Chapter 5
Despite falling asleep early compared to her usual Friday night gaming fest, Lynn still didn’t wake up until almost noon. When she did, she felt like death warmed over. Every muscle was stiff as a board and her clothes felt sticky and itchy, not to mention that hunger made her entire midsection feel like one giant cramp. She dug out and ate the last energy bar from her backpack before she did anything else. It took the edge off so she could drag herself blearily to the bathroom to shuck out of her clothes and stand under the hot shower until she started feeling marginally human again.
After her shower, she took some pain pills for her aching muscles and did a lengthy stretching routine, hoping that would keep her from hobbling around all day. She knew her mom was fast asleep in her room, catching up on sleep after her double shift, so she used her new earbuds for sound and tried to do her routine quietly.
Once the medicine and her stretches had reduced her aches and pains to dull background noise, she finally felt capable of fixing herself some food. She had such a craving for…something. Something with substance and “umph.” Was that her body craving protein like her mom said she would? She also had a terrible craving for salt, so she got a dozen eggs scrambling with plenty of seasoning, then put a half a pound of sausage from the freezer into the microwave on defrost. Her mouth was watering like mad by the time the eggs were done and she ate nearly half of them right off the bat. Her mouth told her to keep eating until all the eggs were gone, but she got control of herself and put the second half away in the fridge for her mom, then got started cooking the sausage. That, too, she wolfed down piping hot. There might have been some plate-licking in there somewhere but nobody would ever know, so what was the harm?
Finally, stomach happily stuffed and kitchen cleaned of grease and dirty dishes, her thoughts turned to TD Hunter. But when she pulled aside the curtains and peered out the window, her heart sank.
It was raining.
Instead of dwelling on the disappointment of a whole day of leveling lost, Lynn heaved a sigh and turned her mind toward her much-neglected studying for finals. They would be the last three days of next week, and though a few of her classes had final projects or papers that she’d already mostly finished, she still needed to get ready for her Chemistry, Algebra and U.S. History finals. Ugh.
Her mom stressed over her grades much more than she did. She wanted to make her mom happy but it was hard to stay motivated when she saw no practical application to anything she was learning. She didn’t even know what she wanted to “do” with her life. Her mom was always asking what she liked, but the only thing Lynn really enjoyed was kicking butt in virtual and keeping herself at the top of all the gaming charts. That didn’t exactly translate into promising job prospects in the real. Sometimes she toyed with the idea of being a cop, like her dad had been. But that would mean she’d have to deal with people. No thanks.
To dredge up some enthusiasm, she promised herself she could spend all evening catching up on WarMonger if she spent the afternoon studying. A few bags of chips—okay, more than a few—helped things along and after a good three hours of grueling work, she finally heard her mom puttering around in the kitchen making herself breakfast. That was all the excuse Lynn needed to exit her school study portal and shut down her wall screens for a much-needed break.
When she entered the kitchen, she found her mother peering into the fridge.
“Hey, Mom! I made some extra eggs for you. Second shelf.”
“Oh. Thanks honey,” Matilda said, then yawned hugely.
“How’d work go? Anything super freaky happen this time?” Lynn asked. Her mom didn’t always have stories about work, but when she did, they were usually gruesomely fascinating or deliciously dramatic.
“No…well, sort of,” her mom replied, getting out the eggs to warm up in the microwave. “It wasn’t that freaky, just odd. They brought in a couple of homeless men from that camp out in Osborn Park. They looked like classic ODs but we couldn’t find what drug had caused it. It was the weirdest thing, like they’d both had massive heart attacks or stroke. No apparent cause. Otherwise healthy for housing disadvantaged. It just goes to show that even with all our advances, we still can’t explain everything that happens in the medical field.”
Lynn made a face.
“Did you check for novel viruses? I know that’s usually what the media blames it on since they love the panic, but they aren’t always wrong.”
“Of course we did, dear. There was nothing you wouldn’t expect in a couple of homeless junkies.”
“Well, that’s a relief, I guess. Anything else exciting happen?”
“Nope, things were pretty normal.”
“Sooo…exhausting, chaotic and full of demanding patients?”
Matilda smiled.
