Genesis Alpha

by Rune Michaels

  “Where’s my knife?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I saw you pick it up from the ground. You have it. It’s mine. Give it back.”

  “So you can keep cutting yourself? I don’t think so.”

  Rachel smiles. She holds out her hand, and I shudder. She has driven a small nail through the flesh between her thumb and forefinger. She pulls it out while I watch, and blood leaks down to her wrist, soaks into the sleeve of her shirt, and then she keeps petting the cat like nothing happened. “I don’t need a knife for that.”

  “They’ll be letting Max go soon,” I tell her. Angry. “They don’t have enough evidence to hold him. Because he’s innocent.”

  Rachel’s whole body goes stiff. Her grasp on the cat tightens until he mews in annoyance and jumps free. “They can’t let him go! He’s guilty!”

  I feel like screaming. “Don’t you get it? How many times do I have to tell you? Max is innocent! There is no evidence! They’ll never find any evidence because he didn’t do it!”

  “He did it. He did do it. I know he did. There is evidence.”

  “Oh, yeah? And just where is that evidence? In your crazy head?”

  She looks up at me. Her eyes are green, but sometimes they seem more like blue. More like her sister’s. “Genesis Alpha.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “Genesis Alpha. That’s where he found Karen.”

  I stand still. Thoughts racing. Could she—? No. “That’s impossible.”

  Rachel drags the rusty nail along the back of her hand. Tiny beads of blood ooze out. “No, it isn’t. And there is evidence. Inside Genesis Alpha.”

  I sit down abruptly on a bag of cat litter. For a moment my legs are weak because she sounds so sure, because she sounds different now, sad, scared, less crazy. “How can there be evidence inside Genesis Alpha?”

  “Mail. Chat logs,” she says in a monotone.

  “How do you know?”

  “I know.”

  “How?

  “His name is Rook. He’s a half elf. A space warrior.”

  “Rook?” The relief is immense. I hide it by standing up and hauling the bag of kitty litter toward the litter boxes. “You’re wrong. Max’s character isn’t called Rook. He’s Alezander. He’s an elf, not a half elf. I don’t even know a Rook.”

  “I don’t care. Your brother is also Rook. And Rook killed my sister.”

  “If Max is Rook, why haven’t the cops found out?”

  “They wouldn’t bother to check out his games. To most people, games are just games. They don’t realize games are reality too.”

  “You’re wrong. They confiscated his computer. Even his old computer in his room at home. Even my computer. Their experts are going through all our computers, searching for evidence. They even interrogated me about all the aliases Max uses online. If there was something there, they’d have found it.”

  Rachel hesitates, then shakes her head. “Genesis Alpha isn’t saved to your computer,” she says. “It’s easy enough to cover your tracks.”

  I think about it, and technically she’s right. To hide your character, you’d probably just have to delete one folder and make sure you overwrote it with something random, so it couldn’t be dug up from the hard drive. It would be easy to do it automatically with a file shredder program.

  It can be done that way. But that doesn’t mean she’s right about Max.

  Her eyes focus on me. “Do you know your brother’s password?”

  I hesitate, but then I answer. “Yes.”

  Triumph flashes in her eyes. “If his password works for Rook, is that proof enough for you that Rook is his character?”

  “Yeah,” I answer, but then I think it over. It isn’t conclusive proof. Someone could know Max’s password. Someone could have set Max up. “No, wait,” I add. “It isn’t enough. Besides, if the password doesn’t work, it won’t prove anything either. You’d just say he used a different password.”

  “If the password works, there will be other proof,” Rachel says. “From inside the game. And when they find proof that Rook did it, they’ll get a warrant, they’ll be able to trace Rook from Genesis Alpha to your brother’s computer, even if they can’t do it the other way around.”

  “You mean, to the killer’s computer.”

  “Yes. The killer’s computer.”

  “If you’re so sure about this, why haven’t you talked to the police?”

  Rachel doesn’t speak. She just keeps stabbing at the back of her hand with the rusty nail, and I’m really glad I didn’t leave the knife out there.

