by Lisa Bunker
Then a new screen pops up and we’re off again, and I think this new player must be really good because from time to time Zyx actually seems to think for a second not think see pretty
Fine, same as before, Zyx pauses to bliss out on the complexity of the patterns yes yes so deep
… but still game two ends quickly, because the other person makes a mistake. “No, no,” Ursula says, at the same time that Rick shouts, “What a blunder!” Ursula smiles at me, and this time it’s Mom I notice noticing her smile, then Bea noticing Mom noticing Ursula’s smile, and I’m the one who does the nose-wrinkle at Bea. Ursula says, “Felix, your reputation precedes you. Now you are winning games simply because you intimidate your opponents. They are rattled.”
Then there is a longer wait because our game ended so quickly. Mom sets a plate of cheese and crackers and apple slices on the table and comes around with glasses of water, and when she gives Ursula her water Ursula touches her hand and thanks her, and Mom actually blushes. Noticing tree this time: me and Bea together noticing Mom blushing, then both of us noticing Rick noticing too, then me and Bea still together noticing that neither Mom nor Ursula has noticed Rick noticing. And this time the silent comment between us is, Uh-oh, complications maybe ahead. Of the romantic sort, for Mom.
Now there are more than five hundred people watching our games, and the comment stream has brought back the idea that maybe Zyx is a computer. Which, for all I know, vo may be.
not computer
OK, so not a computer, and not a god, either. Fine. What are you?
can not explain can show
You can show me what you are?
yes but maybe kill
Um, in that case, thanks but no thanks. ANYWAY, when the computer talk starts, Ursula types for a second, and I see her Keisrinna site name appear in the chat stream, and her comment is: “Felix is a human being. I am watching him play, and I can certify he is not using any computer assistance.” And I guess she must be pretty big in the world of chess because there are some oh wow fangirly comments, and then the chat goes back to guessing names.
There are seven rounds in the tournament, and at the end of the sixth round there is only one player besides Zyx who has won every game. His name is Miguel something, but Rick says everyone calls him El Rey. He’s like the rock star of the chess world, apparently—one of the very best players on the planet. He’s from Argentina and he’s only seventeen years old, and he’s cocky as hell (those are Rick’s words) and has a huge fan following. His specialty is this one-minute chess we are playing. Rick says he comes on the site at random times and plays everyone who dares to challenge him and wins game after game, and at the same time he’s making jokes in the window, chatting with his fans. I guess he’s also watching soccer on TV while he plays, because sometimes he comments on that, too.
So game seven is between Zyx and El Rey. There’s a little pause, like the cyber-referees are making sure everything is ready, and then a board pops up and off we go. The big difference between this game and the others is, El Rey is almost as fast as Zyx. Not quite, but almost. The pieces on both sides are just going zip zip zippity zip, and all I can do is stare. In the first couple of seconds Ursula clicks and says quietly, “More than one thousand spectators,” and then Rick screams, “He’s lost, he’s lost! You’ve got him! It’s over!”
I guess El Rey doesn’t like to lose because he keeps playing, but a bunch of white pieces are disappearing and then there’s a final flurry of moves with his king dancing over to the side of the board all by itself, and then the dialog pops up, “White checkmated. Felix1 wins,” and El Rey posts some really bad words in the chat stream and disconnects, and the tournament is over. Ursula, staring at the screen, whispers something in what I guess must be Estonian, and Rick is jumping all around the room and shouting, and Zyx lets go of me all at once and I realize that my whole body is shaking and covered with sweat, and I fall out of my chair onto the floor.
Well, there’s a fuss then, with Mom and Bea helping me up, and Rick failing to calm down at all, and on the computer screen the chat window scrolling so fast with new comments that you can’t read them, but you can see that there’s a lot of all caps and exclamation points, and the two clocks on the chessboard show :19 left for El Rey and :46 for Zyx, which means the whole game only took fifty-five seconds.
