IA_B.O.S.S.

by John Darryl Winston

  When Meri joined Naz, he handed her the unopened letter from International Academy with a look of adoration. She took the letter and forced it into her front pants pocket.

  “Well?” Meri asked.

  “Don’t you even care how you did in the interview?”

  “No, the tests … tell me about the test. How did it go?”

  “Uh—huh … payback time. Now who’s squirmin’ you little firecracker.”

  “Naz.” Meri jumped up and down.

  Naz laughed. “I’m not gonna do you like you do me; I’ll make a deal with you—”

  “Not again—”

  “Wait; you’re gonna like it. Now watch this. Dr. Gwen needs you to help me with the next test.”

  “OK.”

  “You have to help me concentrate on one thing for the rest of the day.”

  “OK, ooh, ooh, I have an idea.”

  “Meri—”

  “No, listen. I can camp out in your room at night from now on and prove that you’re not sleepwalking.”

  “Sleepwalking? What? And how do you plan to do that?”

  “Stay up all night and watch you.”

  “I don’t think so.” That’s a good idea.

  “Naz …”

  “Alright! Two conditions; only one night and when I beat you in chess, you don’t get mad.”

  She extended her hand to him.

  “What?” he asked.

  “We have to shake on it.”

  He shook her hand.

  “Deal,” they said in unison.

  At home they played chess and talked about all things D until Naz passed out. That night, Naz dreamed about the Chess Master.

  In his dream, Naz was at the festival. It was daytime, but the mood resembled that of a dark, gloomy night with slow moving clouds and not even a hint of sun. Naz didn’t think it odd that the place was completely deserted—who would come out in weather like this anyway? It looks like it’s about to storm. Light rain began to fall, making gray spots on the pavement where it landed, adding to the gloom. There was only one table: a table tall enough to stand at. Naz was ready this time. There would be no spectators to thrill, no distractions.

  Naz made his first move and the Chess Master countered. At that moment his phone buzzed in his pocket; someone was calling him—it’s probably Meri. He ignored it—there’ll be no excuses today. The Chess Master is going down. Naz made his next move. But it was no longer the Chess Master on the other side of the table, but his math teacher, Mr. Ledbetter—oh, then I’ll beat him, too. Naz’s phone continued to buzz. With each move it was a different opponent and Naz decided that he would beat them all. There was Fears, Meri, Mr. Tesla, Pauling, Miss Tracey, Harvis then Soul. With every move, each opponent seemed to move faster than the last. At one point he looked up and saw Dill and Denali at the same time. Then there was Artie, Dr. Gwen, the lady in the red dress, his mother, Camille, then Ham. Even Tone took a turn as he moved a pawn with his beak. All the while, Naz’s phone buzzed. As he made his move to checkmate, something compelled him to answer his phone. It was the voice.

  “Always … protect ... your queen.”

  Aghast, he dropped the phone and looked back at the board to see his new opponent’s arm with the tattoo of a sword, serpent, and eye forming the letters, IA. His opponent’s move would capture Naz’s queen and simultaneously trap his king on all sides. He looked up to see his opponent’s face and hear the words “checkmate.” The voice he heard and the face he saw were his own.

  The phone crashed to the pavement and shattered like glass into a thousand pieces.

  Naz sat up in bed, abruptly looking at and raking his forearm in panic. He remembered how not so long ago dreams were one of his favorite things, but now, not so much. He was not looking forward to today’s test. Then it occurred to him, he had thought about D all day long and she was about the only one that wasn’t in his dream—that couldn’t have been what Dr. Gwen had in mind. As he looked out from his bed, he could just make out in the semi-darkness chess pieces strewn about his floor and the board still at the foot of his bed next to Meri. It wasn’t until he saw his phone on the floor that he realized he had been sleepwalking again. His phone was in three pieces. The battery was separated from its housing and the back of the phone was halfway under his dresser. At the foot of Naz’s bed, Meri was snoring. Naz nudged her aggressively with his foot.

  “I object your honor!” said a disoriented Meri.

  “Wake up!”

  “Oops,” said Meri sheepishly.

  On the way to Dr. Gwen’s office Naz thought about lucid dreaming. To actually know that I’m dreaming, how cool would that be? He couldn’t remember experiencing the phenomena—a nightmare wouldn’t be a nightmare if I knew I was having it. It would be kind of fun … mind bending. I could change the outcome any time I wanted. What was even more thought-provoking was how could he not know he was dreaming: an empty festival, a rematch with the Chess Master and everyone else he knew for that matter, including Tone? Was there some way he could will himself in his conscious or subconscious mind to be aware he was dreaming? He would ask Dr. Gwen and the geeks.

  Dr. Gwen’s office was a replay of the day before. When Naz told Dr. Gwen about his dream, she was both excited and disappointed: excited because she felt it showed promise for the day’s experiment and disappointment because she wished he had saved it for the day’s experiment. As far as lucid dreaming was concerned, Dr. Gwen suggested that if Naz focused on something hard enough just before he fell asleep, his conscious and subconscious might connect, keeping his mind aware when it entered the dream state.