“You know, Mom, you do a pretty bad job of making me want to go into medicine. I never want to set foot in a hospital, much less work at one, with all the stories you tell.”
This time her mom chuckled.
“It’s a unique calling, that’s for sure, sweetie. You have to be pretty crazy to choose it, much less make it through school and stick with it for any length of time.”
“So, you’re admitting my crazy genes do come from you and not Dad?” Lynn asked, but regretted it when she saw her mother’s smile disappear to be replaced by a sad, faraway look.
“Your father was even crazier than me. It was why we got along so well…and also why we didn’t…”
Her mother trailed off and Lynn cast around for something to distract them.
“So, I’m really enjoying TD Hunter.”
With visible effort, Matilda seemed to focus back on the here and now.
“That’s great, honey. Tell me about it. Is the beta thingy you’re doing as amazing as the equipment they sent you?”
Lynn launched into an enthusiastic analysis of the pros and cons of the game as she saw it so far, reminding herself to share the same thoughts with Hugo later so her feedback could be logged. She was expanding on the drawbacks of augmented reality games in general when it came to being out in public, when her mother stopped her.
“Wait a minute. You were interrupted and harassed by a couple of young men while you were out playing?”
Oops.
“No! I mean, yes, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. I wasn’t going to mention it—”
“Weren’t going to mention it?” Matilda asked with a frown. “Where were you? How many other times have you been accosted that you ‘weren’t going to mention’?”
“Come on, Mom, it’s not like that,” Lynn said, all the while mentally cursing herself. “It was only the one time. I was just over in the Heathers, it’s basically the same complex as ours and it wasn’t late or dark or anything. And I was in no danger at all. I was out in the middle of public, with people watching, and Hugo already had emergency services on the line ready to help if anything happened.” It was a tiny bit of a lie but only a tiny bit.
“Ready to help if anything happened?” her mother said, tone turning decidedly dangerous. “What good would emergency services be if those men had assaulted you? Raped you? Stabbed you and left you for dead?”
“Oh, come on, Mom. Really? Just because you see the dumbest and most horrible things people do at your job doesn’t mean it’s likely to happen to me. You’re always telling me working in a hospital emergency room skews your perspective, right?”
“It doesn’t matter, Lynn. You were harassed and threatened by grown men; they could have done anything to you!”
“I mean, it’s not like I’m helpless,” Lynn muttered.
“That’s not the point, young lady. I can’t have my teenage daughter wandering the city alone—”
“I wasn’t alone. Hugo—”
“And I don’t want you playing this game if it puts you in danger!”
“I’m fine. Nothing happened.”
“But it could have. If you aren’t going to listen to me and stay near our apartment, then from now on you can only play if you have someone to buddy up with.”
“What? Come on, Mom, that’s ridiculous. I’m almost seventeen. I can take care of myself. Besides, I need to be working on this game every chance I can get. Nobody will want to be dragged along for that.”
“Well, you’d better find somebody, because that’s the way things are going to have to be if our area is so dangerous that you get accosted by strange men not a mile from our apartment.”
“Mom—no—you’re completely overreacting. I promise I’ll stay near our apartment from now on. It’s not a big deal! Come on, please?”
Her mother’s lips thinned, and she didn’t immediately respond. Finally, she let out a sigh and rubbed her temples.
“You should be focusing on school right now, Lynn, not games. I think you should take a break from this new game until finals are over. After that I’m sure one of your school friends would be happy to keep you company.”
“But—”
“I don’t want you to get hurt, Lynn!”
“I won’t—”
“You can’t know that. Anything could happen. A-anything—” Her mother’s voice trembled, then broke, and the tense silence that followed was punctured only by the forlorn beep of the microwave, announcing for about the fifth time that it had finished warming her scrambled eggs.
There were so many angry things Lynn wanted to say, arguments and protests she wanted to voice. But she didn’t. Anything could happen. “Anything” had happened to her dad. She shouldn’t have told her mom about running into those jerks—should have known it would trigger her. So, instead of opening her mouth, Lynn turned around and went to her room. She closed the door firmly, sat down in her body-mold chair and logged onto WarMonger.
She needed to kill something.
