Player Appreciation Week 2024

Codenames' power

3rd Person POV

Player was bored...

He'd already done all his homework, hacked into three systems and had even gone to get something to eat. He refreshed the page for the umpteenth time but still nothing. It wasn't like the girl to be late. It was three months now since he had met this pre-adolescent girl who was completely out of step with the usual norms.

Just like him...

During his first conversations with her, he remembers Black Sheep asking him a lot of questions about just about everything.

What is a normal school like ?

Has he ever seen a brown bear and are they really that big ?

Do all kids have phones ?

He remembered being amused by her almost childlike curiosity. Black Sheep was certainly an intelligent girl, but she was also naive. On reflection, he wasn't in the best position either. He was the one who had revealed his position without being suspicious. Perhaps he was like her in the end, an intelligent child, curious and isolated from the others.

One of the only questions he avoided, like her, was her first name. Every time he asked her, she answered with her code name, so being a player, he did the same.

If he was in his ordinary, boring child's life, Player was already a genius creating links with a mysterious girl somewhere on the globe.

Finally, a ringtone sounded in his room and he quickly answered it.

"Hi Black Sheep. You're late today."

"Sorry Player. Cleo kept me up all afternoon on how to behave like a lady in society. Boring..."

"From what you told me, she'd have kept you longer normally."

"I managed to escape by pretending I was ill. You should have seen the look on her face, she immediately took a step back and sent me away for the day." Player hears her laugh and himself smiles.

"Clever, Black Sheep."

The two teenagers stayed chatting for a while before Black Sheep heard Cleo call out to her, clearly angry.

"Wait, your professors call you by your code name too ?"

"Yes, what do you want them to call me ?"

"I don't know, by your first name maybe ?"

"Pfff... No, why would they do that? It's cheesy..." Player hears Black Sheep puff and respond quickly as Cleo continued to call her in the background. Cleo seems to have had it as Player hears her shouting at Black Sheep, threatening to punish her and calling her 'girl'. Player hears the girl moan in fear.

As if a light had just gone on, Player connected the links between them. Black Sheep's constant refusal to tell him her first name when she has no problem with other aspects of her life, her ignorance of the outside world and of where she is, her rather strange environment for a child...

"You don't have a first name, do you ? And you don't have parents. You don't know where you are because they've never told you and they've kept you isolated all your life. Haven't they ?"

"Player..." Black Sheep mutters.

"If you need help, just tell me. I can warn the police, help you get out of here."

"You don't understand Player. They haven't kidnapped me or anything. I'm an orphan, they adopted me and named me that, that's all. Look, I've got to go before Cleo gets any more upset. We'll talk about it later. Don't do anything foolish."

"Okay, Red."

"Red ?"

"My code name for you."