Gamers - Amazon (7 page)

"Shut up, Milton," said Michael, glancing sideways in her direction.

"Anyway," Milton continued. "We're the ones risking our lives messing with her. Not the other way around."

Gabby was about to ask a question when she heard a woeful sob. Drogan was sitting on a stump with his face between his hands. The contraption leaned against his massive leg and his shoulders heaved with each sob.

Milton and Michael continued to argue behind her, so she wandered to the big red-head. At first she thought he might be playing some trick, but then she realized he was genuinely crying.

Gabby tentatively put a hand on his shoulder and Drogan flinched it away. She decided he didn’t want to be touched.

She leaned down. "Are you okay?"

Drogan shook his head while keeping his head buried.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

Through the crying and sniffling, Gabby heard in a deep baritone: "Milton said it was useless."

Gabby assumed he was talking about the item leaning on his leg. The apparatus looked like a crossbow of sorts, made with corroded spoons, bailing wire, and an old wooden olive boat. The bolt looked authentic at least.

Though the separate pieces seemed ludicrous as parts for a crossbow, when she squinted at it, the weapon looked formidable.

Gabby checked back to the two boys who hadn't noticed that she'd left. They hadn't even stopped to see why their friend was crying. Gabby had an idea.

"Drogan," she said softly. "Can you show me how your weapon works?"

The big red-head nodded and stood up immediately, wiping a ribbon of snot on his sleeve as he dragged his arm across his face. The crossbow dangled in his meaty fist looking like a child's toy.

Then Gabby realized the contradiction of Drogan. He was man-sized with a faint reddish shadow of a beard on his face, and his arms were as big as her waist. But he had the eyes and mouth of a child. The eyes looked ready to burst back into tears and his lips quivered unsure.

When Drogan listed about, holding his crossbow at arms length, Gabby offered a suggestion.

"Can you hit that tree across the way? The one with the big knot on the side?"

He nodded and in a smooth motion, aimed and fired the crossbow. The bolt flew between Michael and Milton, and impaled a tree on the other side of the clearing.

The two guys jumped and yelled at the same time: "Drogan!"

Drogan froze, but when Gabby started laughing, the big man laughed along with her, glancing to her for reassurance as Milton and Michael scowled.

"Looks like his useless hunk of metal works pretty well," she said.

Drogan had gone beyond laughing and was making huge knee-slapping guffaws. Gabby turned to him.

"How did you make that? I would have never guessed those pieces could make a crossbow?" she asked.

When Drogan kept laughing, Michael filled in. "He has a way with mechanical things. He's as simple as a child but can do miracles with metal and wood and other physical objects."

"He's one of the reasons we asked you to come out here," added Milton.

Gabby squinted in the midday sun. "Have you totally zoned? You wanted me to come out here for him?"

"Affirmative," said Milton. "Can we go inside and explain?" He glanced at Drogan, indicating he didn't want to talk around the big redhead.

Gabby checked with Michael and he nodded. She didn't know why she trusted him more than Milton. She knew them both the same, but still, his nod made following them into the house more reassuring. She was still aggravated from when Milton had made her rub his pants and if he was looking for a little personal buffing, he was going to be sorely mistaken. She was tops in her rank at martial arts games.

A high sing-song voice drifted from the entrance of the barn. "Drogan."

Drogan dropped his make-shift crossbow and burst into a sprint, kicking up gravel, running toward the barn. A face-wide grin was pasted across his face.

A strange apparition floated through the shadows of the trees. The girl looked like a featureless white peg with a mop of black hair stuck on top. Black bandages were wrapped around her eyes, but she didn't appear to have any difficulty avoiding the trees.

Gabby checked back with the other two.

"Celia," Milton said with a shrug.

This was the girl that Michael spent the night with? She couldn't quite picture it. What jealousy she felt evaporated as Drogan lumbered across the yard. She feared he would tackle the fragile girl.

