Strong Signal (Cyberlove #1)

by Megan Erickson

  After working out the kinks in my back from five hours of straight streaming, I wandered down the short hallway to my kitchen. I needed a hot shower after hours of sitting at my desk, but food came first. I stuck my head into the freezer and pushed aside some seriously grody frozen waffles in search of my treasure. My fingers closed around the cardboard container and I hauled out my booty.

  The tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream was getting dangerously low. There was only about two dinners’ worth left in the container and that wouldn’t do. I opened up the note app on my phone and typed in MOAR ICE CREAM to remind myself to order some on my next grocery delivery.

  I leaned against the counter and stared at the opposite wall of my kitchen. I’d painted it teal last week on a whim, and now I wasn’t so sure I liked it. That was the downside of ordering paint off of Amazon and then not even bothering to apply a sample before fucking going to town with the roller.

  I was going for a rainbow theme. Which, I realized teal wasn’t really in the rainbow—ROY G. BIV and all that—but I fucking liked teal, dammit. And it was my apartment. The living room was purple, the hallway was yellow and my bedroom was blue.

  The bathroom was red, which was actually not my favorite, but I was too lazy to paint over it with like five coats of primer. Also, I was worried about killing brain cells with the paint fumes.

  This was adulting—eating out of the ice cream container and painting my space however the hell I wanted. I didn’t do much adult stuff like…oh…say leave my apartment, but I could eat the hell out of a tub of Breyer’s.

  With the carton in one hand and the spoon in another, I grabbed my laptop and stretched out on my bed. When I logged into FWO again, I was still in the Catacomb where I’d perfected my victory dance over Hazzard’s body.

  Why had he even followed me onto Twitch? People fought over rooms all the time in FWO. That was the beauty of it being an open world with no restrictions. I’d never seen him in the chat before, and the fact that he’d followed me nearly immediately after I’d flamed his ass was not a coincidence. Flamed. I snorted. As soon as he’d seen me on Twitch, he’d likely clued to the fact that he’d been flamed in more ways than one. Because I was clearly a raging homo.

  And now I was back to rehashing the comments he’d made in Chat. Asshole. He was probably a redneck, drinking Bud Light in his trailer with a…God, what did rednecks do?…with a deer carcass nearby. Or something.

  Why was I thinking about him? It wasn’t like he was the first gamer to hate-view my stream, but something about him sent a chill down my spine. I’d have to fish around. Better to be proactive about protecting myself from some Internet crazy.

  After considering the guilds I regularly played with, I sent a group message to a few of the officers.

  Samwise: Any of you know a Hazzard?

  Ignite332: Not me. wut happened?

  Samwise: I lit his ass up in one of the catacambs. He was solo.

  Ignited33: Wait, Firefly, don’t you know him?

  FireflyTKO: I’m friends with a girl in his guild. I thought he was deployed now?

  “Deployed?” I squeaked. Oh fuck, I’d burned an American hero into a crisp. Fuck me. That was some bad karma.

  Samwise: So what you’re saying is I just humiliated one of our country’s bravest in front of my stream chat?

  There was no answer for a while and I began to chew my already ragged thumbnail.

  Finally there was a response:

  FireflyTKO: Um yeah that’s what I’m saying.

  I powered everything down and sat up in the middle of my bed, gnawing on my thumbnail until I tasted blood.

  This was bad, right? These guys had like…guns and other things that caused bodily harm. They knew how to kill with a glare and a hidden poison dart. Or maybe that was just Bond.

  I fluttered my hands and tried to take deep breaths. Anxiety was a bitch. And I was its bitch. Everything was okay. This guy was several oceans away. He had more important things to worry about than some gay guy killing his archer. Right? Fuck. What if he was a psycho? The kind that wrote manifestos and went on rampages.

  I stared down at my nails and cursed. Yep, I was bleeding again. When I was younger, my aunt had slathered them with calamine lotion to get me to quit chewing my nails. So instead of bloody nails, I had pink-stained, bad-tasting ones.

  Too bad anxiety couldn’t be cured with calamine lotion.

