by Geoff Brown
“They're still warm, just the way you like them.”
She stayed in the room while he ate another two cookies. Finally, she said, “I noticed you haven't been gaming much lately. Is there some reason you quit?”
Spencer shrugged. “I guess I just haven't felt like playing.”
“Oh,” another awkward silence followed. Then, “Is everything okay?”
Spencer nodded. “Yeah, Mom. I'm fine. Thanks for the cookies.”
“You're welcome.”
Spencer wanted to turn around and continue working on his paper, but he didn't want to turn his back on his mom. Then she added, “Well, if you need a break, maybe you should play a game or two.”
Spencer smiled, knowing how she felt about it. “Okay,” he agreed.
An hour later, he punched in. The game came up and he viewed his options. Carnage was out of the question and he didn't feel like Slaughterhouse. He opted for a nice simple game of Global War. Five minutes into the game, he realized tears were pouring down his cheeks and he could hardly breathe. It was the first time he truly mourned. He quit the game and powered down, uncertain if he would ever play again.
* * *
Spencer sat in the back seat of Royce's mom's car as she drove them to school. The sun's bright-orange rays beamed blindingly through the windshield. Although it wasn't yet hot, Mrs Delgado had turned on the air conditioning in preparation for the sizzling heat to come.
Spencer had spent the night at Royce's house cramming for the morning's chemistry final. When they awoke, Mrs Delgado had pancakes, toast, and juice ready for them before she drove them to school. Now she asked the inane questions Spencer noticed all parents asked.
“You boys ready for the exam?” said Mrs Delgado.
“I hope so,” replied Spencer.
“Mom, we'll be fine.”
“Is it multiple choice?”
“No, we had to memorize all the formulas so we can solve the problems,” Spencer explained.
“I think there're a couple fill-in-the-blanks,” Royce added.
“I really appreciate all the help you've given my son this past week, Spencer.”
“It's okay, Mrs Delgado. Glad to help.”
“This weekend I'll take you boys to see whatever movie you want.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Thanks, Mrs Delgado.”
The car turned the corner into the school parking lot. Mrs Delgado suddenly leaned forward. “Uh-oh, what's this?”
Spencer craned his neck over the seat to see what she was referring to. Sitting in the parking lot was a military van. Three men stood next to it. As their car approached, one of the men stepped forward and directed Mrs Delgado to park next to them.
Mrs Delgado rolled down her window.
“What's going on? Did I do something wrong?”
Spencer looked across the parking lot where all of his classmates watched and wondered.
“Are you Mrs Lisa Delgado?” asked the soldier.
“Yes?”
“I need you to turn off your vehicle.”
“Is this about my husband? Is this about Mike?”
“No, ma'am.”
Spencer noticed one of the other soldiers – a sergeant – staring into his palm where he most likely held some kind of device. He looked up from his palm and directly at Spencer. Then he pointed to the third soldier and the two approached the car, both standing on either side of the back doors. The Sergeant stepped forward to take over.
“There's nothing wrong, ma'am, we're simply looking for this young man.” The Sergeant turned to Spencer. “Spencer Orlando. You need to come with us.”
The door opened and Spencer felt himself being pulled out and urged toward the van. Spencer looked over his shoulder and saw Royce staring dumbly at Spencer as he silently mouthed, “What the fuck?” Next to Royce, his mother was trying to exit the car, but she was prevented from doing so by the first soldier who stood firmly in the way.
“What's going on?” asked Spencer.
“Please follow me,” replied the sergeant. He made it sound like a request, but Spencer had no choice as the man tightened the grip on his arm.
“But I have to take my chemistry exam,” Spencer protested.
The soldier shook his head. “Not today.”
By now, Spencer could hear Mrs Delgado's frantic voice rising in pitch as she argued with the first soldier.
“You can't do this?” she pleaded.
“We have our orders, ma'am. Don't interfere or you'll be arrested.”
