I stepped onto the front porch, past the wicker chairs and potted ficus trees, stopped at the door and listened. Nothing stirred inside. Maybe my nojakk was wrong and he wasn’t there, or maybe he was just late for school and missed the bus. Maybe his grandparents took him. So why am I tip-toeing? Because the energy around the house was foreboding, like a ghost was in the attic.
I knocked. It echoed inside. Knocked, again.
There was a key under the ficus. It had been there since I was five. I could use it, but it would be hard to explain if his grandma came home and, on the chance Streeter wasn’t home, I’d be wandering around inside.
The small surveillance eye, about the size of a marble, was still above the door. The surface swirled. It was still working. Something wasn’t right. The house just felt… dark.
I hopped the privacy fence and crept up to the first window. The shade was drawn on Streeter’s room. I cupped my hands against the window and peered through a gap below the shade. The desk and dresser were covered with clothes and the floor wasn’t visible under books, papers and Internet gear. Nothing had changed.
The bed was in the corner with a mess of covers. I thought about going around back and looking through the kitchen window when the bed twitched. A hand was sticking out, fingers twiddling on the mattress. A cable stuck out from under the pillow.
Virtualmoding.
He was on the Internet, virtualmoding in his giant sim. He knew I was at the front door, that surveillance eye would’ve reported the view to him. In fact, there was another eye somewhere outside his window, watching me watching him.
“Streeter!” I tapped the window. “I need to talk to you, get up!”
His fingers stopped twitching.
“I see you, I know you’re in there.”
It wasn’t enough.
“I’ll get the key,” I said. “I’ll let myself in and drag your ass out of bed.”
He still wasn’t moving. Maybe the key wasn’t there anymore. Slowly, the mound came to life. Streeter sat up.
No way.
He was still short but thirty pounds lighter. His face was dark. He rubbed his eyes and stretched, pulled the over-sized transporters from behind his ears. He sat on the bed, slumped over. Thinking. Maybe I was going to have to get the key after all. But then he stood. He used to be built like a hot air balloon. He sprung a leak.
The door was open when I got to the front porch. Streeter was walking away.
“You all right?” I followed him to his bedroom.
“I’m not feeling well.”
I touched the lamp on his desk, lighting his room. Dark energy pulsed around him. His breath was shallow, as if it didn’t matter whether he stopped breathing all together.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“I got the flu or something?”
“Flu? Dude, you’re half gone!”
“Yeah,” was all he said. He wouldn’t look at me. “I’ve been puking a lot.”
“Have you been to the doctor?”
“It’ll pass.”
“But you’ve lost all that weight. Something’s not right, you got to get it checked out.”
“Maybe I’m on a diet.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were sick?” I said. “I haven’t seen you in three months—”
“Look, I’m sick!” He bristled with hot energy now. “What’d you want me to say?”
I pulled the shade and flooded the room with light. His color was all wrong. He blinked at the bright light, sat back down on the bed. I grabbed his face with both hands, forced him to look directly at me. His pupils were dilated; the rims of the irises were blurry.
“How long have you been virtualmoding?”
“I’m not gear-addicted.” He knocked my hands away.
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“I know what I look like, I’m not addicted!”
“Look at the signs, man! Your eyes are the first to go! You look like a freaking withered up gearhead.”
“Yeah, and what do you know?”
“Face facts! Do you want to feel better or what?”
“Don’t pull that Paladin shit on me! I know more about virtualmoding than you’ll ever know!”
“What?”
He struggled to stay still. He pulled the shade down, sat at his desk shaking his leg. He wanted me out of there in the worst way, but knew asking wasn’t going to do it. It wouldn’t be hard to pick a few thoughts from his mind, they were scattered like fallen leaves. It would be as easy as dragging a net through a school of minnows. My mind reached around him, gently applying pressure. I didn’t want to get inside him, just see a loose thought or two.
“Don’t pull that bullshit on me!” he said.
“What’re you hiding?”
“I got a life so just stay out! You wouldn’t know about it. You and Chute.”
“What’re you talking about?”
He sat there drumming his fingers on the desk, grinding his teeth, finally said, “You’re not around, Socket, so it doesn’t matter. Neither is Chute. It’s just me. Just me, bro. So why don’t you leave me the fuck alone.”
“I’m here to see you, not somewhere halfway around the world, you nut.”
“Where you going to be next week?”
His eyes were larger than ever. He was sensitive to thoughts, even though he couldn’t control them. That’s how he felt me looking inside him. And that’s another sign of gear addiction. He needed help.
“You got to stay off virtualmode, man,” I said. “It’s killing you.”
“I’ll do what I got to do.”
I looked at the box on his dresser. “I’ll take your transporters.”
“You don’t think I have backups?”
“Streeter, this isn’t right. I’ll bring Chute here, if that’s what it takes. She’ll make you do it.”
“Give me a break, she doesn’t have time.” He held his belly and burped. “I got to puke now. You know the way out.”
He crossed the hall and slammed the door on the bathroom.