At the last second, he slowed and swooped her off her feet. Celia squealed. The picture of Drogan spinning around, laughing, with the slight girl in his arms, black bandages across her face and white dress twirling beneath, made for a surreal picture.

Michael had gone into the farmhouse and Milton was motioning to follow. Gabby knew then what was different about the Frags--they didn't wear skins. She could see their flaws and zits and scars. Milton had reddish blotches on his face.

It was different than her friend Dario, who let sections of his real skin show. He only let the parts show that looked good. She was seeing their real selves.

"You guys don't wear skins," she blurted out.

Milton touched his face reflexively.

"Too much reliance on that unreality can confuse you on what's real and what's not," said Michael.

"Skins are as much reality as clothing," she said.

Michael scowled and his eyes burned with white-hot intensity. "Let them take that reality from you and they'll take the rest of your life while you're playing with all the buffest fashions."

They were standing in the farmhouse kitchen and Michael was gripping the edge of the counter as if he were trying to keep from falling. The muscles in his jaw flexed as he stared at a ceramic cat on the windowsill.

Gabby wasn't sure why Michael was so mad, but she regretted saying what she did.

"Would you like some water?" Milton asked, clearly trying to break the awkward silence.

"Yes, please," she said.

While Milton rooted through cabinets for a clean glass and wiped one out with a towel, Michael slowly relaxed his grip on the counter.

"Is Celia a Frag, too?" Gabby asked.

Gabby knew instantly that'd she'd asked the wrong question, when Michael tightened his grip and Milton closed his eyes for a moment.

"That's his sister," said Milton.

Except for the black hair, Gabby found it hard to see the resemblance. Michael was taller with broad shoulders and his skin had the warm glow of time spent under the sun. Celia was a pale, skinny waif. More like a handful of spider silk floating on the morning breeze than an actual flesh and blood girl.

Milton handed her the glass and the three of them stood in silence while she drank. She examined the inside of the farmhouse, avoiding the gaze of the two boys.

The farmhouse, like the boys, was devoid of any digital coverings. Black mold grew in the corners, recent waterstains made random circles across the ceiling and wallpaper peeled away at the seams. Gabby realized then she'd never actually seen wallpaper before. If they wanted different color walls at home, they just changed the program.

She also realized the light on the ceiling was dark.

"Do you have electricity?" she asked.

"We have a generator," said Michael, who had let go of the counter. "But we don't run it unless we have to. For water, we use the hand pump out back."

"Why are you living out here? It's such a...," she let the words trail off, though in her head she finished:
major debuff
.

"We'd prefer to live in the city," Milton said. "But we lost the game."

"Lost the game? You mean LifeGame?"

Milton nodded.

"That doesn't make sense," said Gabby. "You guys have pulled off some major hacks, including reprogramming a FunCar, and you lost at LifeGame? Were you guys even trying?"

"We were trying, alright." This time it was Milton's turn to look grim. While he wasn't much bigger than Celia and the blotches on his face made him into a poorly drawn clown, Gabby could feel his rage as if it were a blazing fire.

"I was tops in my rank and a lock for getting into Blizzard when the first seizure happened," said Milton.

"Seizure?"

"Epilepsy," he explained. "Brought on by the flickering lights on my eye-screens."

"I've never heard of such a thing," said Gabby.

"And you won't," he said. "You can't find anything about it unless you find an old book that explains it."

"How did that--" she paused, trying to form the word correctly. "--epilepsy keep you from University?"

"If it were only once, then it wouldn't," Milton said and his voice broke slightly, reminding her that he wasn't much older than she. "But it kept happening more frequently. While I had built up a huge lead with my LifeScore, that lead evaporated as I missed more and more time until eventually I knew I wasn't going to get into University."

"But they wouldn't let that happen. Not if you were working hard," she said. "And there are other jobs than just what you can get at University."

When they were both staring at her blankly, she added, "...right?"

