Between the Lines (35 page)

“I could pretty much hear everything through the wall….”

Edgar narrows his eyes. “Have you ever played Battle Zorg 2000 before?”

“I can’t say that I have.”

He digs around in his desk for a second controller. “Then I suppose I’ll have to teach you.”

He fumbles through the opening screens of the game to set it up for two players instead of one. “I usually play solo,” he says casually. “I’m actually sort of legendary, in terms of scoring.”

I let Edgar explain to me about the Galactoids from Planet Zugon who are coming to take over Earth. “Our job,” he says, “is to kill them before they plant a mind-control ozone bomb in the San Andreas Fault, or create a force field of incineration that burns everyone to ash the minute they come in contact with it.”

It makes me think of the Pandemonium.

“If you can get past the foot soldier Galactoids,” Edgar continues, “you can be admitted into the Astrochamber, where you have to complete fourteen tasks in order to face Zorg.”

“Who’s Zorg?” I ask.

He snorts. “Only the biggest, baddest robot-android hybrid in the Aphelion galaxy!”

I gingerly take the controller and press a button. “No!” he shouts. “Not until we’ve set up your avatar!”

With a few clicks, I become Aurora Axis, a geophysicist from Washington, DC. I follow Edgar’s avatar through the levels of the game, getting knocked out almost immediately by a low-flying asteroid. “Shoot!” I say, angry at myself. “I should have been able to see that.”

Edgar grins. “It takes a little bit of practice.”

For three-quarters of an hour, we battle aliens with an array of weapons. I get killed more times than I can count. Finally, just when I think it’s virtually impossible, Edgar and I double-team an Amazon made of starlight who is shooting electromagnetic radiation from her fingers, and we manage to drown her in a micrometeorite lake. Just like that, we are admitted into the Astrochamber.

“Yes!” we both scream as the door to Edgar’s bedroom opens.

“Edgar!” Jessamyn cries, “have you seen—Oh!” She looks at me, and then at Edgar, and then back at me. “You’re here.”

Edgar pivots in his chair. “She wanted to learn how to play.”

I grin. “Turns out I’m a natural with a neutrino ray.”

Jessamyn seems surprised—by my comment, and maybe by the fact that her son has made a friend. “Good!” she says. “Can I get you two anything? Cookies? Milk?”

“Privacy?” Edgar suggests.

Jessamyn backs out of the room, and Edgar lifts his controller again. “Awkward,” he says. “Now, where were we…”

“About to kick some Zorgian butt,” I reply.

Edgar lifts his controller and points to the screen, but the computer blinks a steady neon green. “Shoot,” he mutters. “Not
again.
”

“What’s the matter?”

“Stupid old computer. It freezes up all the time. I just hope our game saved….” He starts pushing buttons and rebooting the system. “My mom won’t let me load my games on her new computer because she says they take up too much of the memory, so I have to work on this total dinosaur.”

“It doesn’t look that old to me—”

“That’s because it was state-of-the-art when my mom was still using it to type her books. But believe me, I had to upgrade this puppy with major video cards and speakers just to get it compatible with Zorg 2000.”

I sit up, alert. “This used to be your mom’s computer?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Do you know if her old files are still on it?”

“They’re there,” Edgar says. “She won’t let me delete them.” He rolls his eyes. “Every time I go to start a new game, I see that dumb fairy tale.
Between the Lines
. It’s listed right below
Battle Zorg 2000,
alphabetically.”

I lean forward. “You don’t like that story?”

“Hate it,” Edgar says. “How would you feel if the whole world knew your mother thought you were a loser?”

“I’m sure she doesn’t think—”

“She wrote that idiotic prince character wishing I could be more like him. But me, I’m not going to catch a dragon and talk it into getting its teeth cleaned. I’m not quite the fairy-tale type.”

“The reason I came here is because your mom wrote that book,” I tell Edgar. Taking a deep breath, I blurt out, “Can I ask you something that’s going to sound a little strange?”

“Okay.”

“When you play Battle Zorg 2000, does it sometimes feel like you’re a part of it?”

Edgar nods. “Well, sure. Otherwise I couldn’t score as high as I do.”

“No…. I mean, do you ever wish you were
inside
the game?”

At first I am afraid to look him in the eye, but when I do, I find Edgar staring at me intently. “Sometimes,” he admits quietly, “it’s like I can hear the commanders talking to me, telling me what to do next.”

I put my hand on his arm. “Edgar, can I show you something?”

I run to the room next door and crawl onto the guest bed. The book is still open to page 43, and Oliver is lying on his back, snoring. “Oliver,” I whisper, leaning close to the binding, and then I shout,
“Get up!”

He startles, smacking his head on a low branch jutting out of the cliff. Rubbing it, he winces and looks up at me. “Just for clarification, when you say you’ll be right back, then you mean sometime in the next millennium?”

“I got distracted. But Oliver, listen, there’s someone I want you to meet.” I grab the book and carry it toward Edgar’s bedroom.

“What? Do you really think this is a good idea? No one ever sees me, and it just makes you look even more insane.”

“Thanks,” I say sarcastically. I turn the corner and enter Edgar’s room again. “I have a gut feeling about this.”

“About what?” Edgar asks.

I set the book on the desk. “I wasn’t talking to you,” I explain. “I was talking to him.” I point to Oliver, who smiles.

Edgar glances at the book, and then up at me. “Seriously? You think my mom’s fairy tale is talking to you?”

“Just wait a second,” I urge. “No one ever hears him talk—but that’s because no one ever listens hard enough. But based on what you told me about your video game, I think you might be different. Please? Can’t you try?”

“He’s not very attractive,” Oliver says, miffed.

“Oliver, he looks identical to you,” I murmur.

Edgar folds his arms. “Look, pretty boy, my mother drew
you
based off of
me
—”

I gasp. “You heard him? You heard Oliver speak?”

Edgar’s eyes widen, and he steps away from the book as if he doesn’t want to get too close to it. He hits the side of his head with the flat of his hand, as if he’s gotten water in his ear and is trying to shake it out. “No no no no
no,
” he says, under his breath. “That didn’t just happen.”

“It
did,
” I say, grasping his arm. “I know it seems crazy and impossible, but you have to believe me—it’s real.
He’s
real. And I promised I’d help him get out of this book.”

This is huge. If I’m not the only person who can hear Oliver, then there’s somebody else in this world who can help me save him. And yet, I feel the tiniest twinge in my chest, thinking that if I’m not the only person who hears Oliver, it makes the connection between us a little less special.

“What is
that
?” Oliver’s eyes gleam. I follow his gaze off the edge of the page to the computer screen, which has rebooted and shows a massive army of aliens attacking Earth.

“Battle Zorg 2000,” I reply. “It’s a computer game.”

“How did all those little people get inside the box?”

I’m not about to give Oliver a tutorial on electronics. “I’ll explain it later. All you need to know is that that little box is the machine Jessamyn Jacobs used when she wrote
Between the Lines.
The original story is still in there.”

“So what?” Edgar and Oliver speak simultaneously—and then look at each other.

“Oliver,
you
couldn’t change the ending of the book. And Jessamyn Jacobs may not be
willing
to change the ending of the book.” I wait for him to meet my gaze. “But I’m going to try.”

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