Chapter 207: After party
Milo approved of the after-party, even if too many people were nearby. He'd almost turned and run when a small mob came over to congratulate his team but was held back by Minerva hugging him. "Awesome plan, Almost-Big-Brother-Milo; the boom at the end was cool!" Belinda turned her head as she said that, and Butch smiled and whispered to her, "Minerva is a little upset that I might be going to work in the pods when I turn 18. Mama is worried about Ghost. His dad hasn't been around in years, and he roams on his own too much. She's put in paperwork to adopt him, and little Min is pretty happy about that."
"Milo? That's his real name?"
"Yeah, he got nick-named Ghost early on when he started hanging with our gang at swap meets. He's nervous around people and takes off suddenly. Stays away for a day or a week, then shows back up to hang around for a bit."
Belinda looked at the overjoyed Min and the nervous Ghost. Min was taller than him by an inch. You'd assume he was younger until he started talking. She had another question to ask Butch, but it got lost as the other two teams overwhelmed them with enthusiastic greetings. By common consent, they moved to where the food was and pushed several tables together. Soon everyone was eating and talking about the game. Butch's gang was in awe of how much SC6 lore the older players knew.
"You should have seen it back in the day. Thousands of ships were online, fighting for control over resources and carving out little empires. The basic game was modified on private servers back in the old internet days. The best ones had expanded economics, mining, and politics. You could do a lot more than blow stuff up."
"Yeah, you could fix your ship when it got blown up. Scavenge parts when you blew someone else up and threaten to blow up people unless they agreed to help you blow up someone else."
"You forgot to mention drinking at a seedy bar after getting blown up."
"Ah, the best part of SC6: The Bar mod. Julius was a genius when he came up with that."
Belinda had never heard of a Bar mod. "What was that? I didn't see it mentioned when I was getting the programming for the machines."
Captain Joe explained. "It wasn't in the basic programming, but everyone running a server added it to their galaxy. Every planet, asteroid mine, or space station had a bar you could go to after you docked. They were filled with hard-bitten NPCs that would try to drink you under the table, start fights with you, or hire you for illegal missions. They were awesome. Some people barely played the game; they just used the bars as places to hang out and talk. It was old style, no VR, but it feels real when you remember it."
Seedy bars and secret missions sounded great to Butch. "Can you still do that? Log into a server and hit a bar."
"Naw, long gone. Lots of problems with how things turned out after all the corporate teams took over the game. There was a bullshit lawsuit against Julius claiming that by letting people have private galaxies, he was diminishing the competition in the main galaxy they had paid money to play in. It was crap, but he wasn't a rich guy, just a programmer making games. He had to shut down the support to the private servers. Many people quit the game after that, and then the problems with keeping the machines running started killing him. Parts were getting expensive, and the machines crashed hard whenever the Wildfire virus swept through. He went bankrupt and had to give up."
"He was really excited about this event, though. He wanted to come, but he's living in Japan and didn't have the money for the trip."
"Excuse me, but that is my grand-niece you are talking about in a not-so-nice way."
Manny looked at the old man with the greying hair. The guy must be ninety and talked like he was from another century. "So what, Grandpa? She wants to play in the big leagues; she can learn to take it."
Victor chuckled. "The big leagues? This is not the big leagues. This is little piss-ant people in suits measuring dicks and yelling at each other. That is not how the 'Big Leagues' work. Yuseph? If this man speaks to me again, break his arm. Yegor? If anyone else talks, including John, bring them to Yuseph so he can break their arms."
Too late, Manny realized who the old man must be. He'd known John was connected to the Seimovich family, but thought it was a business deal. A family relationship made this situation much more dangerous. The old families took things very serious.
His two bodyguards walked to where everyone else was standing, smiling at them and flexing their hands.
"You lost. You even cheated first and then lost. Maybe bad luck? Maybe not. But what I think is that my little Belinda had a better team than you and beat you by skill. And you are upset that you look bad? Sad for you. Do better next time. No one said your money let you win. No one agreed to an easy victory where shitty gloves wouldn't work too hard. And really, I don't care. It is amusing to see you sit and argue with John, who lets you yell at him."
"But then you had to be rude. Here is what happens now. You all leave the room—no more talk. And you, Mr. Manny, will never say something about my little Belinda again. If you do, I will hear of it, and then I will break all of the bones in your body. Is this understood, Mr. Manny?"
Everyone in the room except Yseph and Yegor was sweating. Something in Victor's voice and eyes made them believe every threat. As soon as he nodded at the door, they started to leave. Yuseph had a large hand on both John and Manny's shoulders.
"Good, no one talked. Now, John? You take your friend Manny down to the stage and run your little dog-and-pony show, and then he will be leaving. Less chance of more problems. Mr. Manny? We will do this again soon. You may come and compete, and John will do his best to make your gloves look good. No cheating. No insults. We are businessmen and friends. Correct?"
Both John and Manny nodded nervously before heading for the door. Victor turned to Eric Kresthammer, the last person in the room. "You tried. I saw that, Eric. John should listen to you more. I thank you for trying and looking after my grand-niece. We'll talk more about your future with my family."
Eric relaxed and nodded.
Victor continued. "Maybe head down to the place with all the games and make sure no one bothers Belinda. She is having fun with friends. Don't let anyone take that away from her."
Eric left. Victor went to take a nap. Training the young ones to behave was always tiring.
