Cure for the Common Universe (20 page)

“I do feel like more of a hero, I guess,” I said. “And not in an
Arcadia
way.”

“I know you're happy here,” Soup said, and poked my cheek. “You get the dopiest smile every time you win. It's really cu—
Whoa
.” He stopped walking. “What's
that
?”

There, in the corner of the hallway, was the vent I'd seen on my first night here. But the Dust Fairy was nowhere in sight. The grate was open, just a crack, revealing the green lights, winking one at a time, like they wanted us to follow them into the wall.

I made sure the coast was clear and then slid the grate out of the way while Soup whistled a hollow imitation of the secret music from
The Legend of Zelda
. “Shh,” I said. “You're ruining my childhood.”

We stared into an impossible space between the walls—almost as if an old hallway had been walled off. A dark passage led to the northeast corner of the building, where more lights pulsed like tiny stars.

“Side quest,” Soup whispered.

The word tickled the back of my neck. This was some serious
Stanley Parable
shit.

Soup squealed and clapped his hands together. “What are we waiting for? Let's go!”

“You go first,” I said. “I'll keep an eye out.”

Soup slid through the grate, his eyes adventure wide. He giggled.
“Spooky.”

I looked past his silhouette and saw more lights. What the hell was in there?

“You coming?”
he whispered from the darkness.

Doing in real life what you do in video games can get you into serious trouble. And I don't just mean shooting prostitutes when not playing
Grand Theft Auto
. I was so close to beating V-hab. I needed to keep my nose down, do my classes, and not lose any points for the next twenty hours.

“Go see what's around that corner,” I told him. “Then report back to me.”

He kept walking, giggling and rubbing his hands together. Once he disappeared around the corner, I quietly replaced the grate, tightened the screws with my thumbnail to keep him out of my hair for the night, and then jogged to the western passage.

Nearly every ounce of me wanted to go on that side quest. I'd been competing for points all week, but nothing had felt nearly so video gamey as watching Soup slide in between the walls. I had to shut off the video game part of my brain and stay focused. I had to earn points in stupid star class.

For Gravity.

A faint “Miles?” echoed down the hallway as I opened the yellow door and ascended the stairs to the roof.

•  •  •

Something was different.

No eyes were fixed to telescopes. No necks craned toward the stars. The players of star class were gathered around Fezzik and the Silver Lady near the edge of the roof. She had one hand over her mouth. He was down on one knee.

“I've known I wanted to do this since the moment I heard you talk about pulsars,” Fezzik said, then laughed too loud, and then wiped his forehead. He reached into his pocket and brought out a small cream-colored box.

The class stood, quieter and more reverent than they ever had for the universe.

“I've been trying to leave the old me behind,” Fezzik said, short of breath. “And. Well. You make me feel like a new man. Heh. And so yeah, then I thought, uh, heh, this is where we met. Here. At Video Horizons. Among these kids . . . So. Heh. Why not?”

My heart started to pound as his huge hands fumbled with the tiny box.

Oh God, was this how I looked when I asked out Gravity?

Fezzik managed to get the box open. The diamond was too small to sparkle in the starlight.

“Sue,” he said, “would you do me the honor of—”

“Dominic,” the Silver Lady interrupted softly. She laid her small hand on his giant shoulder.

All the players held their breath. I felt a physical pain in my chest.

“Can we talk about this in private?” she said.

Fezzik froze. He swallowed loudly and wiped his forehead again. Then he turned and saw us, all of us, the whole class, staring at him, down on one knee. He made a Wookiee sound and awkwardly pushed himself up.

“Please go back to your bunks,” the Silver Lady told us. “I'll see you all tomorrow night.”

Their difference in size was painfully apparent as Fezzik followed the Silver Lady down the stairs. A part of me wanted to ask her for experience points before they left . . . but it probably wasn't the best time. I also wanted to ask him,
Do you think the Silver Lady could ever love a former gamer?
It probably wasn't the best time for that, either.

The last of the players filed down the stairs. The air smelled of Fezzik's cologne and sweat. Funny that the Emperor of
Arcadia
had tried to give us advice on how to return to the real world. What if I took his advice and stopped playing games just to become like him? Rejected and pathetic?

I was about to descend the stairs, when a voice stopped me.

“I broke three fingers once.”

I peered around an air-conditioning unit and found Aurora, sitting on the roof's railing. Her hair was a white blur against the night sky.

“Um,” I said. “Okay?”

“I was eleven,” she said, eyes on the sky. “I was trying to get superpowers by sticking my hand inside a geode.”

I snorted.

She made her hand into a claw like it was still crammed inside the geode. “My hand got stuck. So I got a hammer, and . . .” She raised her other hand in a fist.

“Ouch,” I said.

She dropped both hands. “It hurt.”

“I'll bet.”

“The pain was like a carousel,” she said. “Just going round and round. I could barely think. The doctor tried to give me oxycodone”—she shook her hair—“but I refused to take them. I said, ‘Aurora, you should know better. Feel the pain so you won't be tempted to stick your hand into any more geodes.' ”

“Uh . . . huh,” I said. “Why are you telling me this?”

She peered around the air-conditioning unit to make sure no one was at the door. “I hope Fezzik doesn't go back to
Arcadia
, just to make his broken heart feel better.”

“What does that have to do with pills?”

She intertwined her fingers in front of her. “I was thinking about what you said about your mom and
Dr. Mario
. I think video games are kind of like medicine.”

