“Hi Emma” said the young Swedish girl when she answered the knock at her door.
“Hello Miss Liljeros.” Came the reply from the visitor.
The two friends exchanged customary kisses on the cheek and Amanda invited Emma inside.

“So, this is the flat your daddy bought you?” the blonde inquired as she followed her host along the corridor and into a dimly lit room.

Despite the very low level of illumination, the room had no trouble in making an impression on Emma. The walls were painted green. Precisely which shade of green could not be determined due to the lighting, or lack thereof. There was one large window, she noted, but it was guarded by the most efficient blind imaginable and neither showed any signs of having been opened recently.

In one corner stood a small, plain unmade bed. There were several magazines abandoned about the place, a slice of cold pizza and a can of warm cola added to the air of decadence. In the exact centre of the room, sat a luxurious armchair – the kind you would love to sink into. Directly in front of the chair was a dark, broad table supporting an array of computer peripherals and accessories. Each was the state of the art and everything was black. A giant monitor, bigger than most TV’s, a set of high quality speakers, two hollow cubes whose inner walls emitted laser light and parked between them a keyboard.

The computer itself was on with IRC, ICQ and a few other programs running. A pair of expensive-looking headphones lay on the carpet next to the pizza. Emma deduced that her friend spent more time in this chair than anywhere else. She was absolutely right.

“Have a seat. Can I get you anything?” asked Amanda. Her face was pale, showing the lack of regularity in the girl’s sleeping habits.
“Yeah, something to drink would be nice.”
“So, how does it feel to be a student of Stockholm University?” called Amanda from the kitchen.
“I am a bit excited, but that’s all. What about you Amanda? Aren’t you doing anything after High School?”

“Well, I’m taking a year off, I need to have some fun. After four years of studying like crazy I’m tired” replied Amanda and handed a glass of apple juice to her friend.
“And what exactly do you intend to do for a whole year? Sit at home all day?” Emma was looking at the 30” monitor as she spoke but the considerable amount of irony in her voice seemed lost on her friend.
“I jog in the morning” answered Amanda a little defensively but her tone rang with the naivety of someone oblivious to the very existence of discos, clubs and, most importantly, men.

Emma decided that any attempt to convert her friend back to a ‘normal’ way of life would be futile.
“So you spend most of your time in front of the computer…” she sighed. “Where is your mouse by the way?”
“I don’t need one, I’ve got the cubes, they’re a lot better. Take a look.” Amanda sunk her right hand in the blue light of one of the boxes on her table. The pointer on the monitor moved with the motion of her hand.
“Isn’t a mouse cheaper?”
“Er, yeah I guess but the light cubes are so much better for Doom” the girl’s eyes were rendered livelier. She clicked an icon. “Let me show you.”

Emma did not feel like protesting. The big screen filled with fantastic images. A massive, fortified Gothic castle situated in a valley. The beauty of the view was breathtaking.
“Is this some kind of film?”
“No, dummy, it’s a computer game. Doom 4 to be precise. You like the graphics, don’t you?” Emma shrugged. “Look. I am moving my head around.” Said Amanda as she moved her hand sideways in the laser light.
“Interesting” lied the other girl.
“The other hand is responsible for movement” Amanda moved her left hand back, forth, left, right, up and down inside the other box. “When I want to do something special I can touch the base of the cube, twist my hand or click my fingers together in different combinations. See? You can wear special gloves, then the computer can easily verify everything the lasers catch. For extra precision.”

“Isn’t it hard to operate?”
“Yeah, at first it is, but once you master it……… well, you’ll never need a rodent in your hand again!”
“And you bought it for this Dome thing?”
“It’s not a thing, it’s a sport. And its Doom not Dome. I can’t believe you’ve never heard of it. It’s in the newspapers every week! You really never heard of it? People make money playing Doom” Amanda’s indignation was somewhat justified. Doom 4 was the mainstream E-Sport in Sweden; at least the name should have rung a bell. “Look. I am closed in an arena with another player and I have to frag him more times than he frags me.”
“I beg your pardon? You do what to him?”
“Frag. It means kill. You run around the map, pick up all sorts of weapons and power-ups that make you stronger, Rocket Launchers, Machineguns and stuff and hunt down your opponent. If you frag… kill him, he is respawned in another part of the map with a crappy gun in his hands.”

“Slow down. You are using way too many words I don’t understand.”
“Respawned means reborn” the explanation came with a slight shade of impatience. “When you are killed, you appear on the map again but you are as if naked and you have to pick up all the stuff all over again to be dangerous. It’s called a deathmatch. Not very realistic but extremely cool.”
“I can imagine” Emma decided to change the subject. “Do you do anything else besides playing this game?”
“Sure.” Returned the computer addict as she went back to Windows. “I read sites, watch movies and listen to music. I talk to friends on ICQ. Speaking of friends, how is your boyfriend? What’s his name?”

