She closed her eyes and willed herself to pee. But despite how her bladder ached, it wouldn’t come. Despite how she could barely sit still with an ocean of pee in her, begging to be released, nearly two decades worth’ of potty training prevented her from releasing.

Alera closed her eyes. She envisioned herself on the porcelain throne, she imagined a sink slowly filling next to her, the spatter of drops, the shhhh sound of the water. And the floodgates opened. It was strange, to feel herself do this: When she was deep in a game and she had an accident, she didn’t even notice, except for a vague discomfort she quickly shuffled away for later reference. Now, she felt the full brunt of what she was doing, the wetness spreading from her crotch, catching on the absorbent padding but not quite at the rate at which she wouldn’t feel it; the feeling of warmth enveloping her nether regions, of a slowly expanding puddle underneath her bum. She peed for a minute, and then she looked down at her pants. She rose from her chair and felt the backside of her sweatpants. They were dry. She sat down with a squish, and then she felt the absorbent padding start to swallow her urine. Alera looked down on her crotch, and knowing what was under her pants, she could she somewhat of a swelling, but nothing she thought would be immediately noticeable if you didn’t know to look. She got up and pirouetted to see herself in the mirror. Yes, there was a slight bulge around her midsection; yes, her flat butt suddenly looked unnaturally curvaceous; but if anybody were to look, they would just think she was naturally endowed with a big butt. Moving around, she felt the slight squish of the wet padding, but it wasn’t that distracting. And now, she realized, she was unencumbered by biological needs; the feeling of relief from something she had been ignoring for hours was immense.

And then Saehwong reappeared from his bathroom break, and they continued to play.

That was why she was now sporting unfashionable bags under her eyes. But Alera didn’t care. She was sitting in the cafeteria, watching as Patrick mustered his courage. He was walking alongside James, a tall, lanky boy with a handsome face and just a hint of muscle in his chest and arms. Alera knew the two had AP Biology together. They were talking, and laughing, and then Patrick turned so he had his back turned to her. The two talked in hushed tones, and she couldn’t hear what they were saying, but after five minutes, the two separated. Patrick came over to her, and from the way he walked, a strange and excited spring in his step, she could guess how it had gone.

He said yes!” Patrick said, giving her a pearly white smile.

Oh my god,” she said, leaning over to hug him. “I told you! I told you to do it, and you did, and look where it got you!” She almost felt like she’d already won the tournament. She had butterflies in her stomach on her friend’s behalf.

I told him I had to do a thing this weekend,” he said, casually referencing the tournament she spent every waking hour obsessing over. “So he said, why don’t we go for ice cream tomorrow? Tomorrow, Al. I’m going out with James Monroe tomorrow. For ice cream!”

He couldn’t stop smiling. She beamed a smile back. “Amazing,” she said. “See? Nice guys always win. It might take them six months, but they win in the end.” It was a typical discussion they’d repeated all the time. Patrick believed that if you wanted to get ahead of the game, romantically, you needed to be a bad boy. And he didn’t have it in him. Alera, though she was a young woman, and so, stereotypically, the one who was supposed to fall for the bad boys, had little experience dating. She hadn’t even decided yet which gender, or genders, she was actually into, romantically. But she had always insisted that you didn’t need to be a bad boy to get a boyfriend, or a girlfriend. All you needed to do was be confident and kind. Though Patrick struggled with the former, he had a way about him, when he finally committed to something he’d been anxious about—a sort of serene calm, almost fatalistic, that she’d always admired. And he was kind to a fault.

“By the end of that date, it won’t be an ice cream cone he’s licking,” she teased.

“Oh, shut up,” Patrick said. But he was smiling as he said it.

 

She was about to message Saehwong when there was a knock at her door. Patrick stepped in, holding something behind his back. “What’s that, dude?” She asked. “Come on, show it here!”

I’ve got a present for you,” he said. “Close your eyes.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

She did so.

“Ok, you know the bicycle shop I work at sells a lot of other sports equipment, right?”

Yeah?” She said. She wasn’t quite following.

“Well, we supply the jerseys to most of the local sports teams. Meaning, we have a t-shirt printer.”

“Oh… kay,” she said.

Open your eyes,” Patrick said. She did so.

He was holding a blue shirt in his hands. She recognized it as the same color worn by the local soccer team. He turned it around so she could see the backside. It had a butterfly on the middle and lower back, and on top, it said, Butterfly, and below that, in a smaller typeface, Alera Vasquez. There was an American flag next to her name. It looked slightly amateurish, but at the same time, it made her feel strangely proud.

“Say something!” Patrick said.

Oh my god,” she said. “I think I’m in love.”

“You like it?”

I fucking can’t believe you made this!” Patrick handed her the shirt. “Let me put it on. Turn around. Actually, screw that, you’ve already seen me nuder than this.” She shrugged off her shirt, which, she noted, had a coffee stain on the lapel. Then she donned the new jersey Patrick had made her. She looked down and noted that a smaller version of the butterfly on the back now adorned her right breast, and her left breast had an American flag.

Oh my god,” she said again. “You know that’s not an Alera butterfly, right?” Stupid. Why did I say that?

“Oh, shut up,” he said. “It looks awesome on you.”

She studied herself in the mirror. From a distance, she couldn’t tell the difference from the Evil Geniuses and Team Liquid and SKT Telecom T1 jerseys her favorite players wore at all the biggest tournaments.

There were dark rings under her eyes, and she could see the effects of not eating properly for the past few months. At one point, she had begun to develop curves, but now, everything about her was flat; the only part of her that still accentuated her femininity was her chest. Most of her pants were now too big, and her shirts hung loose on her. At least it would make it easier to hide diapers under her clothes. But Alera didn’t care all that much; she had never dreamed about being admired for her looks. The jersey represented something deeper and more important: it represented mastery. She was going to a tournament to play for fifteen thousand because she was that good.

“Jesus effing Christ,” she said. “I’m really doing this. I’m actually going to a LAN with an actual fucking jersey with my name on it.”

Patrick smiled. “Now all you need to do is go win with that jersey. By the way, that thing cost me forty dollars.”

“I’ll pay you,” she began.

“No,” he said. “No way. I’m your first sponsor, okay? I can only do forty dollars, but goddamn if it won’t be the best-looking forty dollars you ever saw.”

Alera nodded.

“Now, as your coach, isn’t it time to practice?”

“Yes, coach,” she said, smiling.

“Wait a minute,” Patrick said. “About your underwear...”

