Playing Tyler (5 page)

I stare at the phone, shaking a little in my hand, and slip it back into my pocket. Reaching for my drink, I wish I never had checked my email.

 

CHAPTER 5

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24

TYLER

“Come over tonight, I got the new
Prisoner of Echelon 3
. Totally going to school your ass.” Peanut's well-padded shoulder hits me as I take a bite of my granola bar.

“You suck at
Echelon
, man, there's no way,” I say and drag my chair over to make room for Alpha and his tray full of green stuff. “Can't tonight, anyway.”

Peanut wrinkles his nose at Alpha's lunch, making him look like a freckled rabbit. He shoves a fry into his mouth. “Why? You're sure as hell not doing your homework.”

Alpha laughs and squeezes ranch dressing out of a tube. Hope he doesn't get any stuck in his beard this time. He's doing good. Trying to eat right. Wants to like tone up or something. Two days in a row he's gone for the salad. “Bet it's got something to do with SlayerGrrl, right? She call you back yet?”

My foot shakes. I take a swig of Dr Pepper. “Naw, man, but it's just a matter of time.”

Peanut wags his head back and forth. Half-eaten fries spill over the table. “There's no way. Your aura just isn't right for that kind of girl. No way someone like SlayerGrrl ever calls a guy like you, Ty.”

“Fuck you.” I take a handful of fries from his basket. Peanut thinks he can read auras. Not sure he knows what an aura is. “She's going to call, she like, I don't know, we had something. I could feel it.”

“It's called a boner, and I'm pretty sure that was all you, bud,” Peanut says.

“You're dead wrong, man, dead wrong,” Alpha says. “She designed that game you're testing for your friend, right? That pilot guy or whatever?”

“Yeah,” I say. Need something else to drink. Screw Peanut. He doesn't know. He wasn't there.

“Then she'll call you back.” Alpha takes a fork to his salad, squirting gelatinous tomato seeds onto the table. Looking like a sea of little eyeballs. “She's going to be too damn curious. One of the best gamers in the country is playing her new system? Hell yeah she's calling. Remember all those feedback forums she set up after she released
World of Fire
?”

“Yeah,” I say. I do remember. That girl's all about quality control.

“She's calling. She checked those things every day till that game was like flawless.” Alpha smiles, his whole face seeming to grow.

“In your dreams.” Peanut takes a swig of his Dew. “Face it, guys, it doesn't matter. A girl like SlayerGrrl is never calling one of us. Ever. For any reason. Tyler, man, you know that I love you like a brother. But don't get your hopes up.”

I open up another granola bar. He's wrong. She's gonna get back to me. I can feel it.

 

The first few missions are cool. Well, no, they're dull as hell. But they make me feel like I'm doing something important, like one day some pilot is going to actually be doing something just like this, for real. And I helped make that happen. And that's kind of a good feeling. Like I'm not just a waste of space. Like I'm doing something for my country.

Beta testing some new flight simulator twenty-five hours a week isn't exactly what I planned on doing with my life, but it's a start to some kind of a future, I guess.

The sim mimics real drone missions. The back-story says that a bunch of insurgents plant the explosives along the road, and then innocent civilians or coalition forces drive over the road and detonate the explosives. You have to like fly for a billion hours over some road and check for people who are trying to plant IEDs in the culverts underneath it. All I do is just patrol miles and miles of empty road. It's good, though, cause I'm starting to get the hang of the program. Lots of math. Lots of calculations and recalculations of speed and adjusting for wind resistance and things. In the earlier version you don't have to worry about takeoffs and landings, because ground crew take care of that for you, you just pick up the mission at the start of the flight, or plug in somewhere midway. But in this one the takeoffs and landings are on you, which means that there's that much more to do in the game, so that's something, at least.

The sim gives me four drones to control at a time. Each has two missiles. I haven't gotten to hit anything yet, I just designate waypoints and mark the locations of any suspicious activity. In real life, those points would be texted to troops on the ground who could intercept the people in question.