Hours later, when Lynn’s stomach made its expectation of dinner clear, she felt relaxed enough to emerge from virtual. It had felt good to be back in familiar territory, to do something that her body and instincts were attuned to without conscious thought. She’d had a good run pounding some upstart Tier Twos into the dirt who thought they deserved better rankings because they carried big flashy guns—guns she’d sold them in the first place. She’d even enjoyed a few friendly rounds with her favorite Tier One rivals. They always kept her on her toes and were good-natured about both winning and losing. The camaraderie and familiarity of it all grounded her in a way that nothing else could.
Dinner was quiet, though perfectly civil. Neither she nor her mom brought up TD Hunter. After cleanup and dishes, Lynn begged off their usual Saturday night surfing the Stream channels together, saying she was tired from studying all day and wanted to get some sleep. She didn’t sleep, of course. She logged a few more hours in WarMonger, then crawled into bed and lay awake scheming and worrying. Who could she play TD Hunter with? If it hadn’t still been in beta, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. But who would want to tag along for potentially hours at a time, being bored and doing nothing but watching her jump around like a crazy person?
When she woke up on Sunday, her mom was asleep and it was still raining. She spent some time finishing up her papers and projects, then half-heartedly reviewed her notes from the semester until her mother woke up.
Sunday meant girl time together. They did something different every week, from deep cleaning the apartment while listening to K-Pop from the 2010s—one of Matilda’s guilty pleasures that Lynn tolerated with good-natured exasperation—to indulging in a rare evening out for a VR movie and ice cream after. Lynn had no idea what they were going to do that afternoon and didn’t emerge from her room until her mom stuck her head in, a smile on her face.
“I challenge you to a duel!”
Lynn rolled her eyes but dragged herself from her body-mold chair and followed her mom to the living room. Matilda had pushed aside the coffee table and put up two card tables side-by-side, each with a five hundred piece puzzle on it.
“Mom, we haven’t done this in ages,” Lynn said, staring at the set up. Hadn’t done it, in fact, since Lynn had started gaming seriously when she was thirteen.
“All the more reason to do it now,” her mom said. “So, are you going to forfeit the game and declare me the winner?”
“And let you win a puzzle duel for the first time in your life? Not a chance,” Lynn said, a grin finally sneaking its way onto her face.
“Ha! Big words for someone who is severely out of practice.” Without another word, Matilda sat down, dumped out her puzzle and got started.
“Hey! No fair. I need a soda and a snack to get my game on. Now you’ve got a head start.”
Her mother didn’t look up.
“Well, I guess you’d better hurry and get fueled up then, hmm?”
Muttering half-hearted curses, Lynn hurried to the kitchen. But when she opened the pantry to grab her usual junk food, she hesitated, then turned away. Instead she filled up a glass of water and grabbed an apple from the fruit basket. Then she went back to the living room and dumped out her own puzzle. She’d done this particular one before but it had been years.
While her mom used the picture on the box, Lynn got to work turning over all the pieces and sorting them into their different shape categories. She’d always preferred doing puzzles face-down. It took away the distraction of the confusing colors and shapes and gave her a clean, clear slate to work with. Spotting patterns was always like that: stripping away the noise until you could focus on what mattered, on what determined a thing’s form or behavior. Her mom preferred the pretty pictures. Pattern mapping was something Lynn had shared with her dad. It was probably why he had been such a good cop and, now that she thought about it, why she was so good at gaming.
Normally they listened to music while they worked but neither of them made a move to turn any on. The quiet patter of rain outside was relaxing and soon Lynn was completely immersed, eyes moving speedily across her pieces while her mind worked even faster, analyzing, comparing, mapping.
They took a break for dinner. Sunday tradition was deep dish supreme pizza with extra peppers, delivered piping hot with plenty of breadsticks and garlic dip. They chatted about everyday things like finals coming up and coworker drama at her mom’s hospital. Without taking time to clean up, they were back at the puzzles and Lynn could see she would have to push herself to beat her mom by a comfortable margin. She was out of practice. Or maybe she was just tired from all her studying over the past two days. In any case, there was nothing like a challenge to stir the blood.
