Slay

The narrative shifts to New Orleans. Q.Diamond’s player, Jaylen, is a huge fan of Emerald. Jaylen is transgender, but she is afraid to tell her family. In the final round of their duel, Q.Diamond plays the Louisiana Barbecue card, and Emerald counters with the Mom’s Mac and Cheese card. Q.Diamond wins the duel and gives Emerald a big hug. She wishes that she could tell Emerald how much having a place where she can be herself matters. Jaylen’s mother comes down to her room in the basement, and the girl accidentally breaks her monitor in her haste to remove her virtual reality gear. Her mother accuses her of watching pornography, tries to hit her, and then heads back upstairs. Jaylen sobs and screams into a pillow, convinced that she’ll never be able to tell her parents who she really is.

The next morning is a Saturday, and Kiera receives a text from Cicada with a link to a YouTube video in which two white newscasters and a Black professor in his fifties discuss whether SLAY is racist. To join the game, an individual must receive a passcode from a current player. Dr. John Abbott says that “Black gamers deserve to have a safe arena in which they can play freely without having to deal with racial slurs and the threat of violence” (130), but he says that SLAY isn’t the solution because it excludes people based on race. Kiera is offended by the accusations against her game, and she’s especially angered by the way that the white newscasters compare the players to a gang. Her one consolation is that no one knows Emerald’s identity. Cicada frets that she upset her friend by sharing the video, but Kiera reassures her that she appreciates Cicada making her aware of the situation. Kiera uses a masked IP to change her location every 30 seconds, but she decides to take precautions in case she’s discovered. She tells Cicada, “We’re going to get a lawyer” (133).

The narrative moves to Boston. Dr. John Abbott loved arcade games as a child but feels lost when he watches his young nephews, six-year-old Joshua and eight-year-old Asher, play complex virtual reality games. John’s younger sister, Candace, saw his interview, and she’s concerned because her sons have SLAY accounts. He tells her, “It’s a game, Candy. Like any other video game, it can be an innocent learning tool, or it can be dangerous” (138). While he stands by the statements he made in the interview, he knows that he doesn’t have all the answers about the complexities of navigating online gaming spaces as a person of color. He’s appalled that his little nephews have racial slurs hurled at them when they play Legacy of Planets. Candace is gone much of the day, and her children spend most of their afternoons and evenings playing video games without her supervision. He isn’t sure that this is the right parenting call, and he knows that his nephews will inevitably be influenced by the strangers they encounter online.

John overhears his nephews talking about the Satchmo card, and their cluelessness about Louis Armstrong compels him to play with them, much to the boys’ delight. They teach him how SLAY works, and he’s pleasantly surprised to realize that the game is all about Black culture. Spade, “the king of the Rain Forest” (146), challenges them to a duel, and Joshua and Asher gleefully send their novice uncle into battle.

The narrative returns to Kiera. She calls the office of Annette Coleman, who is the only Black lawyer she can find in the city of Bellevue, Washington. During the train ride to the lawyer’s office, she sees news articles about Jamal Rice, who was an honors student and the captain of his school’s entrepreneurship club. The media clamors for the elusive Emerald to break her silence, and Kiera worries what message she’s sending by staying quiet. Malcolm texts her, demanding to know whether or not she plays SLAY, and he accuses her of lying when she denies it. Malcolm apologizes for his disrespectful tone, explains that he’s concerned because he used to be addicted to video games, and says that he doesn’t want distractions to diminish her potential for greatness.

Kiera reaches the Law Offices of Annette Coleman, and a kind woman named Michelle guides her through the chic building to a consultation room. A text from Cicada informs Kiera that her moderator’s mother is a white Italian woman. Cicada apologizes for not sharing this information sooner and asks, “Am I Black enough to keep playing?” (154). Kiera wants to reassure her at once, but her attention is diverted by Annette’s arrival. To protect her identity, Kiera calls herself Wakandria and explains her situation in hypotheticals. The warm and gracious Annette explains that a discrimination case could be brought and that she couldn’t represent Kiera since she’s not a civil rights attorney. Annette realizes that Kiera is Emerald, and she tearfully thanks the teenager for creating a safe place for her children to play.

That evening, Kiera accepts a duel request from Spade, hoping that some time in the game will help her relax. However, she ends up forfeiting the match when the difficult emotions of the day prove too difficult to ignore. Spade encourages her to get some rest and reminds her, “You are a queen, and this is your game” (164). Before she can log off, she is stopped by an ominous message from a new player named after the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision. Dred tries to goad Emerald into banning him, but Kiera knows that would only strengthen the case against her game. She logs off and sobs, wishing that she had someone to talk to.

Steph checks on her older sister because she knows that Jamal Rice’s murder is weighing heavily on her. Kiera reveals that she built the game, and Steph is proud and ecstatic because she is a SLAYer. Kiera explains that she feels responsible for Jamal’s death and doesn’t want anyone else to know about her double identity. Steph leaps to her big sister’s defense and proposes that Emerald duel Dred with the stipulation that he stop harassing her if she wins. A few hours later, Kiera declines Malcolm’s offer to talk and wonders how much longer she’ll be able to balance her two lives.