A Visitor to the Future - 94 - A Competitive Edge
The weeks leading up to the tournament continued to fly by. Over the last few months I'd almost forgotten what it was like to have a deadline approaching. As much as I'd been making plans with the people I'd met in the Consortium, this was different. I was feeling a sort of pressure - I didn't want to let the team down.
So I launched into practice with a renewed vigour. Started watching things outside of practice, trying to really take the lessons to heart. But the more I got pummelled by Gatecrash, or outsmarted by Tungsten, the more I felt frustrated. The pressure grew.
Some part of that pressure must have been noticed by Blaise. While the rest of the team enjoyed lunch on the Peeping Tom, the blonde-haired auditor took me to one side. He led me through the maze-like corridors of the airship into his own living quarters - which were not what I was expecting. In contrast to Alexandra's sitting room of memorabilia, everything he owned was very minimalist and uncluttered. The only personal item I could see was a framed photograph of an older sun-tanned woman which hung prominently over a table.
"So," he said, practically jumping into an armchair in front of me, "I just wanted to check in with you. I got the feeling that you've been burning the midnight oil a bit as of late - how are you feeling about things?"
"Honestly?" I answered, "Underprepared. I still haven't been able to beat Gatecrash in practice, and I don't feel like I've got nearly as good a grasp of tactics as Tungsten does. And I'm not nearly as good as some of the projections that Alexandra showed us. I don't want to be a burden for the others."
Blaise's brow furrowed slightly, and as quickly as he had flopped into the armchair he was back on his feet. He smoothed his hair back and walked over to a small set of drawers. "I've got something to show you," he said, reaching inside. He pulled out a book-sized box and placed it on the coffee table in front of us, sitting down next to me on the sofa. Delicately lifting the lid of the box off, I could see that it seemed to contain a blueprint. He reached under the table, pulling out paperweights, and flattened the document, which spilled over the sides of the large coffee table. The signs of wear on the creases of the blue paper suggested that this was an old document - perhaps nearly as old as Blaise himself.
The paper showed an obscenely complicated blueprint for what looked to be some sort of fighter jet. I didn't pretend to understand much of it, but I could appreciate the details within. I leaned forward slightly to inspect wing-tips, cockpit seals and ejection mechanisms. The overview portrait in the top right seemed to share some similarities to the Crux Axiom that Blaise loved to fly around in - though it seemed larger and more intimidating. "Did you design this?" I asked.
"Spot on," came his reply, "Yeah - this is the smart-looking blueprint which I had printed for a contest. Cost me a fortune at the time. I've actually lost the original digital blueprints over the years. This is the first viable aircraft that I designed for commercial use. This would have been called the Nightjar."
"So before your time with Crux Corporate?" I guessed, given that he typically referred to his aircraft with the Crux prefix. The branding was also absent from the page.
"Right again," he nodded, smiling in his customary way, "I was fresh out of University and top of the class. At that time, there were three big names in aerospace - Karagen-Mueller, Aeronics, and LM-Kronig. If you wanted to be anyone in air-breathing aerospace, you worked for one of those three. They supplied every corporate in the southern hemisphere, including the Multispheres. I was determined that I'd make my mark and impress them. There was a contest that they held every year, and they generally hired from the top-scoring candidates. So I got to work. Spent weeks on the design, submitted it, and waited for my invite to the award ceremony."
"I'm guessing there was more to it than that, though?"
He smirked. "Oh, absolutely mate. I didn't even place in the rankings. Big knock to the old ego - in the University I'd been the big fish in the small pond. But out in the corporate world I was competing with the top scorers from every University, all with the same idea that I had, and with more skills to back it up. And hopefully you're seeing where I'm going with this story and how it relates to your current situation."
"You think the competition is going to be better than us?" I said, putting two and two together, "That we're not going to win?"
"I mean, there's a chance - even a good one that we'll have a shot at winning," said Blaise, his bright expression unchanged, "But if there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that not every game gives everyone an equal chance of winning. And that especially applies to life in today's society. Let me explain. Say you've been practicing a hobby of yours for a couple of years, right? Well, there's probably someone out there in the Consortium who has been practicing for a hundred times the time that you have. That's the trick with extended lifespans."
