Cure for the Common Universe (3 page)

I gripped the steering wheel, quickly trying to formulate my talking points. We may have had this argument dozens of times before, but this time was different. This time he had
two guards the size of refrigerators, and I . . . I had a date on Thursday. My suitcase sat in the driveway. Clearly rehab wouldn't be an overnight stay.

My dad stood tall, feet firmly planted. “You gonna tell me you don't play too many video games?”

“No,” I said. He had me beat there. He even had a piece of graph paper. “I'm going to ask you what's
wrong
with video games.”

“Well,” my dad said, leaning against the Xterra, “you're not getting any exercise, for one. You never do anything your stepmother or I ask you to. You—”

“Dad.
Dad.
I asked you what's wrong with
video games
.”

He sighed. “Violence,” he said, like it was obvious. “World's a lot more violent than when I was younger. Now that kids can simulate killing each other, they want to try it in real life.”

“Riiiiiiight,” I said. “'Cause they didn't have
any
violence when you were a kid. Except, y'know, Vietnam. Or how about Korea, before that? We can keep going back if you'd like. Hitler never played video games.”

My dad nodded. “You can't ignore that kid who ran his dad down with the car.”

The incident had made national news. But instead of the media focusing on a number of other factors that could have caused the kid's violent outburst—bad living environment, bullying, depression—they focused on the fact that his dad had just taken away his copy of
Halo
.

“I was joking about the vehicular manslaughter,” I said, gesturing to the tank in front of the Xterra.

My dad rubbed the back of his neck. “You might not go out and hurt anyone. But what
good
are those games doing you?”

“Hand-eye coordination,” I said.

“You seem to have missed the whole back half of the Xterra here.”

“They're good for learning how to code.”

“I haven't seen any Java manuals in your room.”

“They're better for the environment than a lot of hobbies.”

“So is running.”

“I could make millions as an Esports player.”

“Where's the check?”

“Online games help break down international borders.”

“By fighting?”

“They help people from different countries understand each other.”

“By calling each other ‘bitch'?”

“That's a term of endearment!”

I collapsed onto the steering wheel. I had never imagined my romantic future would hang on a single video game debate.

I sat upright and snapped. “Games can help kids overcome dyslexia,
and
they help old people become better drivers.”

My dad smiled. “It's a good thing I'm not raising an elderly person who can't read.”

My head fell back onto the steering wheel. My jaw trembled at the thought that I was going to lose the first shot I'd ever had with a real girl. The ironic thing was that I was
only having this argument so I could go on a date and have a good excuse to
not
play so many video games.

“Son,” my dad said, his Mountain voice crumbling a bit. “You're just not living up to your potential. I'd rather see you go out and fail in the real world than succeed in a world that doesn't exist. I'm not seeing any skills in you that you didn't have before your mom bought you that machine.”

It was a Nintendo Wii. She had bought it for me the first Christmas after my parents divorced. In the card, she'd written:

Your dad is going to hate this.

But I hope you love it.

XO,

Mom

“Dad . . . it's not like I can play so many video games that I throw up on the carpet and lose consciousness for two days.”

He sighed. “This is not a conversation about your mother.”

“I'm not the one who brought her up.”

We stared into each other's eyes, trying to reach something deeper. I broke contact and clicked the turn signal left, then right, and then left again.

“I've tried reasoning with you,” my dad said. “I've tried getting you out in the world. So has your stepmother. I don't have any other options.”

“And if I really did meet a girl, Dad? Wouldn't you want me to go out with her and start something healthy in my life? Something that could get me away from games?”

My dad hesitated for a second. His eyebrows relaxed. My heart gave a little leap of hope.

Casey shouted from the porch. “What are you letting him tell you? Do not listen. It is
time to go
!”

I scowled at her. “You know she plays
Candy Crush
, right?”

My dad refurrowed his eyebrows and took up his Mountain stance again.

Dammit.

“Do you remember that time you promised me you'd stopped playing
Warcraft
and gave me the copy of your game?”

I rubbed my forehead. “Yeah.”

I'd let him take the disc because he hadn't known the game was already downloaded to my computer. He caught me playing five minutes later.

“Guess I don't have much reason to trust you, then.”

“Dad, this is
different
. This girl is
real
. And she thinks I'm great for some reason.”

“Think how impressed she'll be with your new skills when you come home.”

The driver door popped open, and a hand seized my elbow. The tank from behind the Xterra gently but firmly pulled me out of the Xterra and into the sun.

I looked at my dad. “He had the spare key the whole time?”

“I didn't want you to think I don't respect your opinion,” he said.

“No,” I said. “You just wanted me to think my opinion mattered to you before you had me dragged away.”

The other tank retrieved my suitcase from the driveway while the first led me to a copper-colored Oldsmobile on the other side of the street. He spread my arms and then gave me a thorough pat-down and emptied my pockets, handing my wallet, iPhone, and fingernail clippers over to my dad.

“Have fun!” Casey called, waving from the porch.

She went inside and slammed the door.

That was it. I was cast out of Arcadia. No more Caligari District. No more goblin carnival. No more pastel spaceships soaring us to other universes to enlist anthropomorphic fighters. No more adventures with the Wight Knights.

That was when I realized . . . when I thought of Serena, I didn't care about video games.

One of the tanks opened the back door of the Oldsmobile.

My dad held out his hand to me. I didn't take it.

“What?” I said. “You think I'm going to go off and learn some valuable life lesson and then come back and be the perfect son who treats your child bride better?”

“Actually,” my dad said, still holding out his hand, “I'm hoping you come back and treat yourself better.”

“You're an asshole, Dad,” I said. “And I don't mean that as a term of endearment.”

