I’m not sure that I was accustomed to seeing people die, though I’d seen enough of that in one day to last me a lifetime. Despite what pandering politicians spout on Sunday morning talk shows, video games do not desensitize the younger generation to violence. If pretending to shoot someone with a digital gun on a computer screen gradually turns regular people into stone-cold killers, I’d be the most ruthless competitor in The Arena. As anyone watching that day could attest to, that was clearly not the case. Although, as I casually searched Sergei Taktarov’s body for items we could use, I realized that certain strange and immoral tasks no longer seemed quite so strange or immoral. Brynja pulled a metallic object from inside the Russian’s belt. “Check this out,” she said, tossing me a small circular holo-com. I twisted the handheld device clockwise and it powered on, revealing a glowing green battery light that was nearly full.