"Oh," I said.
"Yeah, even though the tournament rules will rule out skilled Resiliency players, there will be transferable experience. If there's any members of the strategic Orgs in the tournament they're probably going to wipe the floor with us. But you see, I'm still happy! Why? Because I don't particularly give a rat's arse whether we win or not. We're playing to have fun, and to have a challenge," he said, raising a finger to highlight the point, "That's what's important."
"You're saying I've become too focused on winning?"
"No, what I'm feeling is that you're thinking too much about being better or worse than other people. You're judging yourself by an unfair benchmark. You didn't grow up in the Consortium, you never used a neural link until recently, and you certainly haven't spent the last several hundred years working on yourself. The fact is that might find yourself outmatched, and you need to accept that. Like, comparing yourself to Gatecrash - that's not fair on yourself. They spent years studying martial arts at one point."
"Right," I said, realizing my standards had been unrealistic, "Yeah, that makes sense. But I still don't want to let the team down."
"Great, guess what - you won't," reassured Blaise, "Because even though you probably won't be able to beat Gatecrash, you're probably still going to do great. After all, even though there will be skilled opponents, most are going to be on the same level as you. I did talk with Gatecrash and Sasha when I noticed you worrying about stuff. You're smashing every expectation they have of you. You just need to change your mindset a little. Part of life in the Consortium is accepting that there are people out there who might have hundreds of years more experience than you do at certain things. And that applies to everything - art, sports, science, the whole shebang. Treat those people as a goal to beat, a hurdle to jump, use them as mentors - but don't beat yourself up if you can't get there right now. That's a big thing to stress to newcomers, fundamentally there is a bit of unfairness to games like this."
The reasoning was sound. I'd been thinking about this all wrong, getting frustrated about facts beyond my control. When Blaise explained it like this, it was obvious.
"Is anyone else in the team worrying like I am?" I asked.
"Not that I know of, they're all playing for fun or the challenge of it. I think everyone would like to win but it's not their main driver," said Blaise, "But don't feel bad about that either. Everyone else in the team is aware of what I've explained to you - which is why I thought we should have a chat. This is stuff that they've learned from birth or construction, but it's not second nature to relics like us. You grew up in a time where the playing field was, in comparison, a lot more level."
I was beginning to get what Blaise was hinting at. Skills and experience had obviously been a big factor within my own time, but within the Consortium the effect was multiplied.
"You said in my time - what about in yours? The contest aside, of course," I asked.
"Oh, sports were bonkers in my time. All the corporate-sponsored teams weren't particularly ethical. It was more of a question of who wasn't cheating, whether that was using doping or cybernetic implants. I guess that's one way in which the playing field has gotten fairer - the tournament rules don't allow that sort of thing, and the Consortium would notice it in a heartbeat. It's just experience that's the big thing now."
I pondered aloud, "Is there a time after which the differences in experience become less noticeable? Is there really that much difference between one hundred years of practice and one hundred and fifty, for example?"
"That's probably spot on for most things," said Blaise, clapping me on the back before moving to fold up the blueprint. "But given we have weeks and not years before the tournament, stop beating yourself up! You're doing great. Besides, there's another side to the whole experience issue that you haven't thought of."
"What's that?" I asked.
Blaise leaned in slyly, "If you do end up beating someone who has way more experience than you, well, it feels really good. Anyway, life coaching with Blaise done, let's go get lunch and then we can finalize your gimmick design."
I thought about our conversation a lot as we practiced, trying to recognise and address my own frustrations over my performance. I wouldn't say it was particularly like a weight had been lifted, but at the very least I was more aware of my own limitations where they did come up. I stopped focusing on the fact I couldn't beat Gatecrash and focused more on what I could learn from the fact that I was beaten, which seemed to help, at least to some degree.
Which was a good thing too, because the tournament was due to start tomorrow.