Amanda's heartbeat quickened. She drew deeply on her cigarette then put it out in the ashtray with amusing pedantry, really taking her time with it. It was her preferred way to centre herself, to purge her mind of all unnecessary thought and to focus. Her opponent would be no pushover; Amanda could not afford to treat him the way she treated all the rest.

Her rival was already rushing up and down the arena like a wild goat, beating the distance with what seemed to be ease but was not. ‘Phobos’ greatly resembling a devastated drill platform was an arena with arguably the best potential for movement in Doom. The jumps her opponent was performing were some of the toughest and most technically advanced tricks known to any doomer, and whilst performing these acrobatics he was still shooting at Amanda. The people who connected to the server as spectators had to be impressed; perhaps a dozen players in Europe were able to do the same thing.

Amanda exhaled all the air in her lungs with a deep sigh and put her hands in the laser light of the cubes. She typed in ‘ready’ and expected the opponent to reciprocate. He, nonetheless, kept on wildgoating and shooting her, playing a pre-match psychological game. The Swede grew impatient and interrupted his routine with one pin-point Lascannon shot pushing him off a ledge he was on. He appeared unaffected and continued with his impressive but tiresome performance.

Amanda repeated the shot. Before he fully recovered she too began to climb, and with enormous speed. The spectators witnessed a wild race, a feast of rocket jumps and acrobatic moves from both competitors. The girl was the first one to reach the topmost ledge and from her vantage point wasted no time in pushing the other player down again, this time with a rocket.

“Can we start already?” she typed in. Everyone used voice communication in Doom but Amanda disabled that option. She did not wish to talk to her opponents and she definitely did not wish to be talked to during the match. An icon on the scoreboard indicated that the girl was mute, if somebody wanted to say something, they knew they had to type it.

“patience is a virtue my dear friend”
“if you think you can push me off balance with your behaviour you are fucking mistaken. go!”
“lemme just go to the bathroom real quick?”
“my god what a lamer!” Amanda lit a cigarette. She would not accept this kind of behaviour. The girl ‘unreadied’ herself, stood up from her chair, went to the kitchen and prepared herself a peanut butter sandwich. Unusually for her, she put the bread and the jar back in their places and she even washed the knife. Her actions were slow and her mood was tranquil. Amanda and her snack walked back to her room loping and swaying to an imagined tune.

“where the hell are you?” Came the in-game message.
An ostentatious bite on the sandwich was her only answer. She chewed and looked at the monitor. Then Amanda started to watch the red glow on the end of the cigarette, deriving real joy from the moment. The people in the game were getting more and more impatient but she did not care.

“i will wait 30 more seconds and then ill go find something better to do”
Having devoured the food, Amanda readied herself up again but she did not put out her smoke. Her opponent also typed in ‘ready’ and the ten second count down started but stopped at four.
“wait! i am thirsty” The girl was stretching the line.
“there is no wait. either we play now or go find yourself a n00b!”
Timer ticked down to zero…


Amanda had an unfortunate spawn. The system placed her on one of the worst starting points on Phobos. She had to make her way from the very bottom platform through a maze of corridors winding around the huge hollow pit. The other player was probably a few storeys above, wearing the Power Shield, already prepared to hunt her down. She was not safe. Her hands entered a pattern of swift and elegant motions.

In addition to the weapons and the Power Shield, there were another two important items to pick up – the Adrenaline and the Armour. Amanda needed to pick up at least one of them lest she wanted the rival to be too strong. The opponent was a cocky man though, she had already beaten others like him. They all made the same mistake; concentrating on the power-ups rather than the game itself. Needless to say… they all got punished for that.

The girl gamer raced up a staircase toward the areas emptied by the man. Using stealth was a waste of time because surely, the sucker was too preoccupied quenching his own greed for power rather than looking for a fight. Amanda was weaker, but she was very quick and she knew she was good enough for him. While the fully armoured rooster thought he was the hunter and expected a fight for the, as yet unclaimed, Adrenaline, he was actually the hunted. Amanda was closing in like a hawk steadying itself for the dive to kill its prey.

There he was, on the ledge below, rushing bravely for the Adrenaline and completely unready. The attack was quick and ruthless. Wielding only the Rocket Launcher, the girl struck. The first projectile was a complete shock for the man, propelling him high into the air. An instant later another exploded against the wall inches from the surprised rooster bouncing him even higher and a little to the side. The third rocket was already on its way when Amanda's rival made a full turn towards her with the Lascannon. With the rocket speeding its way right at him he could count himself a dead man, he had milliseconds to take the shot. All he could do was to take the Swede to the grave along with himself. And so he did.

“Oh my fucking God! Did you see that?” Cried one of the spectators to the others. “Never saw anything like it!”
“Wooo hooo!!!” Came the reply from those lucky enough to have beheld the same scene. Every single one of them pressed the replay button.

With one frag a piece the players were back where they started. Both naked of armour and with only a Shotgun in their hands. The man could thank his heavy armour for miraculously saving him from two, almost direct rockets.
Dueling was about aim. Dueling was about knowing the map inside out and dueling was about dexterity and rapid movement. But none of these elements were as important as controlling the map's resources and thereby keeping the other player relatively weak. A small armour difference in a fire fight was crucial on most occasions, especially with two opponents of comparable prowess. The main skill in dueling was avoiding the fight when disadvantaged and depriving the opponent of all the pickups as long as possible when in control.

