Lost Boys

by Orson Scott Card

  "And it's October, it's not going to get any warmer out there. And most important, that has nothing to do with him going out side in the first place without permission. He has to know we're serious."

  "OK, so we confine him to the house."

  "Step, that's not a normal life, being confined to the house. Besides, I want him outside."

  "So we cut off his computer privileges. Tomorrow, no Atari."

  "Oh, that really will hurt. He's always playing that Lode Runner game."

  "Oh, he is? I've never seen him play it. I thought I was the only one who ever played it-I thought it had turned out to be a real lousy birthday gift for him."

  "No, he plays it all the time. In fact, a couple of times I've thought that I'd really like it if you'd teach me how to run it."

  "It's not hard. You just make sure there aren't any cartridges in the computer, put the disk into the drive, close the door, and turn the machine on."

  "Right, that's easy for you and Stevie."

  "Let's do it right now."

  They went into the family room and Step showed her each thing to do and then he switched on the computer and the game came up and he said, "There it is. You just move the little guy with the joystick and try to get the treasures without the bad guys getting you."

  "That's not Lode Runner," said DeAnne.

  "Yes, it is," said Step.

  "No, that's the little- man game that I saw you playing that time."

  "Right, and the little-man game is called Lode Runner."

  "No," she said.

  Step popped open the disk drive and pulled out the disk and showed her. "Look! A miracle! The disk says Lode Runner, and yet what comes up is the little-man game!"

  "No, I mean, of course you're right, I just thought that Lode Runner was a different game."

  "What, then?"

  "That one that Stevie always plays. The pirate ship game. It really looks beautiful sometimes, when they're just sailing along, the sails snapping in the wind. And the sailors climbing all over—I've never seen any other game like it. No offense, Step, but I kept thinking, If only Step could do a game that looked like that."

  "Oh, no offense, right," said Step. He was a little miffed, but what mattered was that she, too, had seen the pirate ship game, only she saw it all the time, and she had watched it long enough to see different aspects of the game. "He must switch it off whenever I'm around," said Step. "I've never caught more than a glimpse of it."

  "Oh, no, he plays it for hours," said DeAnne.

  "In front of you?"

  "Yes."

  "Talking to his friends the whole time?"

  "Well, yes," she said. "That's how I've picked up their names. Hearing what he says to them."

  "Have you noticed what he does with the joystick when he's playing the game?"

  "Oh, I think he moves it now and then, but it doesn't seem to be that kind of game."

  "No, I'd say not," said Step. "Does he ever type anything? Ever use the keyboard? Or the paddle controllers?"

  "Not that I remember," said DeAnne. "Why?"

  "Only because if he's not doing anything with the joystick or the keyboard or anything, then how is it a game? What is he exactly doing?"

  "Does he have to do anything?"

  "DeAnne, if he causes things to happen onscreen, it's a game. If he doesn't, it's a movie."

  "Well, people go to football games and watch them, and they never throw the ball or anything and it's still a game."

  "Because there are human beings down on the field playing. But what human being is playing this pirate ship game? Not Stevie."

  DeAnne frowned. "You know that I don't know anything about computers, really, except how to boot up your Altos and get Wordstar so I can do things for church."

  "Take my word for it. The reason I've never programmed a game that had all that wonderful animation is because it can't be done."

  "Well it can," said DeAnne. "I've seen it."

  "There's only 48K of RAM in that machine, and the disk doesn't even have a hundred kilobytes on it. Three seconds of that ship sailing along with the sailors climbing all over the rigging would chew up every scrap of that memory. And yet the ship moves all over the screen, right?"

  "Two ships, sometimes three," said DeAnne.

  "And sometimes they're bigger or smaller?"

  "They get big when they move closer, I guess."

  "It can't be done. It certainly can't be done fast enough to be smooth animation."

  "Well, I've seen it, Step, so don't tell me it can't be done just because you don't know how!"

