Dream Walker (14 page)

His downward spiral didn’t begin until his mom and dad dropped him off at Kindergarten. Once he was left on his own in the world, he was met not with the adoration that his family had showered upon him, but with disdain.

Raze made people uncomfortable. He was preternaturally beautiful, with flawless, alabaster skin, jet black hair, and unearthly blue eyes framed within luscious, thick eyelashes—astonishing in a way that scared people rather than attracted them. Intimidated by his gloaming looks and wicked intelligence, his classmates—even his teachers—kept him at arms length.

Keenly aware of others’ anxiety around him, Raze attempted to assuage their nerves by withdrawing and keeping his distance. But this only made people more uncomfortable and their insouciance turned into aggression. His peers began to bully him with simple name-calling: “Creeper,” “Damien,” and “Zombie.”

Hurt, Raze retreated even further into himself. But the more aloof he became, the more vicious they became. By middle school, although he had pretty much succeeded in making himself invisible, even the lowest dregs of the caste system snarled and rolled their eyes at him, while the assholes shoved him and provoked him into fights.

With nowhere to turn, Raze sought asylum in his room where he could play with his erector set, read his favorite chapter books again and again, or just lie on his bed and stare out into blank space.

Then one Christmas, his grandparents gave him the Quantum3. It was the latest, greatest gift that season. People stood in long lines in the freezing, pre-dawn hours of Black Friday, hoping to get their hands on one. They physically fought each other in the aisles over the last boxes; and at one Midwest department store, a stampede to get at them killed a shopper—a poor, old lady who just wanted a George Foreman Grill.

The Quantum3 soon occupied every moment of his free time. He mastered every arcade and racing game and began asking his parents to purchase more challenging games. They obliged, happy he wasn’t moping around anymore. Raze began with fantasy games like DragonSlayer and XCaliber, becoming an expert at those before moving on to Matador, Reaper, and KIA.

He stopped doing his homework, opting to play Morph and 12th Commandment instead. He stopped completing assignments at school and doodled in a spiral bound notebook, drawing game characters and creating maps of his own game worlds. He began failing his classes. But because his teachers didn’t want to see him again the next year if they flunked him—no child could ever be left behind, after all—they passed their F student along with generous C’s and D’s.

His home life began to deteriorate. His parents, who had so much pride and hope for him when he was younger, couldn’t hide their disappointment. But even though they always threatened to take the Quantum3 away, as punishment for bad grades or fighting, they never followed through. Gaming kept Raze in his room, and when he was in his room, he wasn’t around to remind them of their own failings. So, instead, they continued to buy every upgrade and game that he requested.

For his sixteenth birthday, he convinced them to buy him the new and improved Q3 console. The Q3 was a solid, onyx cube, a perfectly square monolith, seamless and shiny as an oil slick. There weren’t any openings for game disks, because disks were no longer necessary. The wireless console came with access to Quantum’s NOW Network, an online service that allowed players to connect and play any game on the network, 24/7.

Once a four-walled prison that locked him away from the world, his room became a sanctuary—his gaming console, the portal through which he made his escape—and the game, AnnihilNation, his new world.

Christened with the tag “CrazE,” he became known as the most formidable player on the NOW, not just because he attacked his enemies with vengeance, but also because he was gifted with an almost psychic ability to predict another player’s strategy. He
pre
-maneuvered them, rather than just out-maneuver them. He took his opponents totally by surprise, used their own tricks against them, and destroyed them before they ever had time to react.

Raze began playing in,
and winning
, tournaments. While most trophies consisted of cases of soft drinks, sample boxes of junk food, and other gamer staples, some were actual cash prizes. Raze started getting checks in the mail. Soon he was able to buy himself a cheap, little beater to get around in and he began traveling to area tournaments, winning even larger cash prizes, putting money away in a savings account and finally getting his parents to stop calling him a slacker.

Besides gaining an income from winning competitions, Raze acquired fans, a live following of people who borderline idolized him. They showed up when he played, emailed him love letters, and asked him to mentor them in learning to play the game better. Girls actually wanted to meet him, hang out, and have some real-time game time. In gaming circles, his dark, brooding looks made him mysterious and alluring, bringing him the kind of attention that had evaded him all his life. He quickly grew accustomed to it.

His mercenary alter ego rubbed off on him, and some of the mettle he found in the game followed him into the light of the real world. He decided he wanted to look as badass as CrazE did, so he started working out—running and lifting weights in his garage every day. Although it took a couple of hours away from his gaming practice, there were side benefits that made it worthwhile.

It helped him burn off the overpowering itch he got to beat, break, or destroy shit. Raze had countless holes in his bedroom walls to show for that rage.

It also gave him the to-die-for six pack and massive guns that the bimbos at school started to cream over. Sure, they were the same hos that used to turn up their noses at him, but now they were all over his junk and he wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to get his dick wet. That helped his game, too. It relaxed him and he played better relaxed.

He also liked knowing that most of the ass he was getting belonged to the fucksticks who had tormented him for years. When fucking their bitches didn’t provide him with enough gloat factor, Raze started returning the favor of whooping their ass for a change. This led to suspensions, of course, so Raze had to time his fights a few weeks out from a big tournament, which afforded him more practice time.

Everything started to turn in his favor. He looked awesome. He had money and a ride. He got pussy whenever he wanted. And nobody fucked with him anymore. Raze felt invincible. The complete opposite of how he felt at this moment.

He stopped walking. Therein lay the problem.