  Dr. Gwen had only one thing for Naz to remember before he went to sleep and that was to manipulate something in his dream; pick it up, move it around, even break it. She put several objects next to him, including his phone, and told him to focus on those objects along with D as he drifted off to sleep. Her hope was that if he focused so intently on one thing for an extended time, his subconscious would feed on it and bring it into his dream. That he was conscious of the dream was a long shot.

  He dreamed this time but still wasn’t aware of it. In his dream, he walked with a girl to no place in particular, with no words spoken. And he never saw the girl’s face. He wasn’t even sure it was D, but thought it felt like her.

  He awoke the same as the day before—déjà vu. The only difference was the geeks informed Dr. Gwen that Naz had dreamed, but there was still no movement in the hauntingly quiet room.

  Naz felt guilty he was disappointing Dr. Gwen, but she assured him she believed he was doing his best and gave him a logical reason for not knowing the identity of the girl in his dream.

  She instructed him, for the next test, he must find something special to him, a token: an inanimate object that he held close to him. He told her he didn’t have anything. He just wasn’t sentimental like that. She suggested the key around his neck. Someone had anonymously dropped it off at her office for him several weeks before, and he had yet to find any practical use for it or the identity of its benefactor.

  The next day it was just Naz and Dr. Gwen. She informed him that he would act as his own hypnotist. He would be the operator in what was called mesmerism. He would take himself back in the Exclave that first day of school with Ham.

  He sat in the La-Z-Boy chair, focusing on nothing but his key, which would be his way back home, and the Exclave would be his destination. The purpose was to relive the situation and summon the voice. Naz was given a mild sedative by Dr. Gwen to help facilitate the self-induced trance. Unlike the dream, Naz would be completely aware of the process, hence the ability to end it at any time. But he would have no power to change the events, only observe them in the mental and spiritual sense, as his physical senses would be useless.

  Naz rested his elbows on the table in front of him. Hands together, his fingers held an almost invisible string, which suspended his key in midair. Naz focused on the key and thought back to that morning. It was easy; he had replayed it co
untless times in his mind. Naz counted up as Dr. Gwen had instructed and in a flash of light he was there—I’m actually here.

  He could see the three—no, four boys including myself standing there. It’s amazing, so real. But he knew he wasn’t actually there because the key was still there hanging in the foreground, framing everything. As Naz watched the boys, he yelled just to see if they could hear him. They couldn’t. It was like watching a virtual recording. He saw Ham and the other boys pull their knives. The boy with the mohawk lunged, then Ham made what now seemed like a crude but effective move to disarm the boy and send him to his knees with a bloody nose.

  Naz was embarrassed to see the other boy handle him so easily. He forgot how the situation had developed in the first place, that he and Ham actually had a chance to avoid the encounter. For a moment he understood why Ham had been so angry with him—I could’ve done a lot of things. I did nothing but stand there like a coward.

  As the boy with the bloody nose went for his knife, a mesmerized Naz yelled along with himself, “Ham, look out,” forgetting he was a passive observer.

  It was frustrating for Naz to watch and not be able to help. He wished he could go back there for real. Then, just like the day it happened, as quick as it started, it ended with the boy stabbing Ham and running down the street yelling, “Roffio vamos, Roffio vamos.”

  Naz dropped the key and returned with a start “Roffio!” He jumped up.

  “What?” Dr. Gwen pressed.

  “Sorry, Doc, no voices,” he said abruptly as he picked up the key and made his way to the door.

  “Naz, what happened? What did you see?”

  “Nothing, Doc. I’ll call you.” He hurried out the door.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  ROFFIO

  Now what? Naz made his way to Higginbotham. He had some time to kill so he took the scenic route while he weighed his options. Now he had the name, Roffio, to go with the gruff voice, and Dill and Denali had also implicated Ham. He could go to the police, but he knew that would be a dead end. He could tell Fears or Dr. Gwen, but they were already fed up with him playing detective, especially after it had gotten him a five-day suspension. He could confront Ham, but that would ultimately lead back to Fears and Dr. Gwen.

  In the end, it was still his word against Dill and Denali’s, and they would never admit to anyone what he had gotten them to admit by force. He needed witnesses to hear what Dill and Denali had told him or proof of Roffio and Ham’s involvement. How could he get that? He didn’t even know where to find Roffio. He remembered Dr. Gwen going on about belief—maybe I just need to believe it’ll all work itself out.

  Something was happening that he never counted on. He was starting to miss school, and to make matters worse, there was a game today: the second one he would miss. There was just too much to think about, basketball—well, getting kicked off the basketball team, Dill and Denali, Ham and Roffio, who killed Artie, his father, and last but definitely not least, there was D.

  Naz had promised to tell Meri everything and now that time had come. She stood in front of the school, embracing her book with her eyebrows raised in anticipation.

  “Oh, you decide to stay put when you want something, huh?”

  “Please,” she said.

  “That may work with Dr. Gwen and Mr. Tesla, but not with me.”

  “Pleazzzze.” She made a sad face.

  “Oh Alright, but you have to promise not to tell anybody,” said Naz as they walked.

  She stopped, turned to him, and put her hand up as if she was taking an oath. “I know the superhero’s code; your secret is safe with me.”