Alera blushed. She’d been so excited by the jersey, she’d completely forgotten about the package of diapers in the back of her closet, next to a double-tied garbage bag contained one very used adult diaper.

“I know how to put it on now,” she said.

“Let me be the judge of that,” Patrick said. And for some strange reason, she relished him saying that. She wanted him to approve of the way she put on the diaper.

He put his back to her while she removed her pants, her panties, and then fluffed out the adult diaper the way he’d taught her. She took her time, remembering everything he’d told her in the video call the previous day: make sure the tapes fit snuggly, make sure the leak guards are facing the right way… Finally, she was done. “You can turn around,” she said.

Patrick eyed her. He was like a surgeon, analyzing her childish undergarments and the way they fit her body like it was some kind of cast for a serious bone break. “Looks good,” he said, walking up to her, “but these,” and he adjusted the leak guards, “need to be placed so they actually catch any leakage.”

Alera blushed. There was something strangely intimate about this. “Thanks,” she said instead, too casually.

“Now you can get to practicing. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”

“I’ll be sure to give you a pep talk so you don’t back out of your date!”

No way,” he said, blowing her an air kiss as he left.

Damn, Alera thought. Better take off this shirt before I get it all sweaty. It needs to be clean for the tournament.

She logged in to see an impatient message from Saehwong. He had some new ideas that he wanted her to try, and he was wondering where the hell she was, since she’d originally promised to be on twenty minutes ago. Apparently, Korean pro players were really particular about deadlines.

Good, Alera thought. I can’t get lazy. She messaged him, apologizing, explaining that her friend had brought her a new jersey for her tournament. She thought he wouldn’t care, would tell her there were more important things than jerseys, but he seemed—underneath the barely intelligible English—to be excited for her. She sent him a selfie of herself wearing the jersey.

You look good,” he wrote. Wow, she thought, the second best player in the world just told me I look good in this jersey. That has to be sign, right?

Now, about strategy we talk last night…”

Alera dove into a world of build orders and strategies and didn’t emerge until it was long past midnight.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Chapter 4

 

Alera woke up to a message from Patrick: “Did you make sure you have the weekend off work?” Shit shit shit. She hadn’t. She’d cut back on her hours when she could finally afford her gaming PC, but she hadn’t stopped working completely. Alera and her mother still depended on her income to make it each month. She looked at the time: 8:05 AM. Alera picked up her phone and dialed her manager, Sarah.

Hey,” said a sleepy voice on the other hand. “It’s early as fuck. What’s up, Al?”

Just calling to make sure I have the weekend off,” she said.

“Let me see...” Sarah said. “Nope, you’re on for Saturday and Sunday. Got plans?”

Sarah,” Alera said, “I need the weekend off. There’s a… competition I have to go to, and I can win fifteen thousand dollars.”

Damn, girl,” said Sarah. “The only prize I can offer you here is getting stared down by Old Albert.” Old Albert was an elderly gentleman who seemed to come into the supermarket solely to ogle the young female staff. “Tell you what, I’m not working this weekend. I can take your shift if you take mine next weekend.”

Thanks a million, Sarah.”

“No problem. So what’s the competition? What are you competing in?”

“It’s, uh, a video game…” She trailed off. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Try me. What game? It’s not Fortnite, is it?

“Uh, no? It’s Vanguard.”

Really? I was gonna watch the Rising Stars tournament tonight, but I guess I’ll watch your tournament instead,” Sarah said. Alera shook her head, as if her conversational partner could see it. She’d had no idea Sarah was into esports.

I, uh,” Alera stammered. “That’s the tournament I’m going to.”

Wow,” said Sarah. “I’ll be watching you! What’s your nick?”

Butterfly,” she said.

“I just read an article about you!” Sarah said. “Good luck. I’ll be checking my phone in-between customers.”

Give Albert a kiss from me!

“Shut up or I’ll make you work tomorrow,” Sarah said.

“Okay, bye.”

An article about me? Alera pulled up her phone and entered vanguard-news.com. There it was, at the top: Vanguard Rising Stars Spring Finals Announces Last Participant. She clicked on the article:

 

The Vanguard Rising Stars Spring Finals kick off tonight, but they had yet to announce the final participant to complete their 12-man tournament roster. But it seems the last participant will not be a man, but a woman. Rising Stars has announced that the final participant in the tournament will be online star Alera “Butterfly” Vasquez. Vasquez has been tearing up the ladder in the past weeks, but her only tournament result of note is a 3rd-4th place in the online Rising Stars Spring Series.

Said Vanguard News analyst Roger “dAnger” Adams, “Butterfly is an exciting young prospect. Despite her lack of tournament results, I am excited to see how she does on LAN.” Butterfly will be the first woman to participate in an elite Vanguard LAN tournament.

The Loot.bet Vanguard Rising Stars Spring Finals start at 6:00PM tonight.

 

Wow. It was a brief article, but it was an article about her. About her being “an exciting young prospect.” Alera pumped her fist at nobody in particular. She wanted to tell someone about this, but her mother wouldn’t understand. Patrick was probably getting ready for school.

As should she, she realized. Alera jumped out of bed ran downstairs. She barely had time for a five-minute shower before she had to get ready for the school bus. Still, it was worth it.

On the way to school, the only thing on her mind was strategies, approaches, and tactics she could employ in her first match. If she did an aggressive first game, she could fake an aggressive push in the second game and gain a huge economic advantage; but on the other hand, if she went too aggressive, her opponent might simply turtle up and play the economic game himself… It wasn’t until she stepped off the bus that she realized she’d forgotten to put on any socks.

Alera met up with Patrick in the schoolyard. He looked somehow diminished. His usual cheer was gone. It wasn’t what she’d expected after his long awaited date.

“Hey! How’d your date go?” She asked.

“It was okay,” Patrick said, not looking at her.

“What do you mean, just okay? Did it go badly?”

“You know how when you really look forward to something, and you hype it up for months, when it actually happens, it’s hard to live up to the expectations?”

That was exactly how she felt when a new game released. Alera nodded.

“Yeah, it was kind of like that.”

“So, are you going to see him again?”

“I don’t know,” Patrick said, and the look he gave her made her want to cry. She put an arm around her friend’s shoulder.

“Aw,” she said. “I’m sure it’ll work out. And if he can’t see how amazing you are, he’s an asshole and doesn’t deserve you.”