I leaned against the air-conditioning unit and considered that. Games were the perfect way to get rid of stress. Crappy day at school? Chainsaw an alien in the face. Rejected by another girl? Burn your Sims in an apartment fire. Concerned that you'll be alone for the rest of your life? Stomp some monsters made of marshmallow.

“So just because something helps you forget your pain,” I said, “you should stay away from it?”

Aurora kept her fingers twined and bounced them against her knees. “Maybe only when you're trying to recover from something big. Like getting your hand stuck in a geode or breaking up with someone.” She crossed her feet, uncrossed them, and then crossed them again. “When your insides are like skinned knees and curdled milk, you gotta learn how to feel better all by your lonesome, without pills or games or anything like that, or else those bad feelings will just keep coming back.”

I joined Aurora on the roof's edge. The stars shone on the dunes. Ever since my mom had left, that skinned-knee-and-curdled-milk feeling had rarely left me. Not unless I played video games.

Aurora cleared her throat. “That's why I'm not drinking horchata anymore. Or masturbating. Gotta feel that pain. Gotta get over it all by my lonesome.”

My heart fluttered, and I chuckled. “You should tell Meeki that tactic.”

Aurora folded her hands between her legs. “I've got enough to worry about for myself right now.”

She stared into space. I stared at her.

The air-conditioning unit grumbled to life.

“Like what?” I asked.

Aurora tucked her hair behind her ears, and by the light of the moon, I saw her eyes for the first time. I mean I
really
saw them. She had two pupils in each eye.

I quickly looked away like I'd been caught staring.

“Coloboma,” she said. “It's a condition where my pupils never fully formed.”

I looked into her eyes again. Sure enough, her pupils were pinched, like the black holes of her eyes were slurping in either side of her irises. They were weird and scary and beautiful at the same time.

“They're pretty, Aurora.”

At some point we'd gotten really close to each other on the railing. Our eyes stayed locked until she gave her head a little shake and looked back at the sky.

“We are all made of star stuff,” she said. I was halfway through an eye roll when she finished, “But then again so are dog taints.”

I laughed so hard I nearly choked on my own spit. Aurora blushed and smiled. I hadn't really seen her smile before.

Before my heart could make a dive, I pushed off the railing and brushed the roof's dust from my pants. “I think I'm over that kind of medicine,” I said. “Video games. I'm ready to figure out the real world.”

Aurora jumped up too. “Let's get you out of here, then.”

I nodded at Orion, forever chasing those sisters. “I thought you said I was going to be here for a long, long time.”

Aurora shrugged. “Let's prove me wrong. We can't have this many broken hearts in one place. Yours, mine, Fezzik's. The whole building might collapse. And then the walls will come crumbling down on our heads. And there will be a timer and we'll have to escape before we're crushed to death.”

“Sounds fun,” I said. I tried to catch her eyes again. “What's breaking your heart, Aurora?”

She just gave a half smile and shook her hair.

“Are you going to break up with Max?” I asked.

She looked at me with those strange eyes of hers but didn't answer.

“Let's get us both out of here, then,” I said. “Tomorrow's the paintball tournament. Let's win the shit out of it.”

I opened the roof door, breaking the spell of the evening with fluorescent light. We descended the stairs. Aurora twined her fingers in front of her skirt and walked with her eyes fixed on her feet.

A small ticking echoed down the hallway.

“Uh . . .” I touched her shoulder. “I'll, um, catch up with you.”

She nodded and returned to the Nest while I jogged to the eastern hallway and found the heating vent.

“Soup?”
I whispered.

The tiny green lights had all gone out. The space between the walls was silent.

F
or the first time since being committed to V-hab, I woke before the rooster crowed. No speckled nose peeked over my bed. No nasally voice sang
“Moooooorning.”
I peered down and saw a half-finished cross-stitch that read
Gravity is soooo
sitting on the unruffled sheets of Soup's empty bunk.

I collapsed back onto my pillow. What had I done? I actually felt guilty now. Not just in an “I'm going to lose points” way. I lay there feeling very uncomfortable in my skin until the rooster crowed.

“Where's Soup?” Aurora asked, entering the Nest with her toothbrush.

“Who cares?” Meeki said, still wrapped up in her sheets.

I kept my eyes on the ceiling.

“I'm sure he'll turn up,” Fezzik said. He didn't sound worried, just heartbroken. His giant shoulders didn't seem so giant anymore.

I felt bad for him. Until he approached my bed.

“Morning, Miles.” He took a deep breath. I could tell I did not want to hear what he was about to say. “I've given it a lot of thought, and I've decided not to give you the points for those cross-stitches.”

I jerked upright. “That's not fair.”

“No,” Fezzik said. “It wouldn't be fair to you if I
did
give you the points. It would be like giving level forty armor to a level five character.”

I stared deep into his eyes. “Just because it didn't work out with the Silver Lady, doesn't mean you should take my chance at happiness away.”

I could tell that hurt him. But he didn't back down. “I'm trying to do the opposite,” he said. “I don't want you making the same desperate mistakes I did.”

The speaker crackled above my bed, and G-man's voice came through. “All players to the Hub for an emergency meeting.”

Fezzik turned away. My stomach twisted.

I followed the Fury Burds, minus Soup and Zxzord, to the Hub. Part of me was racked with guilt for talking to Fezzik that way, but most of me was trying to figure out how to make up for those missing points. . . . Wax the floors? Do every guild's laundry? Find the missing player I'd lost?

If I made it to my date, I'd make it up to everyone else.