Multiplayer (28 page)

As uncomfortable as the funeral had been, the ride home was worse. Painfully silent. Tense. His mom dropped off Sabrah, but still didn’t speak as they headed for home. If she still had a problem with Sabrah, she needed to get over it. Or was she just upset about Chaz?

Mom pulled into their driveway, still not speaking. But when she shut off the motor, she stared straight ahead as an accusation flew from her mouth. “You just had to blab your little theory at Chaz’s funeral!”

Deion!
Hector thought, his face flushing hot. That loudmouthed, little douche! Hector decided to play dumb. “What are you talking about?”

“That Chaz was murdered by characters in your game. With everything his parents must be going through, to pile that rubbish on top of it. You should be ashamed. What if someone had come up to me at your father’s funeral and told us one of his own men had killed him on purpose.”

He was going to kill Deion. Kill him! “I just mentioned it to De –”

“You need help, Hector,” his mom spat. “I think it’s time to go back to the shr –”

“I’m doing what the doctor said!”

“We’re all grieving, Hector, but you’ve taken it to a new level. You need to stop playing
Omega Wars
. Permanently. I’m going to cancel your subscription and make an appointment with a doctor.”

“But Mom!” Hector shrieked. “What about the President? And Chaz?”

She swung her legs out of the car, then turned halfway back. “I love you, son.” she said, before climbing out, and leaving Hector by himself.

Ch. 24

“Can I go up to the school?” Hector said. His speech was slurred and he wiped a drop of spittle from the corner of his mouth.

His mother looked at him with deep concern in her eyes. “Are you going to be okay to get there and back? Do you need me to drive you?”

Hector nodded. “No, no, no. It’s a lot better today. Really. Please? I haven’t been anywhere in three days. I got to get out. I think it’d make me feel better.”

She nodded. “Okay. But take your cell phone with you. If you need anything, just call.” She smiled feebly. “See? You’re feeling better already.”

“Thanks,” he said when she gave him his cell phone back. She’d taken it from him after the funeral as part of his punishment. “What a load of crap,” he muttered, as the door closed behind him. “Another week of that garbage and I’ll be dead!” When he was sure his mother could no longer see him, he dropped the stagger.

It was a dreary day but not raining. The weather was turning from late summer to early fall and dry leaves skittered across the street. But the temperature was comfortable and he jogged to Sabrah’s house without stopping.

“Where have you been?” she blurted, when he reached the door.

“This house is huge!” Hector exclaimed, peeking inside to a foyer that rose three stories and was dominated by an enormous, crystal chandelier. The outside was impressive, but didn’t give a clue to its massive size.

“Forget the house. You don’t answer your phone. You won’t return my texts. No Facebook!”

Hector stumbled in the door, his mouth still agape. He told Sabrah why he’d disappeared from the world while she showed him the mansion’s seventy-two inch plasma screen in the game room and flat panel TVs in all the others. Pool-sized bathtubs. Acres of marble in the kitchen. Mahogany paneling in the dining room where a real Van Gogh hung on the wall. And an actual
Ferrari
in the four-car garage. Sabrah even let him sit in the driver’s seat, as he completed the story of his purgatory of the last few days.

Sabrah made a face, sitting beside him in the passenger’s seat. “I took those anti-depressants once. They turned me into a zombie.”

“Me, too,” Hector said with satisfaction. “Which is why I’m not taking them this time. I’m only pretending to.”

“That’s what I do!” Sabrah squealed. “They still think I’m on them.” She rolled her eyes. “Parents spend half your life telling you not to take drugs, then as soon as they screw your life up, they turn you into a junkie.”

Hector smiled and looked at Sabrah. She was makeup free and lovely. He climbed out of the car then helped her out. “Good to see you,” he said, and hugged her neck.

Her parents weren’t home – which would have sent his mother into hysterics – so they ended up in the game room nibbling on cookies. “I guess you’re off
Omega Wars
then. Is Izaak still… alive?”