Patrick looked over at her, hurt in his eyes. “He’s not an asshole,” he said quietly. “It just didn’t click right away like some fairytale romance.”

Alera had very little experience with romance, so she didn’t know what to say. Instead, she pulled Patrick into a hug. “Well, I love you, bro, and I’ll be there for you no matter what,” she said.

“Thanks. We’re late for class,” he said.

Alera couldn’t concentrate for the first two classes. It would have been one thing if she was distracted by her plans for the tournament, which was actually important. Maybe more important than her classes. But no: she was busy trying to figure out just what had happened during Patrick’s date, and how she could fix it. She’d been certain, in some teenage fantasy way, that the moment they admitted their feelings for one another, they would each realize they were madly in love and be happily ever after. Obviously, this was a silly fantasy, but it was what she’d wanted for her friend. She had her game, which was, to be perfectly honest, her first, second and third loves, but Patrick had nothing but her. And she couldn’t be what he needed, nor was she what he actually wanted. But she couldn’t come up with a solution.

When Alera started working on a problem, she worked until she had a solution. Not only a solution, but the solution, superior to all possible solutions. She hated being wrong almost as much as she hated being ignorant, and when her mind focused on something, it would not let go. But this was another kind of problem, a human problem, and it wasn’t one she could solve just by brains and willpower.

In the break between the second and third classes of the day, Patrick came over to her. “Hey, champ,” he said. “I can tell you’re distracted. Get your head in the game!”

“Sorry,” she said. “I was thinking of your date.”

“Stop it!” Patrick said. “It is what it is. You can’t fix it. It’ll either fix itself or it won’t. It’s nothing to do with you.”

“But you’re my friend...” She tried.

“And as your friend, I’m telling you, it’s none of your business. Okay?” He put his arms on her shoulders. “You have to focus on your tournament and the fifteen kay you’re gonna win for yourself and your mom. By the way, we have to leave after lunch or we won’t make it in time.”

“Oh shit! We’ll have to skip classes!”

“Yeah, let’s be Bonnie and Clyde, driving down the highway,” Patrick said.

“I’ll be Bonnie and you be Clyde,” she said.

“Nuh-uh,” Patrick said. “Clearly, I am Bonnie, and you’re Clyde. You have that murdering sociopath look on you.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

“One more class,” Patrick said, “then we leave, pick up your shit back at home, and drive off into the sunset. I packaged the shotgun and you bring the bullets.”

“Did you really?”

“No, but I kind of wish I did.”

 

“Did you pack everything?” Patrick asked as she hauled her suitcase to her mother’s car. She nodded.

“Got it all. Clothes, toothbrush, toothpaste, keyboard, mouse, strategy notebook...”

“Did you bring the diapers?”

“I, uh… No?”

“I think you should. Just in case.”

Alera bit her lip. “Fine.” She climbed out of the car, walked upstairs to her room, and rummaged through the back of her closet where she’d hidden the shameful undergarments. They really were huge, and she didn’t know how many she should bring, so she packaged the whole package in a backpack. “All done,” Alera said, sliding into the passenger seat. “By the way, you’re driving.”

“Because you’re gonna be too obsessed with planning for your games to keep your eyes on the road?”

“Yes. Also, because I don’t have my driver’s license yet.”

“What? I thought you got done that ages ago?” Patrick asked.

“I haven’t had time to schedule the final test.”

“Figures.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey,” Patrick said. “I thought you were Clyde. Or Bonnie. I forget.”

“Touché,” Alera said. “Now drive.” They pulled out of the driveway, and then they were on their way.

Alera picked up her strategy notebook and began scribbling. She had a lot of ideas from her last practice session, but she hadn’t had the time to put her thoughts in order yet. She’d identified several flaws in her game which should be simple fixes, but she needed to get the details right. In Vanguard, timing was everything. Doing the right thing one second too late could lose you a game. She scribbled down a word: tempo. It was a chess term. In chess, a tempo is a move which demands that the opponent respond immediately. This essentially grants the player delivering the tempo a free move, since their opponent must abandon their plan to respond to the threat, while you can continue with your plan. In a real-time game, where both players make simultaneous moves, one could not gain a “free move”, but one could gain free time by delivering a threat to temporarily distract one’s opponent from their plan. She had several strategies which almost worked. She had devastating attacks which would be a few seconds late against a good opponent. If she could only figure out a way to gain a few extra seconds to prepare, she could make the strategy work. She needed a tempo move which would delay her opponent’s response without compromising her plan. And now, scribbling furiously, she thought she had it.

Let’s stop for a restroom break,” Patrick said. Alera looked up. The clock on the dashboard showed that they’d been driving for three hours.

I don’t need to pee,” Alera said, picking up where she left off. If she pushed a small force towards this particular chokepoint, she could…

“You’re squirming,” Patrick said.

Alera put down her notebook. She looked down at her thighs, which were indeed shaking, and realized that she did, indeed, need to pee. Her bladder was pushing against the waistband of her jeans, pushing to release. She hadn’t even noticed.

Patrick had stopped at a gas station. Blushing, Alera unbuckled herself and powerwalked into the gas station. She found the restrooms towards the back. Sitting on the toilet, she counted the seconds as she peed. One, two, three… Forty-five. Come to think of it, she hadn’t peed since that morning. She could easily have stayed engrossed in her planning for the next two hours, and she didn’t think she could have held it two hours. She’d have ended up peeing in her mother’s car. Alera felt her cheeks warm. She was supposed to be an adult, not a child, and yet she needed Patrick to tell her when to pee. Maybe I’m, like, an autistic savant at video games. Maybe I’ll be winning championships but I’ll need a live-in caretaker to make sure I eat, drink, sleep, and pee.

Alera shook her head. It wasn’t that bad. She hadn’t peed herself. And she had been unusually focused because of the upcoming tournament and what it could mean to her future. She wasn’t usually like this. Self-conscious, she bought a sandwich and a bottle of lemon water. She’d at least make sure she had eaten and was hydrated when she arrived.

You’ve barely said a word the past three hours,” Patrick said when she got back into her seat. “Just occasionally mumbling to yourself. ‘Hmm, yes,’ or ‘no, that won’t work.’ I know you get super focused when you’re in the zone, but I’ve never seen you like this before.”

I’m sorry,” she said. “I think I just figured out my opening strategy for the first game. I shouldn’t have ignored you.” She took a sip of her water.

“It’s okay,” he said, pulling out of the gas station. “This weekend is about you, and I want you to be focused on what matters right now, which is winning this tournament. Let me worry about taking care of you outside the game.”