  It was fine. I was fine. Hazzard wouldn’t…come after me with a grenade. I wouldn’t have a fucking convoy with AK-47s busting through my tiny apartment in Philly. Just because he was a butthurt gamer didn’t automatically mean he was an angry redneck who went on homophobic rampages, right? Except…that was who a lot of my biggest haters were. I knew because my mods sometimes looked into their profiles on social media and found evidence of truly scary individuals.

  Okay, I needed to stop. I was overreacting. Hazzard was, potentially, a normal person.

  These were the times I wished I had…friends. Real-life friends. Not friends made through FWO or my stream chat. But friends who could come over when I was being a paranoid freak, and who would stop at the store along the way and get me more goddamn ice cream. Well, I did have one friend but, he was a teenager so I had to work hard not to be a total basketcase in front of him.

  Deep breaths were needed. In. Out. In. Out.

  I fired up my system again and searched Hazzard’s name in the game’s armory. It loaded quickly, and I was surprised to see his stats weren’t bad. Well…they weren’t my stats, but then no one’s were. Other people had jobs and lives and things that I didn’t. I could sit behind my computer and level my orc the hell up all I wanted.

  There were no links on his profile. Nothing for me to determine if he was some crazy dude with a Confederate flag on his black Ford truck. Oh God, he was probably one of those assholes with the plastic nuts on his tailgate.

  Truck Nuts Hazzard.

  Okay, now I was just being dumb. I closed out FWO and stared at the wall beside my bed. I’d painted it with chalkboard paint and right now, there was the beginning of a lame emo poem I’d written the other night after one too many shots of vodka. In another corner was a drawing of a cock and balls because I’d been bored and a little horny. I knee-walked over to the side of the bed and grabbed a piece of green chalk.

  In my script-like scrawl, I wrote: If you find my body, ask Hazzard.

  I leaned back and surveyed my words. Then I drew a little bow and arrow. The police would need clues, right?

  CHAPTER TWO

  Garrett

  “I have good and bad news but they’re both pretty weird, so just tell me which you want to hear first.”

  Nicole’s voice came through the speakers choppy and digitized, which was a sign that the Internet was phenomenally shitty today. It was the primary reason I’d insisted we do audio on Skype instead of watching her lag across my screen in a video, but my secret secondary reason was that I really despised being on any sort of camera.

  I didn’t know how Kai did it.

  Kai, the effervescent little fuckhead, was the third reason I’d skipped my weekly Skype date with my sister. While she spoke, I was watching him on Twitch and I didn’t think the satellite could handle both. He still had that zombie game going in the upper right hand corner of his channel, but my eyes were trained on his face. He was so goddamn expressive. He’d been playing Aftermath for a solid couple of weeks now, and was in the process of playing through the hardcore mode, but his eyes still widened each time an undead dude jumped out at him.

  I tried not to focus on how hot Kai was by typing occasional smartass comments in Chat. He probably hated me if he even noticed I was alive. Assuming an Internet celeb was paying attention to my stupid comments in his crowded Chat was the first step in developing a one-sided infatuation. Or had the first step been giving up my precious gaming time to stare at his face?

  “Garrett, what are you doing?”

  “Oh uh.” I tabbed away from Twi
tch. If Kai was on the screen there was no way I could focus. Not with him shirtless and curled up in his chair all graceful and long limbed. “Yeah, sorry, I was reading an email.”

  “Uh huh.” The sound of Nicole popping her gum filled the speakers. “Whatever, guessing game is over. Ma’s dating some dumb redneck she met on OKCupid but the good news is—he runs a trucking company so he’s rich as hell.”

  It took some time for me to process that statement. Our mother was dating. A redneck. A redneck who owned a trucking company. He was probably a serial killer. “When the fuck did she start dating?”

  “Well, they went on one date. But whatever. It’s not like dad didn’t date his way through their entire marriage sooo don’t be getting all up in arms about her not mourning her life away.”

