Mindwar

by Andrew Klavan

  “Tell me what you know!”

  Miss Ferris would tell him nothing. She only said over and over that he could not return to the Realm—not yet. The energy pod she had given him would buy Mariel and Favian some time. In that time, they would try to find some way to rescue them. They would try. That was all she would say. The expression on her face barely changed when she said it.

  Rick finally despaired of getting anything more out of her. He moved without pause into the next argument. He wanted to see his father. And not just that. He wanted his mom and Raider to see his father, too. He wanted the whole family reunited. The government had no right to keep them separated. He understood why they’d had to keep his work top secret. He understood why they’d had to hide him away from everyone and all forms of communication: to keep him out of the reach of Kurodar and the Realm. But no matter how important his work was, no matter how urgent it was to keep it secret, it was not right to separate a man from his family forever.

  Miss Ferris did not change the expression on her face during this argument either, but Rick thought he saw some sympathy in her eyes this time.

  One day, as Rick lay in the bed in his hospital room, the hologram of Jonathan Mars appeared. It stood glowing in the corner.

  “I want you to understand,” Mars said. “We’ve won a battle, but the MindWar continues. Kurodar escaped the fortress. He’s going back before the Axis Assembly to ask for more money so he can stage a larger attack next time and with more security. If the Assembly agrees, if they give him the funding he wants, the danger will be even greater than before.”

  “Yeah?” said Rick sharply. “So?”

  “So if we agree to bring you to your father, you’ll have to stay with him. You’ll be in a compound we’ve built for him especially. The compound is designed to thwart the Realm. That means a lot of time there’ll be no Internet. No phone service. We can get you to school, but you’ll need a bodyguard. It won’t be much fun on date night.”

  Rick shrugged. “You’ve had people watching us all this time anyway,” he said.

  “That’s true,” said Mars. “I just want to make sure you understand what you’re asking.”

  Rick considered him for a few seconds. “You know,” he said, “I saw what you did. When you pulled that gun on my dad, I saw that.”

  Mars drew a breath. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “You were ready to shoot him. Weren’t you? You were ready to kill him right then and there.”

  Commander Mars nodded, his craggy face set as always in a frown. “I was. To protect his technology. To protect our country.”

  “You’re a patriot,” said Rick.

  “I am.”

  “Well, good for you. But if you ever pull a gun on my father again, I will hunt you down. I will rip your arm off and then beat you to death with it. Do you believe me?”

  Jonathan Mars did not answer for a long moment. Then he said, “Yes.”

  “Good,” said Rick. Then he turned his face away and waited for the stupid hologram to vanish.

  Soon after that, Rick went home. He talked things over with his mom and Raider. They all agreed. They wanted to be with Dad again. They wanted their family together. They would deal with the problems of living in the compound as they came up.

  It took three more weeks for the powers that be in the MindWar Project to arrange the transfer. In the interim, Rick returned to his room. This time, however, he did not close the door and play video games. This time, he kept the door open. And he worked out. He worked his legs. He worked his arms. He worked his core. He worked with weights. A lot. Every day. For hours. It hurt. Also a lot. Sometimes it hurt so much Rick could hardly believe it. When it hurt that much, he would tell himself: Live in your spirit, Rick. Sometimes that helped. Sometimes it just went on hurting. But he kept working out. A lot.

  When word came that the transfer to the compound had been approved, Rick drove over to Professor Jameson’s house. The Jamesons had a gazebo in their backyard. Rick and Molly went out there and sat together on one of the cushioned sofas. Molly was wearing a pink knit cap against the autumn cold and it looked great on her. Her pale cheeks were also pink, and also looked great. Rick found it painful to look at her, especially when her eyes teared up. He did not know how long he would be gone. He did not know when he would see her again.

  He told her what he was allowed to tell her: his father had been doing secret work for the government; the story about him running off with another woman had been a lie. He told her that he and his mom and Raider were going to join his dad, but that he couldn’t tell her where or how long he would be gone.

  “I’ll still be able to get e-mail sometimes,” he said.

  “Great,” Molly said flatly. “Nothing I like better than e-mail. Especially when I’m writing to a guy who doesn’t write back. That’s the part that makes it really special.” She angrily knuckled a tear from the corner of one eye.

  “I’ll write back,” Rick said.

  “You better. You’re on crutches and I’m in great condition. If you ignore me again, I will bounce you around the room like a basketball.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  Then they sat there awhile without saying anything. It was hard. Too hard, after a while. Rick said, “Well . . . ,” and he grabbed his crutches. He pushed himself up on his legs—his aching legs. He worked himself down the steps of the gazebo. When he reached the lawn, he turned in a small circle, working the crutches around, and looked back up at Molly where she still sat in her cute knit hat, knuckling away the tears.

  “I’ll see you, Molly,” he said.

  “Will you?” she asked him.

  He said, “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going to happen next.”

  She nodded. “That’s an honest answer, at least. I hate those.”

  “Me, too. But it’s all I got.”

  She nodded. She smiled. It wasn’t much of a smile. Rick turned away and hobbled away from her across the lawn.

  That had been four days ago.