Three hours and twenty-three minutes after starting her puzzle, minus a break for dinner, Lynn raised both hands in triumph.
“Done!”
“Aw, come on, Lynn. You could at least pretend to go easy on me,” her mom said, sitting up with a sigh and a pop as she stretched her back. “My eyes aren’t what they used to be.”
“Uh-huh, a likely excuse,” Lynn said, peering over at her mother’s table. “Not too shabby, though. You only have about fifty or sixty pieces left.”
“I suppose a bit of sympathy praise is better than nothing to sustain me through my grueling punishment,” Matilda said. Losers in their puzzle duels always cleaned up from dinner and did any dishes left over from the day.
Lynn smiled as she began taking apart and putting away her puzzle.
“Do you want to finish your puzzle or should I put it away, too?” she asked.
“Leave it, I’ll finish it after dishes,” her mom said and got up to go to the kitchen.
After Lynn had finished putting away her puzzle and the card table, she silently joined her mom in the kitchen and started wiping down the counters.
“You don’t have to do that, sweetie. You won.”
Lynn shrugged.
“Yeah, well, I’m not thirteen anymore. Besides, I know I have an unfair advantage over you. It’s not your fault you’re not as smart as me.” She shot her mom a lopsided grin.
Matilda gasped in mock indignation, then threw the dish towel at her. They both erupted in laughter.
After their giggles had subsided, they finished cleaning the kitchen in silence. Lynn’s mind was already back in her room, trying to decide if she should play more WarMonger while she had the chance, or if she should dive into the TD Hunter app and start checking out those training simulations.
“Lynn,” her mom said, breaking into her thoughts.
“Hmm?”
“I’m…I’m sorry about the other day.”
It took a moment for Lynn’s mind to switch tracks.
“Uh…okay.”
“I know you’re almost a grown woman. I just…worry. And the world out there is dangerous. And you did promise you would stay near our apartment…”
Lynn wanted to make excuses, but she bit her tongue, waiting to see what her mom would say.
“I know you like this game…and it seems good for you…and I want you to be able to keep playing it, but…” She turned to look at Lynn, her face lined with worry. “Safety is important. I need to know I can trust you to take your own safety seriously.”
A stab of guilt made Lynn swallow. Perhaps she had stretched her interpretation of her mom’s wishes more than she should have.
“I—I don’t mind if you play right around our apartment, if you’ll actually stay close this time.” Matilda gave her a level look, which made Lynn hang her head. “But if you want to go farther, I think it’s important that you take someone with you, in case something…happens. Can you do that for me?”
Lynn heaved a huge sigh. She loved her mom. She really did. And they were so lucky to have each other. She tried to keep the big picture in mind. TD Hunter was only a game. A very important game but only a game.
“Okay, sure. I’ll try to find someone. But you know I don’t really have many friends and the guys at school…they aren’t the outdoorsy types either. I don’t know if any would be willing to tag along, outside, in the sun, for a game they can’t even play.” It was true enough, even if the real reason she didn’t even want to ask Ronnie and the rest was because they might never speak to her again if they knew she’d been lying to them for years about her gaming habits.
“Why don’t you try, and if you can’t find anyone, we’ll talk about this again then, okay?”
“Okay. I’m sorry I—” She stopped, swallowing her “bent the rules” excuse and made herself say the words “—broke my promise to you, Mom. I really didn’t think it was a big deal. But I’ll be more careful.”
“Thank you, sweetie. I love you,” Matilda said and wrapped Lynn in a tight hug.
“I love you too, Mom.”
“Now, why don’t you get some more studying done while I go for a workout in the complex gym? All that sitting and pizza has made me antsy.”
While Lynn’s mom wasn’t exactly a workout fanatic, she was very health conscious. Considering she spent most of her waking time during the week on her feet in constant motion, she always needed a good, sweaty workout on the weekends to wear her out so she would sleep through the day on Monday and be ready for her first night shift of the week.
“Sure, Mom. Have a good workout.”