“Do his parents know? Where are his parents?” she asked.
“They've been informed and they're cooperating. I suggest you do the same.”
“He's only a boy. This is illegal!” she screamed.
“Please, stay in your car.”
She called out to Spencer, “I'm going to get your parents. Don't let them take you anywhere.”
Mrs Delgado slammed shut the door she'd been trying so hard to open and nearly ran over the soldier's foot as she peeled away, roaring past the sign that read, ‘Slow, School Zone.’
The sergeant stopped when they arrived at the van. He released Spencer's arm and looked into his palm where Spencer could now see the electronic device. The sergeant read from the screen:
“Spencer Orlando. According to Article 9, subsection C, paragraphs one through nine of the 31st Amendment, because of your exceptional skills and outstanding ability, you have hereby been called to active duty in the service of your country. Effective immediately.”
“But I'm only sixteen!” pleaded Spencer. “I'm supposed to have two more years.”
“Your country needs you,” the second soldier replied stoically.
“But I'm just a kid,” Spencer whined.
“It's time to man up,” ordered the Sergeant. “Get in.”
Spencer climbed into the van where he was directed to take the seat furthest back. “Can I go home and pack my stuff?”
“The military will supply you with everything you need.”
“What about my parents?”
“They've been informed of your status.”
“Can I at least say goodbye?”
“I'm afraid there isn't time.”
The sergeant turned to the second soldier and asked, “Anyone else on the roster?”
“Just him. Our next recruit is in the next county, about twenty minutes away.”
“Okay, let's get rolling.” The sergeant climbed into the back of the van and sat next to Spencer who was staring out the window.
Spencer pointed to his classmates and asked, “What about them? How come they aren't going?”
“Underage exceptions are only made for the very best online players such as yourself.” He then added, “I've seen your stats. They're impressive.”
“But…” Spencer couldn't believe he was saying this, “the game is just for fun.”
“Not anymore. It's now a recruiting tool testing for reflexes and reaction time. I'm sorry, son. I'm just doing my duty.”
The van started. Spencer heard the bell ring and watched as his friends slowly wandered inside with the other students.
“I don't agree with the new law, but I have to enforce it.” Spencer felt the hesitation in the soldier's voice before he continued. “I hate to say this, but personally speaking... I don't think you'll last five minutes.”
Spencer took one last look at his school. In a few minutes, his friends would be taking their exams; their worst fear – flunking and going to summer school. Spencer turned away. Sinking down into his seat, he remembered the words of one of his online opponents: There are no kill streaks on the battlefield.
Shatner Rules
Weston Ochse
“How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life.”
~ Captain James T. Kirk, Wrath of Khan
I shot Ohirra in the faceplate eight times, then spun and shot Sula in his faceplate eight more. They were too stunned to move as I drew my harmo
nic blade. Stranz was bringing out his minigun to fire at me in self-defense. I swung with all my power and hewed down through the gun with the blade. Then I brought the blade back up, severing Stranz’s right arm just above the elbow, bisecting the sergeant’s stripes for which he’d been so proud. Blood shot out of the arm covering Sula’s torso like a scene out of a Kurosawa samurai film.
Stranz screamed.
Sula screamed.
I screamed.
We all screamed for ice cream.
I shot up in my bunk, sweating, eyes searching for any threat, wondering where I was, ready to kill anything that moved. My vision was hazy. I wiped at my eyes and they came away wet. I felt the misery of one who couldn’t hold their bladder… I couldn’t hold my emotions. I wondered how long I’d been crying in my sleep.