  She had a point. Our father had been a serial cheater and domestic abuser, and yet somehow his death had still caught me completely off guard. He was the reason I’d stayed in the closet for so long that I didn’t even know how to start the conversation with Nicole and mom now that he was gone. “I want his name and birth date.”

  “Oh my God. You’re not running your creepy background checks on him like you do to my boyfriends. Cut that shit out.”

  “Just do it.”

  “You are so weird, Garrett.”

  “Not as weird as your face.”

  “Ha. Ha. I’m going. And I’m not doing your stalkery bidding, so you can forget it.”

  She didn’t have to. I’d find a way. If our mother was going to subject herself to the freaks of the Internet, the least I could do was ensure she didn’t end up a case on 20/20. Jesus. Who’d even taught her how to use OKCupid? I never wanted to see that profile. Never.

  And speaking of Internet freaks….

  As soon as Nicole disconnected from Skype, I found myself right back on Twitch. It was getting pathetic. After all the time and money I’d invested in a proper machine for gaming, all I’d done for the past two weeks was try to match Kai’s hours so I could hang out in his channel. The frustrating thing was that I still really wanted to level up enough to wipe the realm with his orc, but I couldn’t stop staring at him long enough to put the work in.

  What was it about him?

  There was no question that he was gorgeous. The inky black hair spilling around his face, bright eyes, wide mouth and that adorable upturned nose. And his body was just as amazing. On the thin side but really fit. Sometimes when he stood up in front of the camera, his pants slid down a little and I got an eyeful of hipbones and the barest hint of pubic hair.

  God, I was an Internet freak. Crushing hardcore on some damn gamer kid. I was just as bad as Kai’s legions of fans. A third of them were die hard groupies looking to make a gay bestie or play momma bear, and the rest were split into people who showed up to watch demos and get game recs, or factions of homophobes who were likely closet cases. And of course the dozen or so clowns that came through in the middle of the night to beg Kai to show more skin.

  I simultaneously hated those fucking guys and despised myself for…also wanting more skin. I was awful. And completely hardup. I’d blown off Costigan twice to stay glued to my computer, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d found another tour homo for some fun. It would serve me right. Other than my shifts, I’d only been leaving my bunk for food and exercise, and I’d considerably cut down on my PT.

  SlammaJamma: Kai…why don’t you wear those leggings anymore? The tight shiny ones you always poked out of.

  On the screen, Kai’s lip curled subtly but he didn’t deign to respond. He didn’t have to. Several of his biggest fans flooded the chat with cries of “pervert!” and “ugh,” but it didn’t stop me from gritting my teeth, even when a mod laid down the ban hammer.

  How did he stand this shit? Judging from the ads, subscribers, and the donation button, he had to be making decent money, but something about him struck me as…oddly vulnerable. As hooked as I was on his face, I’d also noticed that he never spoke about real life related things. Maybe that was on purpose, but he spent as much time on the laptop as I did. For me, it had a lot to do with complete boredom once I was done in the shop. But for him? A beautiful kid with a vibrant personality? It didn’t make sense.

  “Chat, darlings,” Kai crooned. “I need supplies. Should I raid this neighborhood,” he pointed a long finger at his screen. “Or…” Kai gazed steadily at the webcam and cocked one eyebrow. “Should I venture into town and try the shops?”

  The chat window went crazy. He engaged his viewers a lot, and it had to be the reason he’d amassed such a devoted fan base. They seemed to get a kick out of feeling like they were a part of his game, and he clearly liked involving them. They teased him, rooted out trolls for him, and cheered him.

  Kai bared his teeth. “Shops it is. Fasten your seatbelts because it’s about to get bloody.”

  A low chuckle filled the silence of my tiny room, and I nearly bit off my tongue. What the hell was wrong with me? It was one thing to admire some guy from afar, but this? This was getting weird. I was starting to look forward to his corny jokes and inside comments. And I was starting to feel a warm burst of pleasure when I understood them. Fuck. I’d watched a documentary on people who formed parasocial relationships with celebrities or social media personalities. Was I becoming like them? Maybe I’d bypassed the first two steps and was already immersed. Or maybe I was overreacting, like Nicole would undoubtedly say.