“Okay, Jaxon.” He gave me a flat smile and put his hand in his pocket. “Good luck.”

The tank lowered my head into the Oldsmobile and shut the door.

T
wo rules,” the tank in the driver's seat said. “Don't swear and don't say nothing about the music.” He tossed a granola bar into my lap. “Tell me if you need to use the bathroom.”

He started the engine and the car filled with gospel music.
Elvis
gospel music.

“You saw me crying in the chaaaaaaaaapellllllll . . .”

The other tank climbed into the passenger seat and sighed. Apparently he had to follow the rules too.

“They call me Command and him Conquer,” the driver said. As if they weren't intimidating enough.

From the backseat I noticed that Command kept his poofy hair tied back in a neat bun, while Conquer let his roam free. Conquer also had a much bigger equator. They looked strong enough to tame a rabid ox, let alone my weak ass. I wouldn't be able to escape them if I tried. Besides, the backseat had no door handles.

“We got one more pickup,” Command said, throwing the gear into drive.

The car rolled forward. My stomach took a moment to catch up.

My dad waved from the porch. I looked away.

While Elvis sang another song—
“With arms wide oooooooopeeeeeennnnnn”
—Command drove east to the rich side of Salt Lake. We pulled up to a three-story house with dozens of windows. Command climbed out of the Oldsmobile and knocked on the front door. A pretty woman with sad eyes answered, and they went inside.

The car cooled and made ticking noises. I surveyed the neighborhood. If I could leap over the front seat and out the driver's side door before Conquer clamped on to my ankle, maybe I could get a running head start and hide behind the shrubbery. After he and Command gave up the search, I'd walk downtown and camp at Mandrake's, sleeping in their alcove, washing up in the bathroom, and working on my charming conversation with the waitresses until my date on Thursday. Hopefully they'd have some after-dinner mints.

I had nothing to lose. I would bolt in three . . . two . . .

“You thinking about escaping?”

Conquer adjusted the rearview mirror to meet my eyes.

“Yes,” I said.

“They all do.” He chuckled and stretched. “This ain't no video game.”

The tension uncoiled in my legs. “Thanks for clearing that up.”

A minute later Command exited the house, leading a skinny kid with tattoo sleeves.

“The
hell
?” Conquer said under his breath.

I may have been suffering from gamer's squint, but this kid looked like he'd just been pulled out of an iron lung. It seemed the only thing preventing him from falling dead in the driveway was Command's supporting hand.

Command opened the backseat door, and the kid slumped in next to me. His head was shaved, his ears gauged, and his arms writhed with homemade tattoos—frayed wires spitting electricity. The kid looked like an electric warlock . . . with only one hit point left.

“Two rules.”

Command repeated the business about swearing and music and then tossed another granola bar over his shoulder. It hit the kid in the chest, but he didn't even flinch. His dark eyes, slumped head, and drooping lip made me briefly reconsider my argument that it was impossible to be addicted to video games.

Briefly.

“So,” I said. “What are
you
in for?”

The kid was already asleep.

Command pulled onto the freeway, and we headed west, across the tracks, and through the industrial side of town. Soon the city gave way to salt flats, and the pit in my stomach deepened. Just as an
Arcadia
character steps on an ill-rendered piece of ground, slips through the game's polygons,
and hurtles into the black unknown, I was falling through the world. My beautiful fantasy world of trumpets, dancing buildings, and cotton candy skies was being replaced with the pant of air-conditioning, the slimy feeling of vinyl against the back of my neck, and—“Hrr . . .
Hrrmph
 . . .”—the smell of vomit every time we stopped to let the electric tattoo kid throw up.

Three Elvis-Sings-Gospel songs later, we came to a small casino town, cruising under a large sign of a mechanical cowgirl kicking her giant neon leg. We didn't stop there. We continued on through the desert until even the out-of-service gas stations disappeared, and then pulled off the main road and kept on driving.

Dunes rose up around the car in dull waves.

“You're not going to make me dig holes, are you?” I asked.

“Nope.” Command chuckled. “We're just going to make you have fun.”

That sounded so much worse.

The sun dipped in the sky, and the electric warlock slumped into the middle of the seat. I remained wide awake, mentally mapping every turn, road sign, and the size and slope of every dune. I was determined to know exactly where I was imprisoned and how to find my way back.

But as the desert stretched on, I realized it would be impossible to walk back. Not unless I wanted Thursday's date to be a crow feasting on my belly meat. After that unpleasant realization, I just kept an eye on the electric warlock's drool, slowly creeping toward my leg.

Finally, as Elvis sang of coming to the garden, we arrived. The rehab facility was a windowless, cream-gray box of a building, nestled among dunes that stretched to the horizon.

It looked as lonely as a LEGO lost in an infinite sandbox.

Command parked in a dusty lot, pulled my suitcase out of the trunk, and opened my door. He escorted me to a white entrance, which opened without a key. Clearly, everyone here knew the walk back to Salt Lake would be impossible. Command gestured inside. I took one last glance toward the east. The desert would have stretched on forever, were the sky not there to stop it.

I went inside.

Like a stage right out of
BioShock
, two concrete hallways stretched left and right along the building's outer walls—one long, one short, both flickering fluorescent. The place smelled like rusty pipes and hummed like dead static.

Welcome to Rapture,
I thought, and a darkness opened inside me.

Conquer practically carried the electric warlock in after us.

“Kid's not doing so hot,” Conquer said, lightly slapping the warlock's cheek.

“Take him to the Fairy Fountain,” Command said. “We'll get him guilded later.”

Conquer hefted the kid's body down the short hallway, and Command put his nose three inches from mine. “Do I need to give you a cavity search?”

My butt clenched. “Um, huh?”