So far my feedback has been that it's boring. Like drive-you-insane kind of boring. If Rick's company wants to get kids interested in being pilots, or pilots interested in sitting and staring at a screen instead of actually taking a plane up in the air themselves, then he has to liven this shit up.

I can't stop thinking about SlayerGrrl. Maybe I should tell her. She'll get it. It's been almost a week. Wish she were here. Wish she would come back. The way her cheeks moved when she chewed. The way she wiped the salt off of her hands onto the back of her jeans. Totally hot. I like a woman who can drink soda and eat chips and not bitch about calories. She's sort of quiet. Shy? I don't know. I liked it when she talked, even when she didn't. It was cool. Sitting next to me, talking about flying… gaming. I like her. I mean, well, yeah.

I look back to the top screen. All drones online. All focused on one mission. Nothing going on. Nothing on the sim. Nothing with my social life. I sent her three emails and she hasn't returned even one.

“Tyler.” Rick's voice sounds like a dog chasing off a puppy trying to steal its food. Shit, I totally forgot that he's here. “Focus. Get through this and we'll go out, OK? I bought tickets to see the late showing of
Rise of the Juggernauts
in IMAX 3D, but first we have to do this.”

“What?” I take a swig of Mountain Dew, smiling, rubbing at the stupid blood pressure cuff. Last time Rick and I went to the movies it was epic, spent hours together afterward in the arcade. He's cool, Rick, even though he can be a tightass. My eyes follow the road. Shit. Wait. Something is happening. “Two unfriendlies spotted at culvert 347 at latitude north 32.7 longitude east 70.1. Two trucks moving north-northwest.” Finally get to tail something.

He looks down at the lower monitor. “See the numbers flashing in red at the bottom right hand of the screen?”

504 and 503. “Yup,” I say, keeping my eyes mostly trained on the trucks. Heart picking up speed.

“The flashing numbers in red mean that central command wants you to take drones 504 and 503 off of primary mission and engage.”

“Finally.” I check the time. Real time. Ten hours ahead of Eastern Standard. Dark there. Drones should be invisible to the fake people in the trucks. Kind of like that WWII game where you got to fly bomb strikes over Germany. Only more current. Less exciting. But still.

“Here, put on your headset, record your moves once the commands are called.”

I slip it on. Finally we are getting to do something in this game. Finally I get to see the little red guys on screen that indicate the “unfriendlies.” “Taking drones 504 and 503 off primary mission.” I punch in the codes and direct the two drones to follow the trucks.

A computer-generated voice in my ear calls the directions, flat and emotionless. I look at Rick. His face is stretched tight like a drum. He pulls a flask out of his pocket, takes a sip.

“So I just do what he says and confirm in the mic?”

“You got it.” He smiles. The smile doesn't reach his eyes.

“They record it towards my score?”

“Just do what it says.”

I listen to the call. “Drones 675 and 231 on auto. 504 and 503 in pursuit of target one.”

Rick leans over my shoulder. Smells like Bengay. Bengay and the stuff in the flask. What's up with the drinking? He never drinks. “Confirm MTS autotrack on target one, Ty.”

“You OK, man?” My left hand pulls off the camera controls and I bring it to the keyboard to type in the code.

“Dammit, Tyler, you need to focus.”

What the fuck? I say, “MTS autotrack on target one confirmed.” MTS autotrack is cool. Apparently the government can track anyone they want as long as they have a cell phone. “If something's wrong, Rick, you can just tell me.”

“Check weapon readiness.” Rick takes another sip and puts his hand on my shoulder. “Sorry, Ty, I just want you to do well here. I care about you, about your future, and right here, right now you can put yourself on the right track, get ahead. You understand?”

“Yeah, I get it, just relax, man, I'll be OK. I got this.” I push my lips together to try and give him a weak smile. I know he worries about me, but he shouldn't, not with this, anyway. I focus on the screens. Tail 231 is a Predator drone and it has two missiles. I lock up target one with tail 231.

I type in a code that turns on the laser. I read the screen. Arming the weapons. Waiting… The green light blinks. “We have power.”

