Survival Of The Fittest

Breath in.

Breath out.

Breath in.

Breath out.

Breath in...

Marcy Valerio exhaled, tapping her foot on the floor as she quietly psyched herself up. She still wasn't used to feeling this anxious before a big performance. It wasn't that long ago that she could throw herself into just about anything with minimal prep, just give it her all without a shred of hesitation. But now she had to deal with these annoying little intrusive thoughts at the back of her head, questioning whether or not she still had it in her to go all out like she used to.

She lifted up her slushie - several flavours mixed together to create a kaleidoscope of clashing colors - and took a quick slurp through a paper straw.

Stupid knee. Who would've thought one little ligament tear could become such a headache. Even now it continued to haunt her, long after she had recovered from her surgery. One awkward misstep, and... Pop. Back on the bench for another six months, maybe even a year.

A sigh escaped her lips. No, she wasn't going to linger on the past, or worry about the future. It was Saturday night damnit, and not just ANY old Saturday night... It was the night before her 18th birthday, and she was determined to make it one worth remembering.

Besides, it helped that this wasn't going to be any ordinary performance. She wasn't in a gymnasium, a dance studio or even a football field. Marcy was in an arcade, facing down a Dancerush Stardom scoreboard with a determined glint in her eyes.

She took another defiant slurp of her rainbow slushie, before slamming it down on a nearby pinball machine. "Let's fuckin' go"

Feeling all fired up, she stepped out onto an LED dance pad and slipped in an arcade token, looking down as dozens of tiny fluorescent lights lit up beneath her feet. She watched as every step created multi-colored ripples, unable to resist skipping on the spot a couple times to make the lights flash like fireworks. But she couldn't let herself get too distracted by the fancy schmancy particle effects, not when she had a high score to set. Only question now was what song...

After flipping through several options, she settled on a song title that caught her attention: Death by Glamour. It came with a graphic depicting an androgynous android, one she recognised from a game her sister played a couple years ago. Nothing she was too familiar with herself, but... What the hell. It'll do.

Her selection made, she cracked her knuckles as she waited for the game to load, drinking in the virtual cheers as she would any other performance. Before long she could see the vibrant beats approaching, in a manner reminiscent to what one would expect from other rhythm games like Guitar Hero. But whilst Marcy couldn't play a guitar for shit, she was one hell of a mean shuffler.

Right, Left, Left, Left, Left, Right, Down, Down...

She matched every move to near perfection... Near being the key word. Truth be told, she was playing with a lot more flourish than she really ought to if she was aiming for a high score. She couldn't help herself really, unable to resist adding a bit of pizzazz as she got lost in the moment. Shuffling to the beat of the music, speakers blaring jazzy chiptunes mixed in with the cacophonic ambience of a jam packed arcade. All whilst she was surrounded by thousands of vibrant lights, flashing in tune to her every movement... For many, the sensory overload would be a living hell. For Marcy, it was paradise.

It certainly helped that she happened to be accompanied by a very special audience that evening, one she was keen to impress...

((Finn Cooper: Pregame Start.))

A couple of feet away, behind and left of the machine where it offered the best view, Finn watched silently. Arms crossed and looking surly unless one was astute enough to notice that that his foot was tapping lightly in time with the beat.

His gaze was fixated on Marcy and her dance, drinking in her movement and her flourishes, and how the lights danced under her feet, paying no mind to what was on the screen. If anyone had asked, he wouldn’t have been able to say if she was doing well or not by the game’s metric.

The only time Finn’s attention wavered was when, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a smaller teenager approaching the pinball machine that Marcy had left her drink on. He took a few steps sideways and picked the drink up, breaking his gaze from Marcy to glance at the other teenager. They immediately veered away from the pinball machine to play at something further away from Finn.

Finn shrugged and returned his attention to Marcy, continuing to hold her drink anyway for the rest of the song, at one point absentmindedly taking a sip and wrinkling his nose slightly at the cacophony of flavours.

When the song came to an end, with an explosion of electronic cheers from the machine, he approached and held the drink out to her.

“Nice,” he said.

Right, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Down...

Full Combo

Marcy wiped her brow with a deep intake of breath, still buzzing with excitement after dancing her socks off.

Hearing a familiar voice, she turned away from the screen as it showed off her score, the corner of her lips curling into a knowing smirk. She could always rely on her Finn to know exactly what she needed after a performance like that, mouthing a silent thank you as she retrieved her drink.

