“It’s easy,” cried Chaz, and Hector was compelled to follow. It took him longer than Chaz but he made it with sweating palms and a tingling stomach.
“I don’t think we’re supposed to be up here,” said Hector, peering over the edge of the flat, gravel covered roof. Parkour at the school was one thing. Hanging around on the roof was quite another. He spit and watched it fall.
“Where you find the laws most numerous, there, you will find also the greatest injustice.”
Hector frowned. “What?”
“Arcesilaus,” replied Chaz. “Fourth Century Greek philosopher. Or, if you prefer something a little more modern, ‘If you follow all the rules, you miss all the fun.’ “
“And who said that?”
“Katherine Hepburn. My dad is a history professor. My mom is a physics professor. They love old movies.”
“I thought you were home schooled.”
“I go to the university with my parents. They thought I wasn’t getting a very good education here,” he patted the rock-covered roof.
“Well, I heard you got expelled.”
Chaz smiled. “Yeah, I love that one.”
“You didn’t get expelled? But you, like got into trouble all the time.”
Chaz stared at him for a moment, a hint of a smile playing about his lips. He looked almost like a lion with his face framed by his mane of red hair. “Don’t you get in trouble all the time, too?” Hector nodded. “You want to know what I got into trouble for? Why I have this reputation as a troublemaker? I built a skateboard ramp in my driveway. The next day, we got a letter from those jerks in the neighborhood architectural committee. So I moved it to my backyard. Apparently that wasn’t good enough. Military spy satellites could still see it from orbit.” He shook his head in frustration. “So, I tore it down and used the wood to build a tree fort. Guess what happened?”
“Letter?” Hector questioned.
Chaz nodded. “So I moved it to the woods.” He pointed at the knob Hector had stood at the base of an hour ago. “What do you think happened this time?”
“No trespassing?” said Hector.
“Seen them, huh? Some idiot landowner called the sheriff. The friggin’ sheriff! And that old hag never even goes up there! Whole mountain off limits cause,” he adopted a hick accent, “she don’t want nobody on it!” Then he switched back to his own voice. “So, I figured I can’t build any structures. Okay, so I built a go-cart using an old lawnmower engine.”
Hector nodded and guessed the rest. “Someone called the cops.”
“Can’t ride it on the street around here. So I took it up to the track.” He pointed down to the deserted track behind the school. “Same cop, hundred dollar ticket. There wasn’t even anybody on it! What a fricking…” Chaz smacked his fist into his hand and sat shaking his head and staring toward the setting sun. “Made fireworks from sulfur, charcoal, and salt-peter. More cops. More threats. Fished in that pond off Lake View Drive, owner came out with a gun. No one uses that lake. Smelted metal in my dad’s smoker, violated outdoor burning ordinances. Made noise bombs by putting aluminum foil and lye in plastic bottles and the cops threatened to turn me in to the FBI for bomb making. The FBI! Can you imagine that, Hector? The FBI!” Hector swallowed. He could imagine that quite well.
“What kind of freaking place is this?” snapped Chaz. “Land of the free? Home of the brave? He shook his head. “Land of the rules. Home of the slaves. If you don’t want to sit inside and play video games twenty-four seven, or sign your life away to a travel baseball team, you’re pretty much confined to your backyard.”
Hector looked at him in surprise. “You play baseball?”
“Played,” Chaz laughed. “Till I realized I was on the road more than a professional athlete and I had to pay to do it. So I quit. And now,” he ran his hands through the gravel piled on top of the roof, picked up a handful and let it drop through his fingers, “I do this. And Omega Wars.”
“Speaking of Omega Wars,” said Hector, “I’m sorry about Rada. I feel bad getting her killed that way.”
Chaz smiled. He was taller than Hector and a little older, and had a confident air that made him easy to be around. “Don’t worry about it. And you didn’t get her killed.”
“No, I deserted you. Left you to die. I should have stayed. I was a real jerk.”
“It’s a game, man,” said Chaz. “And isn’t that what barbarians are supposed to do? Die fighting? So we can go to Valhalla?” He hummed a few bars of Ride of the Valkyries.
