by T L Costa
“Nah, it’s not the same, you were the first to do it solo, and you’re a girl.”
“What does being a girl have to do with anything?”
“Everything. Guys can be dicks, you know, I know the way they talked to you. You knew the shit the crowd was saying, and you just kept winning, like you didn’t even hear.”
“I didn’t hear.” I knew, of course. “My sister would tell me what the crowd would say when I was plugged in, but I had them all tuned out. I just wanted to play, you know?”
“You were amazing.” He sips his coffee and stares at me, smile reaching his eyes and lingering there. “Still are, and now you’re designing the games. It’s unbelievable, I mean, most people will complain when they play games and all, this should be faster or the graphics should be sharper, but most of them have no idea how to make them faster, clearer, much less design World of Fire. Now a whole sim program? It’s crazy.”
“Not so crazy.”
“It is, though, it’s awesome.” He drops his gaze back to the table, which is moving a little bit because his legs are shaking beneath it. “How did you get started designing the games?”
“My Math teacher, Ms Bellerwin.” My throat feels heavy as I think of her. “She was the best. She went to MIT, and she ran the computer lab in my middle school. I’d hang out there after school to get my homework done, and after a while she started showing me how to do things. It was great, she was always taking the things apart and rebuilding them, plugging in and typing code. I thought it was the coolest thing ever, you know? Whenever she would put something back together, or spend a few hours working, you could see the improvements right away, she’d have made something new, or something old better. It was like magic. So I started helping her out. When I went over to the high school, I used to go back and help her run the computer club.”
“She must be really proud now, with Yale and all.” His leg is moving and he leans back in his chair, like he’s trying to keep his leg under control by pushing it into the floor for leverage. “Not to mention your parents. They must be telling all their friends about their kid in the Ivy League.”
“I guess.” It hurts to fill my lungs, but I try. “My mom’s not happy with anything I do. She’s not really happy with anyone. Dad was deployed, sent to Afghanistan, now he’s in jail for assault. He got pulled over for a seatbelt check one night, he” – the words are like lead leaving my tongue, falling into the unknown – “got confused, flashed back or something and he attacked the officers. Mom had thrown him out two nights before, so he was really upset.” My eyes sting and before I know it the pools of tears weigh down my lashes. It’s not Dad’s fault; he’s sick, he came back from Afghanistan sick and they don’t help him. He spent two years away from his family to serve in the war and nobody cares, they just leave him in jail to rot.
“Hey.” He grabs my hand across the table. “It’s not his fault, OK? Wherever he is, once he gets better he’s gonna be crazy proud of you.” His eyes, oh God, his eyes look like they can see straight through me. “He’d be stupid not to be.”
“Sorry, I just get…”
“Don’t apologize. You’ve got nothing to be sorry for,” he says, his knee making the table wobble like an electric toothbrush. He looks at the edge of the empty cake plate, bites his lower lip, and says, “My brother’s in rehab trying to kick heroin. Can’t pick your family, right?”
Just like that, as easy as typing in a favorite password, our darkest family secrets are out, sitting between us on the table. Bits of our lives that make us who we are, out, open, acknowledged. “Guess not.”
“Are you going to answer that text?”
What? I look down at my purse and my phone is pinging. “Sorry.” I mutter and grab the phone out of the bag. I check the message, send a quick OK in response and tuck the thing back into the folds of my bag.
“Do you need to call them back?” He asks, eyes raised and he plays idly with the fork on the table.
“No, it’s just Mr. Anderson sending me the route coordinates to program into the game, I swear he never sleeps,” I say. Oh no, wait, I told myself that we weren’t going to talk about the-
“Waypoints? Like where the sim has the drones flying?” His eyes are up, meeting mine, like he’s looking for something.
“Those are the ones.” What’s the point in stopping the conversation now? He flies the thing, it’s not like knowing how it works is really that big of a deal. It’s not like I’m giving him any sort of information that would give him an advantage. That would be wrong.
