44: The Tank Trials, Day One
Cao Lin sat down opposite me at the corner table of Manager Fang's cafe at seven-twenty-six PM IRL with the small black backpack across his knees and the small precise color still drained out of his face and the small visible tremor at the corner of his mouth that the small specific sophomore-in-an-IRL-conversation-he-had-not-anticipated psychology produced, and he did not, in the first ten seconds of the sit-down, look at me.
I let the ten seconds pass.
Manager Fang at the front counter turned a page of his magazine.
I said, very quietly, "Cao Lin."
"Mn."
"You signed an exclusive supply arrangement with Tianxia Coalition's outer-recruit handler in pod twelve in the past hour."
He did not, in his face, react. He had clearly been instructed by the handler that any acknowledgment of the arrangement to a stranger would void his sign-on bonus.
I said, "I am not asking you to confirm. I am informing you that I know. I know the handler's IRL physical description because he walked past me out of the back door six minutes ago. I know the handler's small Tianxia internal designation because the small Tianxia internal designations of the Hangzhou outer-recruit cell are the kind of small civic information that my strategist's pseudonymous-account network has, in the past two weeks, catalogued. I know the small specific terms of the arrangement you signed because the launch-week Tianxia outer-recruit standard contract is — by the small precise mechanism of Tianxia's small career-leverage engineering — boilerplate. I know your IRL name because Manager Fang gave it to me when I asked. I know your year and your major and your dormitory floor because Manager Fang has been running the cafe at the corner of HZUT's south gate for nine years and the small specific sophomore population is small and Manager Fang has a memory that the small specific sophomore population's small specific anonymity is not equipped to defeat. Are we clear."
Cao Lin held the small black backpack tighter at the strap.
He said, very quietly, "What do you want."
"I want to give you a small specific piece of information. I do not want anything else from you. I do not want the arrangement reversed. I do not want you to break with your handler. I do not want you to inform him that we have spoken. I want you to know one thing, and after I tell you the one thing I want you to leave the cafe and go back to your dorm and think about what I have told you. The thing is this."
I held his eyes.
"The exclusive supply arrangement you signed includes a Schedule B clause that stipulates, on page seven in font half a size smaller than the surrounding text, that all session activity logged on the Tianxia-sponsored cradle pod becomes Tianxia intellectual property and that the small specific small private intellectual-property pool is read by Tianxia's internal audit on a quarterly basis. The audit's read includes — by the small precise civic mechanism of the launch-week design's intra-server analytics — your small specific tactical patterns, your in-game decision tree, your party-affiliation history, and the small specific personal IRL chat-log content that you may, during a session, voice-relay to other small private friends. The audit's read does not include only your in-game character. The audit's read includes the IRL voice-channel content the cradle band picks up around your IRL head. You will, beginning the moment you next log in on the Tianxia-sponsored pod, be heard by Tianxia's audit. Everything you say. Everything your IRL roommates say. The small specific text messages you read aloud to yourself when you are alone. All of it. I am telling you because the Schedule B is the small specific clause that the Tianxia outer-recruit handler will not, in any of his small careful onboarding scripts, mention to you. The Schedule B is the clause that will, in eight to twelve IRL months, become the small specific civic injury you will not be able to undo. I am telling you because — Cao Lin — because nobody told me the Schedule B existed in my first life, and I lost three small specific people to the small specific consequences of not knowing. You are an HZUT computer-engineering sophomore. You are nineteen. You will, in time, be a man who has small specific civic responsibilities of your own. I am telling you the Schedule B because the small civic responsibility of telling you is mine to discharge."
He did not move.
He sat with this for the small space of ten full breaths.
He said, finally, very quietly, "Why."
"Why what."
"Why are you — telling me. You do not know me. You do not, by the small careful read of the conversation, gain anything by telling me. The small specific information you have given me is small specific career-injuring to Tianxia's recruitment program. You are giving it to me at — what looks like — small specific personal cost. Why."
I held his eyes.