That’s sweet,” she said, “but also wrong. I can’t rely on you to be, like, my daddy or something. I need to take better care of myself. You can’t be with me for the rest of my life like a… zookeeper.” She took a bite of her sandwich. “Tell me about you. What did you do on your date?”

Went for ice cream. Went for a walk and talked. It wasn’t very exciting, to tell you the truth.”

Ice cream and a walk and talk can be really romantic together with the right person,” she said.

“You would know, with all your extensive dating experience?” Patrick shook his head. “Sorry. That was unfair.”

It’s okay,” she said. “You’re right, I haven’t really dated much. But give me some credit. I am, after all, a girl. I do have some notions of romance.”

Patrick chuckled. “Really? You’re dreaming of romance and it’s not about marrying your video game?”

Alera smiled. “I do, as a matter of fact. I dream of finding the right person, and the things we would do. It’s just that I have no clue what that person looks like. I don’t even know if the person is a woman, a man, or something else.”

Patrick took his hand off the steering wheel and rested it on her shoulder. “I know there’s somebody for you out there, and you have plenty of time to figure out who that person is.”

I want someone like you,” Alera said. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not in love with you. I love you as a friend, but I don’t have the hots for you. I just want a person who I can be myself with and trust totally, like you. But who also, you know...”

“Gets you all hot and bothered?” Patrick offered with a smirk.

“Something like that,” she admitted.

They said nothing for a minute.

James was everything I’d hoped for,” Patrick began. “We talked about movies, and music, and about friendship and how important it is. But I don’t think it’s going to work out.”

“Because he wasn’t as enthusiastic about you as you’d hoped?”

He nodded.

Look,” Alera said. “I saw him sneaking glances at you months ago. He’s shy. You had to ask him out. You had to take the initiative. Just because he didn’t spill his heart on the first date doesn’t mean his heart isn’t throbbing.”

“You should write advice columns, Al,” Patrick said.

“I’m serious.”

He nodded. “You’re right. I shouldn’t give up hope just because he’s not showering me with flowers.”

Right,” she said. “If he wants to reject you, let him. Don’t reject yourself for him.”

Patrick’s phone pinged with a message. He looked over at it. “It’s him,” he said. “I don’t know if I can bear to read it. Also, I should probably look at the road when driving.”

“Is it okay if I read it?” She asked.

“Sure. But don’t tell me if it’s bad. But, wait, if you don’t tell me what it says, I’ll know it’s bad. Crap.”

Alera grabbed the phone and read the message. It was only one sentence. “I want to c u again.”

She beamed a smile at Patrick. “He says he wants to see you again!”

Patrick’s eyes seemed curiously moist. He looked away from her for a moment, and when he turned back he was smiling. “Really? What else did he say?”

“Nothing else, just that. But this is great news. I told you to be patient!”

“Whoa,” he said. “Wow, wow, wow.”

“High five,” Alera said. They ended up awkwardly bumping fists.

 

They arrived at their hotel around 5:00 PM. The tournament was being held in the convention center attached to the hotel, which was why they’d chosen it. Patrick parked the car, and Alera pulled her bag out of the trunk, a bit self-conscious when she remembered she also needed to bring the backpack that contained her diapers.

Alera had never been to a tournament like this before, and she had no idea how it was supposed to go. She’d gotten an e-mail saying she should meet at the hotel at five for a player check-in and orientation—which meant they were just in the nick of time—but she didn’t know where she was supposed to meet, who would meet her, or what was going to happen. Patrick took her backpack, and she rolled her suitcase into the lobby.

Once there, she was immediately greeted by a woman wearing a badge around her neck that said “SARAH CROWLEY / RISING STARS COORDINATOR”.

“Alera Vasquez?” She asked.

“I… yes?” Alera said. “How did you know?”

“Your Facebook is public. Might want to change that, if you plan on doing well in this tournament,” the woman said. She was dressed slick in a gray striped pantsuit, with brown hair pulled into a bun on the top of her head, not a strand of hair misplaced. A pair of cat eye glasses completing the business look. She smiled at Alera and handed her two badges similar to the one she wore. “This is your ID badge. Wear it to get access to the backstage area. There’s one for you and one for your coach. If you go to many of these events, the staff will eventually know you by sight, but since it’s your first time, they might not know who you are unless you wear the badge. Now, are you staying at this hotel?”

Alera felt a bead of sweat slide down her neck. This was all a little much. Patrick stepped in to save her. He must have seen the confused look on her face.

“We’re staying here,” he said.

“Excellent. You must be Patrick O’Brian, the coach?”

“Yes,” he said.

Great. Listen, you can check in and put your things in the room, but at 5:30 there is a short photoshoot—we’re going to be using portraits of all the players in the live broadcast. Then I think our media producer wants to get a quick interview with you on video. Everyone is very excited about you, since you’re a rookie. Also, you’re the only woman here. Very marketable. Females 16-27 is a growing demographic in esports. Matches start at seven.” Her voice was excited, but it sounded like she was more excited about demographics than she was to meet Alera.

Patrick nodded. “Got it. Where should we meet for the photo shoot and interview?”

Just come back to the lobby and myself or someone else from Production will meet you. Hey! Carlos!” As soon as she’d delivered her information, she turned to greet a young man entering the lobby. Carlos? Could it be Carlos “ManslaughteR” Alvarez? If so, this was her first look at her competition in person. Carlos looked like an average kid, maybe nineteen years old, wearing a black THRASHER hoodie, a cap covering long black hair, and carrying a suitcase in one hand and a keyboard under his other arm. He didn’t look very impressive, but then, Alera suspected, neither did she. She knew him as a kind of journeyman, a guy who got invited to tournaments because he tended to place around the middle of the pack every time. He never made any particularly good placings, but he didn’t make any last-place finishes either. A player she couldn’t underestimate, but definitely not one she should fear.

Patrick took her arm and dragged her to the reception. “Let’s get checked in quickly, we only have fifteen minutes,” he said. They got their room key. They’d skimped by getting one double room instead of two singles. Alera didn’t mind sharing a huge hotel bed with Patrick. She’d shared her much smaller bed with him when they were kids. It wouldn’t be their first sleepover, but possibly their most exclusive one.

Their room was on the third floor of the hotel. 304. “I think you should put on the diaper,” Patrick said when they were alone.

“What? People will see me! Thousands of people online! Someone will notice. I can’t do that.”