He was always vigilant about gear addiction. In fact, he always made sure Chute and I had safeguards on all our gear before we went virtualmode. He checked records to maintain proper hours. In fact, the only way to abuse virtualmode was to disable the safeguards. Virtualmode would shut down if it sensed addictive symptoms. What was he doing? Better yet, where was he doing it?
It sounded like a dry heave in the bathroom. How long would he fake that until he thought I was gone? I grabbed the disc-shaped transporters off his dresser wired to the black box. It was cheap ass gear. Nothing was wired these days, but Streeter could make anything work. This was crap he got down at a gear swap for next to nothing. It was probably easier to disable safeguards so he could virtualmode endlessly.
I slid the transporters behind my ears, felt them suck against the skin and search for my nervous system. My awareness left my skin sitting on the bed, floating through the bodiless in-between until I landed in a giant sim.
I was ten feet tall in a small white room with no furniture or monitors. Streeter’s gear didn’t even recognize I wasn’t him. The enormous body felt sluggish and powerful. The environment was cartoonish and senseless: no feeling, no smell.
“Take me to the last destination,” I called in a deep, gravelly voice.
The walls jiggled, searching the coordinates for the last place Streeter was at. The walls weakened, then crumbled. An imposing metal gate appeared before me. It was thirty feet high with sharp staves on top of the bars, hinged to ivy-covered brick columns. Beyond was solid darkness. The night sky was covered with clouds, but a full moon peaked through an opening, illuminating the weedy path in front of me.
“State your target,” a creepy voice spoke from the other side.
“Where am I?”
“The Gates of Death.”
“What’s that?”
Pause. “If you need orientation to navigate this world, please enter the room on the right.”
There was a mausoleum buried in overgrown vines. “Otherwise, state your target.”
“Just tell me what this place does.”
Another long pause. “Gates of Death is a database of all those deceased. You may visit celebrities, historical figures, family or friends.”
Family. “As long as they’re dead?”
“State your target.”
This wasn’t Streeter’s style. He was a smash and bash guy. He went to battleworlds, not historical. He didn’t look back, he looked forward.
“Take me to my last target.”
The gates opened slowly. The dark beyond took form. Colors and shapes emerged from the darkness. Water sloshed in an ocean. Trees sprouted—
click.
The world disappeared.
I was yanked through the in-between like a fish snagged on a hook and slammed back into my skin. I tumbled off Streeter’s bed. My stomach churned. Streeter’s dirty socks hung off the ends of his feet near my face. He held the transporters in his hand.
“What were you doing?” he said.
“You can’t rip those off like that. My nervous system—”
“What were you doing?”
I leaned against his bed, took a moment to catch my breath. “I saw the gates. Is that what this is all about?”
“You have no right—”
“I’m your friend, Streeter. I’m not trying to take anything from you or… or… listen, you’re a goddamn mess, man! You can’t keep doing this.”
He turned his back on me, faced the corner like he was in timeout.
And then I knew.
“You’re looking for your parents.”
He twiddled the transporters in his fingers. “This is none of your business.”
I didn’t budge. Instead, I emitted a soothing energy, filling the room with a calming, loving, embracing essence that permeated his radical aura. The energy settled around him. He started to say something, but the sweetness of the essence felt too good, penetrating his jagged mind. Calming it. Relaxing. Opening.
When his posture released the tension, his shoulders dropped and his fists opened. He fell into the chair at his desk and slumped over, dropping his face in his hands, rubbing his tired eyes.
“I was doing research for history class and stumbled onto the gates,” he said. “I talked to Einstein about the atomic bomb and his theory of relativity, pretty standard shit. He didn’t tell me anything new, really, but the details were good. I was about to leave and just had a thought. I didn’t really think they’d be there…”
He didn’t finish. Streeter never talked about his parents, even when we were little. They died when he was five, about the time my dad died, but he said he didn’t remember much. Always figured he felt the same way I did about my father, really. It happened a long time ago, so what’s the point of bringing up memories? That was then. Now is now.
“That’s all?” I said.
Energy spiked off him. “THAT’S ALL?”
“No, I just mean—”
“Imagine your dead fucking dad walking into the room, right now. You think you’d be a little freaked out? You think you’d be like, oh, hey pop, how’s it hanging? YOU THINK THAT’S HOW IT’D GO?”
“What I mean is the gates is just a game world, it’s not real. Those weren’t your parents, it was just an image. You’re talking to data.”
He twisted in the chair and stared a long time. “You think you’re better than me, is that it? Or do you just not have feelings anymore? Which is it, Socket? Huh? Are you just a robot programmed to save the world now, is that it?”
He shoved me against the bed.
“I’m no superhero, Socket, I can’t control my thoughts and feelings or, or… stop time or any of that horseshit. I’m like everyone else, just trying to get by. So, yeah, it’s just game, I’m sorry. I can’t handle my feelings, boo hoo. But I didn’t ask you to come in here. I didn’t ask you to give a fuck. I GET IT!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry… I just thought…”
“You thought it shouldn’t matter, seeing my parents? You don’t understand, that virtualmode world is as close to being real as this right here.” He thumped his chest. “I thought you might get it, but clearly you’re not human anymore. It matters to me, superboy. It matters to me.”