  “Why?” I repeat. “Why don’t you just tell them? They could access the evidence easily. They’d just talk to the GMs and get all the information they need from the database.”

  Rachel looks up at me. Her jaw is clenched, but she’s still pretending to smile. “I think this password will match. I want you to show me.”

  “I don’t want to show you anything. Why should I? It won’t match, but that won’t prove anything to you, one way or the other.”

  “If the password doesn’t match,” she says, “I’ll leave.”

  “Will you go home?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Okay, fine,” I say, shifting my weight. She’ll leave. She’ll finally leave, stop messing with my thoughts, stop making me doubt my brother with her crazy lies. “Okay. I’ll go try it right now.”

  “You can’t,” Rachel says when my hand is on the doorknob. “Rook is only his nickname. It’s a short form of his player name.”

  It makes sense. It’s tricky to think up an original name in Genesis Alpha, because there are so many players. Like, Max wanted to be Alexander, but it was taken. So he put a z instead of x.

  “Well? What is his full name?”

  “I’m not telling you. You could destroy the evidence.”

  I sigh in exasperation. “Then what?”

  “We have to do it together. Tomorrow. Will you be alone?”

  I nod.

  “I’ll type in his name. You type in the password. We’ll both see if the password works. We’ll both see if evidence is there or not.”

  In the morning I’m out in the shed as soon as Mom and Dad have left. Rachel’s asleep when I barge in, curled up on her side with the blankets over her. She sits up when I enter, blinks, runs a hand through her messy hair. The blanket moves, and Cleopatra emerges from under it, then collapses back down on the mattress, panting. The kittens in her belly must be getting heavy.

  “Okay, let’s do it,” I say. “Mom and Dad are gone. Come on.”

  Rachel unties her ponytail, combs through her hair with her fingers, then reties it. I gaze at the blond strands that escape the ponytail and tickle her neck instead. Her hair looks soft and silky even though she’s been here for days. She must be washing it in the sink, with the old bar of soap and the trickle of icy water.

  “Come where?” she asks, and I feel my face warm when she looks up at me and smirks, as if she knows what I’m thinking.

  “To the computer. To check on that Rook guy, remember?” I shift my weight from one foot to the other. “Come on!” I can’t wait to get this over with. I want her gone.

  “In the house? Your house? His house?”

  “Where else?”

  “A netcafé. There’s one in the mall. Half an hour on the bus.”

  “Come on, that’s just stupid. Both our faces are on the news every day. Yours is probably on posters too. We’ll be recognized.” I bite my tongue. Maybe I should have gone along with her way. Rachel would be seen, and someone would tell the police and take her home.

  Of course, she’d also be seen with me.

  Not a good idea.

  She pulls the blanket over her shoulders. She’s shivering. “We could cover our hair with baseball caps. Wear sunglasses.”

  “Yeah, like that would work.”

  “But . . .” Rachel sounds small. She rubs her eyes but can’t seem to think of an
ything to say.

  “Come on,” I repeat. “If you want to do this, we’ll have to do it now. Unless you’re stalling. Unless you’ve just been bluffing.”

  She stands up and glares at me, which feels a lot better than her sounding all small and fragile, and when I turn around and leave the shed, she follows me.

  It’s weird to have Rachel in our house. She’s quiet as she follows me through the back door and up the stairs. She doesn’t ask about Max’s room, but she looks at the door with the KEEP OUT sign, like she knows that’s the one. When we get to my room, I’m a bit embarrassed about the mess. Girls care about stuff like that much more than guys do. But she doesn’t seem to notice.

  We sit down at the desk. Rachel sits to the left, closer to the door. I sit to the right. There’s a lot of space between us.

  My keyboard is a bit greasy from yesterday. I was eating potato chips last night while I was playing. Max would hate that. Max has a thing about dirty keyboards. He doesn’t like using other people’s computers, and he doesn’t like it when other people use his. When he was still at home, I’d borrow his computer sometimes, and he always found out, no matter how careful I was to leave everything exactly the way it was.

