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defeat Pak, the best of the best, and Tetsuo would reign supreme. I didn’t doubt for a second that everyone else waiting in that arena queue had the same idea.
    I wasn’t after virtual fame or notoriety. Tetsuo was already well into the ranks of the elite, and he never had trouble finding someone willing to face him in the arena. But if I made it into the top four, the internal barometer I had of my own skill would finally be calibrated against something like an objective set of standards.
    Games are just another form of entertainment. Being good at a game doesn’t raise your grades, and it doesn’t help you find a job. It wouldn’t do much of anything to help you in RL. Maybe that’s why I wanted some sign, some token of achievement in the virtual world to show for my hard work.
    Tetsuo finished practicing on the training dummy. He stepped out onto the arena floor. There were thirty-three people in Tanaka’s queue. I wanted to put Tetsuo up against him, but I wasn’t in the mood to wait half the night to do it.
    Tanaka was fighting a snake boxer in the middle of the arena. It looked like a good match. The snake boxer was a newcomer, someone I’d never seen before. Newcomer or no, he was holding his own against Tanaka. Come to think of it, the character that ganked 963 out in Sanchōme was supposed to be a snake boxer too. Hmm .
    The match ended. The snake boxer had won. Text bubbles started popping up over the heads of the characters crowded near Tetsuo.
    > Some guy just beat Tanaka!
    > No way.
    > Screen shot or it didn’t happen.
     
    As others read the bubbles and pecked out answers in reply, a chain reaction threatened to fill the screen with text.
    > Who did it?
    > I dunno.
    > What’s the big deal? Even Tanaka has to lose sometime.
    > Dude, a scrub doesn’t just come along and wtfpwn Tanaka.
    > You think it was that guy from Sanchōme?
    > We just witnessed history, man. History!
    > Damn, I need some food.
    > I go bio for a bath, and all hell breaks loose!
    > I can’t see. Is this even hitting you?
    > TEXT BUBBLES ARE ANNOYING.
    > Dude, caps.
     
    The comments rose one after another. It was like watching a cel-shaded pot of boiling water spill across the arena as the giddy wave of hysteria spread.
    Tanaka might play a hundred matches a day, so on average he was bound to lose two or three. Anyone could get tired and have an off night. It was the second season tournament that had everyone buzzing about the loss. It was getting closer, and you could feel the tension mounting.
    Everyone gathered in the arena was there to put the polish on their game. If one of the top four can lose, maybe I have a shot . The place was a tinderbox, and that one upset was the spark. Of course most of the people there were like kids standing on the school roof watching a typhoon roll in. When the storm came, they were going to be blown away. There were only sixteen slots in the finals.
    Tanaka would make the cut. Maybe the snake boxer who just beat him would make it too. And Tetsuo sure as hell planned to make it.
    The cumulonimbus of text bubbles covering half the screen cleared, leaving Tanaka standing at the center. A bubble appeared above his head.
    > How ’bout another match?
    > Sorry, getting sleepy. Maybe next time.
     
    I glanced at the readout on my DVR. 11:10. Versus Town was just getting started at 11:10. It had to be an excuse. No way this guy was sleepy. While I considered his bald-faced lie, he actually logged out, right then and there. Tanaka started a match with the next character in the queue.
    Something dawned on me later that night as I was fighting. That snake boxer was probably just some kid in elementary school.

     
    Time is a limited resource, one for which online games have a voracious appetite. The more of this resource you spent in the virtual world, the less you had left over for the real one. The opposite was true too. Spend too much time in RL, and you wouldn’t have enough left over to do the things