“I thought those were computer-generated?”
“Nope. Mr Anderson sends them to me daily, I put them in.”
“If he had you design the program for the simulations, why didn’t he have you generate a program that randomly picks coordinates?”
I shrug and take the flimsy plastic top off of my cup of coffee so I can get the pile of foamed milk and cinnamon up from the bottom. “He says that it maintains authenticity or something.”
“So you’re SKY?”
“Yeah, I guess I am.” I shake my head. “Well, not really. Only for the set targets. The road patrols, which I think are like eighty percent of the program, are on a pre-programmed route.”
“And it’s not your voice that makes the call through the headset,” he says, leaning forward over the small round table just a little. His full lips twist up a bit at the corner into a sneaky smile.
“No.”
“I wish it was.” Something in the way he says it, in the timbre of his voice, makes me shiver. I look at my cup as I put it back on the table with shaking hands. Grabbing the napkin, I twist it around my finger.
His smile grows as he watches me wrap the napkin up and around and down my fingers. Feeling warm, I tilt my head to the side. His face turns, eyes zeroed in on me and way down inside of me, something aches, sort of like a drive to get up and cross the table and…
He cocks his eyebrow up and stares at me as if he’s uncertain, then he abruptly pushes back his chair. “I gotta go. Last bus home leaves in like ten minutes. But I really want your number, if you’ll give it to me.”
Right. Yes. Of course. I stand up and say the numbers without thinking, too lost in watching his thick, beautiful lashes as he programs the info into his phone. Tyler slips his phone back into his pocket and reaches around me, holding open the door as we step outside, the night air turning cold.
We stand there. I have to go across the street and he has to go towards the town green for the bus. But neither of us moves. Neither of us wants to go, I guess, I hope. What do I say now? I am terrible at this. Goodnight? Do I kiss him? Maybe just on the cheek. This isn’t really a date, but still. He certainly looks pretty kissable, really kissable. I wrap my arms across my chest and look down at my feet.
“Thanks,” he says and I look up. His cheeks are red but that could be from the cold. They look so sultry, though, that color… his skin is so olive that the red just makes his whole face look, wild, edible almost. What is wrong with me? I should be kissing him.
He leans over, reaching out his hand to shake. I don’t think. I grab his hand and yank him towards me, reach up on my toes, and kiss him square on the mouth. His lips are soft and shaking and taste sweet like caramel and cinnamon. Oh God, am I doing this wrong? Why isn’t he responding? He just…
His shoulders unclench and his large hands wind their way around my waist and he pulls me closer. Closer. Fire races to my center. I part my lips and he comes in, closer, heat rushing up in waves. His tongue touches mine. Closer, Tyler, pull me closer. I snake my arm up behind his head and run my fingers through the delicate strands of his hair. Wanting more.
But he pulls away, eyes and lips looking heated, looking blissed out. “So, will you take my calls?”
I nod, not really certain whether or not I would be able to speak even if I wanted to.
Tyler
Holy. Shit. She’s kissing me.
It can’t be. My throat is tight a
nd my head blows right off the top of my head but I don’t feel anything except shaken and blown and oh my God she’s so close, so soft and then my head is up in space again and I can’t… should I put my hands somewhere… should I open my mouth… oh man, now her tongue and I think I am going to pass the fuck out. Grab her, Ty, just grab her and bring her closer and make sure she doesn’t stop and doesn’t back away but she is so sweet I want to just stay here forever and not move another inch for the rest of my…
Then it’s gone. She’s looking up at me with this smile. Oh man that smile that says she wants more and that she’s happy but she’s not sure if she’s gonna give me anymore and that she might make me beg. Which, well, damn, I might just beg if it means we can do that again.
No, Ty! Walk. Away. Bus. Need to catch the bus or you are stuck in the city. Maybe I can crash at her place. The wind whips my hair into my cheeks and I feel kinda cold now that she’s not with me, holding me anymore. Play it cool. B would be cool. He would say something perfect and have her dreaming about what he meant for days.
