Multiplayer (5 page)

“I might look in on you guys. See what’s going on.”

They parted with a fist-bump and Hector turned for home. Halie trotted after him, her blonde ponytail bouncing from side to side as she labored under her heavy, pink backpack. “Slow down,” she whined before they’d gone a dozen steps.

Hector glanced back. “Mom said I have to walk you home. She didn’t say I had to crawl.”

“But your legs are longer than mine,” she gasped over her heaving chest.

“It’s not my problem you’re the baby of the family.”

Halie’s blue eyes flashed. “I’m not a baby!”

“Baby of the family.” Halie sprinted up and tried to kick him, but he danced out of the way. “Knock it off or I’ll tell Mom you were in the street again.”

“I’ll tell Mom you called me a baby!”

“Go ahead. I won’t get in trouble for telling the truth.” Hector jumped out of her way again and jogged on ahead.

Their house was one of the smaller homes in the subdivision, a two-story traditional brick with a yard of neatly trimmed green grass and a sugar maple tree. Its leaves had not yet begun to turn but they rustled when the wind blew signaling that fall couldn’t be far off. Hector glared at the tree. He’d soon be raking those rustling leaves. Then frowned at the grass he’d been mowing since they moved in.

The house next to Hector’s was a mansion. Sanjar Zahedi’s father owned convenience stores
,
and from the looks of the mini-mosque, he was selling a lot of candy, soft drinks, and gasoline. No wonder all the Muslims wanted to come to America; they got rich. The look of the place made Hector mad enough to want to build his own IED and bury it in their yard. Blow the crap out of all of them. Guilt gripped him when he realized that’d make him no better than the people who murdered his dad.

Sanjar’s older brother Shah was outside washing their Hummer. It was dark green with tall tires and reminded him of the army HUMVEES he used to ride in with his dad. Shah was lean and brown, with curly hair that made Helen woozy. He was nothing like Sanjar. None of the Zahedis were like Sanjar. They all dressed like real Americans and acted like normal people. All except Sanjar with his robes, Qur’an, and funny hats.

Shah looked up and waved, then scanned the soccer jersey Hector was wearing. “
Bayern
today, huh?”

“They won this weekend,” he said with little enthusiasm. “So what’s up with you?”

“My mom said if I washed the Hummer, she’d let me take it out sometime.” Shah was a junior in high school and about to get his license. “How about you?”

Hector shrugged. “Flunking algebra.”

Shah stood up straight. “Ouch! Hey, if you need any help, I’m pretty good. And my dad, he’s a real whiz.”

Hector forced a smile and said, “I’ll let you know.” Algebra class at home? he thought to himself. From a Zahedi? Not likely. And there was no way he’d ever tell his mom about the offer. She’d make him to do it. Hector thought his mom should have more sense. Instead, she acted like the Zahedis were her favorite neighbors. She didn’t have to hate them, but why was she always trying so hard to act like they were friends?

Sanjar popped out of the front door like a Jack-in-the-box. Somehow he always beat Hector home, and then waited for him. He saw Hector and started toward him, still wearing his robe and fez. “Hey, Hector,” Sanjar called. “Wait a minute!”

“I gotta go,” Hector called back, feeling even less enthusiastic about Sanjar than usual. “My, uh, Mom’s waiting for me. I got a doctor’s appointment.”

“That’s not Mom’s car,” puffed Halie, flagging behind him.

He sprinted up the steps and burst through the door. “Mom, I’m home!” he exclaimed, knowing it would annoy his sister.

Helen leaned around the kitchen corner and glared at him. She was talking on the house phone while texting on her cell phone. “I’m not your mother,” she announced. “If I were, I’d paddle your butt ‘til you couldn’t sit down.”

Hector turned and shook his rear end at her, then said in a terrible, fake English accent, “I love it when you talk dirty.”

“Oh, grow up,” she said, and went back to her connectivity.

Hector frowned. Halie and Helen both looked like their father – light complected. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. And with its cliques, curbs, rules, and shiny cars, he suspected they preferred this upscale neighborhood to the drab base housing they had lived in while Dad was alive
.
But Hector hated it here. He missed his old friends. Missed his old school. Missed his old soccer team. Missed the army. These people just didn’t understand him and he didn’t understand them.