Then I noticed a girl staring at me. She sat on the bunk next to mine. Both of her flip-flopped feet were on the floor. Her right hand rested on the bed. The left hand and left arm were wherever missing limbs go when they die. She wore a Scooby Doo T-shirt with Scrappy Doo dancing on the cover. That damned dog ruined the franchise, of that you could be sure. She wore braces, although the wires were gone from them since the invasion. It was just there was no one to remove the rest of the metal. No dentists. No orthodontists. No one. Her round-cheeked face held old acne scars, but they did little to dissuade an observer that she would have been beautiful if she ever learned again how to smile. A pirate’s patch was over the place where her left eye used to be. Her right eye remained, and that single Japanese eye held me as she stared.
Suzie.
Suzie Yakihama.
I took her to see Matrix Reloaded at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. We’d messed around in the hand and feet prints. We’d laughed at how small William Shatner’s feet were and created a theme that would carry us through many a day. WWWSD. When posed with a difficult situation, we’d ask ourselves What Would William Shatner Do, channeling the overly-dramatic Captain of the Starship Enterprise, and we’d act it out, right there, wherever we were.
Like the time at McDonalds when they’d run out of stuff to make McMuffins. WWWSD and Suzie had slow-moed a performance where she commanded Sulu to put phasers on stun and prepare to fire. The look on the clerk’s face had been priceless.
Or the time we were at Wal-Mart and this fat guy fell off an electric cart and seven innocent bystanders were epically failing getting him back on, much to the sad hilarity of anyone who watched. WWWSD and Suzie slow-moed into the area and loudly commanded Scotty to set the tractor beams on full, then using her hands made a motion like she was pulling the fat guy up at the exact moment the seven got their act together and righted the man and his cart.
Or the time we scandalously made out at the back of a Nickleback concert until security came, and then WWWSD and Suzie slow-moed a comment to the clueless officers about how they wouldn’t kick us out if she were a green woman, because no man can deny a green woman her love.
Yeah. That was Suzie.
Then.
But not now.
Definitely not now.
“Was it Bosnia again?” she asked, voice flat, a dead-eyed stare.
A flash of a mass grave, bodies coated with lye, women’s faces stoved in, their dresses up around their waists, flash-banged through my mind.
When I recovered, I said, “Stranz,” then after a moment added, “the arm.”
She continued to stare at me, or through me, whichever, it really didn’t matter because you couldn’t tell. “That’s a bad one.” She lifted her left shoulder where no arm was attached. “I suppose I can relate.”
Progress! When I’d first arrived and mentioned what I’d done it had set her into a bout of depression that lasted days. Now this… this was almost, dare I think it, a normal reaction.
She reached over and grabbed a towel from the foot of my bunk and tossed it to me.
I caught it and wiped my face and neck. My shirt was drenched with sweat. I needed a shower. After a moment, I realized she hadn’t moved.
“What is it?”
“Mother. She wants to see you ASAP.”
“Know what it’s about?”
“Someone reported an alien presence.”
“Did they say where?”
“Malibu Hills. They said this one was different.”
That didn’t make any sense. There wasn’t anything up there. Just hills and abandoned homes. Unless…
I reminded myself of the black kudzu that produced the zombie spore. Was this another terraformed creation that was the next round in the Hey let’s fuck up all the humans game? I wasn’t working for OMBRA anymore, but I was working for those I loved. Suzie. Mother. The Family.
“Tell her I’ll get ready to do a recon after I get cleaned up and get something to eat.”
She stood, turned, and began walking away. “You tell her. And tell her that I’m going with you.”
I watched her, wondering for the thousandth time what her story was. What had happened to change her so much? Even I was able to function at a high level even though my mind was fractured like a kaleidoscope that had been crushed by a steamroller.
“Hey!” I called after her.
She stopped, then turned, so I could only see her right eye.
“What?”
“What would William Shatner do?”
She hesitated and in that hesitation I thought she might actually say something, but then she merely shrugged, turned, and left me to my own demons.