Hector gave her a clever smirk. “Actually I still have a few weeks left.”

“I thought you said your mom –”

“She did,” Hector blurted proudly. “But she had to get me to help her do it. All I did was cancel payments. The month was already paid for so I’ve got a little time left.”

“So what are we supposed to do?”

“The FBI guy said they needed evidence before they’d look into it. So, I’ve got to find it. I owe it to Chaz. It’s my fault he’s dead.” Sabrah started to protest but Hector waved her off. “No!” he said firmly. “It is. And we’re going to make sure his death wasn’t for nothing. The summit is nine days away. My account runs out the day before that. We have plenty of time.”

“Just use my credit card to make a new account,” said Sabrah.

“You have a credit card?”

“Yeah, don’t you?”

Hector frowned, feeling particularly deprived. “Uh, no. But it wouldn’t help anyway.
Omega Wars
ties characters to accounts. You can swap equipment in-game but not characters. Keeps you from building up characters and selling them. I’d have to start with a brand new character.” Sabrah winced. They both knew that wasn’t going to work.

“Could you use my card to credit on your own account? Or a prepaid debit card?”

Hector frowned again and shook his head. “My mom changed the password and won’t tell me what the new one is.”

“Your mom knows how to change the password? I don’t even think my mom knows how to turn the game console on.”

“No, she doesn’t,” said Hector bitterly. “Helen showed her. I can’t stand that fat bi
–
”

“Hector!” Sabrah snapped, then softened and nodded. “Yeah, that’s pretty bitchy.”

They began by going over everything Hector knew, starting with his first encounter with Mal-X and how he had cheated to get Vera. Sabrah listened quietly until he was finished. “So how do you think they found out Rada was Chaz’s? MegaSoft says
Omega Wars
is totally secure.”

Hector shrugged. He didn’t know how they did it. But he did have a theory. “My guess is when MegaSoft processes the kill, there is some kind of security hole the bad guys use to download personal information. Some kind of hack. Like their slipgate.”

“That would be a pretty big hack,” said Sabrah.

Hector had to laugh. “Look at Windows Panorama. I heard it’s called that because your personal files are a panorama. I get an update to plug a security hole about three times a week. And
Omega Wars
was built on Panorama.”

Sabrah nodded. “You got a point. But that doesn’t
prove
anything.”

“And there’s one other thing,” Hector suddenly said, then stopped.

“What?”

He shook his head. “Forget it.”

“Just tell me,” said Sabrah, shaking him. “You have to tell your lawyer everything. And you have to tell her the truth so she can lie about it later.”

Hector laughed and relaxed more. “Okay, then. These three guys were at Chaz’s funeral. They kind of creeped me out. Like they were… studying us.”

“So?” she said, probing for more information.

Hector dropped his eyes, and told her they looked like Muslims. Sabrah shook her head. “You can’t hate everyone the U.S. fought in a war, Hector, because that’s pretty much everyone. You should cut people a little slack, especially Sanjar.”

“He was praising the guys who blew up my dad! Do you know what it’s like to have your dad blown up. Not shot, Sabrah. Not stabbed. Blown up! To know they won’t open the coffin because it’s full of chunks in a plastic bag? If he thinks that’s okay, he’s the same as they are!”

“I’m sorry I asked,” Sabrah said, throwing up her hands. “So, you think these Arabs – I’m sorry, these
terrorists
since they looked Arab – were doing something wrong at Chaz’s funeral? Or maybe, just maybe, they were friends of the family that didn’t bother to tell
you
they were coming.” She sat back and glared.

Hector raised a fist and lifted fingers as he doled out the facts. “We got Muslim terrorists planning to kidnap the President. Chaz gets killed after he finds out about it. These Muslim guys show up at his funeral. Probably trying to see who Chaz’s friends are. They saw me. They saw you! They saw all of us, Sabrah!”

