The Fiction Issue

Griefer

"Man, it's like, get with the times, you know?" he said, thumbs heading for the X-buttons.

He squeezed off a couple chaser missiles, and they bee-lined for the jetwash at the back of the closest manned fighter. They drew so close to each other their contrails mingled. The enemy pilot yanked his chicken switch, lurching into the air on his ejection seat. His plane flew apart, white smoke chasing metal fragments towards the ground. I caught the yellow dome of a parachute as we set our planes to return home.

Griefer slid his kit aside on its articulated arm and straddled his seat for a moment. "I probably should've taken that pilot out. That would've been harsh, huh?"

Did he mean too harsh? Or did he mean it would've been cool? "That's not what we do, Gee."

He considered that. "Oh." He looked at his kit, shrugged. "OK." He padded away on stocking feet.

Next mission out, one mission before the Urals, Griefer shot me down. Fifty-caliber rounds shot the plates off my wing and punctured my engines. He was trying to get a bead on some cartel UAV, he said. I lost it. Kicked the stick off my rig, palmed the key-board so hard letters went flying like teeth. Griefer laughed his ass off and kept flying and fighting for 40 minutes.

As his plane came back home, he slid his flat-screens aside and said, "Dude, don't take it so seriously. Just stay out of my target area."

"Here's a fucking hint, kid," I spit as I yelled. "If I'm there, it's not your target area!"

"What's the big deal? It's not like you're hurt any. Just log in tomorrow. It's all part of the game, right? This is why we're not in those planes."

"The game?"

"If it was against the rules, they wouldn't let us do it." I stood there like an idiot, mouth hanging open. He shrugged. Everything was obvious to him. I filed it away. I'd talk to him after the next mission. I'd do better, and then I'd talk to him.

That next mission was the Urals, fighting bulky UAVs out of abandoned airfields in Chechnya. The things look like Russian bouncers, like a tank piggybacking a flying wing. We were going after five of them, each one three times our weight. I was flying from another pilot's rig. Griefer was chewing a straw.

Took us a long damn time to take out two of the tango UAVs. We were running out of missiles and our hands were cramping. I was sure Griefer was going to ram one of them. I knew it. But that wasn't it.

When his missiles were gone and his canards had been tattered, he went low, circling. "What are you doing?" I asked.

"Looking for something." When he leveled off near the Chechen airstrip, I saw it. He was looking for the mobile transmissions station the enemy pilots were in.

"Grief, what the hell are you doing?"