Kid, you just never give up.
Im like, alive. How could I? I stand up and dust myself off. My tears are gone as mysteriously as they came.
He kicks a chair at me. Sit. There are new house rules. Take notes. Violate one and youre dead. Acknowledge.
I roll my eyes and toss myself into the chair, slinging a leg over the side. Belligerence is me. Im listening, I say irritably.
I hate rules. They always screw me up.
THIRTY-FOUR
Where do you think youre going?
Dont you know its dark outside?
I slow-mo Joe it down the corridor cussing Ryodan but keeping it under my breath since hes walking right next to me.
The new house rules are the biggest pile of BS I ever heard. Its going to kill me to follow them. Literally result in my death because theres no way Ill remember to do everything he wants me to do while also keeping track of everything Im not allowed to do. In addition to Report to work at eight every night is the most offensive rule of all: You will never leave Chesters unaccompanied by one of my people again.
So, I never get to be alone, like, ever? I exploded, flabbergasted. Dude, I need my private time. I been alone most of my life. Too many people in my personal space start to chafe me after a while. I get edgy and weird. And tired, too, like they wear me out just being there. I have to get off by myself, or be with one person like Dancer to recharge.
He didnt answer me.
Another one that really gets me is that Im supposed to never question or argue with him in public! Im going to be dead by morning. Only way I have a snowballs chance in hell of succeeding there is if I start wearing a muzzle or cut out my own tongue.
You can say anything you want to me in private, he said. Which is way the fuck more than I permit anyone else.
I dont want no private time with you.
Too bad, he said. Plan on a lot of it.
Why do you dick with me? Why dont you just forget about me and let me live my life. Its weird to think hes been watching me since I was nine. I never even noticed him. Hes noticed me probably more than anybody else ever has, including my mom.
Again, he doesnt answer.
I walk with him to the end of a hallway on the third floor. He stops at a glass panel thats smoked black and pulls a cloth hood out of his pocket. When he reaches for me, I duck back and say, Youre kidding, right?
He just looks at me until I snatch the hood from his hand, put it on myself, and let him guide me by an arm.
I suffer the indignity of being blinded in silence, and focus on absorbingevery detail I can. I count steps. I sniff through the heavy fabric. I listen hard. When we get on an elevator and go down, I count seconds so I can figure out what floor hes taking me to when I finally get some time alone, and I will. He cant have someone on me every second of every day. Hell get tired of it. I need to get back to Dancer! I need to talk to Ryodan about getting samples but when I brought up the Ice Monster he told me to stow it.
When we arrive at our destination and he pulls the hood off, Im floored to see Ryodans got his own War Room, and of course its top-of-the-line, technological perfection, and makes ours look stupid! Once again Im jealous. There are computers everywhere. CPUs and monitors and keyboards and I dont know what half the stuff in the room is, and I know a lot. Dancer would go crazy in here!
Hes got a map up, too, but unlike our paper one, his is electronic, on a glass panel suspended from the ceiling, about twenty feet wide and ten feet tall. Its something out of a futuristic movie. Its got lots of lines and dots and triangulated areas marked out in different colors.
Sit.
I drop down in a chair behind an enormous slab table that faces the map. There are nine chairs at the table. I wonder how long this room has been here, how many centuries these dudes who dont seem to be able to die have sat in this room and plotted things. I wonder what kind of things guys like them plot. Coups? Economic catastrophes? World wars?
So, Barrons is alive, too, I fish.
Yes.
Dude, what the feck? I dont know what your superpower is, but I want whatever youve got.
You think.
I know.
You dont even know what it is. Yet youd take it sight unseen.
To, like, never die? Fecking-A I would!
And if theres a price.
Dude, were talking immortality. There aint no price too high!
He gives me a faint smile. Ask me again when youre older.
Huh? I say. Really? When Im older I can have whatever you got? Like, how much older? Fifteen?
I didnt say you could have it. I said you could ask me. And no, not fifteen.
Dude, give me a little hope here.
I just did.
He taps something in on a remote device and all the sudden Im not looking at Dublin on the grid anymore. Hes zoomed out and Im seeing a map of surrounding countries. There are dots pegged in England, Scotland, France, Germany, Spain, Poland, Romania, and Greece. He zooms out farther and I see two in Morocco and one in Norway.