  He sighed. “Meri, I’m not a superhero. I can just … do things, and I don’t want people thinkin’ I’m weird … or askin’ me to do stupid tricks.”

  “Well, I won’t tell anybody. I promise.”

  “OK, you know those lie detector machines they use on TV—”

  “You mean the ones they use to see if people are telling the truth?”

  “Yeah. Well I can do it better just by looking into your eyes.”

  “Show me.” She faced him with her eyes open as wide as they would go.

  “Alright, now watch this. Try and fool me. Did you win at chess today?” He watched her intently.

  “That’s too easy. I always win. How ‘bout … we have a field trip next week.”

  “True.”

  “That’s amazing. I’m wearing sunglasses from now on.” She laughed.

  It didn’t take much to convince Meri.

  “But I think it’s more than just the eyes,” said Naz.

  “Really? Do it again.” She closed her eyes.

  “How’d you do on your math test?” he asked.

  “I got an A.” Meri showed no expression.

  He looked at her for a second, closed his eyes, and it came to him. I have to tell Dr. Gwen about this.

  “Not true.” He opened his eyes. “Meri! What did you get?”

  “I got a B.” She pouted.

  “You always get A’s.”

  “I know.” She walked away.

  “Well what happened?” He caught up to her.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I do.” He looked back at the library they had just passed. “Maybe you should start reading your own books.”

  When they got to Bellarusso’s, Naz wasn’t expecting the chewing-out he got from Francis and Richelle for being suspended.

  Richelle stood with her hands on her hips. Her mouth moved at breakneck speed as she chastised Naz in her native tongue of Italian, something Naz had only witnessed once before, but never on the receiving end. Naz took the pack off his back.

  Francis cut in as if to translate. “First you don’t show up for work, don’t call or nothing. Then you get kicked out of school. What’s gotten into you?” She looked up at him, her finger inches from his nose.

  Naz had learned by now that explaining himself and defending his actions against Dill and Denali was useless. “I’m sorry”

  How did she know? He looked at Meri with accusing eyes, but could tell by her expression she hadn’t ratted him out. When he thought Francis was through talking, he walked behind the counter, grabbed the two bags there, and exchanged a few items between them and the one he already carried.

  Richelle started in again, and Naz did his best to act like he was paying attention even though he couldn’t understand a word she was saying.

  “And how’s my little firecracker.” Frances looked at Meri.

  “Fine, Miss Francy, how are you? I grew an inch.”

  “I can tell. You’re almost as tall as me now. Naz, you have to be more responsible.”

  “I said I was sorry.” Naz zipped up the bags and handed Meri the smaller one.

  “This little firecracker is gonna need you.” Francy put her arm around Meri.”

  “I know that.”

  Naz swallowed, grabbed Meri’s hand, and they left.

  Francis and Richelle’s reaction to Naz’s suspension made him realize something he had first suspected when they came to his first game; they truly cared about him. He could see in Meri’s eyes she wanted to tell them so badly what he had entrusted her with, she could burst. But she didn’t, and Naz was impressed with his little sister’s resolve.

  On the way to Mercado’s, Naz told Meri of the failed dream research experiments and the dream where he walked with the girl with no face. She pulled out the book she had been reading and showed him where it read:

  Mental Molecular Manipulation (M3) often occurs during REM sleep.

  “That’s moving things with your mind and REM sleep, that’s when you dream.” Meri closed the book.

  “I already knew that.” I think.

  She opened her book again, rifled through a few pages until she hit the target she had marked, and attempted to read, “Mental Molec— Mental Molecular malip— Mental Monec— M3 –

  “Give it to me,” he said, wresting the book from her. He read, “Mental Molecular Manip
ulation.”

  “Betcha can’t say it three times.”

  “Mental Molecular Manipulation, Mental Monecular Moniculation, Mental Monec—

  Meri erupted in laughter. “Nah.”

  “Well, you can’t say it once … and it’s M cubed, not M3.” He handed her the book back.

  “Evidence of … M cubed … is often written-off as sleepwalking,” she finished reading. She slammed the book closed as if to put an exclamation point on her position.

  The two finished their trek to Mercado’s in silence.

  On the way to Piccolo’s, Naz told Meri how he used his key to, sort of, hypnotize himself and go back to that first day of school with Ham and the knife fight. He said it was like “being there”, but not, and that it was more real than any dream could ever be. He told her Dr. Gwen was trying to summon the voice, but it didn’t work. But it did help him remember who Roffio was, and it put him one step closer to solving Artie’s murder, even though he still felt miles away.

  Meri was in deep thought as they approached Piccolo’s. Then as if a switch was flipped, her face lit up, and she opened her book once more. Naz tried to look disinterested, but his ability to discern truth didn’t extend to concealing it, as his face clearly betrayed his intent. When she found the page she had marked, she slowly and carefully read,

  “Telepathic abilities and sensibilities are often attributed to the occult and are therefore disregarded by the scientific community as hoax or trickery. But there is sparse evidence that some auditory hallucinations associated with schizo … schizophrenia may have very well been misdiagnosed and have higher implications unexplainable by mere scientific conjecture.”