Letting Off Steam

Jealousy.

By the dictionary, it is the feeling of envying someone else—and, once that feeling climbs, a fierce hatred or hostility. It is what a person feels toward the one trying to take what is theirs when they stand on the verge of losing it, or toward the person who has what they do not.

What I felt toward that woman streamer called Cash was probably not jealousy. I hadn't lost a thing to her, and I didn't envy anything she had. It was only uncomfortable that my viewers were giving their attention to her instead of me.

So this isn't jealousy.

If I had to force a name onto the discomfort, it was anger—at these pathetic people, glancing off to the side and leaving me behind.

A streamer who makes her living off her viewers can hardly take that anger out on them. So the anger would have to land on the other team.

While I climbed to Diamond, I never once, in a single game, picked a role first. Only after all four teammates had locked their agents did I take the one that fit the composition best. I could play every agent to a high level anyway, and in this tier I was confident that no matter what I chose, I could do the work of three.

But this game, I instalocked Chamber—an agent I had not touched even once while grinding ranked.

"I'll go spicy."

Part of it was the spark I'd caught watching KZ. Part of it was that I wanted this rotten mood off me. Watch closely. I'll show you I play better than that Cash, or Cache, or whatever she is.

The map was Ascent, and we had drawn first-half defense. Considering Ascent favors the defenders, it wasn't a bad side.

Pistol ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠round. Normally I would have bought a Sheriff or a Ghost, but Chamber has a skill of his own—his Q, Headhunter. It mounts a heavy pistol that costs 150 credits a shot, and the damage matches the Sheriff. Unlike the Sheriff, which falls off past thirty meters, Headhunter has no damage change by distance.

A hundred and fifty a bullet is a steep price, looked at one way. It also has the advantage that even if I die, I don't hand the enemy a gun. Of the 800 credits a pistol round gives you, I spent 600 on four Headhunter rounds, and the remaining 200 on my C, Trademark.

Our setup put Jett, Omen, and Reyna on A site and Short, Sova on B main, and me alone holding Mid.

In Project A, Chamber's official role is sentinel, but he is played on a completely different track from the others. Other sentinels are built to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠pull hard information, to hit people with setups, or to deny the entry itself. The only sentinel-like tool Chamber is given is his C, Trademark.

Look past the role and at the agent himself, though, and the kit is obscene. The jewel of it—the core—is his E, Rendezvous. You plant a teleport anchor, and using the skill again blinks you to it. You have to be touching the ground, and once you leave a set range of the anchor the skill goes dead. Restrictions enough. But the windup is extremely short, and you can pick the anchor back up and use it again, so it is the skill that raises Chamber's survivability, and the most essential one he has.

I set the teleport anchor between my Mid and B site, in the place everyone calls Market.

The round finally started, and Sova fired a recon bolt into B main. Not a single enemy lit up, so they had either chosen a default or were lining up a hit on A. Mid was out. I had eyes on it the whole time.

"A lot of them on A," Jett called.

Jett had used Tailwind to pull information off A main, and Sova, hearing the call, checked B main with his C, the Owl Drone—an airtight bit of play against a possible B lurk. True to a high-rank lobby, the players were sharp.

"Nobody on B. Watch A."

Sova's utility had given us hard information that B main was empty, which locked the enemy to A main. I kept holding Mid so they couldn't swing off A into Mid or Short.

They must have read that they'd overcommitted to A, because they peeked Mid, trying to rotate the site they were hitting. Unfortunately for them, that was the wrong choice.

A heavy thunk—the sound only Headhunter makes—and green light washed the kill feed.

I put a hole through the head of the KAY/O who had stepped into Mid, then Rendezvous'd away to Market.

From their side, their Jett and KAY/O had double-peeked. KAY/O died, and I was already gone on Rendezvous, so their Jett had no trade to give. The trade is the most basic fight in Project A, and Rendezvous is the skill that counters the trade itself.

