... in response to 5 to 10 months.!!!!!, posted by ChrisNJ on Apr 29, 2003Chris,
I had written this a long time ago, but never posted it. I had intended to put it in my trip report, but I never got around to it.
You kinda inspired me to post it now.
I hope it's fun reading, it was fun to write. Here it is, never before "published" hehe.
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While Luda was attending her two classes, I frequently would wait for her in an internet cafe nearby. It was a place with many computers where people come to check e-mail, and do homework assignments. To my surprise, there was a second room, where I discovered a large community of guys play a game called Counter Strike (a first-person shooting game), which is a game I had been pretty good at back in Texas. It costs two Ukrainian dollars per hour to play, which amounts to probably about 40 cents in US currency. I felt I could easily afford this. So, I sometimes went to this cafe to join the games of Counterstrike. In honor of my fiancee, I chose "Ludmila" as the name I played under.
Some of these teenagers were very good and know their stuff. They were also in practice, and I was not, having not played for a long time. Also, some of them openly cheated. Well, at least by my standards. The dead people often shouted out to their teammates where the enemy is, and all the time they looked at each other's monitors. Teammates who were dead would often spectate the last living enemy, and show his teammate every move the enemy makes, his location, his health, his direction of travel, the direction he's facing, what weapon he's carrying, what his armor is, what his brand of bullet proof vest is, what his name tag on the uniform is.. well, maybe not all of those, but I think you get the general idea. These teenagers had this cheating down to a science. I was totally unaccustomed to being shot at through walls and doors with such precision. I was being killed all the time because these kids would know exactly where to shoot after they look at their dead teammate's monitor. It was upsetting 
.
So, I adapted. Whenever I was the last of my team left alive, I kept moving, I would fake moving in different directions. I would fake going through a door, only to pass up the door and head for the staircase, pretend to go upstairs, then suddenly "change my mind" and head downstairs instead, and so on. I would hear them chatter and shout out what I was doing in Russian. It was quite funny to hear them try to keep up with me. Eventually they would become silent, as their teammates would just get confused and yell at them to stop. They realized Ludmila was just too unpredictable and crazy.
Since I didn't understand much Russian, I didn't understand when my teammates shouted my Counterstrike name out loud and tried to help me by telling me to go here or go there, or retreat, or watch out, etc. "Davai! Davai!" "Na Oolitza, Ludmila!!" (which I later found out from Luda meant "outside"!!) Kinda interesting to play in this atmosphere. One time I felt a lot of pressure and I just shouted back: "Ne Paneemayuu!! (I don't understand!)", and I saw and felt every head in the room snap to look at me.
That was early on. But then, I shrugged off the layer of rust, and I showed them what an ex member of CK3 (a "clan") could do. I started acheiving scores of 52 kills and 7 deaths during our games. I wiped the floor with them. On different occasions a couple of the guys there would look up from their monitor and shout out and ask each other "Kto Ludmila???!" (Who is Ludmila???!).
Their voices were full of surprise and frustration, though I sometimes could detect a tinge of admiration in their voice as well.
I kept silent and hunkered down a little more in front of my computer, not wanting to reveal my identify as American, should they ask me further questions, though a few probably already guessed from before.
Then, the real Ludmila walked into the room, having finished her class, and heads and eyes left the monitors to track her movements and destination, making them easy targets for me to dispatch.
It was a lot of fun, and most of them had no idea that an American was beating them up in Counterstrike.
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-Deckard
