The chess piece clicked against the board with finality. Arthur Corioli, age eight, sat back in his chair and folded his arms. Across from him, Mr. Grayson blinked twice, the wrinkles around his eyes deepening as he studied the board.
"Checkmate," Arthur said, not with triumph but with the quiet certainty of someone stating that water is wet.
Mr. Grayson—his third-grade teacher and the faculty supervisor of the elementary school chess club—leaned forward, searching for an escape. Finding none, he let out a low whistle. "That's five in a row, Arthur. You set this trap six moves ago, didn't you?"
Arthur nodded. He'd seen it even earlier, actually, but explaining that felt unnecessary.
The fluorescent lights hummed overhead as other kids packed up their boards. Most were already headed for the door, eager to catch their buses home. Arthur remained seated, resetting the pieces with methodical precision.
"You know," Mr. Grayson said, helping him arrange the pawns, "most kids your age can't think that many moves ahead. It's impressive."
Arthur shrugged. "The pieces can only move certain ways. If you remember the rules and watch the board, it's not hard."
Mr. Grayson's smile faltered. There was something unnerving about the way Arthur approached the game—not as play, but as a puzzle to be systematically dismantled. Like he was analyzing code rather than playing against another human.
"Will you be at the tournament next weekend?" the teacher asked.
Arthur nodded again. "Mom said she'll drive me. Dad has to work."
"Well, I expect you'll do very well." Mr. Grayson stood, patting Arthur's shoulder. The boy shrunk under the touch, clearly uncomfortable. "Don't forget—chess is supposed to be fun too."
Arthur looked up, genuinely confused. "It is fun. I win."
----------------
By ten, Arthur had outgrown the elementary school chess club and moved on to crushing retirees at the local community centre and playing against budding expert at local tournaments. His small frame barely reached the edge of the table as he sat across from men five times his age, his face impassive while their weathered hands trembled over pieces.
"The kid's a damn machine," they'd mutter when Arthur was out of earshot. "Doesn't even smile when he wins."
What they didn't understand was that Arthur wasn't trying to be cold. He simply didn't see the point in celebrating the inevitable. The chessboard was just a system with rules, and systems could be solved. He'd started keeping a notebook full of opening moves and their counters, probabilities scrawled in his cramped handwriting. The margins filled with little stick figure battles—the pieces coming alive in scenarios that went beyond the rigid constraints of the checkered board.
At night, he'd lie awake reimagining his matches, but not as they'd been played. In his mind, the bishops became snipers on distant hills. The knights transformed into strike teams making precision jumps behind enemy lines. The pawns were brave soldiers marching to inevitable sacrifice for the greater good. The queen—his queen—was the deadliest special forces operative on the field.
His parents noticed the change in him after he found their old desktop computer in the garage and convinced his father to make it work again.
"He used to at least talk about his chess matches," his mother said one night, voice hushed outside his bedroom door. "Now he just sits in front of that screen."
"He's found something that challenges him," his father replied. "You know how bored he gets with regular kid stuff."
"But don't you think he should go out more?" She worried, hearing the faint clacking of the keyboard.
"I'm sure it's just a phase, he will eventually grow out of it." he reassured her, a half smile on his face hiding a kernel of worry deep within.
Inside his room, Arthur clicked through the tutorial of his first strategy game—Command & Conquer. Chess was fine, but this—this was chess with a hundred pieces moving at once, in real-time, with fog of war and resource management and technology trees. It was glorious chaos that somehow made perfect sense to his developing mind.
He stayed up until 3 AM on a school night, eyes burning, fingers cramping, mouth set in a rare smile.
---------------
Middle school brought Arthur's first real taste of social hierarchy, and he found himself at the bottom. His clothes were wrong. His interests were wrong. The way he spoke, direct, unfiltered; was wrong.
Even the way he avoided eye contact rubbed others the wrong way.
"Freak," they called him after he corrected a teacher's explanation of military formations in history class.
"Robot," they sneered when he didn't laugh at jokes he didn't understand.
Arthur absorbed these blows with the same detachment he showed when losing a virtual battle. By focusing on what really mattered.
At least to him.
And what mattered was getting home to his games. By thirteen, his collection had grown to dozens of titles spanning every strategy subgenre. Turn-based. Real-time. Grand strategy. Tactical combat. If it involved commanding units and outsmarting opponents, Arthur owned it, played it, mastered it.
His room transformed into a command center. Star charts and battle maps from various games plastered the walls. Three monitors dominated his desk, allowing him to track multiple aspects of his virtual campaigns simultaneously. At night, the glow from his screens painted his face in harsh blue light as he directed starships against alien armadas or positioned medieval troops on blood-soaked fields.