The rest is a lot like the last time and pretty boring. Once I am on my feet again, Mom gets all steely and says the evening is over, and Rick has to be pushed out of the room by Ursula and Grandy, and then Mom turns the steely thing on me and tells me to go to my room and rest, which is fine because I am happy to go, and now that I have typed this I’m going to sleep, as soon as I check the latest Novaglyph installment. I can’t believe it’s Thursday and this is the first I’ve thought of it. I forgot for three whole days. That has never happened before.
chess pretty
Yeah, chess pretty.
zyx love felix
Good night to you too.
5 Days to Go
If I ever go home again.
A lot has happened in a little while, and now I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, so I better just start at the beginning and go right through to the end, because that’s the only chance I have of making sense right now.
After last night’s post Mom came upstairs and made me take another of Dr. Yoon’s pills and I had wild loopy dreams with rainbow lens flares off of everything, which I didn’t like at all. It wasn’t like sleeping so much as getting beaten unconscious. On the other hand when I woke up I didn’t feel lost in infinite blackness anymore, and I wasn’t completely locked up either—I mean, it hurt, it always hurts, but I could move—so I counted that as a good morning and said no thanks when Mom offered me another pill. They’re so little, those pills. Tiny white circles. Must be some powerful molecule.
So instead of black, I was back to red this morning. Red, as in rage. It started rising up inside me on the bus to school. I was staring out the window, watching the same houses and trees and telephone poles and the mini-mall and the gas station go by as always, and thinking, This could be the last time I’ll ever see these things, because even if the plan wasn’t to leave for the Facility on Monday, which it is, it’s vacation next week. And that is just so insult added to injury. Not only do I have to go and maybe die, I’m not even going to get off from school to do it.
Saying I got mad doesn’t say what it felt like. What it felt like was being stuck in the Titanic after it split in half and sank to the bottom of the Atlantic, and I’m trapped in a cabin, and it’s pitch-dark and there’s no way out, and the water is bubbling in, rising higher and higher, and the water is rage.
So we get to school and I zombie-walk inside and zombie-sit through math and English. If Hector is anywhere around I don’t see him, but I’m not looking.
Then I’m walking to my locker after second period, and there’s Tim the Bore coming down the hall with his friend Chester. They angle toward me so that I’m going to have to squeeze by the lockers to get around them, and Tim lifts his hand up to smack my books out of my hand, and a sparkly red haze comes in around the edges of my vision, and when he starts to bring his hand down I drop the books ahead of the smack and grab his arm and lean back and swing him headfirst into the lockers. Makes a huge bang. He pinwheels back and I get a leg behind his stumbling feet and he’s down on the floor. Chester comes at me and I push him so hard he falls down—the red haze has gotten thicker and begun to pulse—and then I get down on top of Tim and just start pounding on him. Then people are yelling and hands are pulling me off, and I get hauled into Dr. A’s office.
Then there is a bunch of talk—teacher talk, grown-up talk. I don’t pay attention. The red is draining down again, back down to black. My knuckles hurt from hitting Tim, and someone says he has been taken to the nurse’s office.
After a while Mom turns up, looking sad and tired, with her hair in even more of a cloud than usual. She doesn’t get mad, just looks at me wit
h those tired eyes and shakes her head. She says something about the strain of our life just now, mentions the Procedure, and then there’s no anger anymore, only grinched sad mouths and grown-ups nodding the way they do.
Then Mom takes me out to the car, where, surprise, Rick is sitting in the passenger seat. Oh, hello, Rick, what are you doing here? Whatever. Nobody talks on the way home. When we get there Mom tells me to go to my room in a way that isn’t exactly an order, more like a stern suggestion, but I want to anyway. I get into my chair in all my clothes and sleep.
When I wake up I know some time has gone by because the light is different. What wakes me is the sound of voices—Mom and Rick not quite yelling, but talking loudly enough that I can hear it coming up through the floor. I ease my way to the top of the stairs so I can listen.
Rick says, “I don’t think you understand how much of a miracle this is. Your son is probably the greatest chess genius the world has ever seen. He is going to need a manager, and I am perfect for the job.”
