Kaiba always knew when he was about the draw Blue Eyes; he felt the electricity from his deck, the texture of the back of the card so much like that of any other, yet somehow subtly more alive, as though the card had the faintest of heartbeats and the tiniest gasps of breath. The thought that she—without fail he thought of the White Dragon as a she—would soon be in his hand made his body shiver; his hands nearly lost their grip on his other cards.
He summoned Vorse Raider in attack mode, so inferior to his Dragon, crushing the AI's pathetic Zone Eater. Vorse Raider wouldn't last five turns to be destroyed by Zone Eater's effect. He would be gone next turn, along with the Spear Dragon beside him. "I end my turn," Kaiba said.
"Draw. Set one card facedown. Summon Humanoid Slime in defense mode. Turn end." The computer was straightforward. That was why Kaiba preferred dueling it; human duelists were into the flourish, taking ten minutes to play each card, trying to "psych out" their opponents. Some days that was fine. But Kaiba wasn't here for that, not today. Kaiba was here alone, his private arena, empty of the usual duel analysts and occasional spectators who came to watch him practice his latest strategies.
He drew, taking a moment to absorb the vision of beauty on the card's face; her gleaming scales, her elegant, swanlike neck, her strong jaw, testaments to her power and independence. Blue Eyes White Dragon didn't need anyone to take care of her. She didn't need a man to pay her bills. If a man tried she'd probably gore them with those weird but strangely cute little tusks of hers.
Kaiba indulged himself with a little duelist pageantry: "Not a single card can stand up to this! I sacrifice Spear Dragon and Horse Raider to summon Blue Eyes White Dragon!"
She appeared before him, life-sized and glowing with holographic splendor. Kaiba knew this figment well. He had designed every part of the simulation himself—the arch of her wings, the motion of her slender tail—he programmed every attack, and every reaction to attack as well, right down to the dissipation pattern when she was destroyed. He had made her to dissolve more slowly than other monsters, and sometimes to leave her namesake blue eyes until the end. Even in death she was beautiful.
"Blue Eyes," he said, "Attack his Slime." The Dragon reared her head back, mouth wide in triumphant fury as she prepared to obliterate the enemy monster.
"Hold."
Simulation paused, Blue Eyes' lifelike movements briefly frozen, Kaiba walked into the arena. Next to most people Kaiba felt like a king; physically he was built like a basketball player, intellectually, a Hannibal or a Sun Tzu, and in terms of wealth—well he'd built all this, hadn't he? If anything king was an understatement—a king only ruled what was already there, building perhaps but never creating like he had created. A creator was more like a god.
But next to Blue Eyes he felt tiny. Her power radiated from her still form, impatient to continue the battle. As soon as he resumed the simulation she would blast the pitiful Slime into nothing. He reached out his hand and touched her metallic haunch. There was a texture of sorts, or rather a pressure, but it was only an illusion of solid vision technology.
Kaiba had always hated touching animals, refusing to do it at all if he could avoid it, but he had made one exception, when he was a child, at a soiree held by one of Gozaburo's associates. The man, a hedge fund manager who would later spend years in prison for tax evasion, was a reptile for all practical purposes and as such had surrounded himself with reptiles, filling one climate-controlled room of his mansion entirely with aquariums in which he kept all manner of slithery things. Kaiba had found the room by accident, wandering away from the party no doubt to escape Gozaburo's cruel attentions for a moment while the Kaiba patriarch was distracted with business. It was dark, lit only by the warm aquarium lights, one illuminating a baby crocodile that leered hungrily from behind the glass, another a pile of squirming snakes. One in particular caught his attention: a boa constrictor, six or seven feet long and coiled tightly atop a fake plastic log. Its aquarium was the largest in the place; just long enough, he guessed, for the snake to stretch to its fullest length. As he approached the constrictor started to shift, tensing and un-tensing the lean muscles up and down its body, coming uncoiled one inch at a time. The top of the cage was closed with a simple metal latch that Kaiba undid, lifting the mesh lid just enough to admit a single child's hand. He reached in and touched the shifting snake, and as he did he saw the broken corpse of the rat trapped in its coils.
That was how he knew that real scales would be rough and warm, like an old silk nightgown over human skin.
Kaiba slowly pulled his hand away from the hologram, letting it fall to his side. He hunched his shoulders and turned to walk from the arena. He could finish the duel another time.
As he opened the pneumatic door to leave, he stopped for a moment, turning back to look at his Dragon one more time. Her back was arched, her mouth wide in a roar—or a scream—her wings outstretched and her claws bared for the strike.
"Goddamn I wish I could fuck you," Kaiba said, closing the door.
Others had tried. KaibaCorp had to fend off lawsuits every other week from people who misused the technology, putting their dicks in holographic Dark Magician Girls and Gemini Elves. Internet challenges had created a generation of kids who thought it was cool to try to get Harpie Lady to blow them. And that Adrian Gecko kid…after what he did KaibaCorp had to put warning labels on all their duel disks.
Over the years a number of charlatans claiming to have perfected solid vision, creating interactive White Magician Pikerus and Dark Necrofears—never a Blue Eyes, of course—but none had really been more than high-tech pornography. If anyone could do it, it would be KaibaCorp.
Kaiba sighed. Maybe someday.
He turned away from the door and nearly collided with his little brother Mokuba.
"Whoa, big brother, are you ok? You were standing there for like five minutes. I said your name like four times!"
"I'm fine, Mokuba," his voice was, as it always was when he talked to Mokuba, slightly venomous. "Now what do you want?"
Mokuba avoided his brother's gaze. "I just got a report from Duel Academy. Apparently somebody tried to burn down the Slifer dorm and now a bunch of parents are suing us."
"Just great. Why are you bothering me with this? Just have to lawyers handle it."
"It's just…" Mokuba trailed off. Kaiba knew what he was going to say. Big brother I haven't seen you for days. You've been dueling against the computer nonstop ever since… Kaiba couldn't bring himself to even think the last part.
"I found the story you wrote, Seto."
"What story?" Kaiba knew damned well what story.
"I thought you were done with all this stuff. Remember what your therapist said? The more you fantasize about it the more likely you are to have another incident."
Incident. "I threw away the costume."
"I know you did Seto but we're really rich and you could just buy another one."
Kaiba pushed past his still much smaller brother. "I don't have to listen to you make these kinds of insinuations. I needed to practice my knew strategy. I've found a card that's sure to beat Yugi this time."
"Big brother—" but Kaiba was already gone. He needed to find a better hiding place for his journal. He was just lucky Mokuba hadn't found the Kaibaman suit.