"What's the first rule of LifeGame?" Michael asked.

An uncomfortable shiver worked its way down her back and a cold tingle settled across the back of her head.

She knew they all knew the answer, but she said the words anyway: "What can be gamed can be improved."

"And the second?"

"Everything can be a game," she answered.

The air was heavy and weighed down with words.

"If you can't play the game then you're no use to them," said Milton. "And the third ensures they'll forget about you as soon as you're gone."

"What happened?" she whispered.

Milton made a fist and put it to his chin. His face was lost to a memory.

"I wanted to know what was going to happen if I didn't make University," he said eventually. "They always talk about other options, but they never spell them out.
Other ways to play the game
, and things like that."

Gabby found it hard to look at Milton. The pain was a raw sore on his whole being. Though he'd been a disgusting lurch in the FunCar, she felt the urge to hug him.

"So I hacked them to find out my fate," he continued. "And now I'm here."

She shook her head. "Wait. What did you find? What are the other games?"

Milton caught her gaze with his own and though he was a stick of a boy, not much older than her, his eyes were flecked through with grim resolve.

"There are none," he said. "The GSA is a nation of winners. There's no room for the losers."

"No room?" she asked, confused.

Milton threw his hands up. "All I could find was that I couldn't find them. The winners go to University and then onto fortune and fame." He paused. "And the losers? They just disappear."

"But what about the parents?" she said. "Wouldn't they do something?"

"That's why they get moved too, I guess. When kids don't make it and the family has to move, it's not so the kid can go to a new school, it's so the other families don't find out what happens," said Milton.

"They never speak of it? That sounds crazy," she said.

"The only proof I could find is that the suicide rate is super high in the parents once their kids lose the game."

Silence overtook them as Gabby contemplated his words.

"So you can see why we wanted to contact you," said Michael.

She met his gaze and witnessed a different kind of pain. While Milton was all raw nerves and grim struggle, Michael had a deep, resigned pain that made his eyes searing cold.

"I don't understand, actually," she said.

"We need your help figuring out where they go," said Milton.

"Why me?" she asked.

"Because you're going to University and you're a hacker," said Michael. "And most importantly, the Coders want you."

Gabby crossed her arms and looked out to the FunCar sitting in the middle of the gravel.

"The Coders pick the best of the best from those going to University and send them to a special training program," Milton explained. "We hope you can find out what they're doing with everyone that doesn't make it."

Gabby turned back to them. "I don't get it. If what you say is true, it would mean that eighty percent of kids are shipped off somewhere else and all their records erased?"

"Erased, hidden. We're not sure," said Milton. "When those kids that don't make it are sent to a different school, that's when they disappear."

"But they have to physically go somewhere? And what about the parents? They wouldn't just let their kids get taken away," she said.

Gabby didn't believe what they were saying. There had to be a different explanation. They were grasping at illusions.

"We don't have all the answers. That's why we need your help," said Michael. "When you're a Coder, you'll be able to peer behind the veil and see what's really going on."

"You guys keep saying that I'm going to be a Coder. How can you know that if you can't find out what's going on with all those kids?" she asked.

Milton blushed, or at least Gabby assumed she did, though it was hard to tell with the reddish blotches on his face.

"Trust him when he says he knows," said Michael. "And it doesn't have anything to do with a hack."

Then Michael put his hand up to his ear as if he were listening to a message on his cochlea implants.

"Celia and Drogan need our help with the Caterpillar." Michael smiled. "Would you like to help?"

Gabby nodded. All their serious talk and the worn down farmhouse made for a depressing environment. She was used to brighter and cheerier settings. Plus, she'd spent the morning holed up in the FunCar. She could use some fresh air.

"Totally buffed. Count me in," she said, matching his smile with one of her own.

The three left the farmhouse and the fleeting thought that she was missing something occurred to her, but when she saw the enormous vehicle that Drogan and Celia were riding, she forgot all about it.

Chapter Nine