After her mother left, Lynn logged into WarMonger. She felt too depressed about the situation with TD Hunter to want to mess with it and her brain was too tired to focus on school. She thought about seeking out Ronnie and the rest—nothing boosted her mood quite so well as Ronnie’s frustrated Lithuanian curses—but something held her back. Instead, she did some busywork on the auction site, wrapping up offers she’d put up last night that had gotten some very satisfactory bids. Then, since she didn’t have any messages asking for her services just then, she put out her calling card.
“Larry Coughlin available for challenge match. One-versus-as-many-as-you-want. This old snake’s got a twitchy trigger finger. Who wants to die tonight?”
It was more provocative than she usually preferred to be in virtual, but she had the reputation to back it up and was hoping some trigger-happy tryhards would take the bait. Sometimes she just needed a night of senseless violence fragging wannabe pros who were stupid enough to try to gang up on her.
The Monday of finals week was always nerve-wracking as teachers tried to stuff their students with as much last-minute information as possible. Lynn tried to concentrate but was distracted by her TD Hunter dilemma. She kept playing out different scenarios in her head, wondering which of the guys in her gaming group she might be able to catch alone and what they might say if she asked them to tag along with her to play TD Hunter. Mack was the obvious choice but he was horrible at keeping secrets. Dan she didn’t know as well and of course Ronnie was out of the question. Every time she thought about Edgar, she remembered their conversation from the week before when he’d said she looked nice with a tan. What was that even supposed to mean? She was always tan. Was he making things up? Trying to be nice?
She was so distracted that she made the fatal mistake of not looking where she was going while on the way to the cafeteria for lunch. She almost ran right into Elena and by the time she was aware of her surroundings, the pop-girl’s “posse” had already surrounded her.
“All right, you lying little sneak. How did you get in?”
“What?” Lynn said, completely nonplussed.
“Don’t play dumb with me, birdbrain. One of my girls lives in the Heathers complex and she saw you playing with that stupid blue stick. You got invited to play TransDilemma, or whatever it’s called and I want in. How did you do it?”
Lynn’s blood ran cold. She swallowed, trying to calculate the likelihood that she could bluff her way out of this one. The key was confidence. Never let the enemy see you sweat.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Elena. I think your ‘girl’ needs to have her eyes checked.”
The pop-girl’s eyes narrowed.
“She described it in great detail. It looked exactly like the thing in all the ads. Now, tell me how you got in, or I’ll make you regret it.” Elena took a step forward. She was only average height but that put her several inches over Lynn. Plus, the girl was wearing three-inch heeled boots.
Lynn shifted back on one foot, instinctively adopting a firm, balanced stance. Elena and her crowd hardly ever got physical. Their weapons were words, which of course could be just as sharp, humiliating and damaging. But there were rumors that Elena had really messed up a freshman last year that she’d accused of sleeping with her boyfriend-of-the-month. Lynn didn’t think the pop-girl had an ounce of true fighter in her, but she was athletic and she had a whole group of followers to hold a victim still while she did whatever she wanted. The halls were empty, everyone else having already gone to lunch, so no witnesses.
“I—”
“Hey, Lynn, what’s going on?”
Lynn’s head whipped around to see Edgar striding down the hall, backpack slung over one huge shoulder. The girls of Elena’s posse drew back from him as he approached, breaking up the circle and taking away Elena’s advantage.
“Oh, nothing,” Lynn said, swallowing down her relief. “Just giving Elena some tips on how to not be an obnoxious harpy bleating for attention.”
As soon as Lynn said it, she knew she shouldn’t have. Hatred flashed over Elena’s face but the girl quickly hid it behind a sly look that meant nothing good was about to happen.
“Actually, Miss Birdbrain here was telling me all about how she’s been banging this disgusting old creep who works for Tsunami Entertainment so she could get some sort of counterfeit invitation to play TransDilemma. I’m sure she hopes it will bring a semblance of meaning to her pitiful loser existence.”
Edgar looked back and forth between Lynn and Elena, clearly confused.
“Uh, do you mean TransDimensional Hunter?”
“Yes, whatever!” Elena snapped, clearly angry her scathing comments hadn’t had their desired effect. “The point is, this little chit is playing the stupid game, and I’m sure she had to whore herself to get it, though I feel sorry for whoever was desperate enough to touch that disgusting piggy body of hers.”
