“It wasn’t just what happened to Lucy that was so terrifying,” his mother said after a while. “I mean at first it was, of course. But as the virus spread and changed, the fear became something worse. It was not knowing if, or when, you might get sick. It was not knowing which of your friends might be next. It was being afraid that the world was coming to an end.”
“But it didn’t,” Josh reminded her, looking for anything that might make the conversation less depressing.
“No, it didn’t,” his mother agreed. “But when I see people—see you—treating the war like it’s fun, it’s very upsetting. The war was not fun, Josh. It was not a game. Torching the zombies was something that had to be done, but nobody liked doing it.”
She paused for a moment, then continued, “I know you think the hologame is exactly the way it was. But you can always turn off a game. We couldn’t turn off what was happening to us. We couldn’t hit a button and get rid of the stench of burning flesh. We couldn’t remove a helmet and be back safe and sound in our rooms. We couldn’t hit reset and bring people back from the dead.”
She looked right at Josh. “You don’t know what it was like, Josh. And no matter how much you play that game, you never will.”
Josh nodded. “I guess you’re right,” he said.
“The game is disrespectful,” his mother said. “That’s the best way to put it. Turning a war into a game minimizes how horrible it was for the people who fought in it, lived through it—died in it,” she finished.
“I never thought of it that way,” Josh admitted. “But I’m not killing people. I’m killing meatbags.”
“What did you call them?” his mother asked. Her face was reddening.
“It’s just what we call the zombies,” Josh explained. “It doesn’t mean anything. Besides—”
“Is that what you think your aunt Lucy was?” his mother cut in. “A bag of meat?”
“No!” Josh objected. “But that’s different. She was a person.”
“All the zombies were real people,” his mother said. “Every last one of them. Don’t you ever forget that.”
“I said I was sorry,” Josh said defensively. He thought his mother was being a little unreasonable. The z’s he torched in the game were not real people.
His mother sighed, and Josh waited for her to tell him he was grounded, or that they were going to take away his computer. He held his breath, hoping his punishment wouldn’t be too bad.
“I’m not going to tell you not to play the game anymore,” she said. “I’ve told you how your father and I feel about it. I’m going to leave the decision about whether or not to play up to you.”
“Me?” Josh repeated.
His mother nodded. “It’s up to you,” she affirmed. “And I think you’ll make the right decision.” She walked to the door. “Dinner’s in five minutes.”
When she was gone, Josh leaned back in his chair. The right decision, he thought. He knew what she thought the right decision was. But what did he think? After hearing his mother talk about what had happened with Aunt Lucy, he felt horrible about ever having played. He understood now why the game upset his mother so much. But like he’d told her, it was still just a game. Not playing it wouldn’t erase what had happened.
He wondered if this was some kind of trick, if his mother was testing him to see what he would do. She’d said the decision was up to him, but if he chose to keep playing, would she punish him anyway?
A beeping sound interrupted his thoughts, and Josh looked over at his desk. The light on his computer screen was blinking, signaling a message. It’s probably Firecracker letting me know what a loser I am, Josh thought as he went and clicked on the message.
Josh:
Good game. Meet me tomorrow.
1600. Yancy Square Park.
Charlie? Josh thought. Charlie who?
Then it dawned on him. The Charlie. The best player in the game Charlie. Charlie wanted to meet him? But how did he know who Josh was? Josh read the note over but couldn’t make any sense of it. Why had Charlie said “good game” when Josh had blown it? Again.
“This has been a really weird day,” Josh told himself as he stood up to go downstairs. “A seriously weird day.”
4
The boy with the skull mask was the least bizarre of the people waiting on the platform when Josh got off the elevated train at Yancy Street the next afternoon. Two girls dressed identically as baby dolls, complete with pigtails tied with pink ribbons and holding oversized lollipops, turned their heavily made-up faces toward him and laughed loudly as he passed by. A man wearing a Santa suit held a burning stick to his mouth and blew a cloud of fire into the air as a small crowd watched and clapped. When he held out his fur-trimmed hat for them to put coins into it, a little boy not more than five years old snatched it from his hand and ran down the long flight of stairs. Santa followed him, cursing loudly.
Welcome to the Docklands, Josh thought as he descended the opposite set of stairs. It wasn’t that the Docklands was dangerous, exactly. It was just weird. The Docklands was where the city’s street people lived—not just the outright homeless (although there were lots of them there) but also the runaways and castoffs and people who didn’t fit in anywhere else. Walking around there always made Josh feel like he was at a Halloween party. He wondered why Charlie had chosen this part of town to meet in.
“Hey, guy. Want some dust?”
Josh shook his head at the person speaking to him, a boy about his own age whose skin was the light blue of a Duster. His eyes, like those of everyone who used a lot of dust, were a peculiar mix of iridescent blue and purple swirling around a gold pupil in a hypnotizing pattern. He wore only white leather shorts and a harness from which sprouted a pair of white feathered wings. As soon as Josh passed him, the boy asked the same question of someone else: “Want some dust?”
Josh walked to the corner and entered Yancy Square Park. Like the streets, it was filled with all kinds of people. Some sat or slept on benches. Others stood in small groups, talking loudly and smoking. Josh walked through the park, looking at the faces for someone who might be Charlie. Eventually he came to a large fountain. In the center was a raised cube of brushed aluminum that stood on metal legs a dozen feet tall. Water poured from holes in the cube, falling down into the deep aluminum bowl below. On top of the cube stood the statue of a man.
Josh knew who it was. Drax Jittrund, the most famous Torcher of all time. He had led the forces that had cleaned the city of zombies. He’d fought bravely alongside his men, torching thousands of zombies himself before he’d been bitten during a final mission deep in the city’s sewers. He’d ordered his men to torch him.
Josh sat on the edge of the bowl. He looked at his watch. It was just past four. The school day had been torture. All he’d been able to think about was meeting Charlie. As soon as the last bell rang, he’d raced out of there.
“Waiting for someone?”
Josh turned to see a girl looking at him. Her features were Asian, her eyes as dark as her hair. She was dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt underneath a battered leather jacket. The T-shirt said MISSION OF BURMA. Her feet were encased in heavy black boots with thick heels that made her a good five inches taller than she really was.