"What can I say, silly game like this ain't no match for - WHAT?!" she gasped, turning back just in time to see how her performance compared to others who had made it onto the scoreboard.

"SEVENTH PLACE?! After all that?! Are you fuckin' kidding me?!?"

It wasn't a bad score by any stretch, but compared to the scores above her the skill gap was clear as day. As visually impressive as her flourishes were, against competitive professionals who knew these games inside and out she barely made a dint on the leader board.

"UUuuuagh, screw you STEVE! And you too, MIKE! And ESPECIALLY you... ZZzz!?" she groaned, petulantly stamping her foot on the LED dance pad. She couldn't fucking believe this, after all the effort she put in! She bet whoever set those high scores figured out some lame exploit, probably the same kinda losers who use the metal bar attached to DDR machines (like a coward).

Well, fuck 'em. Bet none of them have a boyfriend nearly as awesome as her Finn.

With a frustrated sigh, she lifted up her slushie and took a long, drawn out slurp... Only to then clap her hand to her forehead, as she found herself stricken with an intense biting headache.

"Aaah, brainfreeze!"

As Marcy bemoaned her loss with the drama of a silver medal olympist, Finn's mouth twitched and his eyes crinkled up a little.

His relationship with loud noises was complicated. When it was Marcy, he liked it even - especially - when it was over something silly.

"Fuck 'em," he said. "They're not judging the handwork."

When she was then overtaken by brain freeze, Finn winced and reached out to hold either her hand or her drink, depending on what was offered first.

"Break?"

As Finn offered an outstretched hand, Marcy saw it as her cue to stumble melodramatically towards him, head slumping against her boyfriend's chest.

Much better. She could already feel her brainfreeze subsiding, listening to Finn's heartbeat as she pouted and nodded her head in agreement. "Break"

Theatrics aside, tonight had been pretty good thus far. It had been a while since she last swung by Area 52, with or without company. She never really got why so many of her peers were down on it. Sure it was loud, disorientating and gaudy as all hell... But for Marcy, those were positives. She loved it.

Only downside really was that she was still too young to do a lot of the fun stuff, like the bars and nightclubs. God, some of those cocktails looked delicious. As much as she enjoyed sharing a sneaky drink with Beelie-bubs and the others, she was dying to go out and experience everything the Vegas nightlife had to offer. 

All the more reason to look forward to her big 18th birthday bash tomorrow. She was already planning to drop by a tattoo parlour to get a new piercing, after which it was time to flex her newfound freedoms! After all, there had to be plenty of fun stuff to do in Vegas once you hit 18, right?

But until then, she had to settle for an evening with her Finn. That alone was more than good enough for her.

"Soooo, see any games you like the look of?" she asks, clinging onto her boyfriend's arm as they made their way through the arcade together.

Finn rested his chin briefly on Marcy’s head as she slumped into him, absently stroking her hair while waiting until the brainfreeze went away.

She was warm. It was nice.

It would have been a nice, quiet moment if there wasn’t twenty neon lights in the area. Area 52 was chaotic, bright and gaudy. He had been neutral towards it for a long time – good to spend an occasional evening in, but not somewhere he regularly sought out.

But Marcy was also chaotic, bright and gaudy. The similarity had made Finn appreciate Area 52 more.

As for a game he’d pick… Finn glanced around, eyes flickering over the drumming games and ball games. Some interest. Over the driving games. No interest. If Marcy wanted to play, Finn wouldn’t hate it. But it was like gluten-free bread – okay, but only if you couldn’t have the real thing.

Finn’s eyes strayed towards a corner that had a VR machine called the Hologate, with an attendant there to strap people into the vests and helmets and make sure everyone was spaced out enough so that they didn’t hit each other in the face while flailing around.

“Hologate?”

"HMMmmmm..." Marcy hummed to herself, scanning their surroundings for their next game.

"Do you like fighting games? I'm not super big on 'em myself, but... Oh, is that Time Crisis? How retro!"

Marcy gasped, tightening her grip on Finn's arm as she pointed at a row of driving games. "Oooh, you love cars, right? Maybe we can race each other! That sound fun?"

The look on Finn's face suggested otherwise. Well, in fairness he always looked like that. Her boyfriend had a resting bitch face par excellence. But much as she adored that scruffy frown of his, it did make it hard to tell sometimes when he was neutral on a thing or genuinely grouchy about it.

