He’d kept his word for three days. Then the lure of the game had proved too strong, and one night he found himself logging in. Since then he’d played secretly, always careful to lock his door when he was gaming. For some reason, this time he’d forgotten to, and Emily had caught him.
Josh wanted to yell at his sister some more, but he knew that would only make things worse. Emily had him in a corner.
“I’ll make you a deal,” he said.
Emily crossed her arms over her chest and cocked her head. “What kind of deal?” she asked.
Although he was angry, Josh had to stifle a laugh. For a nine-year-old his sister was a tough negotiator. Just a week before, she’d managed to get their parents to up her allowance by two dollars a week by arguing that since her eighth birthday the rate of inflation had increased by 7 percent while her allowance had increased by only 5 percent.
“I’ll do half your chores for a month,” he suggested.
Emily shook her head. “Uh-uh,” she said. “Mom would wonder why you’re doing the dishes. Try again.”
Josh groaned. He didn’t have much else to bargain with. Then he thought of something. “I’ll give you issues one through twelve of Changeling Quest.”
He saw Emily hesitate. Changeling Quest was her favorite graphic novel series, but she had started reading it at issue thirteen and didn’t own the first dozen. They were no longer available for download, and only people who had purchased unlocking codes could access them on their Cybook readers. As with all Cybooks, the codes could be transferred one time to a new reader, and sometimes they showed up for sale on used Cybook sites, but it would have cost Emily a year’s allowance to get her own set.
She was always asking Josh if she could borrow his reader to read the novels, and he knew how badly she wanted to own them herself. He didn’t particularly like the series, but he had held on to the codes in case Emily ever had something he wanted to trade for. Now she did. He just had to pretend that giving them up was a big deal.
“Come on,” he said. “It’s all I’ve got. And you know you want to have them.” He tried to sound sad about possibly losing the Cybooks.
“Issues one through twelve and your Spider Queen action figure,” Emily countered.
“No way!” Josh said, now genuinely upset. “I saved up for that for six months. They only made two hundred of them, and mine’s number twenty-two. And it’s not an action figure. It’s a handmade, one-twenty-eighth-scale articulated model.”
Emily turned around. “Hey, Mom!” she called out.
“Wait!” Josh said.
Emily looked at him. “Deal?” she asked.
“I’ll give you the novels and do your homework for two months.”
Emily rolled her eyes. “Please,” she said. “I want to get good grades. Mom!” she yelled again. “Josh is—”
“Okay!” Josh cut her off. “You can have the Cybooks and the Spider Queen. It’s a deal.”
Emily looked at him, beaming. “Transfer the codes,” she said.
Josh shook his head. “Not until after dinner,” he said. “I want to make sure you don’t squeal.”
“Like I would go back on a deal,” Emily said, sounding offended.
Josh knew she was right. Emily drove a hard bargain, but she always did what she agreed to. Still, he couldn’t let her win so easily. He stared back, saying nothing.
“Fine,” Emily relented. “But right after dinner.”
She left the room. Josh turned his computer screen back on and saw the message he’d been dreading: YOU HAVE BEEN DEMOTED ONE LEVEL. REPORT TO THE BRIEFING ROOM FOR YOUR NEXT ASSIGNMENT.
“One level!” Josh groaned. After almost a year of playing, he had recently reached Torcher First Class. Now he was back to being a Torcher Second Class. It would take months to get his rank back. His only consolation was that Firecracker would also be demoted for getting turned. Still, it didn’t make him feel any better.
“Great,” he said as he got up to go downstairs. “Back to the minor leagues.”
2
“You gave her what?” Firecracker looked at Josh as if his friend had completely lost his mind. They were sitting in biology class, waiting for the late bell to ring.
“I had to,” Josh objected. “She was going to tell my folks, and you know how they feel about the game. If they knew I was playing again, they’d put a block on my computer so all I could access is educational sites. No more gaming. At all.”
Firecracker ran a hand through his red hair. “I guess you kinda deserve it,” he said. “You did almost torch me.”
“That’s my job,” Josh reminded him. “Besides, no one told you to go and get bit. What happened, anyway?”
Firecracker shook his head. “Man, it was Charlie again. He tricked me into following him down to the morgue. When I got there, he was hiding inside one of the meat freezers so I couldn’t smell him. Jumped out from behind a side of beef that was hanging in there and got me.”
“That guy is good,” said Josh. “What level is he now, thirty-six or something?”
“I don’t even know,” Firecracker answered. “Whatever he is, he’s the best player I’ve ever seen.”
“Too bad he plays a z,” said Josh.
“Yeah,” Firecracker agreed. “I don’t get that. Why would he want to play a meatbag?” He spoke the last word as if he were spitting something nasty-tasting out of his mouth.
Josh shrugged. He didn’t understand it either. Most players wanted to be Torchers. But Charlie played the other side. He’d started playing only a few months before Josh and Firecracker did, but quickly shot up the rankings and was now one of the top zombie players. Even Josh had to admit that playing a z was more difficult than playing a Torcher. You had to be really good at tricking the other players and leading them into traps where you could bite them. And Charlie was a master of it. Yet no one knew much about him. I’d sure like to meet him, thought Josh as Mrs. Hotchkiss entered the room.
“All right,” said Mrs. Hotchkiss. “Let’s get started.” She punched a button on the control panel on her desk, and the lights in the room dimmed. A moment later a three-dimensional holographic image of a brain appeared in the air in front of each desk. It rotated slowly, giving the students a view of all sides.
“The human brain is a complex organ,” the teacher said. “But, according to the triune brain theory first proposed by neurologist Paul MacLean way back in the 1950s, it comprises three basic sections.”
She typed on her keypad, and one section of the brain—the largest—turned blue. “This is the neocortex,” she explained. “This part of the brain is responsible for things such as language development, abstract thought, and consciousness.”
She continued on to the second section, which was within the brain, surrounded by the neocortex. “This is the limbic system,” she explained as the area turned yellow. “It’s responsible for memory storage and emotions.”
The hologram of the brain had been transferred to Josh’s NoteTaker unit, and as Mrs. Hotchkiss spoke, the information was updated on his screen. Since Josh could always look at it later, he didn’t listen too closely.
The final area, an oddly shaped section deep within the brain, turned green. It reminded Josh of a flower on a stalk.
“And this,” Mrs. Hotchkiss said, “is the most primitive part of the brain. It’s called the R-complex or, more commonly, the reptilian brain.”
“As in lizards?” Marcus Pell asked, earning him laughs from his classmates.