by David Yoon
“Get him a coaster,” said a man in a flight suit. It looked like a flight suit. It was really sweats. The man was a dozen centimeters shorter than Gunner, but I somehow knew that didn’t matter. His voice alone was bigger than both of us. His buzz cut made him look like he had white horns for hair.
“Okay, Dad,” said Gunner immediately, and rushed to hand me an octagon of cork.
“You gonna introduce me or do I have to do that, too?” said Gunner’s dad.
“Sunny, Dad, Dad, Sunny,” said Gunner, again with an almost professional immediacy. “Sunny’s here to help me with my science homework, which I acknowledge I’m lagging behind in.”
Gunner’s dad smiled and folded his wiry arms. “Well, good. Nice to meet you, Sunny.”
I spoke with a throat suddenly gone dry. “Uh, likewise, uh.”
“No uhs in the Schwinghammer household,” said the dad.
“Affirmative?” I said.
Gunner’s dad waved a hand. “Carry on. Somebody’s gotta save this kid’s ass.”
I did not want to stay here all night. I shifted into Idea Guy overdrive mode. Time was not on our side.
“Papier-mâché takes forever and always looks like smashed-up garbage anyway,” I said. “Do you have clay or even cardboard?”
“No,” said Gunner. “I have Lego, though.”
That could work. “How much?”
“A whole Tuffy,” said Gunner.
“Then let’s do this,” I said, and gave a thumbs-up to Gunner’s dad, who seemed satisfied enough to leave us alone.
Gunner eyed the doorway until his dad was out of sight, then looked at me with those blank eyes of his. “We better get started,” he whispered.
We entered a Moorish archway and climbed stairs sunlit by narrow archer’s windows. Then down a hall lined with paintings, all oils, including a sinister, unsmiling family portrait done in a dark Flemish style.
This was not what I pictured Gunner living in. If anything, I would’ve imagined his house as a bright business hotel bar full of televisions with football on every screen. That was not this house.
This house was messed up.
Gunner entered a room so austere it reminded me of that movie where the tormented monk flagellates himself with a cat-o’-nine-tails fashioned by his own hand.
“I’m not allowed to keep the door closed,” said Gunner as I entered.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I sighed—I’d texted Milo and Jamal that I was leaving to meet Gunner, but had forgotten to text when I actually got here.
MILO
Are you there yet?
JAMAL
If you do not update your last known location in the next minute we will assume you have been incapacitated and will call a rescue squad
I am here, I am safe
JAMAL
Still don’t understand why you can’t just help this jerk over video chat or something
MILO
We will keep pinging you just in case.
Roger
JAMAL
Who is Roger
The only decorations in Gunner’s room were six trophies, all for football, starting from the Pee Wee era all the way up.
I eyed his closet door, his dresser. I sipped my water. The water was ice cold.
I placed my glass on the coaster. “So listen,” I said. “I’m happy to help you with your science stuff, okay? Just tell me what you need.”
“You guys are crazy, faking at being a band,” said Gunner with a sudden smile. I’d never seen him smile like that before. “You mofos are some friggin’ crazy-ass mofos.”
He flinched at the doorway, cautious. “I’m not allowed to swear,” he whispered.
“You didn’t,” I said.
He relaxed. He looked at me again and slowly resumed his weird smile.
“Anyway, I don’t blame you, someone like Cirrus,” he said. “I’d do the same thing, too, if I could.” He chuckled. Then he got sad. Then he smiled again.
It seemed like within Gunner there were multiple emotions fighting to surface. I searched his face for clues, but couldn’t discern anything. Aside from being a bully skilled at catching prolate spheroids of leather, what did I really know about him?
“So I actually already got started on the cell model,” said Gunner, and dragged a big new Tuffy trash can from his sparse closet. It was full of plastic bricks. Atop the bricks sat a large baseplate with something built on top: a haphazard arrangement of randomly multicolored towers that even a child would give a harsh critique session to.
“I guess you could call it a start,” I said.
Gunner beamed. “Thanks, man,” he said.
Gunner was different in his home. He was almost shy.
I set the model on a dresser, dug my hands into the Tuffy, and got to work.
“A cell is organic,” I said. “You have to make the Lego curve and look rounded. Like this.”
I quickly built a simple hemisphere out of thin layers that shrank as they reached the top.
Gunner held his chin like someone who had read that holding one’s chin made one look smarter. “Huh.”
“Also, you can’t use just any color,” I said. “I’d use one color per cell structure, like blue for mitochondrion, red for the nucleus.”
I worked for a few minutes, sifting and snapping. I hadn’t built with Lego in a while, and I found myself entering a not-unpleasant, familiar flow state. When I was finished, I realized I had replaced 99.998 percent of Gunner’s original work.
“Dude,” said Gunner. “That looks so rad now. We’re done!”
“We’re not done,” I said. “Tell me what’s missing.”
Gunner held his chin again, then remembered he had a textbook, then went to leaf through it.
“’Kay, so, we need the endoplastic rectum,” said Gunner.
“Endoplasmic reticulum,” I said. “Specifically the rough.”