Mom says, “I don’t think … No, I know, you’re the one who doesn’t understand. Felix’s procedure is next week, and … and I haven’t been able to admit to him that I switched the numbers, that the one in five is his chance of surviving—”
“I understand, it’s terrible, but, Margie, you can’t stop planning for the future. Look, all I’m asking for is your agreement that if he survives, you’ll let me be his manager. I know that world. I can—”
“You know what? That’s enough. I can’t believe you’re talking about this right now.”
One in five chance of surviving. It’s like the last piece of a puzzle I didn’t realize I was putting together, and all of a sudden I know: I’m leaving. If they can’t find me, they can’t kill me. Time to disappear.
I pull out my camp duffel and throw some clothes into it. I tiptoe out to the bathroom and grab my toothbrush and toothpaste. Back in my room I look around one more time and remember the Christmas money I’ve got in my box—a couple of twenties—so I grab them, and my water bottle, and my coat. Then I turn to the door, and there’s Bea. School must be out. She says, “What are you doing?”
“Leaving.”
“Running away?”
“I guess if you want to call it that.”
“Oh.” We’re both quiet for a bunch of seconds. Then, “You’ll die, you know.”
“Did you hear Mom a minute ago? I’ll die if I stay, too.”
“I didn’t hear. I just got home. But one is for sure and the other is only maybe.”
“None of this has ever happened before. They don’t know. And one is me deciding, and the other is me in a petri dish.”
She turns her face away, and I don’t have enough nice left to say anything to make her feel better. She looks back at me again. “I think it’s a bad idea.”
“You gonna stop me?”
Another bunch of seconds. “No.”
“You gonna tell on me?”
She opens her mouth and stands there like that. I start toward the door. Her eyes go shiny and she says, “Felix, don’t.”
My eyes are as dry as a rock in the Mojave Desert. Red and black, black and red, swirling. “I have to.”
Now her eyes are full of tears. She makes a little fist and does the world’s softest punch on my shoulder and turns away. “Then, I guess … bye,” she mumbles at the wall.
That almost gets me. Almost, but not quite. I touch her back with one fingertip. “Yeah, OK, Be-have. Bye,” I say, and I go downstairs.
Mom and Rick are in the kitchen, and their voices are sharper now. I hear Rick say, “… you and Ursula …” so I know they’re not fighting just about my glorious chess future anymore. The dining room is empty, but Rick’s tablet is there on the table, charging, so I unplug the charger and shove it and the tablet into my duffel. I also grab two apples from the fruit bowl. Then I stealth-walk to the side door and ease my way out, making sure the screen doesn’t slam behind me, and start walking down the sidewalk away from the kitchen window. Mr. Jeffries is in his yard, digging in a flower bed. He waves at me and I nod back. Then I turn the corner and the house is out of sight.
I have no idea where I’m going and this tornado of feels is spinning inside me, what with the red and the black still, plus the joy of breaking free, and then this horrible wrench-at-the-heart thing, like, “MMOMMMMYYYYY!!!!” But when I get down to Lincoln Street, where I could turn left toward town or right toward the railroad tracks, I turn right. And when I hear the whistle, I start to run.
I’ve loved trains ever since I was little. I’ve always dreamed about what it would be like to jump on a passing train and get whisked away to some new, different future. I have this stupid literal imagination, so usually the future I make up fills with trouble pretty quickly, but still, when I hear the whistle and imagine leaping into a boxcar door, whatever knot I am tied in at that particular moment loosens a bit.
Well, this time I really do it, except for the boxcar part, on account of all the boxcar doors being closed. I get to the crossing just as the locomotive comes into view around the curve. Not going fast yet—still getting up to speed out of the yard. The gate is down and a couple of cars are waiting, so I cross the street behind them with my hand hiding my face in case it’s anyone who knows me, and then I cross the ditch and angle back into the woods between the road and the tracks. I make it to the edge of the trees just as the locomotive looms up in all its thunder and smoke, and I hold back for a second so the engineer won’t see me, then step out crunch crunch on the big gravel and watch the cars going by, rattle rattle bang bang. Lots of oil tankers go by—no good—and then boxcars with their doors closed. I can see the end of the train coming, but there’s a flatcar with nothing on it, so I toss the duffel up first and hear something crack (the tablet screen, but it still works), and then I leap as best I can—stupid creaky Pose, but I make it—and scrabble up.
