Chapter 1

"Aaaand with that PPC blast, I get to roll on your Center Torso." Sandy grinned, shaking a six-sided die in her hand at the level of her shoulder.

"Pfft ... cheater." Came the answering grunt from the well fed gamer in the black "Dark Side of the Moon" t-shirt.

"Do you just want to concede then?" Sandy glanced around the table at the five faces of her fellow players. It had been a good game tonight, with the exception of this one particular fellow, who couldn't seem to understand the difference between reality and space opera.

"Inner sphere stravog..." came the answering insult, which pretty much answered the question. Sandy shrugged her shoulders, rolling the die onto the felt of the gaming table with a backwards spin of her hand.

"Engine. That's the third." She grinned again, at the darkening features of her opponent.

"I'm not going to talk to you anymore." He glowered, pushing his glasses down to stare over them at her. "You totally cheated."

"Because I didn't line my 'mechs up and play shoving match?" Sandy boggled at the reaction. It was just a game; one that she happened to be pretty good at, in her opinion. You played, you shook hands afterwords and you set up for the next one.

"You have no honor," he sulked again. "In a fair fight I totally would have won with my Clan warriors."

"Or, in other words, shoving match. I have jump jets; I'm going to use them." Sandy began to pick up her miniatures: Small, old, metal and well loved. Here and there was a fleck of paint missing, but it just added to the mystique of her battle machines. They looked like they had been in a scrape or two, which is exactly the way she liked it.

"You shot me in the back." He complained. What was his name, what was his name? Sandy ran a finger through her brown hair, pushing back a strand that had fallen to lie across her cheek. Mike? Mack?

"Because your armor is weaker there. Kinda the idea." Mitch? Maybe? She wasn't sure. All she was sure of was this guy showed up to her table and constantly argued about the rules. He wanted to play level three rules when they were playing level two, but only the rules that had to do with new and deadlier weapons, of course. He wanted his experimental house rules when they were playing level three. And god forbid you ever tried to play with the most basic set of rules whenever he showed up because he would complain that you couldn't play the Clans.

"I demand she's out of the game." Miles spoke angrily, THAT was his name Sandy remembered, addressing the other four people who were standing around the gaming table in the back of the game store.

"Dude, she won." That would be Kevin. The tall, slightly overweight, man moved up beside Sandy and she was happy to see her long term friend was at least going to stand up for her.

"Sure, if you want to play in a game where honor counts for nothing." Miles argued, paying no attention to the fact that Sandy had finished cleaning up her miniatures, and was now staring at his, which remained on the table. She wanted to get at least one more game in tonight, and touching another gamer's stuff was usually considered pretty rude. Of course, not cleaning up your stuff was also very rude, but Miles didn't seem to feel the pressure of the gamer etiquette.

"Dude, she's playing Periphery. She's already at a disadvantage." Kevin responded to the challenge with gusto. For a moment, Sandy was delighted to see someone on her side of the argument, before a flash of anger crossed her cheeks. This was her fight, not his, and she didn't need him to come in and try to play peacemaker with a guy who was trying to show that he had a big dick.

"So she gets to cheat, is that what you're saying?" Miles doubled down, appealing to the other players at the table, who were beginning to edge away. This was infuriating to Sandy. To have this fatbeard smearing her because he...

"No, SHE would just like to play the damn game, Miles. Mind getting your figs?" Sandy gestured at the table, and noticed that Miles did not even move or acknowledge her response.

"You guys don't get to give her special treatment just because she's a girl." Miles complained loudly, and one of the others at the table responded by heading towards the soda machine in the corner. "It's always like this. She just bats her eyes at you and suddenly the rules change for her."

"Dude. Just ... Dude." Kevin rolled his eyes up towards the ceiling. Miles glowered at Kevin with crossed arms and a tapping foot. The sound of the patter on the linoleum floor echoed in the silence of the room. Sandy wished that he would at least acknowledge her presence, but he already seemed to have changed the target of his argument.

