Deadlock

  Michael cleared his throat. “Yes, sir.”

  Colonel Bryson scanned him up and down, as though doubting Michael’s response. “Whadda you got, Ben?” he said.

  “This one kid,” Ben said. He gestured at Emile, who snatched up his controller and began flipping through menus on the screen. Emile found a video file and started the playback. On the screen, a digitized soldier ran, jumped, cycled through weapons and fired, every move fluid, intentional. The left portion of the screen was dedicated to statistics: number of games played, hours online, frags-or kills-number of wins, both as a solo player and part of a team, overall points accumulated. Under the stats was information about the player: name, address, date of birth, the credit card used to pay for online access to the game. None of this data was available to other players. Only to Outis recruiters.

  “Seventeen,” Colonel Bryson said, referring to the player’s age. “Perfect. You played him?”

  “Oh yeah,” Ben said. “Kicked his butt.”

  “Wasn’t easy,” Anton said. “Kid knows how to move.”

  Colonel Bryson nodded. “Okay. Watch him a couple more weeks. If he looks right for us, let me know. We’ll insert our AI avatars into a few of his games, get a reading on how he handles special situations.”

  Julian knew “special situations” meant more than tough opponents. The Outis system would have the player face old women planting IEDs-improvised explosive devices-on the sides of roads, little kids who whip machine guns out of their soccer bags, civilians clambering to board a military vehicle. The player would be expected to shoot them.

  “Shows a willingness to do what’s necessary,” Ben had told him.

  “All right, guys,” Colonel Bryson continued. “You’ve already been debriefed about the other night’s fiasco.”

  “Sir, with all due respect, sir,” Ben said, “I think you mean Michael’s screwup.”

  Colonel Bryson gave Ben an I’ll-eat-you-for-breakfast look-with his bushy eyebrows and all-terrain features, he didn’t need to change his expression much to accomplish it. “I just said we’ve already been there. No need beating that horse, got it?”

  “Yes, sir,” Ben said dutifully.

  Colonel Bryson scanned the team. “I’m here to inform you that you’re going to have a chance to redeem yourselves.”

  “Another mission, sir?” Anton said.

  “Another mission, yes.”

  Michael paled visibly. Julian thought he was going to collapse back onto the couch, but he only wavered.

  “This one’s like eating your grandma’s apple pie, nothing to it,” Colonel Bryson said. “Recon, that’s all.”

  Ben rolled his head. “Sir, how is that going to make up for-”

  “It’s Priority One,” Colonel Bryson interrupted. “Straight from the top.”

  Julian thought his eyes flicked his way for a half second.

  “MOOTW, gentlemen. Military Operations Other Than War. You’ve studied it. You know it can be as crucial to U.S. security as combat. Though perhaps not as much fun.” He winked at Ben. “We head out at 1200 tomorrow, so no morning drills.”

  “Yeah,” Emile said, tugging the air with his fist.

  “Ben, make sure your team is ready. Get a good night’s sleep. Gentlemen.” He strode out of the room.

  Anton held his palm up, and Ben slapped it. “I thought they were going to ground us,” Anton said.

  “Us?” Ben said. “Not us. We’re goooood.” He made like he was shooting a machine gun. His aim came around to Michael, and he continued shooting. He pretended to raise the barrel and blow at the smoke. “Don’t make me do that for real, man. I mean it.”

  Michael limped toward his bedroom.

  “Hey,” Ben said. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “You heard him,” Michael said at the door. “I’m going to bed.”

  “Just be ready in the morning, dude,” Ben said. “No sudden bouts of stomach flu. You’ll come with us anyway.”

  “Nighty night,” Anton said.

  Michael disappeared into his room and shut the door.

  “Man,” Anton said, “that kid’s going to ruin it for all of us.”

  “He’ll be all right,” Emile said.

  “Better be,” Anton snapped. “Else we can take Julian. Huh, Julie?”

  “Leave me out of it,” Julian said, letting the chair settle back to the floor. He stood up and headed for the door. “And stop calling me that.”

  “Oooh,” Ben said. “Watch out, Anton. You’ll make him mad.”

  They all laughed.

  Julian flipped them the finger and walked out.

