We reached the central arena, a giant bloodstained platform surrounded by a chain-link fence and rusty barbed wire. Inside was the latest in gaming technology—plasmas even bigger than mine, Xboxes even more advanced than mine, the next, unreleased generation of Halo—how the fuck did they get that??—even more experimentally prototyped than mine.

Packed in the center of it all were the other competitors, must’ve been twenty or thirty of them from all over the world wearing their various indigenous garbs: lederhosen, babushkas, keffiyehs, sandals with socks. Who even knows what country that last dude was from—probably Kiribati or something.

And way up above us all, a towering, massive, five-hundred-foot HD pixel display so the entire arena could watch the action.

The lights dimmed and the crowd grew quieter—meaning they sounded like a slightly less deafening tsunami. Then I spotted this balcony high above the central stage, hidden mostly in shadows, except for the outline of a golden throne in the middle.

On that throne there was this figure, almost entirely invisible in the dark except for his two hands. Except instead of two hands he had one normal left hand, and his right hand was—get this—nothing but an Xbox controller at the end of a stumpy amputated wrist.

I know, right? Fucking crazy!

“That,” Carl the Hunchback whispered, “is the mysterious leader of the Brotherhood, Lord Hannn.”

“So, like, the same as the dude from Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon?”

“No. This Hannn spells his name with three Ns. Very different!”

“Yeah, okay—hey, can we talk about that thing at the end of his right arm? Is that, like, an Xbox controller?”

“Yes, Lord Hannn takes gaming incredibly seriously. So he cut off his right hand and permanently replaced it with an Xbox controller.”

“So… there’s some kind of bionic circuitry that runs from the controller through his arm and into his brain or something so he can just think the inputs?”

“No, he still has to push all the buttons and everything. He pretty much just cut off his hand and added an Xbox controller.”

“But, like, now he has to push all the buttons with just one hand?”

“Obviously.”

“Is he at least, you know, left-handed?”

“No, he is right-handed. Why?”

“Bro, no one even LIKES the original Xbox controller! It’s clunky and awkward with HORRIBLE game play! And now your supreme leader cuts off his good hand just so he can attach it to his bloody stump and awkwardly play Xbox with his off hand for the rest of his life? What if he wants to play on a PlayStation sometime? Or a GameCube? Or even an OG Atari 2600? Hell, what if he wants to write a simple letter with a pen and paper and decent handwriting! IT MAKES NO SENSE!!!”

“I’m not following. But quiet! He’s going to speak!”