Amanda seemed to be unaware of this rule or, more probably, never felt the need to pay any attention to it while playing. Unlike the world’s best players, she almost never planned her next move and she only timed items when she was losing. The girl typed ‘lucky llama’ and made a rush for the Adrenaline.

The rooster became more defensive now. That did not help him, nothing could. Every one of his moves was very cautious and therefore too passive, he must have been scared by the greeting he got in the very beginning. This gave the Swede more freedom to move around and choose where to attack from, the kind of game she loved. The hunt was on.

All the corridors and stairways on Phobos led to a flat platform which constituted the top of the facility. Whoever looked beyond its edges saw nothing but abyss. The players’ second encounter took place right there. Amanda had just come from a level below and saw her adversary coming back from one of the platform’s arms, where the Power Shield lay. His weapon of choice was the Chain Gun, which was moderately easy to aim and with not a huge skill difference it was the advantage in armour that decided the outcome against another Chain Gun user. A reasonable player would retreat in the girl’s place.

Apparently, Amanda had not read the Pro-Gamer’s Handbook because she ran against the showering bullets and shot rockets to the rooster’s left side, forcing him to stay close to her. The girl felt rage and power. She did not let the rooster’s precise fire stop her. As soon as she closed in on him, she fired a rocket at his feet. He jumped away from the projectile, avoiding most of the blast damage but the price for it was being projected high above the platform. Amanda felt a new adrenaline rush, she almost felt the bullets piercing through her flesh and she knew she had little time left. She was low on health and the Combat Armour was almost disintegrated. Raising her eyebrows, she bit her lip, flinched, fired another rocket and dodged away into the pit behind her.

“Whooa!” She cried in sheer joy. All the spectators pressed replay again.
The score was now 1-0 in Amanda’s favour. The second shot did not kill the rooster and it was not intended to kill him even though it was a mid air hit. It was meant to push him into the abyss.

The girl’s eyes started flaring. She knew she was untouchable in this game. She fumbled to put some music on her stereo with one of her bare feet. Rage Against The Machine. Loud, aggressive and full of anger. She melted into the rhythm and let it drive her into a state of frenzy. She was all over her opponent.


***


“Oooh that was wicked!” Doom had a built-in voice communication tool. The spectators could easily comment on what was happening in the game but the players did not hear them.

“Ouch! Did you see that? I have never seen this guy owned so badly.”
“My god. Are you guys recording?”
“Isn”t this guy using an aimbot?”
“Have you ever seen a bot for air rockets you newb?”
“Look look! He scored!” and indeed, the losing player made a kill.
“He”s coming back!”
“He”s not gonna win this”
“You two shut up already! Oh! Another frag!”
“What”s he doing? Nooo…”

Watching a good game of Doom IV was very entertaining. It was a true spectator sport. The game was fast as well as exciting and the graphics along with the simplistic rules appealed to everyone. A new subculture was formed. All over the world there were actually people who did nothing but watched matches on duelling or team game online servers.

“Look at them Lascannoning each other!”
“Oooh!”
“Oooh!”
“Oooh!”
“Oooh!”

The spectators sounded like a choir, expressing their awe after a precise shot from either player.
“Oooaah!”
“Did you see that anticipation?”


***


“Bloody hell look at that” exclaimed Kuras in excitement. The guys were watching a demo on one of the café”s computers.

“Freaking fast reaction time” returned WD40.
“That is fucking prediction not reaction” disagreed his friend.

WD40 got agitated, which was a usual thing when he talked to Kuras. He hated when his friend argued with him.
“Stop the demo, come back to the frag and put it in slow motion.”

“You are such stubborn dork, do you know that?” the pig farmer did what he was asked for despite what he said. “Oh my god...”

“Rewind it again. See the crosshair? Right now! It”s moving towards the opponent after he is seen.”

“Fucking shit! In that case that”s the best Lascannon shot I have seen this year.”
“Yeah, and who the hell is this guy? He doesn”t play in the Circuit.” remarked WD40.

“Loki is getting so damn owned!”
The boys were silent for the rest of the demo. The only thing they did was raising their eyebrows and looking at one another from time to time. When it ended they just stood up and went to the smoke room.


***


The game ended with 24 to 9 for Amanda.
“good game” typed in Loki, the loser.
Amanda opened up the game”s console.
Thresh renamed to _Loki
“yeah” replied she.
“one more” asked the Norwegian.
“no. i”ve got what i wanted. u have nothing else top lose to me. bye.”
_Loki left the game.

Amanda was exhilarated. She knew there were a dozen people watching the game. She knew she had given an absolutely stupendous performance. She knew that she humiliated Loki by winning his nickname from him. That was what she did every week. Asked top players for duels and used the nicknames of the defeated for a seven days. She was infamous and disliked, but nobody knew she was a girl.

Young Miss Liljeros remembered the last occasion when she was that joyful. It was when she beat her ex-boyfriend Bjorn for the first time in her life. She made a melancholic smile at the reminiscence. Then she remembered what they did afterwards… Amanda exhaled with a sigh and looked around the room. She stood up and started putting on her tracksuit on. It was time for some serious jogging exhaustion.