  Rachel is biting her fingernails, but at least she’s not clawing at her skin. She’s not even looking at the screen. I log on to Genesis Alpha, see the familiar entry screen, delete my username, which appears automatically, then push the keyboard her way. “Okay. Type in the username.”

  She does. With one ragged fingertip.

  Rook2King.

  She leans back and looks at me, her eyebrows low, her face pale, but she’s not shivering anymore.

  I put my hands on the keyboard, trace the raised bumps on the F and J keys with my fingertips. I have a choice. I can make up a phony password and get rid of Rachel. I know the username now. I can always try it later, when I’m alone, when Rachel isn’t watching.

  “Go on!” Rachel growls.

  The decision is in my fingers, not my head. I type it in. Max’s password, the one I’ve used with his permission so many times: MyPAzw0rd.

  I hold my breath, waiting for the familiar message when I mistype my own password: “Wrong password. Try again?”

  Yes!

  I lean back, tension draining from my body. I can almost feel it rush away through my pores. I don’t know why I was even worried, and I hate myself again, I hate that tiny part of me that’s never sure about anything, not even Max’s innocence. “See? Not him.”

  “He used a different password,” Rachel says, her voice thin with disappointment. “Or maybe you’re the one bluffing. Maybe you didn’t input his real password. You didn’t, did you? You’ve covering up for him.”

  “I’ll try his other passwords,” I snarl at her, dizzy with relief, but also angry because this isn’t proof enough for her, nothing will ever be proof enough for her, and nothing will ever convince her Max is innocent.

  Max always uses the same basic password, but some programs require you to change it every now and then, and both of us use the same technique, changing the numeral. I start typing, rush through the sequence, feeling stupid because this won’t convince her either, nothing will convince her.

  MyPAzw1rd

  MyPAzw2rd

  MyPAzw3rd

  My stomach cramps when on the third try the screen explodes into a familiar kaleidoscope of colors. I stop breathing in shock.

  This can’t be.

  I stare at the screen, Rachel silent by my side, no victory shout as I’d have expected. We watch the fractal forms squirm around the screen, and it feels normal, because I do this every day. The colors will settle, subtly shift until they form an image, the player’s starting location, his home. Some players have a castle or a dungeon or a tower. Others have a moon base or an asteroid or a comet. It can be whatever they want. Max’s character, Alezander, has an underwater cave. It’s dark, but still colorful, with lots of life in it, fish and frogs and insects. My home is a laboratory. No people, no animals. Just equipment and chemicals. I’m a wizard. Alezander is a warrior.

  The kaleidoscope settles. It’s a mountaintop. A desolate place. There’s a small hut, and stone steps leading down the mountain. A spaceship sits on a platform. It’s a Nasarus battle cruiser, my favorite ship. I have one just like it, only differently configured.

  Outside the hut sits an open wooden chest. I flip through the inventory. Many fancy items, high-level, expensive. Some of them I’ve never seen before, but others I recognize. A Bloodstone axe, superspeed boots, a Tracker machine gun. Some of Max’s favorite things.

  But that doesn’t prove anything. There is a limited number of items in the game. Many players share the same favorite objects.

  Rachel is still by my side, but she’s so motionless and quiet I almost stop noticing her. I stare at the screen, fingers moving automatically on the keyboard and the mouse. I’m Rook. I’m seeing the world with his eyes, playing his game. He’s a high-level character with a long game life, he’s even stronger than Alezander. A fighter with good stats, good equipment, plenty of gold, the amazing spaceship with expensive extras.

  “Check his mail,” Rachel says. She has moved on to her thumb, her teeth ripping at the skin around the nail.

  I feel like a burglar. Like I’m inside someone’s house without permission, looking at their personal things, rifling through their secrets. The first few minutes I feel funny moving Rook around like he’s my own avatar, but then it becomes natural. I walk Rook around outside his hut, look through his treasure chest, dress him in the best pieces of armor.

  “Check his mail,” Rachel repeats, her voice indistinct with her teeth sinking into her thumb.