“So how did it… you know – end?”
Chaz frowned. “It was weird, man. Those jerks just kept pouring in on me but stopped shooting. They just surrounded me and I kept hacking them apart. Then some goober in a turban shows up and shoots me with a sniper rifle from like six feet. What the deuce?”
“Mal-X,” said Hector, wondering why he would want to kill him that way.
“Yeah, you know him?”
“I know of him.” Hector thought about mentioning that he was the true owner of the sniper rifle that had killed him but felt awkward about it. If it hadn’t been for Vera, Rada wouldn’t have been killed.
They sat staring over the edge at the slowly sinking sun. “Can I ask you something?” Chaz finally said. “It’s kind of personal, so if you don’t want to answer…”
Hector’s heart thumped. He’s going to ask about Sabrah. If I like her. He steeled himself for it and nodded.
“How did your dad die?”
Hector nearly doubled over from the figurative punch in the gut, and all thoughts of Sabrah melted into nothingness. He wanted to run away. But he knew he had to start facing this. He had never talked about it to any of his friends. None of them had ever asked. Somehow Chaz was different. Of course all Hector knew is what the army had told him, so he didn’t really know what had happened. “An I.E.D.,” he finally answered.
“What’s an I.E.D.?” asked Chaz.
“You don’t know? They used to be all over the news.”
“We don’t really watch the news much at my house.”
“Must be a nice place,” Hector said, thinking of its inescapable presence in his own house. “An I.E.D. is an improvised explosive device. Usually a hotwired artillery shell or mine. They hook the detonator up to a cell phone and when an American drives by,” he tapped his index finger in the palm of his hand, “give it a call.”
“Sucks dude. Where was it?”
Now that he was talking, he was surprised how easy it was. “Baghdad. He was riding in a Humvee and it just…” He stopped abruptly, afraid to go on.
“Oh man, that really bites. I’m sorry, Hector. That really sucks, dude.”
“It’s worse than that,” said Hector slowly, remembering the details that came out in the days following. Remembering the chasm that opened in his heart. “It was my fault,” Hector said quietly.
Chaz turned to face Hector. “How could it be your fault, man? He was in Baghdad. They were terrorists.”
Hector shook his head, stifling a tear. “Yeah, it was. You see, my dad told us about this Iraqi girl who got her leg blown off by a suicide bomber. I wanted to do something to help, and…” A lump rose in his throat. “I came up with the idea for a fundraiser to buy a new leg. It was my idea. Dad…” Hector stopped again to swallow the rising lump that threatened to overwhelm him. Still, he went on. “He was taking the prosthetic leg to Fatima, and … and, he got blown up. I shouldn’t have cared about them, just like they don’t care about us, and then… then my dad would still be alive.” Hector’s voice was tight and it was several breaths before his chest eased.
Chaz said nothing. Just listened. And as hard as it had been for Hector to say it, he was glad he did. He was okay with Chaz knowing, and even with seeing how hard it was for Hector. It created a bond that he didn’t have with anyone else. Over the following days, Hector spent a lot of time with Chaz, ignoring his mom’s tirades but never hiding who he was hanging out with. Chaz was okay, and his mom needed to
accept that.
With Chaz, Hector learned parkour techniques, talked about life, and they’d break as many ‘stupid’ rules as they could find to break. They even toiled-papered the house of the woman who’d ordered him out of the culvert. Hector taught Chaz how to play soccer and told him about living in Germany and North Carolina, riding motorcycles (which Chaz had never done, but wanted to try) and being an Army brat. And Hector listened as Chaz told him about the ups and downs of growing up in a college town with parents who were professors, and the sheer terror of meeting Tyra’s father. And in response to Hector’s doom-and-gloom attitude on the future of planet Earth he explained in great detail – courtesy of his physicist mother – why the planet was not going to melt down in a runaway Greenhouse effect.