“And probably this Golgi thing,” said Gunner.
“Apparatus,” I said.
“They’re so tiny and noodly,” said Gunner. “Can we just leave them out?”
“Only if you want a D,” I said. Both the endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi apparatus were intricate, ribbon-like structures no Lego could replicate. But I would never let such a limitation stop me. I loved limitations. Limitations set creativity free.
“Do you have ribbon, or maybe extra-wide, extra-long rubber bands?” I said.
“I have cleat shoelaces,” said Gunner.
“Perfect,” I said.
I instructed Gunner in how to build a matrix of axle holes, which were to be plugged at regular intervals with plentiful, easy-to-find 3M connector pegs (Lego part no. 6558) to form a small field of posts. The shoelace could then be wound around and across the posts to create an arrangement labyrinthine enough to visually convey the complexity of both organelles. We slotted in both modules and then stood back to admire our work.
“Now it looks even radder,” said Gunner.
“You have to be able to say what each part does,” I said. “Endoplasmic reticulum, go.”
Gunner glanced out the doorway, as if his dad were there listening. “It makes lipids.”
“And?”
“Cholesterol.”
“Golgi, go,” I said.
“Takes the molecules from the endoplasmic reticulum and makes complex testicles.”
“Vesicles,” I said, laughing.
“I keep thinking it’s testicles,” said Gunner, laughing, but he suddenly stopped and muttered darkly, “Stupid.”
“Hey,” I said. “Don’t say that.”
Gunner gave me a sheepish look.
“I tried to write up the hypothesis and conclusion stuff you said was missing,” said Gunner, eyes downcast.
&nb
sp; So Gunner had remembered that. What was more, he’d clearly fretted over it. I found myself wanting to lift Gunner’s spirits, which blew my mind.
“Great,” I said. “Let’s look it over.”
It was like magnetic poetry assembled by mice, but worse.
Once again, I found myself replacing 99.998 percent of Gunner’s original work. I saved the file, printed it, and set it down next to the model. Done.
Gunner’s eyes flicked at the door, then back. “So is it turn-in-nable now?” he murmured.
“This, young Padawan, is an A,” I said.
“Really?” said Gunner.
“Really,” I said.
Gunner hissed with triumph. “Yiss, I was hoping we’d finish early. Because I’ve been meaning to ask you about something.”
Ask me about what?
Gunner glanced at the doorway again—coast clear—and motioned toward his desk. The desk was empty but for a heavy oxblood leather blotter.
Gunner lifted the blotter. He kept it propped up like a car hood, using a ruler. Under the blotter were sheets of graph paper taped together. On the graph paper was drawn a map, and on the map were little shapes cut out of paper each no bigger than my pinky fingernail labeled CL and WZ and DW and so on.
“I’m halfway through the Tomb of Horrors,” whispered Gunner, “but I’ve been stuck at the big demon-face statue on the wall. The one with the big huge mouth, right here.”
And Gunner put his big finger on a hand-drawn map.
I was stunned. “Since when the hell do you play D&D?” I blurted.
“I don’t,” said Gunner instantly.
I looked the map. Sure enough, it was still there.
“But you are playing,” I said. “The Tomb of Horrors is widely acknowledged to be the most difficult module ever created by D&D inventor Gary Gygax, and you just asked me for help.”
“I’ve been playing using single-player guides online, which isn’t perfect, but,” said Gunner, “I think it’s pretty fun.”
My mind continued to boggle along all six degrees of freedom. I glanced at the cell model, then at the paper map, then at Gunner.
Gunner hesitated, then spoke. “I heard you guys talking about the Tomb at track.”
My memory fast-rewound four months, five months, almost a year. Jamal had been complaining that the Tomb of Horrors was too hard, and therefore flawed. Milo and I disagreed, and called it a masterpiece.
“You heard that?” I said now. “You remembered that?”
Gunner nodded. “So then last week I was in some nerd shop at some mall, and I saw it on the shelf,” he said. “You and Milo and Jamal are always tight, always laughing and stuff, but then you guys also have these serious discussions, like you’re really into what you’re talking about. You’re like brothers, man.”
I wanted to smile. We were like brothers. But I could only stare at Gunner, to see what he would say next.
“I was all standing in that store in the mall,” murmured Gunner. “I was just like, What is it those guys are always talking about?”
I was confused. “You’ve been mean to me ever since I moved here. Ever since the fifth grade, dude.”
Gunner polished the corner of his desk with a big thumb over and over again. “I’m sorry I was so mean to you,” he said.
My heart was beating strangely fast. I had always fantasized about propelling Gunner with a seventeenth-level Push spell into a fathomless crevice full of lava, but this was somehow much more electrifying:
An apology!
Gunner sniffed and ahem-ed hard. I had no idea what to say. I don’t think he did, either.
“I don’t have any friends I can really talk to,” said Gunner finally. “With the guys, it’s always training, or girls, or cars. Do you know how much we talk about friggin’ training? Or girls? Or cars?”
I was struck by his melancholy. “That sucks,” I found myself saying. I looked at the football trophies on his dresser. I realized they had all been turned to face the wall.
