Playing Tyler (18 page)

Grabbing my phone, I feel its weight in my palm.

“Besides” – Maura reaches for her fries and I cringe – “we're in college, if things get too complicated just dump him. There are plenty of guys on campus, Ani, plenty of guys.”

I think of Jim from freshman Lit who, in all seriousness, offered to teach me the meditative power of the positions found in the
Kama Sutra
, and of Christy's new boyfriend, who lectures anyone who will listen about Jungian philosophy.

Standing up from the table, I text Tyler.

 

How do I handle this without wrecking everything? He's on the sidewalk, pacing by his mom's car. I say, “Hey.”

Tyler turns, wearing crisp jeans and a sweater that he may or not realize clings to every muscle in his arms. “Got these for you.” He holds out the bag of salt and vinegar chips and a bottle of designer perfume. “You said that you liked them that time at the house so I thought that you might want some.”

Potato chips? Perfume? His face looks almost childlike in its eagerness and fear. I take the chips, thankful that my bag is big enough to hide them. “Thanks. Why do you think I need perfume?”

“The lady at the store said that girls like perfume.”

“Well I don't.” No one has ever given me perfume before. Why would they? I'm not exactly a perfume sort of girl. “I don't smell or anything, do I?”

“No, I just thought it would be nice.” His face falls a bit.

I gesture with the gift box. “Are those new clothes?”

“Yeah, and shoes.” He looks down at his shiny boots. “They're Doc Martens. I've always wanted a pair, but they're sort of giving me blisters.”

“Why all the new stuff?”

He shrugs, smiles. “I wanted to put money down on a car, actually, but they said I had to be eighteen.”

I swallow back my worry. “Where did you get the money?”

His face is stern, like a man about to explain the birds and bees to a child. “Look, I talked to Rick, and I think we might've been overreacting. He has this plan, this
system
.”

“I wasn't overreacting.” I lift my chin and look him in the eyes. God, how can I fall for someone who's so blind? “So it's true, then? He used something I created to trick minors into committing murder? Tell me again how I'm overreacting?”

I want to reach over and shake him, scream until he wakes up and realizes the implications of what he's agreed to do. The street teems with people, good, honest people going to jobs in suits and ties. Buses full of them hide the bushes on the town green from view, and I wish that I could take one, ride away from here, from all of this.

“The fact that gamers are able to use the technology is the whole point, Ani. It's genius. Eliminating stress levels and making sure that supplies get where they're needed and that our troops over there stay safe.”

“What about the civilians? When you bomb a building, the machine only counts the people who are out in the open, who are visible to the drone's heat sensors. But there could be other people in the buildings, Tyler. People who have nothing to do with Al-Qaeda or the Taliban – real people, children, even.” Why can't he see that this is wrong?

“Rick says that there are intelligence officers on the ground who set the targets and that they are careful to avoid any civilian–”

“Rick says?” I push him in the chest, sending him stumbling backward into a street vendor's cart. “Why should you believe anything that he says to you? He lied to you, to me, to all those other kids still playing what they think is a game.”

“I know, I see what you're saying, but Rick says that this was a test, he had to keep us in the dark to make sure that the program works the way he wants it to, that's all. If he says that he has good intelligence on the ground locating the targets, I believe him.” He walks closer, but doesn't try to reach out for me. “Besides, I don't see any reason to doubt that everyone that I killed was a terrorist. Hell, one was even on the news, I stopped him before he could carry out an attack on a prison.”

“Just because somebody's wearing a turban doesn't mean he's the enemy, Tyler.”

He moves his head up into the sky as if he's looking for patience, like it will rain down from heaven and give him some kind of answer. Hands in his pocket, legs straight, when he speaks his voice is tense. “I'm killing terrorists, OK? I'm doing something good here, something right. It's different from what you think.”

“It's not different. They're still people.” My voice is sharp and bitter.

“They have intelligence, Ani. Military intelligence doesn't make mistakes like that. If they say that these people are terrorists then they're terrorists. Period.”