I look down at her. Her eyes are all like half-shadowed and heavy looking, her lips look a little raw, open, just a little like she wants me to… wants me…
Think. I want to say something hot, something memorable, but all that comes out is something totally lame about her taking my calls and missing the bus. I am such a loser.
Can’t stay pissed at myself, though. Cause she kissed me. She. Kissed. Me.
As I walk past the homeless guys on the town green I smile. Not at them, really, just at everything. It doesn’t matter if the city is dark and that those guys are sleeping in boxes and smell bad and could have knives or whatever. One yells something at me, chases after me waving his hands, and I run. Feet grinding into the pavement, I feel great. It’s cold and the city smells rank like old urine and rotting leaves and overripe dumpsters, but I run across the green and pass the old churches that look out of place surrounded by tall, neutered skyscrapers and just for a second I swear I could fly. Can’t not feel ecstatic when I finally slow down and drop into one of the frigid-ass benches of my bus stop.
Nope. Can’t sit. The bench is too cold and bites at my ass so I stand and pace. Walk over to the map hanging inside the plexiglass beneath the old canopy. I kick at some papers lying at the bottom of the post.
A grunt. Oh shit. Is there a person in those papers? Don’t look, Ty, it’s rude. But I do. Can’t help it. A grubby hand reaches out and readjusts the papers. No. Focus on the bus. The bus will be here soon. Some homeless guy is not my problem. The nervous laughs of a few drunk college kids rise up over the quiet whoosh of cars driving through stoplights turned off hours ago.
I could probably see his face if I looked really hard. He’s facing me. This bus stop is a really shitty place to live, stinking of diesel and rot and body odor. I lean forward. Streetlight filters in. In from the street, and if I move I might be able to make out his…
Shit. He’s young, man. Real young. Not like a kid or anything but too young to live here. Drugs. Has to be drugs. Why else would this guy be here and not in a hospital or shelter or at a home or something?
Headlights hit him in the face as the bus, my bus, turns the corner and rolls our way.
He doesn’t move. Looking back at the bus as the brakes squeal and the metal undercarriage grinds to a halt in front of us, I dig my hand deep in my pockets so I won’t move them. Won’t throw him the money that I want to give. Knowing that it won’t buy him anything other than the next hit.
The papers around him shift and I run to the bus, trying to erase the memory of him as fast as I can. But I can’t. It all comes up like a vomitfest of worry. Whose brother is he? How could a boy let his brother just lie there, in the street? Like I did. When he left. How could a mother? Like she did. But we found him. He is safe and he is not here and this is not him and you can’t take him home can’t make somebody care who doesn’t but what if there is some boy lying awake in bed because he doesn’t know where his brother is and if he’s alive or dead or here living in a shithole bus station?
I beat them down, the questions that sleep inside me and wait for the right time to wake up and eat me raw. I climb the stairs of the bus and plop down into one of the blue seats near the front that always seem to feel sort of slimy but at least give you enough room to push your legs out and dig your feet in to the round hump of the wheel cover.
My eyes can’t help themselves. They go back to the pile of papers. Like my eyes are on autopilot, taking me back to just the thing I want to ignore. What I want to never see. To never see ever again.
I would rather see Brandon dead than like that again.
CHAPTER 13
MONDAY, OCTOBER 8
TYLER
It’s too brown. Too many different shades of brown just stretching on for miles and miles and miles. Does that part of the world really look like that or is it just the sim? Damn. They need to plant some serious trees there or something. Well, I guess they do have some trees, but even they are sickly and thin and barren just like the rest of the place. No wonder they blow so much shit up. Sick of staring at acres of sand.
The sim keeps my drones on their routine flight pattern. Bored. Really. Bored. These surveillance missions just seem to last for hours and nothing ever happens. But it’s cool that SlayerGrrl programs in the coordinates. Makes me feel like she’s close to me. Like she’s here, somewhere, in this program, in the calls. Makes me feel OK with the boredom. Getting close to ten hours for the week. And the week just started yesterday. Ten hours of nothing happening is a lot to take, though.