Embarrassment made Lynn’s face feel hot, but she resisted the instinct to wrap her arms defensively around herself. A glance up at Edgar told her he’d gone all still and blank, like he did when he was in danger of losing it. She needed to diffuse the situation, fast, before Edgar got in trouble because of her—again.
The best defense was an overwhelming offense, Larry-style.
“I had to whore myself to get it, huh?” Lynn asked and forced a laugh past her dry throat. “You were just demanding to know how to get an invite yourself, doesn’t that mean you’d be perfectly happy to sleep with however many ‘creeps’ it took to get in? What, couldn’t your oh-so-important daddy get you an invite? Does he know his precious little princess bangs men to get what she wants?”
Elena’s mouth snapped shut and her jaw worked like she wished she could crush Lynn by simply grinding her teeth together. Her perfectly pale cheeks had gone bright pink and Lynn honestly wondered if the pop-girl would try to hit her. But then Elena spoke, voice low and trembling with rage.
“I promise, you will regret speaking about your betters like that with your filthy mouth. You’re just jealous because I have everything you could ever want and you’re nothing but a fat, ugly, worthless nobody.”
Lynn snorted, though she couldn’t help glancing up at Edgar to check and make sure he wasn’t about to punch Elena into next week. The pop-girl must have noticed Lynn’s concern, because another one of those sly smiles smoothed out the anger on her face as she stepped back and raised her voice for a parting shot.
“I’ll leave you to wallow in self-loathing with your moronic troll boyfriend here, though he probably wouldn’t touch your fatty lard body either. He’s just being nice to you because you’re so pathetic he can’t help pitying you.”
With that, the girl spun on her impressive heels, which was a relief because it meant she missed seeing Lynn grab Edgar’s wrist to halt him as he started toward the oblivious bully. Elena stalked away unhindered, her silent posse closing in behind even as they threw nervous looks over their shoulders.
Once they disappeared around the corner, Lynn let go of Edgar’s wrist and stuck her hands in her hoodie’s front pocket, surreptitiously wiping them on the inner fabric. Why were her hands so sweaty?
“Um, thanks for…being here,” Lynn said, cringing at her own words. They were stupid but at least they seemed to snap Edgar out of it.
“Yeah. Sure.”
Silence.
Lynn wished for all the world that Edgar hadn’t been there to witness Elena’s cruel attack. Loser. Fatty. Disgusting. They were only words and she’d learned after many years of self-loathing and heartache to not give them power over her. Even so, they still stuck to her like stubborn burrs and she knew they’d be echoing in her head long after she’d tried her best to exorcize them.
“Should we, uh, go to lunch?” Lynn asked.
“Oh, yeah. Sure.” Edgar shook his head as if clearing it, then hitched his backpack up and they started toward the cafeteria.
“So…you’re a beta tester for TD Hunter?”
Lynn winced. She’d been hoping he hadn’t caught that. He didn’t sound mad about it, but then Edgar kept his emotions under tight wraps. Lynn wanted to lie, wanted to deny it, but it seemed really low to lie to someone who’d just stuck out their neck for you.
“Um, yeah. But please, please promise me you won’t breathe a word to Ronnie or any of the others?”
Edgar shrugged.
“No sweat, Lynn, if that’s what you want. I’d think you’d wanna to see the look on Ronnie’s face, though, when he finds out you got beta and he didn’t.”
“I mean, yeah, that might be a little satisfying,” Lynn admitted. Then she realized what she was saying and backtracked. “But it’s not like that at all, really. I didn’t apply to beta, I didn’t even want to play. Mr. Kra—I mean the game developers just invited me, I have no idea why.” Okay, a little lie.
“Well, you’ve obviously got something Ronnie and Dan don’t.” Edgar shrugged again. “They need all sorts to beta, not just hard-core gamers.”
For some reason, Edgar’s comment stung in a way that Ronnie’s “girls got no game” never had. She didn’t want Edgar to think she was a casual gamer. The thought drew her up short and she spent a moment wondering why she cared about Edgar’s opinion of her gaming skill.
They were almost to the cafeteria when Lynn suddenly realized the opportunity that had fallen into her lap. She cleared her throat and stopped and Edgar stopped too, giving her a puzzled look.