The games never called him names. They never found him strange or off-putting. They rewarded his mind's unique wiring—his ability to track countless variables, to predict outcomes based on limited information, to remain logical under pressure.
In the games, he wasn't just accepted. He was valued.
-------------------
High school should have been hell. For many like Arthur—the awkward, the obsessive, the socially unaware—it was. But for him, other people's opinions never really stuck. He reacted to them the way you might react to hearing gossip about a stranger.
The only people he really connected with were beyond a thin layer of pixels, as he grew, so did the internet, and online communities where like-minded people could gather began sprouting like mushrooms in a humid September.
It started with forums where strategy gamers shared tips and tactics. Arthur lurked at first, absorbing information, noting which users seemed most knowledgeable. Then, tentatively, he began to contribute.
People noticed.
"ComdCorioli's build order changed my whole approach to the mid-game," one user wrote.
"This guy understands the mechanics better than the devs do," wrote another.
Then came the invites to private servers, to clan matches, to competitive play. Arthur found himself with something he'd never had before: peers. People who spoke his language without judging him for things he didn't even pay attention to.
His parents noticed him talking more—actually talking, with animation and engagement—though it was still mostly about his games.
"At least he's connecting with someone," his father said with cautious optimism.
An optimism not shared by his mother. "He needs real friends, not just usernames on a screen."
————-
College arrived with the weight of expectation. Arthur's parents had compromised with his gaming obsession through high school on the condition that he maintain his grades, which he did effortlessly. Tests were just another type of puzzle, after all. But now they expected him to "get serious" and "prepare for the real world."
Arthur chose computer science, reasoning it was adjacent enough to his interests. He lasted three semesters before the tedium of basic courses and forced group projects drove him to drop out.
The night he told his parents was the first time he'd seen his father truly angry.
"You had a full scholarship!" The vein in his father's forehead pulsed like raging worms underneath the skin. "Do you have any idea what some people would give for that opportunity?"
Arthur stood perfectly still in their living room, hands nervously twitching and rubbing whichever way. "I can learn more on my own. The courses are outdated and inefficient."
"That's not the point!" his mother interjected. "A degree opens doors, Arthur. What's your plan now? Play games in our basement for the rest of your life?"
Something hardened in Arthur's expression—not anger, but resolution. "No. I'm going to start streaming. Professional gamers can make—"
His father's bitter laugh cut him off. "Professional gamer. Christ, Maria, where did we go wrong?"
Arthur moved out the next day with the help of some online friends. He took only his computer equipment and clothes, setting up in a studio apartment so small he could touch opposite walls with his arms outstretched. The bathroom smelled perpetually of mildew. The kitchenette could barely fit a microwave. But it had fiber internet and it was his.
The first months were lean. Arthur lived on ramen and tap water, pouring what little savings he had into setting up his streaming setup. He established a rigorous schedule: eight hours of streaming daily, focusing on high-level strategy gameplay with commentary. Before and after streams, he practiced, studied other streamers, and edited highlights for YouTube.
He approached building an audience like he would any tactical objective: methodically, with clear metrics for success and constant adjustment based on results.
By month three, he had enough subscribers to cover rent.
By month six, he could afford real food again.
By the end of his first year, he had moved to a proper one-bedroom and had a steady income that allowed him to put something aside.
—————-
At twenty-eight, Commander Corioli—as his hundred thousand followers knew him—had carved out his niche in the competitive gaming world. Not as flashy as the battle royale streamers or as broadly popular as the variety gamers, but respected for his analytical approach and strategic mastery.
His specialty had become "impossible" challenges. When a new strategy game released with an achievement that only 0.1% of players could unlock, viewers would flood to Arthur's channel to watch him methodically dismantle it. When developers claimed a scenario was unbeatable, Arthur would beat it with an aggravatingly casual expression the whole time.
Despite this, his living arrangements hadn't changed much, he reasoned he had enough space to live in and didn't need much more. One bedroom served as his streaming studio, acoustically treated and professionally lit. The living area remained minimally furnished—form following function in all things. No decorations hung on the walls except maybe a couple prizes that he had been sent and a picture of him with his parents, taken and brought over by his father despite Arthur's indifference.
His daily routine never varied. The only change had been the addition of light physical workout to build up stamina for longer streaming sessions, and because he had read that obesity and other such "lazy diseases" could slow down reflexes and affect reasoning.
On Sundays, he called his parents. The conversations were brief and awkward, but both parties persisted. It was the correct thing to do.
Tonight, as Seattle's perpetual rain tapped against his windows, Arthur sat in the soft glow of his monitors, reviewing footage from his latest stream. Subscribers had been particularly engaged by his handling of a nearly impossible extraction mission in the new Y-COM 3 expansion.