I get up and stretch my legs, it’s like what, 3am? Right. Late. I should turn this thing off and get some–
A tiny flash in the far right-hand corner. On the central screen. Change of call. I pick up the headset. “Bravo one, this is whiskey three. Radio check, over.”
Huh? The game is evolving, I guess. I say, “Whiskey three, this is bravo one, read you loud and clear, over.”
“Requesting immediate CAS, advise, danger close, over.” The guy sounds hurried, like a real dude requesting close air support. Their sound programs are getting better. SlayerGrrl’s program rocks.
“Whiskey three, request confirmed, gimme an address.”
“Bravo one, say again? Over.” He sounds pissed. Totally real.
Shit, what was the… right. “Um… Whiskey three, request coordinates, over.”
“Bravo one, hostiles at X24F and X45G.” His voice is rushed, tight. Shit, how did they program that? Actors? “Friendlies in building at X37G. Pinned down. Taking fire from north and west, RPGs and small arms, over.”
His voice is muffled on the other end of the line. I hear screaming and small-arms fire and someone shouting to someone else to get down. A bigger explosive sound must be coming from the rocket-propelled grenade. Fuck, this upgrade is tight.
I check the drones. Three close to the designated targets. “Pulling tail 403 and tail 416 off of designated route G72, wait one.” I type in code and program in the new route. “Whiskey three, this is bravo one, request confirmed, strike inbound, ETA six minutes, over.”
403’s new destination pops up about 120 degrees left. Banking hard, I initiate a gradual descent. Giving altitude, gaining airspeed. Max throttle, approaching 130 mph. From seventeen thousand feet, the wide-view displays little more than mountains and half-assed scrub trees. But I remember there’s a village just over the horizon…
Toggle over to 416. Set the course, max throttle. Inbound three minutes.
None of the other missions were anything like this.
“Bravo one, be advised, big purple on our roof, over,” he says. My heartbeat amps up as he speaks. He’s putting purple smoke on their building so I can pinpoint their location. “Hostiles to our north and west. Requesting visual confirmation of goofy grape, over.”
He wants to make sure I don’t drop a Hellfire on his roof.
I log into the data collection system. Try to find the neares
t satellite to attempt to get a real-time view of their location so I can set my targets. There’s one, satellite 7T5NUSA. Punching in my memorized access code, I pull up a live view of the village with X37G centered. A purple cloud is billowing eastward off of the roof of Whiskey’s exact location.
“Whiskey three, this is bravo one, I have eyes on big purple, over,” I say.
“Bravo one, you are cleared hot. Repeat, you are cleared hot, engage hostiles, over.”
Small black figure on the top of adjacent building. Code in and zoom, I target set the loser and call him target one. Paint him red. Done. Find target two.
403 and 416 approaching fast. I type target one’s hit code into drone 416 and then go back to the sim’s real-time satellite view. Type in the building locations where the grenades seem to have come from – looks like a shed. Cool. Toggle back to drone view, initiate targeting sequence for drone 403 and paint it red, set target two.
Heart racing. I get a visual on fire between our guys and a building with a big domelike oven out behind it a little further down the block. It’s tall, like three stories high, that same ugly brown concrete and looks like it’s half torn apart already. Small fence, probably wood, in front and approximately five hundred feet from the smaller building spewing a purple cloud.
Coding in the laser target, I hit the timing mechanism so that the Hellfires will hit at approximately the same time, give or take a differential of… look at the timer screen… eight seconds. That’s too long. Two minutes inbound. I re-program the codes, trying to get a hit at a tighter… yes! Differential lowered to four seconds.
Pulling the safety off the firing mechanisms, I make the calls into the machine for the Hellfires. Waiting for the exact “go” moment to get the time differential that I need. Fingers hovering over the keys, waiting, shaking. Ninety seconds. Pause, inhale, exhale.