The front door opened. Bags rattled somewhere in the house.
“You need to leave,” Streeter said.
“Hang on a second—”
“Granny?” Streeter called.
His grandma looked into the room. “Are you feeling all right, darling— oh, you have a friend. Good.”
“He was just leaving.”
“Hi, Granny,” I said.
“Hello, darling.” She looked confused, held out her frail hand. “What’s your name?”
I’d been coming over to the house all my life and she’d forgotten me after a year with the Paladins. I shook her hand gently.
“I’m not feeling good,” Streeter said. “Could you take him to the door?”
“Certainly, sweetheart.”
He stood in the corner and watched me leave. His grandpa was in the kitchen putting away the groceries. He waved as I passed. What else do you do to a stranger but wave?
Granny stopped on the porch. “Please come back,” she said. “He needs company.”
I should’ve told her to unplug the transporters, but Streeter would find a way to fire them back up. We spent many nights in virtualmode without them knowing. And what was I going to tell her? Your grandson is visiting your dead daughter? Oh, and I think he’s gear addicted.
I should’ve.
The Fade
I pulled the glass dish from the stove. The baked salmon flaked apart with a fork, just like the directions said it would. It seemed like if I was going to screw up dinner, it shouldn’t be fish, but the guy at the market recommended it, said all I needed to do was throw some butter and brown sugar on it and bake. Even a dope can’t mess that up, he said.
I turned the stove off, slid the dish back in to keep it warm. What was I going to tell Chute about Streeter? I couldn’t lie, but she’d want to know. She’d been calling him, even knocking on his door. She just wasn’t willing to peek through his window like I was. He was lucky she didn’t see him; she would’ve dragged his ass to the hospital, no mercy.
So, if I tell her the truth – how he looked, the thing with his parents – she wasn’t going to stay for baked salmon no matter how it tasted.
I’d tell her after dinner.
A car door slammed.
I checked the sweet potatoes, made myself look busy. I didn’t want to look like I’d been looking out the window for the last forty-five minutes. My heart thumped when she knocked. Get a hold of yourself, man!
“Come in!”
I was bent over the stove pulling the dish out when she came in. Then I stood there like I forgot where I was, staring at her. She didn’t need to dress up or do the make-up thing. Just the way she was, right then, it was perfect.
“I came right from practice.” Her braids were frayed like she came over on a motorcycle. “I’m sorry, but Coach worked in some new plays.”
I was still standing. Still staring.
“I’ll go clean up,” she said.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Use my mother’s bathroom. I’ve got a few things left to do. Um, it’s over…”
“There.” She pointed. “Yeah, I’ve been here before.”
I arranged each filet on a plate, then spritzed them with lemon. I split two sweet potatoes and hit them with butter and reached for the spinach salad, hit that with cherry tomatoes, sunflower seeds and parmesan cheese.
“We’re expecting a record crowd at the game tomorrow night,” she called from the bathroom. “They’re saying more people will be there than football. They’re talking about two or three thousand people showing up. Can you believe it?”
I lit the candles on the table. I called the television on and a fire crackled on the screen.
“I’m getting a little nervous, thinking about it,” she said. “The expectations…”
She stepped into the living room. Her face was radiant. Not in the way someone steps out of the shower or returns from the beach, but bubbling with this essence of pure joy, like one of those paintings of patron saints with the halos. I was staring, again.
“You expecting someone special?” she asked.
“Not anymore.” I pulled out a chair. “Madam.”
She curtsied and danced to the table. “Why thank you, kind sir.”
I went back to work on the salad, focused on cutting cherry tomatoes and onions.
“It smells good,” she said. “Who cooked?”
“The chef is in the house, my lady.”
“Are the Paladins training you for housework?”
“Cooker, cleaner, and slayer of evil doers.” I slid a plate in front of her. “They leave no stone unturned.”
She closed her eyes and hovered over it, letting the steam drift against her face. She forked a small piece of salmon in her mouth. “Oh, my.” She moaned. “Oooooooh, my.”
She dug into the food. Her lips glistened with butter and the fire popped on the wall. I watched her eat half of it then tried some. That market guy was right on the mark. It was freaking awesome. Chute hardly opened her eyes, and when she did they were brilliant.
The whole scene was like a romance novel. Pon would shit. If he could see me sitting around like some star-crossed, zit-popping teenager, his head would explode.
“Did you see Streeter?” she asked.
“Yeah, I saw him earlier. You know, this morning.”
“He’s not right.”
“Yeah, well, no… he’s not well.”
“What do you think’s wrong?”
I chewed slowly, watched the flames dance on the candles. There were so many ways to answer that question, none of which were lies. Most of which weren’t exactly truths, either.
“I didn’t get a chance to talk to him all that much,” I said. “His granny wanted him to rest. So, you know.”
“Maybe we should go over there.”
Socket 2 - The Training of Socket Greeny Page 7