He'd saved them all, of course. Arthur always found a way.
His phone buzzed. A text from ReaperCommand—Mike, in real life—who had moved to Seattle last year partly at Arthur's suggestion. They met for coffee every once in a while, the closest thing to a conventional friendship Arthur maintained.
"Saw today's stream. That rescue was sick. Still on for Saturday?"
Arthur typed back: "Yes. 11 AM. The usual place."
He set the phone down and turned back to his monitors. A strange restlessness had been building in him lately. Despite the success, the steady numbers, the validation—something felt incomplete.
He was growing bored with gaming. Not from failure or fatigue, but from predictability. Even the hardest challenges had begun to follow familiar patterns. His father would have called it inevitability—and reminded him, with that same old smirk, that he said Arthur would grow out of gaming eventually. Just not when.
Arthur tapped his keyboard with a sigh, pulling up his analytics dashboard in hopes of feeling some motivation. Numbers defined his success more clearly than any subjective measure ever could. Viewer retention, subscription growth, donation patterns—all trackable, all quantifiable.
His last stream had performed 7.3% above average. Good, but not exceptional.
He was halfway through typing a note about trying a different approach for tomorrow's strategy breakdown when his screen flickered. Once. Twice.
Then darkness.
"Son of a—"
His monitors died. The soft hum of his PC's cooling fans fell silent. The room plunged into stillness broken only by the constant patter of rain against the window.
Arthur sat motionless for a moment, processing. Power outages in his building were rare—he'd specifically chosen this apartment complex for its reliable infrastructure. He glanced at his phone. The battery icon showed full charge, the time reading 11:42 PM.
With a sigh, he pushed his chair back and crouched beneath his desk. The power strip's indicator light was off. He traced the cable to the wall outlet, found it firmly connected. He checked the circuit breaker next—all switches in their proper positions.
Arthur's irritation grew with each passing second, he hated when something unexpected happened, even more when he couldn't go back to normal right away.
He unplugged the power strip, waited exactly thirty seconds, then plugged it back in. Nothing. He tried a different outlet. Still nothing.
Just as he was considering texting the building manager—despite the late hour, but who cared—the overhead lights suddenly flickered back to life. Around him, electronics began their start-up chimes. Relief washed over him, quickly replaced by concern about potential data loss.
Arthur slid back into his chair and pressed his PC's power button. The familiar start-up sequence began, the machine humming back to life. He drummed his fingers on the desk, calculating how much time he'd need to recover his work. Not much, thankfully. His backup systems were robust.
The login screen appeared. Arthur typed his password, the keystrokes automatic after years of muscle memory. The screen transitioned to his desktop.
And Arthur froze.
His desktop was empty. No folders. No application shortcuts. No taskbar filled with his carefully organized programs. Just the default background—a generic landscape he'd replaced years ago—and a single icon in the center of the screen.
"Zero Latency," he read aloud, the words unfamiliar on his tongue.
Arthur moved his cursor to the icon—a simple, geometric design that resembled a stylized "Z" overlaid on what might have been a planet. Not the logo of any game developer he recognized.
His first instinct was malware. He opened Task Manager with a practiced key combination—or tried to. Nothing happened. He tried again. Still nothing.
"System restore," he muttered, trying another key combination. The machine didn't respond.
"F**k!" he muttered under his breath which didn't fix his computer, but was worth a try.
The icon seemed to pulse slightly, drawing his attention back to it. Arthur narrowed his eyes.
Arthur grabbed his phone to search for information. But a cursory web search returned nothing relevant.
Curiosity overtook caution. Whatever it was, virus or not, it had already clearly taken over his computer, no reason to cry over spilled milk and all that.
Arthur double-clicked.
The screen went black for a heartbeat before flooding with color. A sleek, minimalist interface appeared—gunmetal gray and electric blue, with sharp angular designs that reminded him of military HUDs from sci-fi films. The words "ZERO LATENCY" pulsed at the center of the screen, beneath them a tagline in smaller font:
"Command. Defend. Survive."
A loading bar filled silently.
Then, a dialog box appeared:
"WARNING: Actions in ZERO LATENCY have real consequences. Proceed with extreme caution. By proceeding, you acknowledge full responsibility for all outcomes resulting from your directives."
Below the text were two options: "Acknowledge" and "Decline."
Arthur snorted. Games had been using variations of this gimmick for years—claiming "real consequences" to enhance immersion when, in reality, every outcome was predetermined by designers. Some even pretended to access your personal files or contact list to create the illusion of higher stakes.
He clicked "Acknowledge" without a second thought.
The warning vanished, replaced by another message:
"ZERO LATENCY operational interface initializing. Connecting to command network. Establishing global tactical uplinks. Stand by, Commander."