I read the screen and punch in the code that enlarges my view from the tiny tail 231 box. Each drone has a window that shows its camera view on monitor one and I make it so that I have a three-screen view of the camera from tail 231.

“Good.” He squeezes my shoulder tight. “Now set the laser.” His eyes are riveted on everything at once, just like mine.

I pull up the laser screen, check the code then say into the headset, “Laser ready.” Green light one. “Laser armed.” Blinking… that's the go. “Lasing,” I say and hit target one with the laser that will guide the missile.

Then I flip up the safety on the joystick that controls the weapon. Rick holds his breath. This is kinda exciting. Finally getting to blow something up in this damned game. The go light blinks for the weapon. “Three… two… one… rifle.”

I wait, I see the truck moving across the screen, a tiny white ant racing across miles of brown nothingness, and then count down: “Three… two… one… impact.”

The truck explodes. The explosion doesn't have sound effects or anything, like what watching an explosion on Google Earth would be like. Just doesn't have the same zing. Too bad. The graphics are tight but you'd think if you're signing up for the Air Force they'd give the sim better audio.

“Good job, son.”

“Told you not to worry.” I look up at him and he smiles, for real this time, one that shows all those wrinkles on his face, only in like a good way. “We still on for that movie?”

He looks past me at the sim, his smile fading into this weird, intense sort of expression. He takes another drink.

 

CHAPTER 6

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25

ANI

Cartesian dualism? I throw down my pencil, disgusted. Why on earth do I have to know this? Philosophy may just kill me. Christy is up front, actually talking with the professor, and I wonder what would happen to me if I went to the dean to drop the class. What would they threaten me with, losing credit? Having to take a big W for withdraw on my record? I could always replace it with something less Philosophy-like – Art, for instance, or even Creative Writing. I had to write a storyline for
World of Fire
, it can't be
that
different. Still, a W might not be so bad, as long as the dean doesn't have to call my mom.

Mom would lose her mind. I wonder what she'd threaten me with, though, now that I'm in college. Once I got a B in gym and she forbid me from talking on the phone with Dad when he was able to call from Afghanistan. I cried for a week. The only good thing about skipping grades was getting away from Mom that much sooner. Not even perfect Julie can calm her down when she goes into her snits. Especially after what happened the last time Dad came home.

Every time I think of her I hear Mom's words in my head:
Truth is, Your Honor, that he frightens me now, I just don't know if me and my girls are safe with him in the house
.
 

I'll never forget the look in his eyes as she spoke. The last fatal cracks in the shell of the man who so desperately wanted to hold himself together.

She was silent when they sentenced him.

My jaw clenches at the thought of my mother. I don't know why she hates Dad so much. Lots of soldiers have PTSD when they come home; he didn't mean the things he said, the things he did. If I can understand that, that he's sick and he can get better, then so should she. She hated my gaming, too, dismissed it as a pastime for the “junkies and the jobless.” When I won the state science fair, she didn't even come to the awards ceremony. She had a headache. I had to get a ride from Julie's boyfriend. My phone rings. Oh no.

The phone buzzes in my pocket and I stand up and gather my books and push them towards my bag so I can leave, but then my binder falls. The phones buzzes again. I have to get it, looking at the papers scattered all over the floor around my desk, I wince as the professor looks over at me. I leave the books on the floor and rush out into the hall, bolting towards the stairs so no one will be able to hear me talking.

Kicking the block in front of the stairwell doors out of the way, I wait for the click of latch before I say, “Hello?”

“Ani.” The voice is low, Mr Anderson.

“Hey,” I start.

“How are things going at school?”

“Fine.” Should I do it? Should I ask? My heart races as I think of Tyler, moving over in the chair, looking up at me with those eyes, those eyelashes that seem to go on forever. The memory of the way he looked at me, reverent and fearful and awestruck, has been on instant replay in my head for days. I can't delete it. I know I should eventually, but I just don't want to let it go. “But, um, about the project. I may have to go back over to Tyler's, I'd like to update the…”