“Military intelligence? Really?”

“Says the girl who worked for Althea.”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“Everything. How can you doubt the intelligence of an organization when Althea is the company designing all of their software?”

“It's not the software that I'm doubting, it's the grunts that are using it.”

“What are you saying? Oh, wait, I get it. I'm just some grunt, then, to you?”

My mouth feels dry as I say, “Well, what if you are? You're more than happy to be Rick's little pawn.”

“No.” His eyes are wide, wild, desperate, and his words are jagged. “I think that this conversation is over. Oh, and here, I got this for you.”

He puts something in my hand, and when I open it I see a gold chain with a little heart. How did this conversation go so wrong? I have to say something, to try and turn this around somehow. “Tyler…”

“Keep it. I'd feel stupid returning it.” His eyes look down at my hand and he walks away.

I stand, wiping my eyes with the back of my sleeve. Oh, God, please don't let it end like this.

 

CHAPTER 21

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25

TYLER

The days move. Like move fast. Ignoring Rick's suggestion of only clocking twenty hours a week, I fly all day, knowing that I'm changing the world. Making it better, safer. The kill count at the top of my screen keeps going up: for every terrorist down, that's another American life saved. That I saved.
Me
. Sending another dad home to his kids.

I don't think too much about the fact that I'm killing real people. Except at night. Late in the middle of the night when no one is watching and it's just me and my conscience and that voice that tells me that someone is dead because of me. It's wild. Wild and lonely and maybe just a little bit wrong because how do I know for sure that the people I am blowing up are terrorists? I have to trust the intel that tells me so but sometimes, I wonder who that intel guy is and pray that he's as good at his job as I am at mine. He better be right or I'm… well, I can't think about what that makes me.

I throw the sheets back, T-shirt sopping wet and clinging to my chest in a damp world of badness. I rip it off and throw it into the floor with the others. Have to do laundry. Wish Ani were here. A whole three days since we talked. Sucks. Bet 3am wouldn't feel so bad if she were lying next to me. I could just roll over and wrap my arms around her waist and listen at her back, listen to her heart, listen to her breathing, and then I could sleep. But not tonight. She's not here.

Shit. I hit call and dial up Peanut and Alpha, see if they're on. Alpha's not picking up but Peanut's light blinks and then the video box opens up and I see him rub his eyes, red curls flying all over like he's some kind of punked-out clown. “Tyrade, man, what's up?”

“Nothing.”

“Better be something or I just blew my shot at getting through this level of
RAGE
before the hour's out for nothing.” He smiles. Wide, lazy, stoned.

“Nothing. Just, fought with this girl.”

“Girl? Wait, not SlayerGrrl? Like
that
girl, girl?”

“Yeah.”

He stares into the webcam, leaning in. “Let me see your face, man, move in closer.”

Peanut's a little off. Thinks he can read auras and shit. He's cool, though, if you overlook all that hippie stuff. Good gamer. I lean in, squinting a little from the light on the screen. “What?”

“Ah, shit. Man, you're hittin' that, right?”

“What are you talking about?”

“SlayerGrrl, man. You guys hooked up, I can see it.”

Maybe he can read auras. Like that guy on TV. Or does he just talk to the dead or something? Are ghosts like auras? Can't keep track. “No. Well, kinda. She's pissed at me, though.”

“What'd you do?”

“I have this… job that she doesn't like.” I think that ghosts are different from auras. Think auras have something to do with crystals.

“What? You get a job as a bouncer in a strip club or something? If so, I totally need in on that.” His smile gets even bigger.

Hitler. Hitler was into crystals. I saw a show about it on the History Channel once. “Yeah, no, well, something like that, I guess.”

“Can you quit the job? Girls can get hung up over stuff like that.”

“No.”

“Well, hell, you say you're sorry?”

“Sorta.” No. Maybe. “I'm not sorry, though, I mean, I need this job.”

“Alright, well, there's your answer, man.”

“What, where?”