“So anyway, I just wanted to know if I should climb into the mouth, or what,” he said. “I guess I could look it up online.”
I could not believe I was saying this, but here I was. “No fun in that, though, right?”
Gunner smiled. “I figured you’d be the guy to talk to.”
“Huh,” I said.
“I’m really sorry, man,” said Gunner.
I noticed sparse decorations tacked on the opposite wall.
FOOTBALL STAR IN TRAINING!
EXCELLENCE: DRIVEN NOT GIVEN
“Uh,” I said. “Apology accepted.”
IT’S NOT HOW BIG YOU ARE IT’S HOW BIG YOU PLAY
I turned to Gunner’s amateurish game board and pointed to a square of paper. “This wizard here holds a clue. Literally, in their hands, as a melee weapon.”
Gunner held himself tight and thought. “Artemis cautiously inserts her Staff of Light into the mouth of the demon.”
“You named your wizard Artemis,” I noted aloud.
“Shut up,” said Gunner, and playfully shoved me way too hard onto the floor. “Sorry. I think I have a mind-body disconnect.”
He helped me back into my seat. I tented my fingers and intoned my words with a resonance I hadn’t used in years. “Artemis’s staff finds no resistance. No effect. The weapon simply is absorbed into the darkness. What shall you do now, adventurer?”
“Artemis pulls it back out?” said Gunner.
“As Artemis slowly removes the staff, she is horrified to discover that the end of her beloved melee weapon is missing. Simply erased from existence. Adventurer?”
Gunner’s whole face became an O of incredulity. “Is it a—what do you call it—Sphere of Annihilation?”
“The adventurer shows wisdom,” I said.
“But that was the only staff she had!”
“Tough titty,” I said. I held out a waiting hand. “Adventurer?”
We played.
After a while, Gunner snapped his head up at a sound, and he hid the board. He blipped over to the science project and feigned deep interest. It was alarming how quickly he got into character.
“You boys gittin’ ’er done?” said Gunner’s dad.
“Absolutely,” said Gunner.
Gunner’s dad peered down his nose at the work and snuffed. He nodded at his son.
“You’ve earned yourself a break,” he said. “We got our video analysis in five.” He left.
“I guess I’ll walk you out,” said Gunner with a twist of chagrin in his lip.
Outside, it was already night.
“I guess I’ll see you later, I guess,” said Gunner, and stood there on his front stoop like someone waiting to be kissed at the end of a first date.
I found myself saying it back:
“See you later.”
* * *
—
I unlocked my phone and facepalmed at the queue of messages.
JAMAL
Are you dead? If you are dead please confirm
MILO
Sunny Dae what is happening
And so on. I sighed and wrote back.
Everything’s fine. Gunner is not what he seems, but in a good way. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. In the meantime our cover is still intact.
JAMAL
You mean YOUR cover
MILO
We’re all in this together now. Support our friend.
JAMAL
Spent all night worried so I’m stressed sorry
I sent them three hearts in three different colors, then threw a leg over my bike.
The night air was a fragrant mix of distant ocean brine and jasmine and plumeria coming from all around me. I rode from pool to pool of orange light coming from the streetlamps
above.
Zzz, zzz, zzz went the buzzing lights overhead.
I had a thing I called the Post-Encounter Energy Scan (PEES). After hanging out with someone, you took a moment to gauge how your body felt. If you felt tired and depleted by the encounter, you should probably not expose yourself to that person again. If you felt energized, you should increase your exposure to that person.
Milo and Jamal energized me.
Cirrus energized me to the stratosphere.
After hanging out with Gunner for the first time, I had to admit: I felt energized.
I also felt depleted, because the thought of him yearning in wretched lightless solitude made my soul heavy. Wanting more from his sidekick, the football team, and that dad of his. But being too afraid to ask.
I felt depleted because Gunner, I realized, was ashamed of himself.
And finally: I felt depleted because I had shame, too. My shame was bad enough that I had turned left into Gray’s room instead of right into mine that fateful night.
I looked at the houses all around me, big, bigger, and biggerer, all fronted by gardens manicured to taste, aside parked cars of varying levels of luxury. All human life seemed driven by shame—the fear of being an incorrect self. Wear the right clothes, talk the right way, like the right things, buy the right fancy toys. As if shame were an evolutionary necessary evil designed to keep the tribes of society simultaneously together and apart.
If there were no shame, would we be freer? Or just descend into chaos?
I had to get over this little shame of mine, and turn it into a light. It might take months or years. I feared it might take forever.
Nerd was an epithet of shame. People called me that because I did not wear the right clothes, talk the right way, or like the right things. Nerd was a catchall term for someone who failed to fit any established terms—a pejorative cousin to whatchamacallit for inscrutable objects or schmutz for unidentifiable stains.
Shame was a heavy blanket to hide under. But it was not so heavy that it could keep the energy of every undisclosed desire in your heart at bay. That energy popped out in strange ways. For Gunner, it had come out as obsessive antagonism.
And for me?
For me, that energy took the form of the Immortals.