Still, she'd been dating him long enough to recognise a couple tells, such as the curious glint in his eyes as he spotted the Hologate set-up in the corner. Marcy had only tried VR a couple times, mostly to play rhythm games like Beat Saber. But this one seemed a little different to what she was used to, with the trio of kids currently using it wearing vests alongside their VR goggles, barking at one another as they fired at invisible enemies with their futuristic looking rifles. A screen situated above the VR set-up revealed the gameplay, showing off waves of zombies being gunned down as the kids screamed with excitement.

Marcy grinned, turning to her boyfriend with a pleading look in her eyes. "Oh, we are SO playing this next!"

“We could race...” Finn said slowly.

But he nodded with a little more enthusiasm when Marcy noticed the zombie game.

“Yeah. Fun.”

He’d thought she might be more into one of the bright shooters the system had on it – the one that involved teleporting and cyberpunk-style lights. Marcy might like that afterwards.

He followed Marcy’s lead as she hauled him towards the machine, and they waited while the kids playing finished up their game. While they waited, Marcy continued to point out other games and chatter about what they could do next. Her brain freeze must have faded. Finn nodded or responded with the occasional ‘yeah.’

The kids succeeded. High fives were had, and then they were unstrapped from the helmets and vests. They handed over their plastic guns before heading off elsewhere into the arcade. The attendant let Finn and Marcy into the designated space and gave them the rundown before they helped them with the helmets and vests, separating the two so that they were standing further apart before handing them the plastic guns.

When the game started, and there was a pause as they adjusted to the sight of a mostly empty room and a computer to guard from the zombie menace, Finn turned his head to where Marcy was. With the goggles on, it was a featureless person with a military facemask on.

Finn waved with the gun at her. “Looking professional.”

Marcy's avatar turned to Finn, hoisting her gun over her shoulder as she struck something vaguely resembling a pose. "First day on the job!" she laughed, ther avatar shifting awkwardly on the spot. "I dunno if you can tell, but I'm doing a peace sign right now"

Truth be told, seeing her boyfriend represented by a floating torso and helmet did slightly take her out of the experience. Sure that was just because of the game's limitations, but man did it make her wish the technology existed for their player avatars to look a little more human.

Still, the fact that they had actual guns certainly added to the immersion. Well, plastic controller guns, but at least it was something tangible for them to physically interact with. Being able to wield a weapon with some actual weight was more than enough to make up for the questionable graphics, Marcy finding herself unable to resist playing around with it, taking a closer look to examine the finer details...

She was so distracted that by the time the first zombies started approaching, she was startled enough to let out a yelp of fright.

"OH my god, Aah!" she cried out, laughing nervously as she clumsily raised her gun to open fire. The lack of kickback was noticeable, but seeing a virtual zombie's head explode into chunky pieces more than made up for it. Said zombie was soon followed by another, and another, the two quickly finding themselves surrounded by a virtual horde of the undead.

"HOoooly crap, there's a lot of 'em!"

“Yep.”

Finn’s mouth twitched at the sound of Marcy freaking out, and the sight of her avatar flailing about with the gun. Though he couldn’t watch for long, given the whole ‘zombie horde’ thing.

His shooting was erratic and largely consisted of swinging the gun left and right while firing vaguely in the direction of the horde, quantity over quality and at odds with how he spoke, though he did raise his voice to make sure Marcy could hear him. Though he missed several, he also hit a whole lot of them and it made a huge, explosive spectacle.

“Left – my left! ...By the door. Behind you.”

The ‘behind you’ came a little late, because Finn had been in the process of spraying the zombies behind Marcy’s avatar, rendering the warning moot. Friendly fire wasn’t a thing – probably good, considering that he wasn’t aiming.

He hadn’t paid enough attention to some of the horde appearing closer to him. A flash of red on the screen just before he started shooting in that direction instead. Low health. A rotating red cross above his head, advertising his status.

His response to that was a huff through his teeth.

Things were starting to get a little frantic.

Marcy's aim was hardly any better than Finn's, firing wildly at the oncoming hordes as she struggled to keep a level head. There were just... So fucking MANY of them! And not just regular zombies either, but weird-ass cyber-zombies and... Robots?! What?!? Wasn't this supposed to be a zombie game?! Why were there fucking ROBOTS?!?