And so now here I am, sitting with my back against the little front wall of the car so I’m out of the wind and out of sight of the locomotive, watching the scenery slip back behind. I’ve got the tablet on my knees, typing this. The train is still picking up speed, and soon it will get dark. And then what? Stupid literal imagination says discomfort, hunger, danger—but you know what, screw it. I’m free.
4 Days to Go
Things I would have brought if I had thought of them: more and warmer clothes, more food, a sleeping bag, and toilet paper. Live and learn, I guess. Ha ha funny, live and learn.
What’s really weird is having the tablet, because even though I’m currently lying on a car seat under a bridge, I still know exactly what time it is (6:13 am) and I can check my regulars and post to my secret blog. I was smart—I found the settings for location controls and turned them off, and I haven’t done anything where people could track me.
I don’t know what to do. If I go back I am going to be in such trouble, and of course all the things I wrote yesterday are still true, but on the other hand I am sick of being attached to this … this … hyperdimensional freak. No offense, Zyx.
offense question mark
Nothing ever bothers you, does it? Can I insult you? Is it possible?
insult question mark
Yeah, I know from other times—I can’t. Well, screw you. I hate you.
not hate love
Yep. Whatever.
So back to yesterday. Where was I? On the train, right. Well, after that last entry, the sun begins to go down and the train speeds up, and the wind starts whipping so hard it makes my hair sting my face around my eyes. Also, my mouth gets dry really fast. I thought I was so clever, bringing my water bottle, but I drink half of it in the first hour before stopping to save some. Then even though my mouth is still dry I start to need to pee, which, how are you supposed to do that on a speeding train? Then I get scared and want to go back home, but the train is going too fast to jump, and it’s already too far to walk back. So I pull out all the clothes I brought and put them on. The sun sinks behind clo
uds and the sky turns red.
I start to wonder how far the train is going. I know we are headed south, so straight into Boston? Or stop in Portland? I hope not Boston. I start to get all worked up about maybe going around Boston too, straight to New York or, gah, Georgia or something. How far do trains go before they have to stop for gas or fuel or whatever? I have no idea.
Just when I start to panic, the train slows down again, and I see that we are pulling into Portland. I recognize the bridge and the buildings on the hill behind it from all the times we’ve driven in. The train keeps slowing and pretty soon I think that if there is a soft space maybe I could jump, so I wrap the tablet in the middle of all the clothes I can bear to take off again—by now it’s getting really chilly—and then climb down to the bottom rung of the ladder on the side of the car and watch for a good moment to jump. My duffel keeps banging my legs and I think, Next time, backpack. Next time. Ha ha ha.
Well, who knows?
Look at that: a little spurt of hope. Not rational, but I’ll take it.
Anyway, the train is going around a curve, so I can see it all laid out in front of me, and suddenly way up at the front I see a man’s face sticking out of the locomotive window, looking back at me. My heart spurts up into my throat and I see a patch of ground coming with more grass than rocks, so I toss-drop the duffel and leap out and land running for about two steps and stumble and do a somersault and end up on my back, looking up at the sky. The train continues to roll by, CLANK CLANK clank clank (clank clank), and then the silence is big in my ears after all the wind and noise. My elbow hurts—I think I must have whacked it on a rock—but other than that I’m not injured.
So I fetch the duffel and start walking along the tracks. There’s a river or bay on the left with lots of oil tanks on the other shore, and on the right a steep hill covered with scrubby trees and bushes, with houses on top. Most of the houses have lights on—by this time it’s getting really gray. There’s a road too, down by the water, with more lights, but I stay on the far side of the tracks from that. And there’s a big bridge ahead, and under the bridge the rock of the hill kinda scoops back in, so there’s a little cavelike place.