  Now, the limousine came around a slow bend in the road, and the compound became visible in the distance. It was a drab and unimpressive place: a large dusty lot surrounded by a chain-link fence with barbed wire around the top. Guard towers with soldiers in them. Soldiers at the front gate.

  After the limo passed through the checkpoint, they could see the buildings. There were a lot of them. Barracks mostly. One line of single-story cabins like a country motel. And the central structure—a three-story edifice of concrete and glass that looked like it belonged in some suburban office park somewhere.

  Miss Ferris turned around in the front seat and faced them. “You won’t be here too long,” she said, trying to sound reassuring but mostly sounding like her usual emotionless self. “When your father’s project is done, you can all go home.”

  Rick nodded. “It’ll be fine,” he said.

  “It’ll be fine,” his mother added.

  “I think it’s cool!” said Raider.

  The limousine pulled up in front of the central building. Looking out the window, Rick saw soldiers in uniform moving toward them. He turned in his seat. He looked at his mom. She looked at him and gave a small smile. Raider’s smile was enormous, gleaming. Still, none of them spoke.

  Finally, Rick said, “Well, I guess we’re here.”

  And for some reason, his mother laughed out loud. And Raider made a fist and said, “Yes!”

  Soldiers opened the car doors. Rick’s mom and Raider got out on one side; Rick got out on the other, dragging his crutches after him. Miss Ferris and Juliet Seven got out and stood by the car.

  Miss Ferris nodded at Rick with that blank expression of hers. Rick nodded back. He looked down as he worked his crutches under his arms.

  And when he looked up, his father was there.

  Lawrence Dial—the Traveler—had stepped out the front door of the central building. He was wearing a homey cardigan sweater over his button-down white shirt. His glasses
were pushed up onto his balding head. He was blinking mildly into the light of the late sun, as if he had been indoors a long time and had to adjust his eyes to the light. And he was smiling brightly.

  He came forward a few steps, but by then Raider was tearing across the lot to him. He hit his dad hard enough to drive him back half a step and wrapped his arms around his legs and held on fast.

  Rick’s mom laughed as she followed after, but there were tears on her cheeks, too. And soon she was wrapped around her husband as well, holding on to him and rocking herself against him. Rick could see his father’s face over her shoulder. He could not remember the last time he had seen his father cry.

  Rick watched his dad hugging his mom and Raider. Miss Ferris and Juliet Seven and all the soldiers were looking on, so Rick pressed his lips tightly together, trying to control his emotions—though some of the soldiers looked pretty tearful themselves.

  Rick glanced over at Miss Ferris. She nodded at him and gave him something that might have been a small smile. Rick nodded back. He took his crutches out from under his arms. Standing unsteadily, he handed them to her. She took them—but for another moment, Rick held on to them, too.

  Rick’s legs still hurt. Every day, all the time. But they were much stronger now than they had been. And, after all, it wasn’t that long a way.

  Rick let his crutches go, and walked toward his father.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  MY SPECIAL THANKS to Flight Instructor Andrea Read of Spitfire Aviation and to the staff of the Terminal Radar Approach Control Facilities at Santa Barbara Airport for their assistance with research. I’m also grateful to my truly exceptional editor, Amanda Bostic, and my wonderful agent, Alyssa Eisner Henkin. My wife Ellen Treacy, as always, helped with everything.

  READING GROUP GUIDE

  1. Rick’s life is centered on football. When the car accident takes that from him, he feels like his life is over. Have you ever lost the one thing you cared about most? How do you start over when you lose your center?

  2. Some religious philosophies claim that God is responsible for everything that happens, good and bad alike. How would Rick have felt about that concept after his accident? Does your church teach this kind of theology? What do you think?

  3. Rick hones his reflexes by playing video games. Do video games actually sharpen your mind?

  4. Video games are unique from movies or television in that they are totally interactive: nothing happens without you. Do you think this kind of entertainment is more or less valuable than those that can be enjoyed passively? More or less addictive?

  5. Some people become addicted to the fabricated digital world of video games or the Internet. What is the attraction to an alternate reality? Is it fundamentally different from the compulsion toward reading books or listening to music?

  6. If you were given the opportunity to relive former glory, but only in a digital reality with a digital body, would you take it? Why or why not?

  7. MindWar is thick with paranoia. How much stock do you put in conspiracy theories about the government and its clandestine agencies? Do you trust the federal government?

  8. Would you have agreed to enter the Realm like Rick did? Why or why not?

  9. Rick believes his father abandoned the family for an old girlfriend. He is understandably furious with him. Do you think experiences like this make kids more or less likely to adopt the same behavior in their adult lives?

  10. As a side effect of his father’s abandonment, Rick loses his faith. How do individual Christians’ choices effect others’ perception of the religion as a whole? Are we responsible for being representatives as well as followers of Christ?

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PHOTO BY MEREDITH W. WALTER

  ANDREW KLAVAN WAS hailed by Stephen King as “the most original novelist of crime and suspense since Cornell Woolrich.” He is the recipient of two Edgar Awards and the author of such best sellers as True Crime and Don’t Say a Word.