I said, "Because I have, for two weeks of the launch-week, been running a small careful play to bury Tianxia. The play is the small clean play of building a guild that survives Tianxia's pressure without ever publicly declaring war. The play is, in the small specific sense, a play that requires patience. The Schedule B disclosure to you is a small specific small move within the play. The small move is — to incrementally reduce Tianxia's recruitment-pipeline efficiency by ensuring that the small specific HZUT-corner sophomore population has, in the small private chat networks, the small specific information that Tianxia's recruiters are required to obscure. You will, after this conversation, tell — at minimum — your roommates. Your roommates will, in time, tell their friends. The small civic chain will, in three to four IRL weeks, propagate to perhaps eighty or ninety small specific HZUT sophomore players. The eighty or ninety players will, by the small specific propagation mechanism, refuse the Tianxia outer-recruit approach when it comes for them. The Tianxia outer-recruit Hangzhou cell will, in eight IRL weeks, see its conversion rate drop. The cell will, by the small specific Tianxia internal performance protocol, be reassigned. The reassignment will be — useful to me. I am, in the small specific sense, recruiting the HZUT sophomore population to be the small specific small civic shield against Tianxia at HZUT, by the small precise mechanism of giving them the Schedule B."
He held my eyes for another beat.
He said, very quietly, "You are — playing a long game."
"I am playing a long game."
"And the small specific exclusive supply arrangement I signed."
"Is yours to manage. I will not, by any small specific channel, disrupt it. You will, in the next eight to twelve IRL months, decide for yourself what to do about the Schedule B. The small specific decision is yours. I am only — informing you."
He sat for another beat.
He said, "Bladeless."
"Mn."
"You knew my IRL name was Cao Lin before I sat down."
"Yes."
"You knew Manager Fang would give it to me."
"Yes."
"You — engineered this."
"I engineered the small specific informational exchange. I did not engineer the small specific personal damage. The small specific personal damage was already engineered by the Tianxia handler's small specific Schedule B omission. I am, in the small precise sense, the small specific second mover."
He inclined his head a precise quarter-inch.
He said, "Mn."
He stood up. He shouldered the small black backpack. He walked, without looking back, through the front door of the cafe.
Manager Fang at the front counter turned a page of his magazine.
***
I logged in at eight-twenty PM IRL.
Iron Fan was already at the Withered Hollow extension's gate stone. He was, in the launch-week pre-render, a square-shouldered Lv 19 Warrior in well-worn medium plate with a small slate-grey shield slung at his back and a small heavy axe at his hip and the small careful stance of a man who had, by Old Wolf's report, been a fencer in his IRL university years and had carried the small specific economy of fencer-stance into every avatar he had ever built.
He inclined his head a precise quarter-inch as I came up.
"Bladeless. Old Wolf-ge spoke for me. I am Iron Fan."
"Iron Fan."
He extended a small in-game-rendered formal hand. The launch-week pass-through carried the small handshake at the small careful firm pressure that the launch-week design's small specific Warrior-class handshake animation produced. I returned the pressure.
He said, "I have read the brief Wenqing-ge sent me. The trial structure is — clean. I have prepared. I am ready."
"Mn." I tilted my head. "Two questions before we go in."
"Ask."
"One. You are, in the brief, recorded as having declined four small private intel-sale offers from competitor parties across nine years. Why."
He inclined his head a precise quarter-inch.
He said, "Because the small private intel-sale transactions are boring. They are also — they damage the small specific people in the guild who depend on you not selling. I have, in the nine years, been in three guilds. In each guild I have been the tank that the back row trusts to hold position when the back row's HP is dropping. The small specific trust is — the small specific reason I play. If I sold intel, I would, in the small precise sense, be selling the small specific trust. I do not want to sell the trust. The boredom of the intel-sale plus the trust-injury of it together makes the transaction — uninteresting."
"Mn. Two. If you join my guild, and at some IRL point in the next two years a Tianxia recruiter offers you a hundred thousand yuan to relay one piece of small specific intel about my guild's tactical doctrine — what would you do."
He held my eyes.