Sabrah joined them sometimes, mostly when they were sitting on the roof of the school. If Chaz was stronger than Sabrah, she was smoother in her parkour and moved along the walls like a cat. Sometimes, Hector found himself there without Chaz around – just he and Sabrah. She confessed the secrets about her family to him. Her real dad was a lawyer who fought companies that illegally polluted the environment. Her mom had always bragged about his work – saving the world, she’d called it. But she’d been out for blood in the divorce that had lasted two years. And the moment it was final, her mother started dating, like she needed to prove she could still attract a man, Sabrah told him. And after a half dozen plastic surgeries, she had attracted quite a few. She eventually settled on another lawyer – the exact opposite of the first – he defended the polluters and lobbied against environmental control. But he was wealthy, so her mom married him, and started dressing and acting exactly like the SUV-driving soccer-moms she’d berated before.
“So I changed, too,” Sabrah explained, as they sat on the stony roof in the last rays of the setting sun. She flipped a black-polished fingernail through her platinum and jet locks. “My mom didn’t even notice,” she said. “Or my dad. Or my stepdad. They never said a word. I could be in the gutter strung out on meth and I don’t think any one of them would notice.”
“I’d notice” Hector paused. “Please don’t.”
Sabrah looked over and their eyes met. Hector’s stomach went warm. “You’re sweet,” she said, and took his hand. A thrill shot through his body.
Despite the Goth costume, she was growing more attractive every day. Irresistible, Hector had to admit to himself. And there was nothing freakish about her. She just wanted someone to know she was there – and to care about her. But he cared. And so did Chaz. He smiled at her, and their eyes had an entire conversation until Sabrah looked away at a noise from below. They listened intently for a moment until they realized what it was. A moment later Chaz’s head appeared and he rolled over the edge.
“What up? I see you guys beat me up here,” he laughed.
Hector smiled at his friend. “We were wondering when you’d show up.”
He glanced down at Hector’s hand holding Sabrah’s. “I’m not interrupting anything am I?”
Sabrah squeezed his hand but didn’t release it. “No,” said Hector. “Pull up a chair.” Maybe something would happen some day, but this wasn’t that kind of night. They scooted over and made room for their friend.
The three of them watched as the sun dipped below the horizon and the orange sky faded to purple. No one talked. No one had to. They were content. For the first time since before the death of his father, Hector was at peace. Only when his mother texted him for dinner did he reluctantly leave them and climb down. But that was okay too. He knew inside that his long ordeal was coming to some kind of end, and there would be many more nights like this one.
Ch. 20
“Chaz is dead,” said Hector’s mother.
Hector sat in the kitchen, still half asleep, trying to decipher what his mother had just said. “You mean Rada’s dead,” he yawned sleepily, not sure how she knew. “Chaz’s barbarian. Couple of days ago, I guess.”
His mother shook her head. The look on her face made Hector’s heart stop. “No Hector. Not the game. Chaz Martin was killed last night. Struck by a car on his way home.”
The room was suddenly spinning. Hector had risen as always, come downstairs to the kitchen for breakfast, and his mother had told him to sit down. Then she became very serious and told him Chaz was dead. But she couldn’t have said that. He’d seen Chaz just the night before. Had parted up at the school. Was he still asleep? “What?” he managed to force out, trying to grab onto something of substance. The world seemed to be dissolving around him.
“Your friend, Chaz Martin,” she said again. “I’m sorry Hector.”
“I’ve got to go,” he mumbled, stumbling up, grasping at the air. “I’ve got go see Sabrah. She won’t… this… what… Sabrah…”
Hector clawed at the air, his eyes filling with tears, his hearing strangely muffled. Confusion. Pain. Emptiness. The world was spinning. Again. He was falling down a hole into blackness. He felt someone’s arms wrap around him as his soul filled with cold ashes and all turned to darkness.
That evening, his mother drove him over to Sabrah’s house. She collapsed into his arms and he held her tight, feeling her slender body heave with sobs. She’d been crying all day and her eyes were swollen and bleary and lifeless. The two of them spent the rest of the evening talking about Chaz. Mostly Hector listened. That’s what he remembered from when his father had died. The people who would sit and listen to him talk about his father, smile with him at the good memories, and weep with him at the loss. It made him feel less alone. And while his own sense of loss at Chaz’s death was surprisingly poignant, like having a great treasure swept out of grasp just as it was discovered, he knew Sabrah’s pain must be far deeper.