Im like, alive. How could I? I stand up and dust myself off. My tears are gone as mysteriously as they came.
He kicks a chair at me. Sit. There are new house rules. Take notes. Violate one and youre dead. Acknowledge.
I roll my eyes and toss myself into the chair, slinging a leg over the side. Belligerence is me. Im listening, I say irritably.
I hate rules. They always screw me up.
THIRTY-FOUR
Where do you think youre going?
Dont you know its dark outside?
I slow-mo Joe it down the corridor cussing Ryodan but keeping it under my breath since hes walking right next to me.
The new house rules are the biggest pile of BS I ever heard. Its going to kill me to follow them. Literally result in my death because theres no way Ill remember to do everything he wants me to do while also keeping track of everything Im not allowed to do. In addition to Report to work at eight every night is the most offensive rule of all: You will never leave Chesters unaccompanied by one of my people again.
So, I never get to be alone, like, ever? I exploded, flabbergasted. Dude, I need my private time. I been alone most of my life. Too many people in my personal space start to chafe me after a while. I get edgy and weird. And tired, too, like they wear me out just being there. I have to get off by myself, or be with one person like Dancer to recharge.
He didnt answer me.
Another one that really gets me is that Im supposed to never question or argue with him in public! Im going to be dead by morning. Only way I have a snowballs chance in hell of succeeding there is if I start wearing a muzzle or cut out my own tongue.
You can say anything you want to me in private, he said. Which is way the fuck more than I permit anyone else.
I dont want no private time with you.
Too bad, he said. Plan on a lot of it.
Why do you dick with me? Why dont you just forget about me and let me live my life. Its weird to think hes been watching me since I was nine. I never even noticed him. Hes noticed me probably more than anybody else ever has, including my mom.
Again, he doesnt answer.
I walk with him to the end of a hallway on the third floor. He stops at a glass panel thats smoked black and pulls a cloth hood out of his pocket. When he reaches for me, I duck back and say, Youre kidding, right?
He just looks at me until I snatch the hood from his hand, put it on myself, and let him guide me by an arm.
I suffer the indignity of being blinded in silence, and focus on absorbingevery detail I can. I count steps. I sniff through the heavy fabric. I listen hard. When we get on an elevator and go down, I count seconds so I can figure out what floor hes taking me to when I finally get some time alone, and I will. He cant have someone on me every second of every day. Hell get tired of it. I need to get back to Dancer! I need to talk to Ryodan about getting samples but when I brought up the Ice Monster he told me to stow it.
When we arrive at our destination and he pulls the hood off, Im floored to see Ryodans got his own War Room, and of course its top-of-the-line, technological perfection, and makes ours look stupid! Once again Im jealous. There are computers everywhere. CPUs and monitors and keyboards and I dont know what half the stuff in the room is, and I know a lot. Dancer would go crazy in here!
Hes got a map up, too, but unlike our paper one, his is electronic, on a glass panel suspended from the ceiling, about twenty feet wide and ten feet tall. Its something out of a futuristic movie. Its got lots of lines and dots and triangulated areas marked out in different colors.
Sit.
I drop down in a chair behind an enormous slab table that faces the map. There are nine chairs at the table. I wonder how long this room has been here, how many centuries these dudes who dont seem to be able to die have sat in this room and plotted things. I wonder what kind of things guys like them plot. Coups? Economic catastrophes? World wars?
So, Barrons is alive, too, I fish.
Yes.
Dude, what the feck? I dont know what your superpower is, but I want whatever youve got.
You think.
I know.
You dont even know what it is. Yet youd take it sight unseen.
To, like, never die? Fecking-A I would!
And if theres a price.
Dude, were talking immortality. There aint no price too high!
He gives me a faint smile. Ask me again when youre older.
Huh? I say. Really? When Im older I can have whatever you got? Like, how much older? Fifteen?
I didnt say you could have it. I said you could ask me. And no, not fifteen.
Dude, give me a little hope here.
I just did.
He taps something in on a remote device and all the sudden Im not looking at Dublin on the grid anymore. Hes zoomed out and Im seeing a map of surrounding countries. There are dots pegged in England, Scotland, France, Germany, Spain, Poland, Romania, and Greece. He zooms out farther and I see two in Morocco and one in Norway.