He said, "I would tell you about the offer within twelve hours of receiving it. I would not relay the intel. The hundred thousand yuan would be — boring. The trust would be — interesting. The transaction is, in the small specific sense, the same transaction as the four I have already declined. The amount does not change the structure."
"Mn."
I inclined my head a precise quarter-inch.
I said, "Walk."
We walked into the Withered Hollow extension.
***
The trial structure for a tank candidate was a small specific format that Wenqing had drafted and I had approved over the past two IRL days — three escalating combat scenarios, each calibrated to test a small specific aspect of the tank's tactical profile. Scenario one was a small adaptive-aggro test in which I would deliberately commit damage faster than the tank's standard threat-generation could cover, requiring the tank to improvise a small specific adaptive response. Scenario two was a small positional-discipline test in which the tank would have to hold a small specific narrow corridor against a small swarm of low-tier mobs with no support. Scenario three was a small high-burst-survival test in which the tank would have to take a specific high-burst attack from a sub-elite construct without breaking position.
Iron Fan cleared scenario one in two minutes.
The adaptive response he produced was the small surprising one Old Wolf had flagged in the dossier — instead of the small standard threat-rotation overdrive that most launch-week Warriors would have used, Iron Fan executed a small clean lateral side-step that took him out of the standard tank position and put him at my flank, forcing the launch-week-rendered mob aggro to re-pivot through a small specific re-acquisition window during which I had three full seconds of clean damage uptime. The lateral side-step was the small specific fencer-trained mobility Old Wolf had mentioned. It was — clean.
He cleared scenario two in five minutes. He held the corridor against the small swarm with a small precise rotation of shield-bash and axe-sweep that maintained perfect facing across the entire engagement. He took perhaps forty percent of his HP across the engagement and finished with the small specific shield still squared toward the corridor's far end. The discipline was — clean.
He cleared scenario three in twelve seconds. The high-burst attack from the sub-elite construct landed for one hundred and ninety percent of his HP-against-DEF expected damage, but he had pre-positioned with his back against the corridor's wall and had pre-activated his small Iron Wall Knight tier-two stance, which had reduced the burst to seventy-eight percent of his HP. He had survived with twenty-two percent HP intact. He had not broken position.
I sheathed the Black Iron Heavy Blade.
I inclined my head a precise full inch.
I said, "Iron Fan."
"Bladeless."
"You will be offered the second tank slot in the guild charter when the charter opens. The offer is a six-month probation followed by a permanent appointment. The terms are — equivalent to the leadership council's standard tank package. You will work with Yu Tieshou as the primary tank rotation when the charter lands. Are you interested in considering the offer."
He inclined his head a precise quarter-inch.
He said, "I am interested. I will take twenty-four IRL hours to discuss the offer with my wife. I will reply by tomorrow evening."
"Mn."
We exited the Withered Hollow extension.
The bond icon brightened as Iron Fan cleared the small specific extension threshold. The launch-week pass-through carried the small clean evening ambient of the launch-week server's autumn settings.
Wanqing, who had been in the bonded channel's small private quiet for the entirety of the trial, said, "Cangtian."
"Mn."
"Iron Fan is — clean."
"He is clean."
"The discuss-with-wife clause."
"Is the small precise marker of the small specific reliability the dossier flagged. He will, in the small specific Iron Fan way, get a clean small spousal sign-off before he commits to a guild. The sign-off will be — sincere. He will arrive tomorrow evening at the south gate with a small clean yes that has, by the small precise mechanism, been talked through with the IRL person who knows him best. The yes will be — durable."
"Mn."
We logged out at ten-fifteen.
I sat at the dorm desk for a moment with the slab phone face-down on the keyboard and the cracked-egg ceiling stain over me and the small clean settled understanding that the day's two operational items — the Cao Lin disclosure and the Iron Fan trial — had both, in the small precise discipline of the past four IRL hours, landed cleanly.
Wanqing texted at ten-twenty.
*Wanqing (text): Tomorrow evening. Yu Tieshou trial. He arrives at the south gate at 7:00 PM IRL with a small specific clipboard.*
*Cangtian (text): I'll be there.*
*Wanqing (text): Sleep, ghost.*
I slept.