Confirmation Bias

A Contemporary Fiction Short Story

Photo by Shavr IK on Unsplash

The shot comes from nowhere.

One second, the two of us are moving low and fast across scorched earth. The open field offers nothing. The next second, we’ve been spotted. The dirt, six inches from my boot, kicks up in a pale puff.

We run, looking for anything that will provide cover. The only thing that may stand between us and the next round is a rusted tank hull half-swallowed by the ground fifty yards away.

We get behind it. We narrowly escape.

I press my back to the metal. I scan methodically left to right and near to far, covering our rear. Katie takes a quick, low-profile peek around the tank.

“On the right,” she says. “Second floor. No, third.”

Katie is flat against the hull beside me, knees bent. She is processing. There’s a half-beat between her receiving information and responding.

“I sprint for those buildings on the left,” she says, “and you take him out?”

“I’ll take him out,” I read back.

“Let’s do this,” she says. She moves to the edge of the tank, ready to run. “On your mark.”

I don’t mark. My attention fails.

The wind moves through the grass, slow and indifferent. Somewhere above us, 400 yards away, behind a window in a building we can’t fully see, someone is waiting. I track the second-floor to make sure, then the third. Without my signal, Katie starts running across the field to the buildings.

I don’t shoot.

And then Katie drops.

Her body is still for a beat before it goes luminous at the edges. It starts to bubble. Within two seconds, she pops and becomes a spreading pool of orange ooze as bright as a traffic cone.

She is gone.

On the screen in the corner, the text reads, BlisteredThumbelina85 eliminated by SgtBeigeFlag_99.

This is the second time I’ve let someone down today.

I emerge from my deep state of focus and lean back in my chair. The basement light is low. I remove my headset and tousle my hair. I’ve forgotten what time it is.

To the left of my television screen, the respawn timer counts down.

“Sean.” Katie’s voice comes through the headset. I put it back on. “What happened?”

“I got distracted,” I reply. “You ran without my signal.”

“You just shoot at the glint from his scope,” she says. “We had a plan.”

“Yeah, it was my bad. Something’s been in my head from work. I keep turning it over and I can’t…” I hesitate because I don’t want to spoil the game. Katie and I play it to forget about work. “I can’t figure out why I’m… disturbed.”

The respawn timer hits zero. On screen, BlisteredThumbelina85 materializes 200 yards to my right. She starts moving, threading through a drainage ditch.

“Keep his attention,” she says. “I’m going around the building.” She sprints until she can’t, then dives. “What happened at work?”

When I estimate she can sprint again, I lean out of cover and fire into the third-floor windows to keep the sniper’s eyes forward.

“There was a SNAFU with a product,” I say. “Some upstream defects nobody could source. Jessica, my project manager, suggested a fishbone diagram to our boss.” I fire again and reload. “I thought it was a good approach. Better than all of us running around the room waving our arms, with our hair on fire.”

“Good way to start brainstorming,” Katie says.

“Right?” I agree, tracking the window. “Our boss was texting. Didn’t even hide it. Jessica finished her whole explanation, and he didn’t even look up.”

“I hate that,” Katie says.

“Then Christopher, our logistics guy, said the same thing. And our boss put his phone down like someone flipped a switch. Said that’s the kind of thinking we need more of. Put Christopher’s name on the action item.”

I fire again at the windows to make sure the sniper is still on me. Then I’m hit. My screen blurs. My heart beats loudly through the speakers while I wait behind the tank to recover.

“I’m in,” she says. “Going up the stairwell. Keep him busy.”

I lean out and put three rounds into the windows. The sniper answers. In that interval of distraction, Katie moves in.

“Maybe they just value different things,” Katie says, thinking out loud. “Your boss and Jessica. Misaligned priorities.”

“What? No.” I watch the window. “They’re locked in on the same goals. That’s not it.” I move out of cover and back in quickly to tempt the sniper to shoot. “She’s one of those employees who genuinely thinks their boss’s success is their success. I mean, she believes in him.”

“Then the timing was off,” Katie says. “She caught him at a bad moment. While he was thinking about what to text.”

“That’s the thing,” I say. “The texting was a response. He withdrew his attention. I could see that hurt Jessica’s feelings. And it’s not the first time. It’s routine.”

“Then she’s already in a box,” Katie says. “He’s decided. Everything that happens now is just evidence for the conclusion he already reached.”

On the screen in the corner, the text reads, SgtBeigeFlag_99 eliminated by BlisteredThumbelina85.

“Building’s clear,” Katie says.

I cross the open field, the same ground where she’d dissolved twenty minutes ago, to the cover of the buildings she did not reach. I enter the building and look behind me to make sure I’m not being followed. Two enemy players move across the open field in loose formation, unaware of me.

“If she doesn’t lead our team, we’ll be lost,” I say, watching them. “She needs someone. Someone to run around the building while she draws fire.”

“That’s a lot to ask of a person,” Katie says.

“Yeah,” I say. The two players pass my building, round a corner, and disappear. “She’s not going to be able to get anything done herself in the spot she’s in.”

The match timer ticks toward zero.

“She should leave,” Katie says. “Go where she’ll be valued.”

“Nah,” I say. “She’s in love with the work.”

“There’s work ready for love in other companies,” Katie says. “Is she going to say something to Christopher?”

“I don’t know,” I reply. “Maybe I should have said something instead of just sitting there like an NPC. That’s what’s been bothering me I think.”

“You’re not the manager,” Katie says.

“Yeah, and maybe I would have made things worse,” I say. “I obviously couldn’t call our boss out.”

“Career-limiting move,” Katie says.

“And Christopher may have just been reading back what Jessica said.” I am clenching the controller. I set it down on my lap and stretch out my hands.

“So that’s how it ended,” she says. “She took one for the team.”

The match ends. The screen declares us the winners. Neither of us notices.