Sandy sighed, wishing the moment to be over. The game was already over. It happened far too often in her campaigns. She'd start the campaign, and the local gamers would fall over themselves to join a game run by a real LIVE girl. Then the flirtations would begin. Every character she portrayed would be targeted for come ons of the most obvious variety. Half of them seemed to be culled from the lists of worst pick-up lines imaginable. Unless she was playing a guy of course, in which case there would be falsetto jokes. Then the hostility would begin when she made it clear she wasn't interested in role-playing play by play sex scenes, or describing how large the princess' chest was. Nothing overt at first, just muttering, then outright violence against some priestess she was playing because "the character was a bitch". It would almost always culminate in something like tonight, and Sandy was already anticipating the complaints of "she doesn't know how to play." No wait, those had already come. Now was on to the "Let's form our OWN game."

She glanced over at Kevin, who had made no further comments. The silence from the other players just confirmed her suspicions. Nobody was going to be enjoying the rest of the game tonight. The atmosphere had changed. Instead of smiles, the rest of any time spent gaming would be tainted with resentment. With a sigh, she popped open a small plastic case which sat on the table, and placed each of her miniatures into its foam shrouded position.

"Hey, Sand! You don't have to..."

Sandy snapped her case shut, ignoring whoever it was that had made the placating gesture. This pattern had played out too many times for her to bother fighting it.

"Great. So who wants to play a real game here?" Miles voice echoed through the back room as Sandy slipped several large paperback books into her satchel. Case, Check. Books, Check. Fortunately, they hadn't been using her maps so she wouldn't have to tell Miles to move his damn mini's again. Not that he listened. Everything was in place for a graceful exit.

The murmurs of assent were the worst part, and as she stood at the doorframe to the back room of the games store, she noted how everyone seemed to be getting back to the game without so much as a glance in her direction. Even Kevin only tossed a quick apologetic shrug of the shoulders. Way to ruin the illusion of actually caring about her.

Sandy didn't really expect much from him, though. As long as she could remember, she had been the one standing up for herself. From the first gaming sessions she had been to, in which her characters always seemed to run into rust monsters if she was wearing metal armor, or lecherous nobles with only one thing on their minds if she had been playing a diplomatic character, she had been used to being seen as a girl first and a player second. The constant questions about whether her boyfriend was going to be showing up, or if she was dating anyone, were frustrating to say the least.

She knew she was an anomaly. Women generally didn't want to play games involving complicated hit tables, fantasy monsters, or giant mecha strolling across battlefields. It had been a constant source of ribbing among her few friends throughout her school days, and now that she was living on her own, a source of amusement for her room-mate. Gaming had been a great escape for Sandy, ever since she had realized that she really didn't like playing fashion model, the live action role playing game, otherwise known as the high school popularity contest. With her mousy brown hair and slim figure, she hadn't been the type that could win at that game without extensive preparation; time she would much rather spend creating a cool character or an expansive and original game world for her friends. Or those that she hoped would be her friends. Gaming had its malcontents, sexists and just general jerks as well. Sandy was just sick of running into them at every gaming table.

The front glass door had a slight frosting of moisture on it as she pushed her way out into the chill of the night. One block down and she'd be at her car. The way was well lighted at least, but Sandy still already had her keys out and ready. No sense tempting fate, even though the area was relatively safe. She stepped along the concrete path, finally making it to her turquoise pod of a car. It had been a gift from her parents in exchange for perfect grades her senior year of high school. Not that those grades had translated into anything special in college or afterwords.

Sandy worked as an administrative assistant. She used that term because it was what was on the help wanted ad she had answered. She thought of it as a secretary job. She filed, took memos, answered phones, and kept schedules. The fancy title seemed to be an excuse to give her fewer perks and keep paying her by the hour rather than the salary she felt she deserved after three years. Sometimes she felt that she was just bitter, because so many of her gaming associates didn't even have jobs, or were stuck working in retail.

It was only a quick drive back to the small apartment complex she called home. Onto the expressway, off of the expressway, down a street past the quickie mart where she spent far too much money on a weekly basis and finally to right in front of the wrought iron gate that separated the apartments from the general populace. The gate crawled open as it always did, and Sandy took the opportunity to note that the pool which she had paid extra for was still closed. The management had a million excuses for why that was, but god forbid she even try one of them right back at them if she was even a buck short or a day late on the rent.