  Step held his tongue.

  "This whole discussion is about how to let Stevie know we're serious about him going outside, remember?"

  "Right."

  "So we'll tell him that tomorrow he can't use the computer at all, OK?"

  "OK."

  It was not that simple after all. When they told Stevie this the next morning at breakfast, before he went to school, he looked positively stricken. "You can't," he said.

  "Actually" said Step, "we can."

  "Please," said Stevie. "I'll be good."

  "We know that you're a good boy," said DeAnne. "But we have to help you understand how serious it is that you not go outside without permission."

  "Please don't make me not use the computer." He was in tears. It had been months since Stevie had cried about anything.

  "It's not like we're taking it away permanently," said Step.

  "It's just for a day," said DeAnne.

  "You can't," said Stevie.

  "Why not?" asked Step.

  Stevie slid his cereal bowl away, laid his head down on the table, and sobbed.

  Step looked at DeAnne in consternation.

  "Stevie," said DeAnne. "This reaction of yours actually worries me as much as your having broken the rule and gone outside. I had no idea you were so dependent on using the computer. I don't think that's healthy.

  Maybe you need to stay away from the computer for a lot longer than a day."

  At that, Stevie shoved his chair back and staggered into the corner of the kitchen near the window. He looked savagely, desperately angry. "You can't! That's the only thing they're staying for! If I can't play they'll go away!"

  DeAnne and Step looked at each other, both reaching the same conclusion. Has it been that easy to get rid of the imaginary friends all along? Just turn off the computer?

  "You've got no right!" Stevie screamed at them. "I've been trying so hard!"

  Stevie's words were so strange that Step couldn't help but flash on his conversations with Lee during his madness. No, Step thought, rejecting the comparison. I just don't understand the context of what Stevie is saying. It'll be rational if I just understand the context.

  "Calm down, Door Man," said Step. "Calm down, relax. Your mother didn't say that we were definitely going to take the computer away. But look at yourself. You're out of control. That's really pretty scary, and it makes us think maybe you've been spending way too much time on the Atari."

  "Not as much as you spend on the IBM in there," said Stevie.

  "That happens to be my work," said Step. "That happens to be what pays for our house and our food and for Zaps doctor bills."

  "Are you the only one in the family who has work to do?" Stevie demanded.

  The question took Step aback. "Why, do you have work to do?" he asked Stevie.

  "Please don't make me stop playing the game. I'll never be bad again ever, please, please, please."

  "Stevie, you weren't bad, you were just—"

  "Then I'll never be whatever it was that I was, only don't make me stop playing with them, they'll go away and I'll never find them again. It was so hard to get them all together, it was so hard."

  Suddenly a picture emerged in Step's mind. This game with the pirate ships had become, in Stevie's mind, the whole world of his imaginary friends. He used to play with them in the back yard, but it must have all moved indoors so that now he could only find th
em when he was playing with the computer. That meant that maybe Stevie wasn't hallucinating them anymore. Maybe the only time he could actually see them was when they were pixels moving on the screen, and he was afraid that if they slipped away any further, they'd be gone.

  Well, wasn't that what Step and DeAnne wanted? They had thought that Stevie wasn't showing any progress, but without their even knowing it, he had stopped having hallucinations. It was gradually getting better by itself, and so they didn't need to push it, didn't need to force the issue. He had made up these boys to fit the names that were forced on him, to give them substance, and then he had built his whole life around them.

  Let him outgrow them, as he was already starting to do. Let him gradually wean himself back to reality.

  "How about this?" said Step. "Instead of cutting you off from the game, we put a time limit on it. If your homework's done and you've had your dinner and your bath and everything by seven- thirty, you can play until eight-thirty, and then no matter what the computer's off and you're in bed."

  "Every day?" asked DeAnne. "That doesn't sound like much of a restriction to me."

  "Why don't we talk about it ourselves later," said Step. "We'll start with an hour a day and go from there.