  ELEVEN

  From the heavy odor of tobacco, Julian knew his father was waiting for him as soon as he stepped into his quarters. The den and kitchen were dark, the only illumination coming from a dim light in the stove’s ventilation hood. Light seeped out from under his bedroom’s closed door. He considered going back to Fireteam Bravo’s room, see if he could convince them to put on a movie. But his dad would wait until Julian showed, stinking up his room with that smoke. Or he’d have him paged. One way or another, Dad would not be denied whatever lesson it was he wanted to bestow on Julian this time.

  He opened the door and stepped into a gray cloud. He coughed and waved it away from his face. His father was standing at his dresser, a pistol in his hands. It was the replica Springfield Custom Professional Model 1911A1 semiautomatic his father had given him. Apparently it was a copy of the pistol Page had used when he was a Special Ops officer in Vietnam. Dropped plenty of gooks, his father had said of the original.

  “Hey, kid,” his dad said, putting the pistol back into its stand.

  “Hey.” Julian spun onto the bed, fluffed his pillow, and lay down. He began fingering the peyote root bracelet his brother had given him. It was supposed to make him brave. He didn’t have any problems rappelling, riding the zip line, stuff like that. But the thing was worth spit when it came to helping him stand up to his father.

  “What’ve you been up to?”

  “You should know.”

  His dad sat on the bed beside him. He blew out a plume of smoke. “Like the way this cigar smells?”

  “Not really.”

  His father puffed on the thing, filling the space between them with nauseating fumes.

  Julian coughed. He waved a hand in front of his face. As the cloud cleared, his father’s cold stare emerged, like a specter from graveyard fog.

  His dad said, “Sergeant Wilson tells me you couldn’t finish the allterrain course.”

  Julian shrugged.

  “You have to try harder. You’re only hurting yourself.”

  “What happened to Michael?” Julian said.

  “What do you mean? Nothing, as far as I know.”

  “He’s acting funny, sad. The others are picking on him.”

  “Picking on him how?” His dad shifted to see him better.

  “I don’t know. Calling him names, punching him.”

  His dad laughed. “Sounds like they’re in fifth grade. Boys being boys.”

  “It just seems like . . . something happened to him the other night, on that mission they went on.”

  His dad made a dismissive face. “He didn’t do so well, let his team down. That’s why I push you so hard. You don’t want to be like him.”

  “You’re right,” Julian said. He scooted himself up and pressed his back against the wall. “I don’t want to be a soldier at all.”

  His father scowled. He turned his face away and puffed on the cigar. He pulled it from his mouth to examine it. He said, “Julie,” and stopped.

  Julian bit his bottom lip. His father knew he hated being called that. Julian used the silence to add, “I want to go home. I want to go to my old school. I don’t want to teach myself from homeschool books. I don’t want . . .” His hand stirred the air. “I don’t want any of this.”

  His emotions rolled up from his chest, made his lip quiver, threatened to pour out of his ey
es. He tried pushing it back. He told himself to be strong. It was the only thing his father respected . . . and expected.

  His father used his free hand to smooth back his hair. “This is the best thing for you.”

  “Why?”

  His dad squinted at him. He said, “Because of this. You’re on the brink of tears. That’s no good, Julie, you’ve got to toughen up.”

  Julian turned his head away. “You sound like Declan.”

  When Page remained silent, the boy turned a hard glare on him.

  “I know what this is,” Julian said. “I know what you’re doing.” His dad raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”

  “It’s punishment,” Julian continued. “For . . . for what happened in Canada.”

  His father raised a shoulder. “That’s in the past.”

  “Then why are you doing this, making me be here? I’m fourteen,” he said. “Everyone else is, like, eighteen, nineteen, twenty. I don’t belong here. All they do is talk about war and fighting. Even my school curriculum focuses on war. I don’t know how you pulled that off. For English . . .” He twisted, grabbed a paperback book off a nightstand, and tried to hand it to Page. “The Red Badge of Courage. Before that, it was War and Peace . . . The Art of War . . . A Farewell to Arms . . . Slaughterhouse Five.”

  “You do other things,” Page said. “Movies. Video games.”

