“We were quite the gang growing up. Us and our proxxies… Bobby and Robert, William and Wallace, Sid and Vicious, Dean and Martin, Nancy and Cunard.… ”
“That was quite the gang.”
“Have you talked to Nancy much lately?” asked Martin softly.
“No, I… not since, well, since you.… ”
“You should talk to her.” He looked at me steadily for a while. “Hey, do you remember that night? We were sitting on the guardrails to the passenger cannon entrance. We must have been barely teenagers, and we were drinking that fermented seaweed? You had Robert override the security systems, and we had the whole place to ourselves. It was just you and me sitting there.”
I nodded.
He paused before continuing. “We talked about what we would do together when we were old men. You told me how you were good at almost anything, all you had to do was apply yourself, and you could do anything you wanted. I think I was pretty drunk.”
“I was drunk, too,” I whispered between my tears.
“But I remember, most of all, I remember thinking how great you were, thinking how I wasn’t that great, how I had so much trouble with everything and wondering why. But most of all, I remember thinking how much I loved you, and how proud I was just to be your brother. You were the star of the pssi-kid program, even way ahead of Jimmy, I was so proud.… ”
“I remember that night,” I managed to choke out between sobs. I was crying full on now.
“I’m still here, Bob.” Martin was looking directly into my eyes, his voice soft and full of love.
I remembered drawing three-dimensional line drawings of cubes and other objects on paper back when we were starting in school—two squares offset from each other with a straight line that joined each corresponding corner to make a three-dimensional-looking cube. I found it fascinating because when I stared at it, it seemed that one of the faces was closer to you, but if you concentrated and willed it, suddenly the cube flipped and the other face switched to being closer.
As I looked hard at Martin right then, my mind performed a similar flip, and with sudden clarity, all I saw was my brother, sitting there in front of me in flesh and blood. A wave of love sprang from my scalp to my fingertips, and I got up to go and sit on the couch with him.
“Dean… Martin… I missed you so much, it’s just this place.” I reached out to hold his hand.
“I’ve missed you, too,” replied Martin. “You’ve been so nasty to me these past years. I always think you hate me for some reason that I don’t understand. It hurt so much.”
Tears streamed down my face, and Martin reached up to wipe them away, and then he rubbed his hand across his own face. His demeanor changed, and he sat bolt upright, taking a deep breath. He grabbed both of my hands tightly with his. “Stop with all the drugs, will you? And all these women, it’s not going to change anything. Calm down. Talk to Nancy.”
“You’re right,” was all I could think to say. “I’ll stop, I’ll try.… ”
“Good,” he replied. “And Bobby, if you really believe all that stuff about gameworlds being real, then Dean is still somewhere out there, and I’m your connection to him.”
“This is messed up.”
I was staring at the floor. Nothing made any sense. My whole life, I’d felt like I was running away from something, fleeing before some unseen danger. From now on, it would stop.
Maybe he was right; maybe I could still find Dean out there. I was right in the middle of one of the most amazing places on earth, where the impossible was becoming possible almost daily. I just needed to apply myself and get out of this daze I’d slid into.
“Bobby?” asked Martin.
“Yeah?”
“Why are you crying?”
Oh no. The blind spot had caught up. I wiped away my tears.
I lied. “It’s nothing. I’m just worried about the storms and Nicky dumping me.”
His face brightened. “Don’t worry, big brother, I’ll take care of you. Like I was saying, could you get Dad to add me to the evacuation list? I don’t know what’s going, but I have a lot to do, so I’d appreciate it.”
“Consider it done,” I replied with a sigh.
“Thanks.”
Martin got up off the couch and prepared to leave.
“Hey, Martin.… ”
“Yeah?”
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to say lately.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?”
I smiled, pausing, and the world clicked back into sense for me. “Martin, I love you. I love you a lot.”
He looked away quickly, catching his breath, and brought up a hand to wipe the corner of one eye. “I love you, too, Bobby. That is so good to hear.”
“Okay, good—now get!” I laughed.
He grinned back at me, shaking his head as he disappeared.
This place, all of it, felt abruptly wrong. Like a switch being thrown, I suddenly knew something wasn’t right here anymore, and that this same something had swallowed Dean in its path. Blind spots—we all had them. So what was it that they were hiding from us, what was it we weren’t seeing?
NEVERYWHERE
Part 5:
Nancy Killiam & William McIntyre
1
Identity: William McIntyre
A brilliant carpet of stars hung above us on the moonless night, somewhere in the Adirondacks of upper New York State. Our campsite was nestled between towering firs at the side of a lake. We’d barely finished the canoe trip and portage to get here before nightfall, and we were all spent. A deep silence settled between us over the hissing and popping of the campfire. I was almost completely relaxed for once—almost.
“It’s so peaceful out here,” I said, leaning forward to pick up a stick and poke at the embers of the fire. I could feel a breeze blowing across my backside, but I let it go for now.
“You got that right,” replied Bob, sitting next to Martin on my left, both of them slumped comfortably in their folding camp chairs. Bob was balancing a beer on his knee.
“Yes, sir,” added Wally, my proxxi, sitting right next to me. He saw me toss my empty can into the fire. “Do you want another beer?”
“No thanks. I’m good.”
Stirring the embers, I watched the sparks dance as they escaped from the charred wood. Rubbing my hands, I extended them toward the warm coals; it was going to be a cold night. A loon called out from the blackness above the lake with a haunting wail. Nearly time to go.
“This is amazing,” drawled Bob. He stared at the fire for a moment. “Hey, Willy, did you catch the slingshot tests this morning?”
He took another swig from his beer, grinning at me. He was usually smiling, the lucky bum. Then again, he didn’t have it that easy.
“Sure, kind of impossible to miss,” I replied. “Were you with your family?”
He laughed, looking up at Sid and Vicious, who were sitting across the campfire from us. “Nah, Sid and I were out in Humungous Fungus, watching the mash-up version.”
I grinned. “Bet that was fun.”
“Sure, but my dad gave me a lot of trouble when I got home.”
Wally pinged me with an alert. Oh shoot.
“Oh, ah, Martin,” I blurted out awkwardly, “happy birthday, by the way.” It always confused me how Bob’s birthday was one day, and Martin’s the next.
Martin smiled, looking up at me from the fire.
“Thanks, Willy,” he laughed, then looked at Bob. “And Dad wasn’t really mad, you know, he’s under a lot of pressure.”
“I know,” replied Bob. “I’m sorry. Thanks for covering for me.”
“That’s what brothers are for,” chuckled Martin, shaking his head. “Right?”