“Um, so, since you know I’m playing TD Hunter now, do you think…well, would you have any interest in…” Lynn trailed off, frustrated. This was stupid. She needed to come out and say it, no matter how awkward it felt. “Okay, so my mom is a little worried about me walking around alone everywhere to play this AR game and wants me to find a friend to walk with. Just in case, you know? Do you think you’d have time to, um, walk with me?” The question hung in the air for a moment, unanswered, and Lynn hurried to fill the silence. “I mean, I know it will be pretty boring for you since you can’t play the game too but I can show you how it works and everything and you can see some of the monsters I see and it’s great exercise and there’s this cool service AI named Hugo and—”
“Sure, sure, Lynn. It’s all cool. I’ll walk with you.” Edgar grinned at her and she slowly returned the smile, relief flooding through her and making her feel giddy.
“It’ll have to be after finals are over, though,” he temporized. “I, uh, need to study a lot.”
“Oh, yeah, of course. Maybe Saturday, then?”
“That’ll work. Ping me Friday night an’ shoot me your address. I’ll meet you there, whenever you wanna start.”
“Awesome. That’s a huge help. Thanks, Edgar.”
“Sure thing. Better for me than lying in bed playing WarMonger, anyway.” He turned toward the cafeteria doors and they started into the noisy room. Edgar raised his voice a little to be heard. “Ronnie’s been a bigger douche than normal, lately. Haven’t seen nothing of Larry for almost a week. Shame he’s the only thing as ever brings Ronnie down a peg or two.”
Lynn smiled to herself.
They swiped their cards at the food dispenser and gathered their lunches, then headed over to their table. Lynn noticed that an unusually large number of students seemed absorbed in watching something on their AR glasses, though that could be because finals were coming up. Maybe they were studying.
“There you are, Edgar. Finally!” Dan’s excited voice called out before they even reached the table.
“Hey, Lynn,” Mack said, grinning as his eyes flicked between her and Edgar.
“Hey, Mack. Your mom make you shave again?” Lynn asked, knowing from long practice exactly how to distract her friend. His hand shot up to rub self-consciously at his newly smoothed chin.
“Yeah,” he said, now glum. “Said I wasn’t allowed to graduate looking like a homeless guy.”
“Forget about Mack’s mommy problems,” Dan interrupted. “Edgar, did you see the announcement?”
“Nope. Been focusing on class. What’s up?”
“TD Hunter just released that big announcement they’ve been talking about. They’re giving away baton sets to the first one million players who pre-register for their app!”
Edgar set down his food, plopped down in his seat, then stuffed half a banana into his mouth before finally speaking around it.
“What’re you talking ’bout, man?”
“You know, those electric blue omni-polymer things that shift into different weapons in TD Hunter, the ones they use in all the ads. You have to buy a set to play the game, but they’re giving away a million of them. You need to pre-register, like, right now.”
Lynn raised her eyebrows, impressed with the game developer’s tactics. Though they must really have all the funding that Mr. Krator talked about, and then some, to afford such a publicity stunt.
“Ronnie, Mack and I have already registered. Hurry up and register, or you’ll miss out!”
“Chill out, Dan,” Edgar said. “I been burning calories all morning with this big brain of mine. Gotta refuel before I start worrying ’bout anything else.”
“Seriously? You’re going to miss out—”
“Too late,” Ronnie cut in. His food sat untouched, his eyes fixed on his AR glasses reading something none of them could see. “They’re already past a mil and a half prereg.”
Dan blew out a breath and shook his head.
“You snooze, you lose, Edgar. It’s okay, though. They won’t be very expensive, I’m sure.”
Edgar shrugged.
“You see the new promo vid they released with the announcement?” Dan asked, enthusiasm undimmed.
“Really, Dan?” Lynn cut in, saving Edgar who obviously just wanted to eat his lunch. “He said a minute ago he hadn’t heard the announcement, so how the heck could he have seen the promo?”
“Oh yeah. Makes sense. Well, anyway, you should totally watch it. It’s cool. And I mean cooooool.”