  I take my time about it. I check Rook’s stats more closely. I look at the details of his quests, the missions he has completed.

  Rook is Max’s character. I’m sure of it now. I recognize so many of Max’s favorite game objects, but worse than that, Rook and Alezander even have the same tattoo on their chests, the same aliases and key combinations. That can’t be a coincidence.

  It doesn’t prove anything. Max is allowed to have as many characters as he wants. That doesn’t make him a killer.

  My mouth is dry, but I still stall. I check his buddy list. Nobody I know, but a lot of girl names. That’s different. Alezander and I mostly have guy friends on Genesis Alpha.

  Finally, in my own good time, I enter the hut. It’s empty. There’s nothing there except the mailbox. It’s sitting on the floor, revolving, which means there is unread mail. I walk to the mailbox and open it. I scroll through some of the recent letters, just checking the name of the sender and the date. There are a few unread messages. Nothing important there, just people—girls—asking where he is because they haven’t seen him recently.

  There’s also a lot of old mail, from many different people. It goes back almost a year, from before I started playing Genesis Alpha.

  I stop scrolling and open one of the old messages. Another one. And a third one. Beside me, Rachel reads too. I hear her breathing. Deep, labored, like she’s running uphill.

  The mouse feels cold under my fingers and goose bumps spread all over my body as I slowly make my way through his mailbox.

  Rook knows so many girls. Or at least players who claimed they were girls. In Genesis Alpha, that doesn’t always mean they really are.

  I pick one girl’s name and read their mail exchange, starting from the earliest posts. I’m a fast reader, but Rachel seems equally quick, because she never tells me to slow down. But when I glance to the side, I see she’s not reading at all. She’s staring at the screen, but her eyes aren’t following the text. She’s biting at her index finger now, her teeth ripping at the skin and the nail, leaving the ragged edges she uses to scratch her arms.

  It’s just mail. Just like regular e-mails you’d exchange with a girl. They’re talking about the game, about college, about music and TV shows. I stop, shut the mailbox, and lean back. “There’s nothing there.”


  “You’re not done,” Rachel says. She leans over, clicks the mouse, opens the mailbox again. Then she settles back, her teeth gnawing at her finger again, staring at the screen in that blind way of hers.

  “It’s private. And it’s not proof. It’s just a guy and a girl, talking. It’s innocent.”

  “It’s not innocent,” Rachel says. “And it’s not private. Not anymore.”

  I force myself to keep reading, and with each letter I feel colder and colder. It’s not innocent. It can’t be innocent. Rook is sneaky. Patient. Not everybody he chats with is careful, but he isn’t interested in girls who immediately tell him their names. He’s interested in the ones who are cautious, the ones who resist his initial attempts to get information out of them. He chats with the girls over weeks, months. Only mails are here, no chat logs, so I only see a part of the picture. It’s enough. Rook drags out of them one tiny detail after another, so slow and subtle that they don’t even notice how much they’re giving away.

  It looks bad. It looks very bad.

  It looks like Genesis Alpha was where Rook searched for a victim.

  Where Max searched for a victim.

  Rook puts it all together in a memo, titled with each girl’s character name. He adds details as he discovers them. Their real name. The name of their college. The name of their town, friends’ names, siblings’ names, parents’ occupations. Hobbies, interests, plans for the future. Several memos are marked with a gold star. They have a name and an address at top; the other memos don’t. So I think a gold star means he knows enough about them to track them down.

  Maybe he already has.

  I look at the first few gold-starred memos, but then I stop.

  I’m afraid I’ll recognize one of the names.

  “Which one is your sister?” I ask.

  “None of them,” Rachel replies.

  For a second I’m relieved. But then I see the look on Rachel’s face. “What do you mean?”

  Rachel smiles. It’s a bizarre image—her sharp teeth are still mauling her index finger. “It wasn’t Karen he met on Genesis Alpha.”

  “What?”

  She smiles wider, her mouth stretching into her cheeks like a rubber mask. “It was me.”