* * *
We were all locked in prison cells when the invasion came. The Cray came down on every major city, riding their hives – organic ships that became their homes once landed. When they swarmed free, they showed their true power. Already apex predators with their claws, fangs, and joint spikes, they had the bonus of having the biological capacity to produce localized EMPs. Planes fell from the sky as everything broke down. The power grid fried. Life as we knew it ceased to exist. The Cray did everything the masters organized them for, hurling us back into a modern Stone Age, leaving us wondering if we’d ever return to the land of reality television, blockbuster Hollywood X-Men movies, and fast food restaurants promising 2000 calorie cheese burgers.
Only OMBRA was prepared, finding us, hiding us, making us learn lessons from science fiction stories and movies until finally they let us free of our cells. Then they gave us the EXO – the Electromagnetic Faraday Xeno-combat Suit. It not only protected us from the EMP, but allowed us to fight the Cray, killing them first at Kilimanjaro, then Bruges, then Rio de Janeiro.
Soon we were fighting them on our own terms.
Soon we were winning.
Then the other intergalactic shoe dropped.
The Cray had been used to soften us up. Next came terraforming, giant vines reducing our cities to dust. Among this alien flora came a fungus similar but far worse than ophiocordyceps unilateralis that allowed the masters the ability to terraform our minds, turning us into zombies, listless, unmoving, except to infect others. That’s how the master controlled me, made me attack my own squad, dismembering one, and almost killing the others.
They excused my actions because I was under the influence of the masters. Plus, how could I be responsible? After all, I had PTSD. But of course, all of us had PTSD. All of OMBRA. It’s why they chose us. We were exactly what they wanted because as broken as we were on the inside from everything we’d seen and done in the name of war, the shattered pathways of our minds could possibly stand in the way of ultimate alien domination. If we couldn’t navigate our helter skelter brains, then how could it be possible for an alien species to do so?
“She can’t come with you.”
My mind snapped back to the present.
“What? Sorry.”
Mother sat in her green Lazy Boy recliner. She wore a blue and yellow housecoat and fluffy kitten slippers on her feet. Her hands were folded in her lap. Her face was stern, yet matronly. “She can’t come with you. She’s still on suicide watch.”
Ev
en after all this time, whenever I looked at her, I couldn’t help but think of that old Hollywood actor, Kathy Bates – the one best known for sawing off James Caan’s foot in that Stephen King film all the while shouting I am your biggest fan. They could have been twins… or for all I know, she could have been her, I just never had the balls to ask. That was something about Mother. You couldn’t help but act different around her. She was like your real mother, a drill sergeant, and a swami all rolled up into one unassuming yet unapproachable person who preferred housecoats, loved cats, and drank tea.
“She wants to come.” I gestured with my right hand vaguely at everything. “She has no purpose here other than to be your go and fetch it. I think she wants a purpose. I for one would like to see if I can’t help her snap out of it.”
“There’s no snapping out of what she’s seen,” Black Johnson said. He was the camp counselor and I’d known for some time that Suzie had opened up to him. We called him Black Johnson because he insisted on it. There was a White Johnson, but we called him Scott.
“Bad choice of words, but you know what I mean. Suzie and I have history. We were a thing before the invasion.”
“And why was it you broke up?” Black Johnson asked as if to make a point.
“Too many deployments. I couldn’t be there for her emotionally or physically.”
“And now you can be there for her. Emotionally? Do you know what she believes?” he pressed.
“There’s no reason two broken people can’t come together and figure out a way to fix themselves. Think of us like puzzle pieces, all edges and curves and stuff. Maybe, given enough time, we can figure out how to go together, and in the figuring out, become something better, different.”
“That sounds like a fantasy I once heard in a movie,” Black Johnson said.
I turned to him. In his fifties. Bald head. Thin as a rake. “I wasn’t talking to you, BJ.”
He smiled triumphantly and sat back, crossing his arms. He beamed as if he’d just won a bet.
“Easy, Benji,” Mother said – the only person on the planet allowed to call me that. “He’s just concerned like we all are.”
I lowered my voice. “Listen, she’s fit. She runs around the compound all the goddamn time.”