She wasn’t in school the next day, or the day after that. Hector went to her house and they talked some more about the details of Chaz’s death. He’d been hit by a car after walking her home. No witnesses. No one stopped. Random. Life was like that, Hector figured. Entirely random. Nine-eleven, random. Chaz, random. His dad getting killed. Random.
After a few days, they headed to the school. The rooftop wasn’t the same. Without their friend’s mirth, it became a cold, lonely place despite the heat radiating from the bricks after a day in the sun. Still, it felt like the right place to be.
“Irony,” said Sabrah, leaning against the brick wall. “At lunch last week, you said Chaz was dead. But you meant Rada. He dies in the game, then dies in real life. Ironic.”
Something prickled on the back of Hector’s neck when she said it. Something disturbing, but he couldn’t pinpoint it. He was missing something. Something obvious.
“I’ll never play Omega Wars again,” said Sabrah. “It’ll remind me of Chaz.”
Hector took her hand in his. It was cool and smooth and he liked the way it made him feel. “That’s not really a bad thing, is it? I tried for a long time not to think of my dad and it only made things worse. Sometimes I like to think about the good times, even if it makes me sad.”
“Is that why you keep your dad’s character in your online lair?” she asked.
Hector felt a rush of anger. Deion! He forced himself to remain calm. “I guess Deion told you that, huh?”
“Yeah. When he called. We were talking about Chaz, and you’re the only one we know who’s lost someone close. I guess you enjoyed playing OW with him.”
Enjoyed, Hector thought, as a mixture of rage and frustration twisted in him. Enjoyed? That was pathetic. What he’d enjoyed was real life. But C0L0N3L W35T was the only thing he had left.
“Hey,” she said, and he glanced over to see her shining eyes gazing at him. She rubbed her hand along his arm. “I didn’t mean anything by it. Relax.”
It was only then Hector realized he was crushing Sabrah’s hand. He loosed his grip. “So, are you coming back?”
Sabrah looked blankly out over the rooftops. “I’m not even any good, Hector. Veyron is a waste of bandwidth.”
“I tried being an empath,” Hector s
aid. “My dad and I played them for a couple of months. I got to where I could cause a pressure pulse, and hover a little bit. My dad actually teleported a few things.”
“That’s way more than I can do,” she said bitterly. “Why’d you stop?”
“Because it made my head feel like someone was pounding on it with a sledgehammer.” He had been looking for a way to bring this up. “Maybe you just need some more practice. Why don’t we log on tonight. Just you and me. I’ll keep the scarobs and thorks away, and you can work on your powers. If everything goes okay, we can try to get into Alanya and scout around a little.”
Sabrah thought about it for a moment. “Chaz’s funeral is tomorrow, Hector.”
“al-Nib said the rehearsal for Operation Scimitar is tonight. I was sort of wanting to see what it was. Scimitar.”
Sabrah’s body became rigid. “How could you be so insensitive?” she blurted, tears suddenly welling in her eyes. She lifted his hand and plopped it on his leg.
Hector felt a rush of blood go to his face. “I didn’t mean –”
“Chaz is dead, and you’re going to go on with the game he was playing like nothing happened?”
“We’re still alive,” said Hector. “He would want us to go on.” Even as he said it, he cringed. It had been a stupid thing to say. Hollywood at its worst.
Sabrah’s face contorted in a scowl. “Want us to go on? Want – us – to ? This is real life. And you’re worried about a stupid game! How can you even think about playing?”
“I just want to – Look…” Hector paused. She was right of course. Somehow he was having trouble saying what he meant. He tried again. “Chaz didn’t die for the game, Sabrah. He was killed in an accident. The only reason the killer will be trouble is because she drove off. It isn’t like she was out roaming the streets looking for someone to run down.”
“She?” Sabrah scoffed. “Why do you think it’s a woman?”
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