“Tell her you'll do it just until you get enough money or whatever to stop, and that you'll quit as soon as you can.”

“Think that'll work?”

“Hell, yeah.”

“She's like, really smart, though.”

“Well, shit.” His eyebrows come together a little bit. “That is a problem.”

 

She did look totally hot when she was mad. Just have to keep that image in my head when I call. Sure, she may be mad, but it'll be hot mad, and that's gotta be good, right? I mean, if she was really angry she wouldn't have looked all cute, she would've looked, I don't know, bad or something.

I sit up, grabbing the days-old bottle of Mountain Dew from the nightstand and taking a swig. Gross. Flat and nasty and it tastes like I feel. Digging my hands into the bones in my face, I stand up and move over to the old monitors, over to where I have the PS3. Right, call Ani, don't play. Gotta apologize or something. Deep breath. Here we go. I dial. Wait. “Ani?”

“What… Tyler?”

“Hey.” Apologize, dammit. “I'm sorry.”

“Sorry? Tyler, it's like 3 o'clock in the morning.”

What? Shit. Should've checked the time. “Are you sleeping?”

“Not
now
.” Her voice is slow.

“Look, I'm sorry about the Rick thing, OK? It's just that I don't have anything else. I'll just do it until I get into flight school, promise.”

Silence.

“Ani, please, don't make me lose you, too,” I say into the darkness.

 

I close my eyes and I see it.

The bright sky. The pier. The excitement to get to see Dad in action. The day was different. Still bright and virtually cloudless. I held Mom's hand. Back when it was strong. Back when it was tender. When her face held feeling. Brandon ran ahead. He was thirteen. It wasn't cool to stay with me. To stay with Mom.

I feel hot as the memory pulls me under. Pulls me down like it does sometimes at night. Dad smiling.

We were at a Memorial Day celebration at the soccer fields. My game had ended hours ago but we had to wait for Brandon's game to be over. His team lost but Dad bought us all ice cream anyway. Flags and bands and hot dogs lined the picnic stations on the field. Dad in uniform. Dad telling me that one day I was going to be the fastest thing on the field, telling Mom to relax when I climbed on top of picnic tables and jumped off again and again.

Music. Flags and smiling people all around. Everybody cheers when the floats with the old guys in uniforms and the trucks with lots of colorful flags pass by the park. Some man I didn't know bent over to ask me if I knew my dad was a hero. His face was wide and red and smelled like beer. I hid my head in my mother's sundress. It was soft and pink and everything she's not now.

I ran. My feet beat against the gravel of the picnic area. Stomping out my own little rhythm as I ran up and down. Taking my toy chopper, my toy Black Hawk, and ran up the length of the playground and up on top of unguarded boxes and crates and jumped as my mother ate her hot dogs and hamburgers and salad. As Dad kicked the ball back and forth with Brandon. Brandon was slower than me, couldn't move like me, but Dad liked to help him out. Told me I had to be patient with my brother. No big brother liked to be shown up by his little brother. Dad said that it was up to him and me to help Brandon out.

I climbed the jungle gym. The grit and yielding rust and taste of iron as I climbed. I tucked the chopper up under my chin. Both hands pulled. Tugged, moving my body upward. I looked at Mom. Gave her a triumphant smile. I was too high. Wait till she noticed. I jumped. Landing hard. Grinding my little feet into the gravel. Liking the sound. Liking the feel of the landing. Mom shrugged when people watched me. When the clucking old ladies would chide me and made like they cared if I hurt myself. Mom looked sick when she watched but she knew. Knew that I had to do it. Knew that it made me feel better.

Dad caught me in his arms mid-jump. Plucking me out of the air and tickling me till I cried out for him to stop. “Brandon and I are going to go, OK? We'll meet you and Mom at home, OK?”

“I wanna go, too. B always gets to go, it's not fair,” I said, wanting to ride with Dad, who always drove fast and listened to music. Not like Mom, who went slow and listened to people talk about cooking on the radio.