The attempt to rotate had already ended badly, in KAY/O's death, but they still tried to punch straight through Mid. They had burned too much time. A was stacked with players, and there was no telling how far Sova had pushed B main, so the highest-percentage play was the one player whose position they actually knew: me, on Mid.

Sadly, that read was the wrong answer.

Because the one watching that Mid was me.

Instead of dropping to CT and joining the pack, I peeked once more and opened a hole in the head of the Jett walking up Mid. From their point of view they had already lost a KAY/O, and I had already spent Rendezvous, so they would have mostly written off another Chamber peek. Stepping into the same angle again is an arrogant play on its own.

They were wary of where I had been, up to a point. That still doesn't mean you get to live in front of a Headhunter.

"Whoa. Nice, Chamber."

"Chamber, just fall all the way back now."

Peeking even once more would have been genuine insanity, so I fled to CT and linked up with the players on A.

The enemy came through Mid into a B site that was already hollow, and the spike went down after that. Three against five. The numbers, of course, were against us.

Omen's Paranoia shut their ears and eyes. Sova's recon bolt pinned exactly where they were. And then we dismantled the players on B, plain and simple.

A clean retake off a utility combo. Climb the ranks and you can feel it—everyone's level comes up with you.

Flawless. The message that appears when you take a perfect win without losing a single player. It meant the win had been perfect.

The second round, after the pistol. I bought a Marshal and a light shield.

My teammates were buying Spectres and medium shields, spending somewhere around 2,600 to 3,050 credits, while I alone spent 1,350. In a sense I was wrecking the team's economy. But if I wanted to buy that, I had to save every credit I could.

I held Mid exactly as I had on the pistol, and the others set up in the same places as the round before. Sova's recon checked B main, and the Owl Drone went out again to eat the space there. The enemy, once more, was most likely toward A main.

"Hm?"

I was still punishing anyone who tried to walk into Mid when an enemy Omen smoke dropped on the spot where I stood. I passed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it to my team at once.

From their side, on an eco, walking A main was suicide. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠An eco may be played with the loss already in mind, but an eco round is never a round you politely hand over. You bite off as much as you can, tear credits out of them, and shave down what they can bring next round—one step back, so you can take two forward.

They had smoked my Mid to kill my long range. After that, their next move was one of two: through High Mid into A Short, or break Mid, kill me up close, and take Market into B. I was sure they had chosen the first.

"Smoke on B connector," Sova said.

The Omen smokes had landed on the two places that would matter most if they moved through High Mid toward A Short—Mid, and B connector. I planted a teleport anchor where I was standing.

Stepping out past a smoke with no information is suicide, in practice. Unless, of course, the agent you're playing is Chamber.

I came out of the smoke, caught the one creeping from High Mid toward Short, and escaped on Rendezvous.

"Hey—nice, Chamber!"

"Nice."

Pistol rounds chewed the place where I had been standing, shot after shot. Unfortunately for them, I was already over here.

And the one I had killed happened to be Jett, the entry, the player whose job is to go in first. For them, that was miserable luck. In the end they tried to slam A Short as a last gamble, couldn't bridge the gap between a Spectre and a stock pistol, and were ground down for it.

I stepped into Mid one more time myself and picked off the Omen hanging at the very back.

Flawless, stacked on last round's flawless. More than enough to yank the team's morale straight up.

"What the hell, our team is stupid good."

"Nice. Next round their guns come out, so we drop as many as we can."

"Ah, okay."

"Mm... voice?"

The higher you go in Project A, the more voice matters. To call a situation that changes by the second, talking is far faster than typing. The information that moves in those few seconds decides who holds the advantage, and it can even decide the game. At the very top, skipping team voice is often treated as a kind of bad manners.

But the reason I don't use voice...

"When I talk, annoying things start happening."

It was a habit from my pro days. The first time I queued ranked, I briefed without a pause. Most people had not the slightest thought of listening.

"They ask how old I am. They ask for my number. Out of nowhere they send a duo request..."

And when I ran into the one who started in on my voice—what it sounded like—in that greasy tone, I nearly got actual chills.

"So I just don't really use the mic."

Fortunately, people understood me.