Free Lifer by Beck Nicholas

take a swig. It burns my throat on the way down and leaves me gasping.
    Megs hands me another bottle. “Water to wash away the taste.”
    I want the water but I don’t want to look weak. So I take a quick breath and choke the disgusting liquid down. The water that follows is clean and clear and cold in comparison. Delicious.
    “Have you eaten?” Megs shouts across the table.
    “Not recently.”
    “Good. Less mess for later.”
    “Later?”
    “Motion sickness is pretty common.”
    I swear the green drink is still bubbling in my gut. Great to know there’s something more sick-inducing ahead. I crowd watch, losing my thoughts in the persistent throb of the music.
    Every time someone in green robes moves close to our table I feign extreme interest in the other direction. No one pays me any attention. Maybe coming here wasn’t so stupid. This Keane might be able to help me. This way I’ll get the lay of the land without having to reveal myself and my strange memory loss.
    I look back at Megs and meet her green-eyed gaze. I’m captivated. Despite the dim light and flashing lasers I’m able to discern flecks of gray in the green, green depths of her eyes. Not just gray but shades of brown too. Is she wearing some kind of contact to make the color so brilliant? Everything around me disappears to nothing. I’m lost in those eyes, counting colors.
    I lean across the table to get closer. There’s a darker ring of color dividing the green from the whites of her eyes but I can’t pinpoint the exact shade. Dark green? Brown?
    Megs blinks and the spell breaks.
    She laughs. “Eyes, huh? Just relax, you’ll get used to it in a minute.”
    It’s the drink, not the girl. Or at least, it’s mostly the drink, because I was pretty fascinated with her before I choked it down. I lower my gaze and try to resist the urge to count the fine dark hairs on the back of my hands. She’s right. I begin to employ my enhanced focus without getting lost in the details.
    I’m not sure which happens first but I notice the music has stopped and the lights at the other end of the warehouse are on. Like everyone else, I turn toward a huge room divided from the rest of the warehouse by a glass-like partition.
    The darkness conceals the ceiling, if there is one. Inside there are huge boulders and scrap metal pieces drifting on unseen currents. On the floor, five small spaceships are scattered with their hatches open. The whole setup looks familiar somehow, like I’ve seen a game like this before. I blink and the hope of a memory fades.
    The game resembles the graphics in so many of the games I saw at the bar, clunky games where players control spaceships and fire unreal-looking rockets to create low FX explosions in waves of descending aliens.
    Without the music, the announcer’s voice carries easily over the crowd. “Could all green players report in. Game starts in ten minutes.”
    Megs points to our orange wristbands. Not our turn yet. Good, I’ll have the chance to watch at least one game before having to play. The games machines around this end of the warehouse are warm-ups for the main event. I don’t bother with them. Pressing a few buttons and watching a screen won’t get me prepped for whatever controls are inside the plastic and metal vehicles.
    The music starts up again, providing a soundtrack for the players to make their way to the game entrance and then follow an organizer to their ship and get strapped in. We’re not close enough here for me to see everything.
    I glance at Megs and she seems to read my question. We weave through the crowd once again and nab a spot close to the glass. The partition is thicker than it seems, making the people moving on the other side a silent movie. Each ship’s about the height of me standing and wider around and has a number sprayed on its hull. What was cool from a distance is less impressive up close. None are exactly the same, and I’d bet they’ve been recently welded together from