Hear me out. You brought slacks, right? They’re loose enough that nobody will notice. Truth be told, when you remember to put on pants, nobody can really tell unless they’re looking for it. And who will look for it? On the other hand, you don’t want your first tournament performance to be remembered because you peed your pants live, do you? I’m sure it won’t happen, but please, Al, just do it.”

“Okay. Fine. Fuck it.” She threw off her jeans, and Patrick barely had time to turn around in modesty before she had her panties out. She fished out a plastic rectangle from her backpack, folded it out, fluffed the sides like Patrick had taught her, then sat her bare bum on top of it. She positioned herself centered on the rectangle, then pulled up the sides and fastened the tapes. Truth be told, although she was loath to admit it, there was a certain feeling of safety when she’d gotten it fastened. She didn’t have to worry anymore. She knew this thing could contain everything she’d reasonably expect to throw at it. Not that she planned to actually use it. Definitely not. Alera put on her slacks, then shrugged off her shirt and put on the jersey Patrick had made her. The one that said her name and nickname on the back. Patrick turned around and gave her a golf clap and a grin.

“You look great!” He said.

She looked at herself in the mirror. Turned around, craned her neck, admired the Butterfly on her back. She really looked like a pro.

We gotta go now, photo shoot’s on!” Patrick urged.

They arrived in the lobby just in time for Sarah Crowley to hurry them down a corridor and into a small conference room that had been turned into a photo studio. There was a black background mounted on metal stands, several studio flashes with various accessories mounted, and a guy wearing a huge camera around his neck connected by cord to a computer. He had wild hair and was waving his hands at a guy in front of the studio backdrop. He looked to be about twenty years old, wearing a Team Liquid jersey. The guy flashed a smile at a camera, then shifted to a menacing look, hands crossed in front of his chest. The photographer waved him off.

“Hey!” The guy said. “You Butterfly?”

She nodded.

He extended a hand. “Cool. I’m Railgun, Jake to friends. Good luck.”

They shook hands. Wow. This is probably the second or third best player in the country. And here he’s greeting me like a colleague! Alera didn’t have time to fawn, as the photographer directed her to stand in front of the backdrop. She felt slightly self-conscious about the diaper strapped to her waist, but the photographer appeared oblivious. After the photo shoot, Sarah appeared at her side again to direct her to another room where a big video camera was set up. She was introduced to Carmac, who was apparently a media producer for the tournament.

Look, I know you may be nervous about your first interview, but you just sit there,” and he indicated a chair in front of a green screen, “and answer a few easy questions honestly. I won’t hit you with any hard questions since it’s your first time. Just make sure to answer in complete sentences, because we’re going to cut out the questions in post.” He flashed a smile at her.

Oh… kay,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” Carmac said, giving her a pat on the back. “Everyone’s nervous their first time.”

Carmac asked her whether she was excited about being at her first LAN tournament. He asked whether she had any thoughts about the fact that she was the first female player to make it to the big leagues, and she answered honestly that she hadn’t really thought about it. “I’m just here to compete. I don’t really think about stuff like that.”

Excellent,” Carmac said. “Good work. Now, you don’t have to answer the next question in detail. Do you have any hidden tricks up your sleeve for your first tournament?”

Alera smiled her most charming smile. “I’m sure I do. I’ve been working really hard on some new openings with my practice partner.”

“Oh?” Said Carmac. “This practice partner, is it someone we would know?”

“I would imagine so,” said Alera honestly. “It’s Saehwong.”

“What?” Said Carmac. “Your practice partner is Saehwong, the recent runner-up in the world championship?”

Yes.”

“Please answer with a complete sentence.”

“My practice partner is Saehwong.”

“Wow,” said Carmac. “Can you say that again, but, like, look a bit more menacing?”

Alera pulled down her brows and crossed her arms. “My practice partner is Saehwong, the second best player in the world according to the rankings. But I believe he is actually the best player in the world, and he helped me develop several new openings. You wanna beat me? Then you have to beat the best player in the world’s strategies.”

“That was fucking brilliant,” Carmac said. “Strictly on the D-L, how’d you swing that partnership?”

I beat him on the ladder and asked him if he wanted to practice with me.”

“Wow,” said Carmac.

That night, Alera lost her first two matches. She was uncomfortable in front of the cameras. There were about two hundred people watching in the audience—which was a far cry from the world championships, but still two hundred more than she was used to—her chair was unfamiliar, and she couldn’t get into the zone. They were close matches, but her opposition were people she had easily beat from the comfort of her home. She wanted to cry.

Don’t worry about it,” Patrick said. “That was the warmup. You’re not out of it yet.”

“I’ll have to win three matches in a row tomorrow, against better opposition.”

“Good thing you have three hundred pages of strategy in that notebook of yours and the most brilliant mind of anyone here,” he said. “Look, you have to block out the people watching. Go to that place you go when nobody can reach you, even if the house is on fire. Go to that place and roast their asses.”

 

Patrick bit his lip. It was Saturday afternoon. Alera had gone down 0-2 in her group, and she’d been quite dejected. But he’d kind of expected that. It was her first LAN tournament. She needed some time to adjust. He’d tried to cheer her up the night before, but she’d refused to listen to his motivational speech. I don’t have a future in sports coaching or mental training, he’d thought. Things had gotten from bad to worse when she woke him up at five in the morning and informed him that she’d wet the bed. Well, kind of: she had wet the diaper she hadn’t bothered to take off to bed. The bed was dry, but she was not. She’d cried on his shoulder, shoulders shaking, and told him that she was useless. She couldn’t hold her piss through the night—which, as far as Patrick knew, had not been a problem before—and she couldn’t even win her games.

That’s fucking it,” Patrick had said. “You’re not allowed to reject yourself. You told me that yesterday. Now, you change and go to sleep, and then when you wake up, you’re gonna be in that place where nothing matters but winning the game, and you’re gonna win the game. Come on, Clyde, you’re better than this.” She’d fallen asleep again with red eyes. But when she woke, it was a different Alera.

Alera had crushed her opposition in the first match of the day 2-0. Then she had defeated her next opponent 2-0. Now, she was competing against Railgun. Alera had told her that this was the best player in her group. The score was 1-1. Alera needed to win this game to go to the semifinals.

Patrick was seated in the front row, right in front of the stage. He could have been backstage, but he felt like he’d just be a distraction. Instead, he seated himself in the audience, where he could hear the commentators. He had played Vanguard enough to know the basic principles, but he had no clue about high-level strategies. Instead, he watched the big screen and listened to the commentators cast the game.