The full realization of his situation dawned on him. He had lost control. He lost control of the viewing; his energy had been swatted out of the space like it was nothing but a pesky gnat. He lost control of Blake; the option-lock Raze had initiated in Demesne wasn’t effective, as evidenced by Blake’s signature practically evaporating, only to completely resurface in the presence of that girl. He’d lost control of Demesne—his very own construct—when it disintegrated around him this morning. And he was on the verge of losing the control of the Project, which could mean the loss of everything he had worked for. The chaos of the day revolved solely around one thing...
that girl
.

A murderous desire to crush something returned and he looked around for something to take it out on. Just as he started kicking the shit out of an old, metal trashcan that already looked like it had been on the losing end of several such ass kickings, a flicker of light caught the corner of his eye. A neon green martini glass of the local dive sizzled into full illumination. He let up on the trashcan and considered a stiff one. Drinking was completely against his personal standard of operations; it dimmed the wits and made views less controllable.

Fuck it. It couldn’t make anything worse.
Raze walked through the swinging doors into the sticky, sweet stench of the tavern. It was packed with bodies, the new working class of the financial and dot-com era getting their Friday night happy hour on before taking a ferry home.

Raze bellied up to the bar and scoped out a bartender. He spotted a dishwater blond with a weak energy field, cranked up the magnetism in his own field, and directed it at her. It worked just like a tap-tap on her shoulder. She immediately looked up and over at him. She handed a customer the beer she had just pulled from the keg then bypassed 20 waiting customers to wait on Raze first. That was more like it—the world should bend at his will.

“Mark Manhattan, lose the cherry,” he demanded. “I’ll be at the corner table.” He walked away and sat down with his back turned to the crowd. She was pretty prompt on the service, too, setting his drink on the table within a couple minutes.

“Start me the next,” was how he thanked her.

He didn’t savor his drink—he slammed it—feeding fire with fire. The heat of it burned down through the center of him, settling into the pit of his empty stomach. He closed his eyes as the warmth spread from his belly into his blood stream, down his shoulders into his arms, into his brain, slowing down the synapse explosion that was creating havoc in his head.

The second drink was placed on the table. The waitress, seeing the empty glass already waiting for pick up, knew well enough not to linger. He took another drink, an appreciative sip this time and looked out the window at the Bay. His heartbeat slowed in time to the scintillation of the city lights reflecting on the undulating waves.

Aislen.

That’s what the therapist had called her. Raze was starting to reintegrate now and pulled up the memory from his subconscious. He might have been too dismissive about the benefits of bourbon.

She was a real person after all, not a wayward dreamer or accidental, astral tourist.
And
she was just an average, everyday girl. Raze was amazed, but confused. How had she accessed Demesne? And why?

Aislen.
Raze allowed himself to envision her now that he was a safe distance away from the energy vortex that had walloped him in the view. She appeared so timid and tremulous when she walked in that door, and yet she packed the ferocious energetic punch of a lioness on crack.

Irritation stirred up inside him again, but he extinguished it with another swallow of his drink. All of his failures today had revolved around her and failure was not a word in his vocabulary or an option in his life. Aislen was the hub that the skein of his reality had been unraveling around. He needed to find her and put her in her place of non-existence. But how?

Then he remembered. He’d had the sagacity to capture the frequency of the therapist, Troy. He could evoke that freq and track him to get to her. His pique started to settle, now that a plan was starting to come together. He ran a quick assessment.

Blake was still a problem. But maybe not as big of one as Raze thought. Even if he came totally out of the option-lock and started talking, after the state he’d been in all day, and the event of that afternoon, the authorities would give very little credence to anything he said. He would either stay in the hospital or be remanded to custody for killing his father. Eventually, Raze would get to him and finish the deal.

Raze also needed to cover the company’s tracks. If Blake reintegrated and started talking about the game, the police might want to take it and the visors for evidence. Raze could not let those visors get into the hands of the wrong people. He was going to have to get them from the Parrish house—
sooner
, rather than later.

Now that he had an agenda, he started feeling more like himself. First, he’d take a nap to burn off the alcohol, and then he’d take another astral trip back to Modesto to sniff around for Miss Aislen, and then scan the Parrish house for the visors. If he got a lock on them both tonight, he would take a trip to the valley and deal with them in person.

It would be much more of a pleasure to deal with Aislen in the flesh.

He got up, leaving the rest of his drink on the table.
Consider it a tip
, he said telepathically to the waitress.

CHAPTER 11

The afternoon was totally fubar. Mathis and Jackson had barely gotten situated in the observation room when the young nurse walked into the padded cell with the therapist and Blake. Mathis didn’t think that was in the game plan, but, lo and behold, the boy came out of his stupor. He said some cockamamie bullshit to the nurse and scared the living crap out of her because she spun tail out of the room and took off running down the hall.

“What the fuck just happened?” Jackson said, staring through the window.

“I have no fucking idea,” Mathis said.

The boy stared at the doorway after the girl for a long moment. The therapist, Troy, tried to engage Blake in a conversation again, peppering him with questions, but the boy didn’t react to him at all. When it was clear that the girl wasn’t coming back, he slowly retreated back into his brain stew.

The therapist was smart enough to know when to give up. When he came out of the room, Jackson stormed into the hallway.

“What the hell was that all about?”

Troy shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, but it was pretty intense.”

“Gee, is that your professional opinion?” Jackson never could hide his sarcasm when he was upset.

“I don’t know what you are expecting. It could be that he thinks he knows her. It could have been a fluke response to us being in the room. It could be that he is malingering, but that would be a really good act for a twelve-year-old to pull off. It could be a lot of things, but the cause of it is irrelevant, isn’t it?”