He threw his backpack on a chair. At least his mother wasn’t home yet. It put off the inevitable. He’d have to tell her about his algebra grade. She’d want to take him back to the shrink and tell him the
Omega Wars
“therapy” wasn’t working. They’d try to give him more pills to make his brain go to sleep. He wasn’t going to take any.

Hector stood still and listened intently, but didn’t hear the television. So he peeked around the corner into the den and saw the chair in which Pappous usually sat. It was empty. Hector nodded approval, snatched up his backpack, and darted up the stairs to his room, thankful that his mother had forbidden video games for the afternoon. Now, he had an excellent excuse for not doing his homework. After checking his status on Facebook, he changed into shorts for riding his bicycle but stopped at his window, which looked out onto Sanjar’s yard. His classmate was there, carrying a small sack across the backyard. Hector watched him. Sanjar stopped at a compost pile at the back of their yard, dumped the bag, and stirred it in with a rake.

“Probably a body in there,” Hector joked to himself, except he wasn’t entirely joking. How did he know Sanjar and his family weren’t up to something? Maybe this whole “looking-American” thing the rest of the Zahedis did was just a bunch of posing so people wouldn’t suspect they were supporting Muslim terrorism. Who knew? Maybe they were terrorists themselves.

Hector watched from his window as Sanjar walked back to the house and threw the bag in the trash. Then he began juggling a soccer ball. “Not bad for a guy wearing a dress,” Hector mumbled, when he heard the door slam downstairs followed by a jolly “Hallo!”

“Pappous!” Hector heard Halie squeal, followed by the sound of laughter. In his mind he saw Pappous picking up Halie, and his little sister smiling and giving him a kiss. Hector ground his teeth as an image flashed into his head - his father doing the same thing with him.

He crept downstairs and paused at the bottom step, scheming for a way to avoid the Pappous hug. His ears told him they were in the kitchen. “Where’s Hector?” he heard the old man say, and then Halie complaining about him calling her a baby. Hector clenched his teeth as he listened to Pappous talk. The old man had been in the country since the sixties but sounded like he’d just stepped off the boat. “I’ll talk to him when he comes down,” he told Halie.

“No, you won’t,” Hector whispered. He waited until he heard the sound of the television from the den and tiptoed past.

“Where are you going?” asked Helen, when he entered the kitchen. His sisters were seated at the table doing homework but Helen’s phone was lying next to her open, screen glowing.

“Out,” whispered Hector.

“Mom wants you to tell me where you’re going,” she said loudly.

“Shhh!” hissed Hector. “I don’t want to –” he rolled his eyes in the direction of the family room.

“You’re such a complete and total stain,” Helen said matter-of-factly, and just as loudly. “And as bad as I’d like to get rid of you, you can’t leave until you tell me where you’re going.”

Hector cringed. “Do you think you could keep it down? Riding my bike. I have my cell phone. You can text me. You know how to use your fingers don’t you?”

“Do you have homework?” Helen asked, ignoring the dig. “Mom wants us to finish our homework first.”

“Mom told me to go outside when I got home.”

“Why’s Hector whispering?” asked Halie.

“Because he’s an immature little twit,” Helen answered with abject kindness.

“I’m out of here,” said Hector.

Helen threw her hands up. “What-ev.” Her phone buzzed and she snatched it up, furiously working the keypad with her thumbs.

Hector pedaled through the neighborhood, looking for something to do. Bicycles stood in open garages unused and backyard swings and trampolines were empty and motionless. There weren’t even any pets outside. Deion had a dog, but it went to ‘daycare’ everyday because no one was ever at his house enough to take care of it.

As he passed the school, Hector watched a soccer team practicing on the field. He glanced down at his
Bayern
jersey and felt a tinge of regret, but had no desire to sign his life away to a club. He noticed a group of kids riding skateboards and trick-bikes in front of the school. As he drew near, however, his hope turned to disappointment. Among others, Sabrah the Goth and Chaz Martin, who’d dropped out of school the year before. Chaz was a year older than Hector, had a head of thick, red curls, and a reputation for getting into trouble for things like racing his go-cart on the school track. Hector kept going.

Just outside the neighborhood sat one of the Zahedi’s convenience stores. The
Gas-n-Go.
He parked his bike and went inside.

“Hello Hector. How are you?” said the thick-chested, swarthy man entrenched behind the cash register.

Hector forced a smile back at him. “Fine, Mr. Zahedi.”