“We weren’t wearing nametags, Hector. There were a lot of kids there.”

“But they’ve seen our faces. They knew we were his friends.”

The answer seemed clear to Sabrah. “So, call the cops.”

Hector exploded. “They’ll throw me in a rubber room!”

Sabrah nodded. “So, I guess that’s a ‘no’ on calling the cops?”

Frustration began to set in. He’d lost Sabrah now. She’d believed him before, and now she didn’t. He cut to the chase. “So, are you going to help me or not?”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. Just stared into space. She had the biggest, roundest, brown eyes and when she was thinking, she twitched her nose in the cutest way.

“I’m not convinced on your whole death-in-the game/replication-chamber/personal-information-theory,” she said slowly. “But you’re saying we need to find something – some evidence – we can take to the police or FBI to prove Islamic terrorists
are
using
Omega Wars
to plan an assassination attempt on the President. Is that basically it?”

Hector nodded.

“Okay, I’ll help. But on one condition.”

“What is it?”

“If I do this, whether we find something or not, you’ll delete your dad’s avatar.”

Hector’s heart hammered and his mouth went dry, as he battled with himself. That was what he had left of his dad. It made him real to Hector. It made him alive. But… he wasn’t alive, and the character in the replication tank would never be him.

“I think it isn’t good for you to keep him around Hector,” she said softly and took his hand. It was soft and warm; alive. “That’s why we bury our dead.” We have to let them go. He could feel her fingers linking with his, reminding him of what was real, and that the character he held onto in the replication tank wasn’t his dad, no matter how much he wanted it to be.

Hector sighed, and agreed with a heavy nod.

Sabrah squeezed his hand before letting go. “So what are we waiting for?” She slipped on the headset that monitored her alpha brainwaves and together they entered Alanya.

Ω

Veyron was stunned when she reached the roof of their base. “It’s huge!” she exclaimed, watching as
Uber Pwn
floated slowly over the east side of the peninsula where the terrain was flatter. “
Uber Pwn
, huh? GoreFiendHell’s real creative, isn’t he?”

Hector breathed a sigh of relief that the Reavers were heading eastward to clean out any competition in the area. But eventually, they’d run up against the mountains where they hooked back around to the sea, and then, the Reavers would turn their attention to the west. To their base.

“I wonder what
that
is?” Izaak said, pointing at the object on the top of the hill above their base. A ladder-like gantry lying on its side, that hadn’t been there before. The tunnel through the hill beneath it also showed signs of work. “Let’s go check it out.”

A highway tunnel pierced the hill and they stopped at its base to examine Alkindi’s work. Apparently he was attaching huge doors to close it off. Maybe to make some kind of garage for storing vehicles.

Once atop the hill, they examined the square-frame antenna tower on its side, at least a hundred feet long, with one end elevated atop a short tower. The other end sat on a curved length of railroad track so it could swivel around the elevated end. On a large, flat piece of steel welded to one side was written ‘V-2’.

“Alkindi,” said Izaak, staring at it. “I don’t know what it does, but that guy’s really something.” They headed back to their base where the submarine lay waiting. It was time to head to the citadel.

Ω

“So Pappous discovered this?” said Veyron, emerging from the sub into the inky blackness under the peninsula.

“In real life,” Izaak confirmed. “First man to set foot in here in over a thousand years. And I was the first one to ever come in here in
Omega
. Kind of weird, huh?”

“Fitting, I think.”

They tied the sub off and crept up the long, dark stair. When they got to the gate, Izaak moved it aside. “Any new powers?” he asked while they were crawling out. “Invisibility? Sight? Teleport? Fusion? Anything that would help us here?”

“No,” said Veyron dejectedly. “I keep trying. And Thry –” She stopped suddenly and coughed.

“Thry what?” asked Izaak.

Veyron cleared her throat. “Sorry. Had a frog in my throat. Always just get scarobs. So why are you taking me with you if I’m so useless?”