  All right, Stevie?"

  "Even today?" he asked.

  "Today is still off- limits," said DeAnne.

  "Why not say this," said Step. "No computer after school for sure, and then your mom and I will talk it over and decide about later tonight."

  DeAnne looked at him, her face full of exasperation, but Step remained expressionless, insisting on holding her to the bargain that they never play good-parent, bad-parent in front of the children-though in fact he had just violated the bargain himself.

  Actually, the bargain included an unspoken agreement that if one parent felt very, very strongly, the parent who felt less strongly about it would go along. And even though DeAnne clearly thought that she should have been given precedence, the very fact that Step had insisted anyway told her that maybe she should back off.

  So she did.

  In the meantime, Stevie had calmed down a lot, though his eyes were still red-rimmed, his face white.

  "Do you think you can still go to school today?" asked Step.

  He nodded.

  "Stevie, have you made any friends at school this year?"

  He shrugged.

  "I mean, do the kids talk to you?"

  He shrugged, then nodded.

  "Stevie, do you ever have fun?"

  Stevie just looked at him. "Sure," he finally said.

  "I mean, besides with the computer?"

  When Stevie didn't answer, DeAnne interrupted. "If we're going to get either of you boys to school on time, we've got to go now. And then your father and I are going to have a long discussion."

  They had the discussion, but it wasn't rancorous. Step explained his thinking, DeAnne agreed with him, and they decided that limiting Stevie to an hour a day would help him taper off without giving him the stress of quitting the game and losing his friends all at once.

  "The funniest thing," said DeAnne. "You know when he said, 'You're not the only one with work to do?' or whatever it was he said?"

  "Yeah, I didn't know whether to be delighted to see him showing so much emotion or appalled that for the first time in his life he was yelling at his father."

  "Do you know what went through my mind when he said that?" said DeAnne. "I thought, 'Wist ye not that I must be about my father's business?"'

  Step just looked at her. And then said, "Do you know what that reminds me of?"

  She shook her head.

  "Lee Weeks," Step said. "First he thinks he's God, and then you think you're the virgin Mary."

  "I wasn't joking."

  "I was hoping you were," said Step.

  "Maybe he's doing something really serious, Step. Maybe he's got a clearer vision of the world than we have. I mean, we already know that in some ways he does understand more than we do, and he always has."

  "I know," said Step. "But we're talking about computer games here."

  "We're talking about Stevie being aware of evil in the world. Have you forgotten that he knew the names?"

  "The serial killer hasn't done anything since that article."

  "But the boys he killed are still dead," said DeAnne. "And Stevie is still playing with imaginary friends that have their names. How do we know what is or is not important? When the boy Jesus stood there talking to the learned men in the temple, that was more important than Joseph's carpentry and more important than Mary's worry about him."

  "Maybe you're right," said Step. "But nevertheless, Mary worried about him, and Joseph still kept doing his carpentry, because that was their job. And when they came and got Jesus from the temple, he went with them.

  He didn't stand there and cry and scream at them. I mean, I know we believe in likening the scrip tures to ourselves, DeAnne, but it can be carried too far."

  "You're right," she said. "I was just telling you what went through my mind."

  The last phone call from Lee Weeks came on the twenty-sixth of October, a Wednesday night. It was the second day of the invasion of Grenada, and Step had stopped working the whole day, watching the news. At one in the morning Step was still up, sitting in the family room flipping the TV back and forth between news broadcasts and stupid old movies. When the phone rang Step thought either someone had died or someone in Utah was calling and had forgotten the time difference again.

  "The war is on," said Lee.

  "Hi, Lee," said Step.

  "I saved the quarter you sent me. I picked it up from the sidewalk where you left it."

  Please, thought Step. Please just don't call me again.

  "They saw me pick something up on my walk, and they strip-searched me, but I swallowed it."

  "You swallowed a quarter?"