Oh my god,” said one of the commentators. “Butterfly’s behind! Railgun is already hitting tech 2 and she hasn’t even started her tech upgrade! She’s still on tech 1! Looks like the rookie is cracking under the pressure!”

It was a good run, and a solid rookie performance, but this looks like the end for Butterfly,” said the other commentator.

Patrick put his thumb in his mind and bit hit. Come on, Alera, do something! She wanted to yell at her. Of course, she was wearing noise-canceling headphones and couldn’t hear him.

“Railgun is about to launch an attack on the north flank,” said the first commentator.

Wait!” Said the second commentator. “Look! She’s… I think she’s deliberately delaying her tech! She’s going to upgrade directly from tech 1 to tech 3! This is a strategy that’s been spearheaded by Saehwong on the Korean servers just in the past week!”

She did say in her interview that she’s been practicing with Saehwong,” said the first commentator. “Truth be told, Roger, I thought it was just boasting from a rookie. Leaching off the name of a more famous player. But she’s playing the strategy exactly like Saehwong!”

Wait!” Said the second commentator, Roger. “Look at the timer! She’s going to be fifteen seconds too late.”

“Railgun is advancing with his Reaver-Menacer force from the south. If he hits in the next thirty seconds before Butterfly gets tech 3, he’s going to win.”

Butterfly is sending half her army to the north. She’s pressuring the second base of Railgun! Railgun pulls his army back to defend. His second is vulnerable, but he really needs to attack Butterfly’s bases now or he’s toast. He doesn’t know what we know, of course...”

Patrick looked at the timer on the screen. If she hits tech 3, she’s winning. Five seconds, four seconds, three… two, one, zero. She did it!

“Butterfly is sacrificing half her army! Railgun is destroying her army, but what he doesn’t know is she’s building a new, better army at home...”

Butterfly is advancing on the third base of Railgun...”

She’s attacking the second...”

“The second is falling!”

“There goes the third!”

“Gee-gee! Good game is called!”

The rookie has done it! Railgun throws in the towel, and with that, he’s eliminated from the tournament! Butterfly advances to the semifinals with a 2-1 victory in the match and a 3-2 record in the group stages!

People rose from their chairs around Patrick, cheering for his friend. He rose, too.

 

Alera stood on stage, drinking in the jubilation of the crowd. Her Butterfly jersey was drenched in sweat, but she didn’t care. Her diaper was damp under her slacks, but she didn’t care about that, either. A guy she didn’t know was asking her questions which barely registered. He was wearing an exciting smile and a suit. “The casters are saying this is a strategy you picked up from Saehwong,” the man said. “How did it feel to pull it off in such a pivotal game?”

Alera shook her head. “That’s not correct,” she said. “I didn’t pick up the tech-delay all-in from Saehwong. I developed that opening. He picked it up from me.”

Alera flashed a smile for the crowd. She was on top of the world.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Chapter 5

 

Alera cringed as she watched her victory interview on video. She’d been drunk on success, and had made the mistake of being honest. Why did she have to mention Saehwong at all? At best, people would think she was arrogant. Worse yet, she might have given up a competitive advantage. Now, her opponents would know to study Saehwong’s games to prepare for her.

The previous day had started terribly. She’d been down zero to two, and needed to win three matches in a row to secure advancement. To top it off, she’d woken in the early hours of the morning up to a weird, cold, clammy feeling between her legs. She hadn’t bothered to take off the diaper before bed, exhausted, and now she was glad: she’d wet herself in her sleep. Alera couldn’t even remember the last time that happened. Kindergarten, maybe. It had never been a problem for her. She couldn’t get so caught up in something that she forgot to go when she was asleep. But then again, she was under a lot of stress, and Alera vaguely recalled reading something about how bedwetting might surface under conditions of extreme stress, even in older children. Except she wasn’t a child. Wasn’t supposed to be a child. She’d cried, which she now recalled with a blush; she didn’t like Patrick seeing her like that.

But Patrick knew what to do. He’d launched into a motivational speech which, frankly, didn’t motivate her so much as it shook her out of her self-pity. She remembered all the preparation she’d done, all the things she’d planned to do which she’d forgotten under the heat of the lamps and the roar of the audience. She’d worn noise-canceling headphones, which didn’t so much cancel out the noise of the crowd as transform it into a visceral bass roar. She could feel the weight of hundreds of pairs of eyes directed at her. Well, more probably, directed at the large screens showing her gameplay, but that distinction had not seemed important at the time. But she’d done it, and she was through—no matter how awkward her victory interview had been.

Now, she had to do it all again, except in front of a larger crowd, with even more on the line. The thought filled her with trepidation, but also, somehow, excitement. Alera felt far more ready to take on the challenge now than she’d done just twenty-four hours previously. She crawled out of bed and nudged Patrick awake. She was wearing only a t-shirt and her diaper, which she hadn’t dared take off after the previous night’s debacle. It was clammy, but only from sweat. She hadn’t peed the bed again. Even half-asleep and bleary-eyed, Patrick had the decency to avert his eyes as she went into the bathroom to change. Her Butterfly jersey now smelled like two days’ worth of sweat, but she’d hung it over the shower door to air out overnight, and it would have to do. There was no way she wasn’t going to wear it. It wasn’t exactly a good-luck charm. But it was a physical representation of Patrick’s support. It reminded her that she wasn’t all alone in this.

Alera looked at the package of diapers. Shook her head when she remembered that she’d disposed of one in the trashcan the previous day and now the can had been emptied. Someone, probably a maid at the hotel, had disposed of her used underwear, and might well have seen it. Thankfully, she wouldn’t ever have to meet this person. She considered forgoing a diaper today, but then she remembered the feeling of all those eyes on her. What if something happened? With a sigh, she stepped into the shower, rinsed off the night sweat, dried herself off, and affixed the shameful white square between her legs. At least nobody had noticed so far. Maybe she could go a whole weekend without anyone but her friend finding out.

She found Patrick curled up in a chair, engrossed in something on his phone. He was smiling. “That James?” She asked, all innocence.

Patrick blushed. “How did you know?”

“The halo of light that appeared above your head was a nice clue,” she said, sticking her tongue out at him. Patrick covered his face theatrically with his hands.

“Is it that obvious?” He asked.

“It totally is. I wish I’d filmed you. I could use that video to tease you for months.”