Along with his graying hair and friendly smile, Mr. Zahedi had little pockmark scars down the right side of his face. He was wearing a blazer now but Hector knew those little scars ran all the way down his right arm. But the most noticeable thing was the heavy black patch that covered his right eye. Hector sometimes wondered if the scars were from a bomb he’d been building that had gone off accidentally. He couldn’t understand why his mom pretended to like this guy. He was obviously trouble.

“Can I help you find anything today?” Mr. Zahedi asked kindly.

“No, thank you.”

He walked around the store a few times. The little table where Mr. Zahedi and Pappous sometimes played checkers was empty. His grandfather was just as bad as his mom, hanging out up here swapping stories or whatever.

Hector finally bought a soda and a strip of beef jerky and brought them to the cash register. When Mr. Zahedi leaned forward to take Hector’s money his jacket fell open and Hector gasped. There was a small pistol strapped to his hip. Mr. Zahedi saw Hector’s stare and turned his body quickly to hide the gun, but Hector had already seen it.

“Thank you, my boy,” Mr. Zahedi said with a plastic smile. “Please give your family my regards.”

“I’ll do that…” said Hector, and backed slowly out the door, his eyes fixed on the bulge beneath Mr. Zahedi’s jacket. What would he be doing with a gun? Hector thought.

Once outside he’d only just opened his drink, still rattled by the gun, when he caught a flash of something out of the corner of his eye. He looked quickly to see a tail disappear around the edge of the store. Probably just a stray cat, but it still was something alive to pass the time with.

He crept to the edge of the wall and peeked around. There, not ten feet from him, was a tiny ball of gray fur with terrified, green eyes. Hector set his drink down, and emerged from around the corner. The kitten’s eyes grew as large as marbles, and it bolted to the back of the store.

Hector padded after the tiny animal, only to chase it under a dumpster that backed up to a wall of unkempt foliage. He used his teeth to rip off a piece of the jerky and stuck it under the edge of the dumpster. An instant later a gray paw swiped out and pulled it in, making Hector smile. A few more pieces and Hector hoped he could coax the stray into the open. He peered under the dumpster, almost hearing his mom’s voice censure him for snooping around where he wasn’t supposed to be. Good thing she wasn’t here. In the darkness under the steel bin, twin green gems twinkled out of the darkness, coming closer. But the eyes suddenly extinguished when Hector heard a car approaching. He darted behind the dumpster and forced himself between the untrimmed shrubs and the metal box.

Peeking around the edge, Hector could see it wasn’t a car but an old gray van with no side windows, like some kind of mobile meth lab. The driver, deeply tanned with a heavy moustache, climbed out and glanced around nervously. Once convinced that he was alone, he slid open the side door and knocked on the back door of the store.

Mr. Zahedi opened the door. The two men exchanged a brief hug and disappeared inside. Hector began creeping out of his hiding place, when he heard their voices grow louder. When they came back out, each was carrying a large white bucket bearing a black, skull-and-crossbones – and beneath it, the word CAUSTIC. Hector fell back behind the dumpster before they could see him. Caustic? That was like acid, or, that other thing they’d talked about in science class… a base. Whatever was in those buckets could eat human tissue, like skin or eyes. One after another of the containers disappeared into the van – a dozen in all. If they were as heavy as they looked it was enough to take out… Hector’s mind froze. An attack! There could be no other explanation.
Mr. Zahedi was a terrorist!
That’s why he had the gun. In case…

Hector strained to hear as the driver made a call. “Yes, I’ve got the stuff… I’m bringing it now… Yes, yes, very good stuff. Potent. You’re going to like it. I’ll meet you there…”

Hector was paralyzed. Afraid to even breathe. Trying to still the deafening pulse of his heart. Hector knew that once terrorists find out you’ve discovered their plan, they cut your head off. He’d seen it on the news. And YouTube. And if he tried to run, they’d shoot him down.

The driver put the phone away then he and Mr. Zahedi embraced. One of them said, Hector wasn’t sure which, “They’re going to like this.” The other laughed and said, “Allahu Akbar.” The driver climbed back into the van, slid the door shut, and drove off. Mr. Zahedi looked around to make sure no one had seen them, and slipped back inside.

Hector slid around to the other side of the dumpster, but the van was already out of sight. There was only one thing he could do. His dad would have agreed. He took out his cell phone and, with a shaking hand, stabbed 9 – 1 – 1 into the keypad.