  "I knew I'd get it back, and when I did, I'd call you. I found it on the day they blew up the U.S. Marines. I knew that God was through with the world, and then you sent me the quarter and I thought, I am prepared. And now when war is raging over the face of the earth, I got the quarter back."

  "Where are you calling me from?" asked Step.

  "The payphone in the waiting area. I don't have long to talk, because the attendants will find out I'm not in bed pretty soon. That's why you'll have to act quickly. Is the submarine ready?"

  "Lee, I don't have a submarine."

  "No!" he shouted. "No! No!"

  Step almost shushed him, but then he realized, if Lee is in an institution somewhere and he's hiding, having him yell into the phone will help them find him.

  After a moment, though, Lee stopped shouting. "She put me here," he said. "But God is getting impatient.

  He is tired of the way I keep falling asleep, but I can't help it. I can't help it." He started to cry.

  "Lee, it's all right, really. Everything's going to be all right."

  "Step, you're my only friend. You're the only one who ever understood the glorious being inside my humble body."

  "That's still true, Lee. You're trapped inside a body that isn't working right. It keeps giving you a distorted version of reality."

  "I tried to see the truth," said Lee. "But I didn't see enough, did I? I didn't measure up. So you're going to leave without me, and I'll be here for the day after. But I'm not afraid. I'd rather die than live on, knowing that I didn't have what it took to he saved."

  "Lee, you didn't fail a test. You just have to take the medication they give you."

  "That's what you have to say to the ones who fail. I understand that, Step. You could have burned me up when you saw how weak I was. But I'm not as weak as they think. I got even with them. This is so beautiful, you're going to love this! You want to know what I did?"

  "Sure," said Step.

  "I didn't wash the quarter." Lee burst out laughing, long and hard. "I didn't ... wash ... the quarter!"

  There was a flurry of noises. Lee stopped laughing and
said, quite cheerily, "Ta-ta for now!"

  The line went dead.

  14: Christmas Eve

  This is what Stevie bought with his Christmas money: For Robbie, a Go-Bot, since Robbie was called Robot sometimes and he liked vehicles and the Go-Bot turned from one into the other whenever you wanted.

  For Betsy, two blue ribbon bow clips for her hair, because she was so proud of how long it was but it always got into her eyes. For Zap, a cassette tape of songs for Mormon children, sold by Dolores LeSueur's daughter, Janet, the Bright Music distributor in Steuben, on the day when she came over to the house to make a combined sales call and visiting- teaching visit for the Relief Society.

  For Jack, a Hot Wheels race car because he was so fast. For Scotty, a deck of cards because he bragged about what a good poker player he was. For David, a small fake-ceramic dog because he liked dogs. For Roddy, a harmonica because he liked songs. For Peter, a ball of string because he liked kites. For Van, a Star Wars button because it was his favorite movie. For Sandy, a squirt gun because he was such a good aim.

  Stevie had saved his allowances and added it to the twenty dollars of Christmas money Step and DeAnne doled out to each of the kids, so he had enough-barely. DeAnne had Stevie with her, and Zap in a stroller, while Step had Betsy and Robbie, so that the two pairs of kids could buy presents for the others and for the parent they were not with; later, they would meet in the food court of the mall, have sweet rolls, and then redivide the kids so they could finish the shopping. So it was DeAnne who first realized who it was Stevie was shopping for.

  She made an attempt to deflect him from his purchases, but it came to nothing.

  "Stevie," she said, "we don't allow our kids to buy presents for friends, just for family."

  Stevie looked at her and said, "Nobody else is going to buy presents for them."

  She didn't have the heart to forbid him then, even though she thought it was foolish of her to let him carry it this far. Well, she thought, at least he's never required us to set a place at table for his imaginary friends, the way some kids do. We'd have to rent a banquet hall every night if we did.

  When the shopping was done and they were all walk ing out to the cars in the cold night air, Stevie spoke up. "Mom and Dad."