“Fredrik. We are still together but he is staying in Örebro and I am going to Stockholm to study so I don’t know how this will turn out. I mean, we’ve been going out for so long and I am still not sure if he is the one for me. I guess we will just have to see when we are separated by a longer distance, if the relationship can hold. But if I am not sure now, then can Fredrik be the one for me? See what I mean?” a nod came as a reply. “How about the guy you had?”
Amanda laughed lightly.
“Bjorn? Oh my god, he was sooo boring. Admittedly he did play some impressive Doom. About the only thing he was good for.”
“Only…?” smiled Emma.
“Well, he wasn’t that bad. I’ve had better though…”
“But you’re not with anyone now?”
“Nah. There was a cute guy, Henrik, in a gaming centre that I used to visit. I kind of liked him, but he started behaving really strange after I had played him. I don’t understand them. I mean men. A girl beats them and all of the sudden they are less of a man because of it!” it was hard to tell if it was disappointment or pride in Amanda’s voice.

“So, you are better than the guys at these games?”
“Sure. I beat everyone in Sweden as far as I know” the girl became somewhat boastful. “I told you Bjorn was good for something.”
“Hey, you wanna go out? Grab a bite maybe? I don’t think too much pizza is good for you.” Proposed Emma as she pointed at the pizza box on the floor. She was a bit tired of all this Matrix atmosphere. She thought to herself that if she had a fifteen year old brother, he would behave just like the person she was talking to now. A lot had changed since high school.

“Sure, ok” replied Amanda after hesitating for a split second. She didn’t want to appear a total nerd. She changed her ICQ status to “away” and switched off the monitor. “Let’s go.”
“What? Do you mean like that?” exclaimed Emma. Amanda was wearing no make-up and was dressed in baggy cotton sweats.
“Ah, you’re right, it’s a bit cold outside, isn’t it?”

***

It was late. Amanda shut the door behind her. The evening in Emma’s company was quite a change from her normal routine. It had been more than two weeks since she last went out somewhere just for leisure. The evening was an occasion for the young Swede to reminisce about the still recent, high school days. A time when she devoted herself to study and social events and didn’t treat gaming seriously. Of one thing she was certain - she preferred her new lifestyle to the old one.

Somehow, all the girlish topics became uninteresting to her. The Internet was one place where you didn’t have to spend a few hours in front of the mirror, visit the hairdresser and wear fancy clothes to be considered a valuable person.


She felt exhausted but the first thing she did upon entering her inner sanctum was to check her messages on ICQ and IRC. What followed was a routine so deeply etched into her brain that she experienced it with little or no conscious attention. Cigarette, fire, smoke. Outlook, mail. No messages. Explorer, XSReality. Nothing interesting, no new demos… wait! A MrE column. Nah, read it later. Explorer, the Swedish Doom forum. Nothing new…

Having found nothing worth her while, Amanda most often proceeded to play some Doom. This time was no exception to the rule. She bent down and reached for the headphones, clutched them but didn’t sit upright again. Young Miss Liljeros hesitated for a moment, touched her thighs, hesitated still and finally, picked up the cold pizza and took a bite. “Damn, why am I always eating cold pizza?” she thought to herself. “I hate cold pizza!”

Minutes later Amanda had joined a server and was awaiting her turn to fight. The wait was a short one, as usual. She hadn’t lied to Emma about her prowess. Good players never had problems finding an opponent. The Swede never played any Free For All games, she knew nothing of Team Deathmatch and no other popular game mode. Dueling was her existence. Dueling was her social life, dueling was her visit at the hairdressers, dueling was her gossip about other girls appearance, dueling was her disco. There was no other person in the country more dedicated to the game and Sweden was one of the strongest nations in E-Sports with more fully fledged professional gamers per capita than any other country.

Game after game, map after map… Opponents left depleted and discouraged after a few rounds but Amanda seemed restless. She considered getting herself a cup of coffee, but dropped the idea in favour of a can of cola, which, being all ready and within reach, was a more favourable choice. She opened the can with one hand and took a gulp, her eyes never straying from the monitor. Similarly she located and lit a cigarette biting it quickly to free both hands again.
Nothing was as dear to her now as the precious Rocket Launcher and the feeling that came with every midair rocket, every cheeky flick shot and every little piece of spawn rape.

When Amanda played, her whole heart and soul was in the game. Just as in the game she was playing now, she could feel every shot as if it was real, she was scared every time someone surprised her and she could almost smell the high octane of rocket traces and taste the metallic smoke of explosions. The sensations were so real that she swore something was burning.

“Aah!” the pizza box was on fire. The sleep that had overcome her was dissipated by panic, as she started stomping on the flames in the most girlish of fashions. Nearly dancing on the sparks, Amanda spilled the rest of the cola onto them. “I really should stop smoking… at least the pizza is hot now” thought the gamer to herself. With some difficulty, she opened the window, took a few deep breaths, calmed herself down and returned to her throne and her monitor.

“Sorry, did you wait long?” she asked the player who was apparently patient enough to stay on the server until the girl decides to show signs of activity.
“Yeah, it was like five minutes. What were you doing?”
“Err.. I had a phone call”
“Who the fuck calls you at 4 o’clock in the morning?”