“Thanks,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Are you ready for the semifinals?”

“As ready as I can be,” she said.

Together, they walked down into the hotel’s restaurant for breakfast. Alera wasn’t hungry, but she knew she should eat. She picked some toast and smeared some jam on, not even bothering to check what kind it was. She didn’t have any allergies: what did it matter? It was fuel. Patrick spent most of breakfast texting with someone, probably James, while Alera tried to force herself to eat her toast with a spread that was probably very expensive and exclusive, but tasted like an unripe raspberry fucked a tadpole while slathered in a strawberry smoothie. She struggled to keep a straight face and nod as one of the hotel staff passed by the table and asked if the food was to her liking. James was completely oblivious. She really was happy for him, even a little envious.

Patrick’s problem had been a single person’s acceptance; but, as she’d told him, even if that person rejected him, that didn’t mean there was anything wrong with him. It meant, simply, that a single person didn’t see all his wonderful qualities. Alera’s problem was far more quantifiable: she had to win, and if she didn’t, then it was because she wasn’t good enough. As simple and brutal as that. Alera pushed away the remains of her disgusting jam-that-might-have-been-something-else and sighed.

“I’m going to the practice room,” she said. It was only three hours until she had to perform on stage.

Hold on,” Patrick said, trying to swallow far too much toast-with-fried-eggs for one mouthful. “I’m coming with you,” he tried to say, although it came out as “’m cmphing w’ yew.”

You go on texting your boyfriend,” Alera said, giggling.

“One, he’s not my boyfriend...”

Yet.”

“One, he’s not my boyfriend yet, and two, I really do want to see you prepare and just be present. You know, if you need something that is not in any way technical, because if it is, I’m afraid I can only tell you how to beat a dude who’s blind and lacks an arm and a leg, maybe. And I reckon your opponent’s going to be fully healthy and not disabled and smarter than me.”

Thanks,” she said. She gave him a smile that was all eyes and no lips. A smile that said thank you for being here for me even when you don’t know what I need, the kind of smile that can only pass between long-time friends or lovers.

The practice room was actually a series of small conference rooms requisitioned by the tournament organizers. Each room held three high-end gaming computers with large 27-inch screens. She ducked her head into one, found there was already someone there, and backed out. She wanted to be alone to think, if at all possible. She always thought best alone. No, that wasn’t quite true. When she discussed the game with Saehwong, she felt as if she was a better version of herself, and yet she was as comfortable as if she’d been alone. He had a way of making her feel like she was unfurling her wings, a pupa escaping its chrysalis to discover it’s now a butterfly. She found herself smiling, for no good reason.

They found an empty room and Alera sat down to log in to Vanguard. She was greeted by a message from Saehwong. It took her a while to piece together the meaning out of the hurried and ungrammatical sentence structure, but the gist of it was this: he had a very important game he needed to prepare for. The finals of the Korean team league. He was the team captain, and the player expected to carry his team to victory. But now, he had some doubts about his preparation. He needed a second pair of eyes.

It was simultaneously flattering—he probably had a whole team of Korean analysts, and he wanted her input—and also really not what she needed right now. She had three hours to prepare for the most important match of her life, and needed every second to prepare.

What is it?” Patrick asked.

“It’s Saehwong. He wants to discuss some strats for a big game,” she said.

“Tell him you have your own big game you need to prepare for,” he said.

“Patrick, I promised to help him. Besides, I can use his preparation for my own game,” she tried.

Alera, no! You need to focus on yourself. This is the most important day in your career. To be honest, this might be the start or the end of your career as a professional player.”

It all made so much sense. She was a player, not a coach, and her job was to win her own games first, not lose her own games second, and maybe help some other players win their games a distant third. But on the other hand, there was no one in the world who could talk to her like Saehwong. In just a short time, she’d found herself craving those conversations. He understood the thing she cared about more than anything in the world—except possibly her mother and her best friend, of course except them, what was she thinking—on a level that no one else she had ever met did. He allowed her to lose herself in the game and be perfectly present in a world beyond the world she lived in. A world of strategies, of attacks and counterattacks, of defensive macro economy and aggressive militarism, of fakes and double-bluffs. And she had promised to help him, and he had helped her so much already.

“I’ll give him thirty minutes,” she said.

“Alera...” Patrick tried.

“Only thirty minutes.”

She responded to his message. He sent her a spreadsheet detailing a particular strategy, with notes in Korean (which she couldn’t read). She could immediately see the problem, though. It was a defensive strategy that relied on his opponent not being able to mount a decisive attack until a particular timing window, at which point the economic advantage he had built by forgoing early military would allow him to launch a superior attack of his own. Only, it was slightly too greedy. The strategy called for investing almost all your resources into building your economy, and almost none whatsoever in defensive military, and she could already see several ways in which his opponent could overwhelm him with military units. In practice, launching that attack would be difficult—she could see why Saehwong thought this was a viable strategy—but not impossible. Likely, he had won a lot with the opening in practice, but encountered someone who knew how to exploit the strategy’s weaknesses. It was a potentially brilliant strategy that was flawed, but not, she thought, irreparably so—precisely the kind of thing she lived and breathed for. Alera asked a series of questions, then began scribbling notes.

Patrick was shaking her shoulders. “What?” She snapped, turning to give him a death-stare.

You have thirty minutes until you need to be backstage. Have you gotten any work done on your own preparation?”

Her mouth fell open. She hadn’t played a single practice game, or reviewed her notes on her own preparation. All she’d done was waste two hours talking with Saehwong about a strategy he planned to use, which she couldn’t possibly use, since she only knew it theoretically, and had never tried it in practice. Fuck me.

“No,” she said, blushing. “I got caught up.”

“Figures,” Patrick said.

What’s that supposed to mean?” She said, irritable. She didn’t have time to argue with her friend, not if she planned to do any preparation whatsoever for her match, but his tone annoyed her. As if she’d confirmed something he’d long suspected, and now he was entitled to be smug about it.

“I think you’re in love with Saehwong,” he said.

What?” What the actual…? “I’ve known him for a week, I’ve never met him in real life, and I barely even know what he looks like. Or what his real name is. I’m only ninety percent confident he’s actually a he.”

Patrick put a hand on her shoulders and give them a squeeze. It was a tender gesture, not at all smug or superior. “There’s more than one kind of love, Al. I think you’ve found your platonic soulmate. Really, I’m kind of jealous.”

