The game started, and everyone raced around trying to steal flags. While the quick, athletic kids tried to dodge their way to the flags, others hung back, waiting for an opening to sneak in. Or, if they were like Emma, they only pretended to wait for an opening, while they really waited for the period to end.

Suddenly, Ms. Patrick blew her whistle. A girl named Carrie was sitting on the gym floor, clutching her knee, tears running down her face. Ms. Patrick told someone to get a cold pack from her office and then squatted beside the girl, offering her comfort. It seemed like the whole class was watching, but when Emma glanced away, she saw Crosby and Tyler backing Zach against a wall.

Nathan waited for his mother to pick him up after school. He knew he should have been happy. Emma’s squad won again, and for the second week in a row he’d had a massive kill streak. And a local TV crew was there to record the match, so that meant he was going to be on TV! Plus the whole match had been streamed live on Twitch. Anyone who watched it had seen how well he’d played.

But Nathan wasn’t happy. Even though he was clearly the star player on Emma’s Allied squad, the TV crew’s camera had focused mostly on Caleb. And it galled Nathan that Emma had made Zach the squad tactician. Why do we need a tactician? he wondered. All they needed to do was keep playing better than Gavin’s Axis squad. And something else bothered Nathan. Anyone who watched ITV was going to see him sitting next to Zach the Wack. A guy like Caleb, who everyone already knew, didn’t have to worry if people saw him sitting next to a weirdo like Zach. But most kids at Ironville Middle School still didn’t know Nathan. So if they saw him with Zach, they were liable to label Nathan a wack by association.

Does that sound cruel? Nathan thought. Well, sorry. It’s just the plain truth.

“Hey,” someone said.

Nathan turned. Two kids were coming toward him.

“Good game,” one said.

“You had some awesome headshots,” said the other.

“You watched the stream?” Nathan asked, surprised.

“Yeah,” said the first. “Magic: The Gathering ended early. Our friend Alex was doing the cast for your match, so we watched.”

“It was cool,” the second kid chimed in. “You’re, like, the kill.”

A car pulled up, and the two kids got in. As Nathan watched the car turn toward the school exit he felt a lot better. He was the Kill Streak King!

Walking from school after the match, Zach pretended to be a caster: “Caleb ‘Xtra Cred’ Arnett has suddenly become the multimillionaire face of The Good War, the impossibly popular boots-on-the-ground World War II video game with more than 100 million active players every day. A former star gamer on the Allied squad at Ironville Middle School’s eSports club, Xtra Cred’s parents recently let him drop out of school to grind TGW for ten hours a day while interacting with fans who pay to watch him play.”