Mack chimed in and he and Dan started reliving all the coolest parts, piquing Lynn’s curiosity. She glanced at Ronnie but he was still totally immersed in his AR glasses and ignoring everyone at the table. Edgar, of course, was focused on his food. She still had her earbuds in, since they had turned out to be extremely comfortable, even wearing them all day, and they easily let in all the ambient noise from her surroundings. Ambient noise that was, now that she paid attention to it, mostly students talking excitedly about TD Hunter and their new promo video. Since her earbuds’ vibration sensors let her subvocalize commands to her LINC menu through her fancy AR glasses interface, she was able to pull up the TD Hunter announcement to find the promo vid everyone was so obsessed with. She chowed down on her fish and mashed potatoes while she watched.
The video began with a voiceover and Lynn immediately recognized General Carville’s smooth, grave tone overlaid on ominous background music.
“An invisible invasion has begun. All over the world, silent and unseen, hostile transdimensional entities have been appearing. As their numbers have swelled, they’ve been wrecking our technology, our infrastructure and are even now amassing to wipe out humanity itself.”
A radar map appeared on screen as General Carville spoke, showing the world’s continents in green on black ocean as a radar cone slowly circled. Red dots began appearing in every country, revealed by the radar. Each pass showed more and more dots until they were so thick they seemed to blanket the world in a plague of blood.
“Our only hope of saving humanity is you, Hunter. No military in the world is strong enough to resist an invasion on this scale. We’re depending on citizen volunteers to take up the banner and fight back, before these monsters gather enough strength to attack.”
The map disappeared to be replaced by scenes of wraithlike TransDimensional Monsters, their forms smokey and translucent but their looming presence no less malevolent. They crouched in alleyways and under bridges, tentacles slowly shifting like snakes or mouths full of teeth hanging open in hungry anticipation. Lynn recognized some of them from pictures of Charlie, Bravo and Alpha Class TDMs in her app’s monster index.
“This will not be an easy fight,” the general continued. “But the TransDimensional Counterforce is ready and waiting to equip you with our cutting edge battle system and groundbreaking smart weapons that will customize to fit each Hunter no matter what your skill, abilities, or preferences.”
As the scene changed, the music began to crescendo, building as first one, then another, and another person appeared in the picture. They were all ordinary people from every imaginable culture and clime, young and old, male and female, short and tall, fat and thin. Each one stopped whatever they were doing—eating, working, playing—and bent down to pick up a blue baton from the ground. As they stood up, they transformed. Their baton grew into a fearsome weapon and their ordinary clothes were covered with impenetrable armor. For some, their appearance was modern military-looking, for some the equipment took on a stylized form of traditional armor and weapons from cultures across the world: Japanese samurai, Rajput soldiers, Viking raiders, Maori warriors, Dahomey Amazons and more. As the music reached its peak and erupted into an adrenaline-rousing rush of sound, each new Hunter was seen charging into battle, spinning, slashing, jumping, shooting and stabbing. From desert villages to downtown cities to snow-swept mountain enclaves, Hunters battled monsters, heroically fighting back against the invasion.
“It’s up to you, Hunter, to push back the tide before it overwhelms us all,” General Carville’s voice exhorted the viewer. “So, pick up your weapon, step into the real and fight. Fight for humanity, fight for survival and for the dawning of a new day.”
The video ended as the scenes of battle faded away to a dark screen with the TD Counterforce logo and the words Step into the real. The fight for humanity has begun.
When the clip disappeared and Lynn was jerked back into her own reality surrounded by a noisy school cafeteria, she felt such a jarring dissonance that she had to take a moment to get her breath back. Her heart was thumping in her chest and her limbs were tingling with adrenaline. She wished she could walk out of school then and there and boot up her app to go kill some TDMs.
That promo vid had been beyond powerful—it had been inspiring.
She no longer wondered if Mr. Krator and his developer team were going to pull off this game. All she could think about was how awesome it was going to be when it launched.
It took a great deal of effort to push down that restless itch to play, to fight, and instead force herself to eat her lunch and turn her mind back to classes and finals. She saved the video link to her cloud library, knowing she would be watching it again—possibly multiple times—the minute finals were over and summer vacation had officially begun.
She couldn’t wait.