When it came back, only two players remained: Alex and Maverick.

Alex smiled. That was the point. The plugin wasn't about winning. It was about nostalgia for tyranny .

Maverick looked at Alex. Alex looked at Maverick.

A user named [NULL] joined. No model. No ping. Just a grey box. The chat flooded with spam: >buy_vip_glitch .

The map was de_dust2 . Ten players connected. Nine of them were the "poors"—the default Phoenix Connexion models with the basic loadout. Then there was Maverick.