  Kai trekked through a burned out forest on his way to about the shops. On the way, he clipped a zombie in the shoulder, so it spun away before it fell off a small outcrop of rocks. “Ooooh,” Kai muttered. “The zombie almost did a…what’s it called…brisé.”

  I had no idea what that meant, and I would have googled if the satellite Internet didn’t move at glacial speed. I didn’t have to, though. Chat was on the job.

  A brisé was some sort of ballet jump. I eyed Kai closer, the way his long legs were tucked under him, knees at his chin, his arms graceful as he reached up to brush some fallen locks off his forehead. He had to be a dancer—each movement was fluid.

  There was a sound in the background, and Kai glanced behind him. “Chat, give me one minute. Groceries are here.”

  With a leap, he launched himself off of his chair and out of the lens of the camera.

  Groceries? He couldn’t leave his house to get his own? Must be nice to have everything at your fingertips. Except, he didn’t reek of the entitlement of so many other people who hosted Twitch channels and got rich off their viewers. It was a stupid assumption since I didn’t know a damn thing about him, but it was unlikely anybody knew Kai outside of the obsessions they’d developed after hanging in his channel. If I had to guess, I’d say a number of the regular users had likely gone far beyond my Internet checkups on my sister’s boyfriends. They probably had entire binders of information on Kai.

  It took less than a minute for me to switch tabs and type a couple of keywords into Google.

  Kai + Twitch + Fallen World Online brought up Pinterest pages, a Tumblr called FuckYeahKaiBannon, and fan pages on various social media websites. The number of people who were using his face as an avatar on their own Twitter accounts was alarming. This kid really was an Internet celebrity.

  That was the point when I almost said enough was enough. He didn’t need yet another hard up homo salivating over him online. Especially not one who secretly wanted to murder his orc and steal all his gear.

  I told myself to cut this stupid shit out, move on, and return to the comfort of FWO. Things made sense in FWO. I had an entire queue of quests ready to be ticked off one-by-one, thousands of experience points to gather, and plenty of junk to sell in the game’s auction house. But instead of investing my time in those things—things that would bring me a tiny measure of entertainment on this base—I was doing this.

  And even that awareness didn’t stop me from going to FuckYeahKaiBannon.

  I was so screwed.

  The page was a wall of Kai’s face. Various express
ions ranging from puzzled to sleepy, him wearing a fuzzy bear hat with long flaps over his ears, and various other outfits. Apparently these people preferred him in some colors over others. Like he was their Ken doll.

  A feeling of discomfort curdled my stomach, but I kept scrolling. That’s when things got really weird.

  There were pictures of his body parts. His legs folded in a way that showed the flex of muscle in his calf, his ass as he faced away to leave his desk, the bulge of his bicep when he leaned forward to stare intently at his monitor, and other…totally objectifying moments. People had screencapped every second he spent on camera, dissected it, and put it on Tumblr for others to analyze, salivate over, or critique.

  “What is this shit….”

  I scrolled faster, wondering how much there was, before my finger froze on the mouse. A flash of something had caught me—a GIF. And a lot of…bared skin.

  The trepidation I felt as I inched back up to the GIF could probably match the sick feeling of anticipation I’d felt after first stepping foot on this base. Not knowing what to expect. Afraid of what I would find. Worried I’d made a mistake. And great—now I was trivializing my service and comparing it to some Internet twink, but…all of this was too much. Too much for a guy who went through life being wary of stalkers and perverts. A guy who’d once made the teenager mistake of going to see a guy he’d met online, and had gotten stalked by a creep as a result.

  Damn it. That had nothing to do with this.

  Taking a slow breath, I scrolled one last time and stared at the screen. Once the image fully loaded, and was moving seamlessly, I shoved myself away from the desk in shock.

  It was Kai. Naked. Arched against his wall with his thighs spread open as he jerked himself off. And there was no way this was a random act caught on camera by some lowlife who’d uploaded it out of spite. This was…staged. I could tell by the way Kai’s head was thrown back, his mouth parted, and the angle he was holding his body.