"Oh god, oh god, oh shit, oh god, oh..." she stammered, backing away as waves of zombies, robots and robo-zombies started closing in. Holy hell, she wasn't expecting the game to feel this intense. It was one thing blamming zombies on Roblox or something, but once she found herself fully immersed within her virtual surroundings... Marcy didn't consider herself to be squeamish, but fucking hell this was nerve-wracking. So much so that she couldn't help turning to Finn, checking to make sure he was ok.

It was at that point that she finally noticed the red cross rotating above his head. She knew enough about video games to know what that likely meant, eyes widening with shock. Her Finn was in trouble. He was hurt.

Oh. That does it.

"Get away from him, you-!" she growled through gritted teeth, raising her rifle to fire a burst into the zombies that were harassing her boyfriend.

"Oh yeah, you like that? YOU LIKE THAT!" she snapped, spinning back around to start firing into the crowd once more. Her fear and uncertainty were long gone, blood rushing through her veins as she unloaded into the undead with a ferocity bordering on excessive.

"GET SOME!! FUCKING GET SOME!!! Oh, you want some too, huh? Well EAT SHIT MOTHERFUCKER! YEAH! FUCK YOU!! Oh, and FUCK YOU TOO!!"

What Marcy lacked in accuracy, she made up for in sheer fervour. Gunning down zombie after zombie, screaming obscenities as she lost herself in the moment.

"YEAH! YEEEAH!!! COME AT ME BITCHES, I'LL TAKE YOU ALL ON!! BRING IT YOU-"

Then all of a sudden, the screen went dark as a large Game Over title appeared. In all the excitement she missed a pair of zombies that reached the computer they were ostensibly protecting, destroying the objective and bringing an end to their game.

Hands still shaking, Marcy handed her rifle back before reaching up for her VR goggles, slowly prying them off as her eyes adjusted to the gaudy reality that was Area 52...

The first thing she saw was a horrified family of tourists who were waiting in line to go next.

"...oh."

The wave of angry swearing from nearby was more in line with what he’d expect from a proper fight, and made the adrenaline spike more than the actual zombies. In the moments before the game ended, Finn’s shooting was extra erratic. Finn had also failed to notice the zombies chewing on the goal.

The game shut down. The attendant retrieved the guns and vests, and hurried them quickly off the stage.

Finn used two fingers to salute the offended family – Vegas would eat them if they couldn’t handle a bit of profanity – while he used his other hand to grasp Marcy’s and tug her away from the machine. He wasn’t averse to pushing his luck under normal circumstances, but getting banned would be a pre-birthday downer.

Marcy’s hand was shaky. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the VR generally or the zombies specifically, or if she’d just gotten too deep in the moment.

“Marcy.”

He tightened his grip on her hand and rested his chin on her shoulder.

“You cool?”

Marcy clung tightly onto Finn's hand, still looking flustered as he swiftly pulled her away.

Her embarrassment didn't last long - it rarely did. They were just tourists after all, wasn't like she blew up in front of her entire class. Again.

She let out a long sigh, nodding her head in response to Finn's question. Her heart rate returned to normal, or as normal as it could be with her boyfriend's chin on her shoulder, finding herself unable to resist planting a quick peck against his cheek. "Mm-hmm, just got uh... Caught up in the moment, heh... That was fun though, oughta try that again sometime!"

Marcy smiled, affectionately rubbing the back of Finn's hand with her thumb. It was weird to think they had only been dating a year at most, times like this it felt like they had been together forever. Sure, they had been acquaintances since 9th grade, but back then she only really knew him as Niall's hot friend. It wasn't until after the accident that they really got to know each other - not to mention Beelz and the rest of the crew. Nowadays she struggled to imagine what life would be like without 'em, especially her Finn.

She gave his hand another gentle squeeze. "Man, dunno 'bout you but I'm staaarving... Wanna go grab a bite?"

“Yeah. I’ll buy yours.”

Marcy squeezing his hand always brought with it this flare of nerves. Good nerves, not dissimilar to the feeling he got behind the wheel.

Finn squeezed back.

The night passed. Food. Games. Marcy being loud and dramatic. Expressive. Honest. With Finn as her quiet shadow.

Finn wouldn’t change it. This was how it should be.

((Finn Cooper continued in Wined and Dined. Marcy Valerio continued in NC-21.))