She put a hand to her cheek to hide her blush. “Really, Patrick, you’re jealous of me? I’m jealous of you. You have a real person, with warm skin that you can touch, right in our hometown, and you envy me for having an internet friend thousands of miles away that shares my hobby?”

Patrick put his hand on her cheek. “Alera, there’s falling in love and then there’s love. What do you think of before you fall asleep?”

What kind of question is that? What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Just answer,” he said, with the patience of a monk.

“You,” she said. “Also, Vanguard, I guess.”

“And what’s the first thing you think of when you wake up?”

“You, again,” she said. “Also, the game. Obviously.”

And what’s the last thing he thinks of when he goes to sleep, and the first thing he thinks about in the morning?”

“The game, I imagine.”

“See,” he said, satisfied, “I don’t tell James what I think about first thing in the morning and last thing before I fall asleep.”

Huh.

They were interrupted by Sarah, the tournament coordinator. She poked her head into the practice room. “There you are!” She said. She wore a smile somewhere between that of a businesswoman and a shark. “We need to get you to makeup, you’ve got forty-five minutes until showtime.”

“Is that really necessary?” Alera asked.

“Honey, you will look like a corpse under the stagelights without makeup, and you have such lovely skin,” she said, grabbing Alera’s arm.

“I need to log out and...” She tried.

I’ve got it,” Patrick said. “I’ll meet you backstage. This pass is still valid, right?” He caught the access pass around his neck in his hand.

Sure thing,” said Sarah. Then she whisked Alera away for makeup.

Makeup was a whirlpool of women descending on her face like a swarm of locusts. She felt the warmth of the lights on the mirror, and a sequence of brushes against her skin, and then she looked at herself and had to admit that she did look better than she had. Alera had never particularly cared how she looked. Her idea of fashion was her mother’s advice to make sure she didn’t look like a hobo with a heroin habit. She tried to live by that mantra, but it really was a low bar to clear, wasn’t it?

She hadn’t had time to really think about the conversation she’d just had with Patrick, and Sarah Crowley didn’t give it to her. She was led away from the makeup room into a small area backstage. Patrick waited and gave her a little pat on her shoulder. On the other side of the room was her opponent. He was a pasty white kid with dreads and a tribal tattoo clearly visible on his well-developed biceps. She knew him only by his nickname, VioleNt. He immediately shattered her prejudices by walking over, shaking her hand, and wishing her good luck. “I liked your play in groups,” he said. “I have a feeling we’ll be seeing each other at these events in the future. Good luck.” His manager or coach or fixer or, for all Alera knew, his coke dealer, also shook her hand. He wore a dark suit and sunglasses inside like he was auditioning for Men in Black, but he was courteous and oozed professionalism. Patrick also shook his hand, just for the sake of appearances. Alera smiled; at last, she’d found an arena in which her friend was less comfortable than she was.

She pulled up her notebook and tried to memorize her openings. It was no use. She’d read and re-read the notes so many times that she’d have to suffer retrograde amnesia to forget. There was nothing new there that she hadn’t thought about a hundred times before.

Sarah appeared by her side like a fairy. “We’re going to have you walk in this way,” she said, pointing at a side door. Go through the corridor and to the right, then you’ll walk through the audience to the stage. You’ll end up just on the other side of that door,” and she pointed at a door labeled STAGE, “but just walking through there wouldn’t be as epic.”

Oh… kay,” she said, taking a deep breath.

“Don’t worry,” said Sarah, “it’ll all be over soon.”

Alera didn’t know if that was comforting or scary. Did she mean, the scary bit will be over soon, and then you can do what you came here to do, or you will be out of the tournament soon and then you won’t have to worry about any of this, will you?

Go on,” said Patrick. “I’ll be here, waiting.”

Alera cast a glance towards the door labeled RESTROOMS, then Sarah gave her a push, and she walked through the side door. The corridor was all white and featureless. She found herself at a fork. Did she say left or right? Left, Alera thought, and walked to the end of a side corridor, opened a door, and found herself standing in a closet full of laundry equipment. Right, then.

She retraced her steps and met VioleNt, her opponent, in the doorway to the backstage room. “I, uh, may have gotten lost,” she said, and then turned right before he could reply. How embarrassing. Alera found the door that presumably led out into the walkway that ran down the length of the stands to the stage. She closed her eyes, briefly, and reminded herself that all of this was merely pageantry. She was here to win, and Alera knew how to win. Scratch that: Butterfly knew how to win. Alera had to be Butterfly, the hottest new player on the block, not Alera Vasquez, scared and confused high school senior. Alera opened the door.

A rush of voices and lights. She stepped into the light. There were stands on either side of her, and spectators—fans—cheering, some looking down on her with something like pity, others with the wide-eyed enthusiasm of youth. Alera decided to put one leg in front of the other and just focus on the stage in front of her, just fifty yards down the steps and she’d be away from the overwhelming crush of humanity that enveloped her. She heard her name called on speakers, somewhere far away, and narrowed her eyes until they were focused on a small section of the stage.

Then she remembered that she was wearing headphones. Alera stopped, ignoring the stares from the audience, and fished out her phone. She put on a song, Signatune by DJ Mehdi, a hard-hitting, repetitive French House banger. She took a step with each beat of the song. Each step filled her with adrenaline. Each beat was a step closer to winning. Each beat was an IV shot of adrenaline. Her synapses were firing. She barely saw the steps as she stumbled up the stairs. The crowd was a blur. She turned around, looked at the seething mass of humanity that was watching her as the song looped, crescendoed, looped again. She held up a fist. Alera didn’t know why, but it felt good. It was a sign, from her to the crowd. I see you, and I am not afraid. She stepped away from the edge of the stage, unplugged her headphones, handed her phone to an attendant who stowed it away in a sealed plastic box. The roar of the crowd entered her ears, but she ignored it. She walked over and took a seat by her computer, affixed the in-ear earbuds, put on the noise-canceling over-ear headphones. The drone of the audience fell away into a low-level murmur. Alera logged in and began adjusting her settings.

She was vaguely aware of another roar as her opponent entered the auditorium. She focused, instead, on setting up her game. She imagined herself sitting at home, relaxed, in her bedroom. There was only her, a screen, a keyboard and computer mouse. She felt a twinge in her bladder, signaling that she really ought to have peed earlier. The adrenaline infusion of her walk-in and the music was still buzzing in the background, a synaptic drone that made her legs vibrate. Alera closed her eyes, shook her head, and prepared to play the game of her life.

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