  Julian pointed at a wall. “Go ask those guys what they watched last. How much you wanna bet it was something like Enemy at the Gates or Saving Private Ryan? Some documentary. Same with the video games. There’s not one racing game in this whole complex. Or a roleplaying adventure. They’re all personal shooters or war strategies like Command & Conquer.” He looked away again. “It’s not very subtle, you know.”

  “It’s not supposed to be. It works.”

  “It works, how? Okay, I get it,” Julian said. “You make soldiers here. That’s what Outis does. And apparently they’re really good soldiers, because everybody wants them. There’s, what? Thousands of Outis soldiers fighting in wars all over the world?”

  His father smiled.

  “What I want to know, Dad, is why am I here, me? I never wanted to be a soldier.”

  “It’s good to know the family business.”

  “It’s your business. But if you want me to learn it, that’s not what they’re teaching me! This isn’t business. It’s . . .” He searched for a word. “It’s death.”

  They stared into each other’s eyes. His father’s were dark, unreadable. Julian knew his revealed every emotion raging behind them. That’s just how he was made. He couldn’t help it and didn’t want to. He knew his father saw that as a weakness, as giving too much away.

  Well, Daddy, he thought, you’re not going to change me by putting me through this boot camp. You’re not.

  But deep down, he wasn’t so sure. He’d seen the people who’d come through here: normal kids at the beginning, hardened automatons by the time they were sent off to kill other people’s enemies for six hundred dollars a day.

  His father stood. He leaned over to lay his hand on Julian’s head.

  Julian flinched.

  “You’ll do well here,” his father whispered. “I know it.”

  Julian blinked, and tears spilled out. He resisted wiping at them. When his father raised his head, Julian tightened his jaw and glared at him.

  “See?” his father said. “It’s working already.” He went to the door and began pulling it shut behind him. He said, “You’ll do the allterrain course again next weekend. Finish it this time, Julie.” The door clicked shut.

  Julian grabbed the paperback off the bed and threw it at the door. He fell onto his pillow. Smoke swirled against the ceiling like a brewing storm.

  TWELVE

  Hutch sat on Logan’s bed and brushed the hair off his son’s forehead. He said, “I noticed you were trying to be nice.”

  Logan wiggled his head deeper into the pillow. He tugged a blanket up to his chin. Smiling, he said, “Just trying?”

  “You got in a few jabs.”

  “It’s just . . .” He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  Hutch turned to look toward the bedroom door. Dillon had not returned from the bathroom.

  Hutch leaned closer to his son. “I think I understand,” he said quietly. “Your mother and I . . .” He thought about it, then started again: “Divorce is never good. It’s hard on everyone, especially kids. I know I started drifting away. Then when I came back from Canada, I was full of stories about how another boy and I survived this life-and-death adventure. It’s like I abandoned you twice. I’m sorry for that, butdon’t take it out on Dillon, okay? When I was up there, trying to figure out how I was going to handle this mess your mother and I made, he reminded me how important you are to me.”

  Logan smiled again, but there was sadness in his eyes.

  A long time ago, Hutch had sensed Logan’s resentment toward Dillon, but he’d thought his son would shrug it off in time. He’d denied the depth of Logan’s pain. What he now saw in his son’s eyes was grief-for the family they had been, for the easygoing dad Hutch had been, for the way things used to be. It broke Hutch’s heart.

  He said, “So, Casa Bonita tomorrow?”

  “Just you and me?”

  “Logan, Dillon’s only going to be here a week.”

  Logan frowned. “So?”

  “So let’s show him a good time,” Hutch said. “We’ll do something together, just you and me, after he leaves, okay?”

  Logan looked away. “Yeah.”

  “Really.” He knew Logan had heard it before, and Hutch had let him down. His words didn’t cut it anymore. He held up a finger and wiggled it. “You know, this guy still packs a mean bite.”

  Logan slapped at it. “Don’t.”

  Hutch jabbed the finger into the blanket over his son’s ribs. “He remembers . . . just . . . where . . .” The finger scratched around, digging and prodding.

  “Dad, I mean it, don’t.” Logan tried to push his hand away, but he was smiling, then laughing, raising his knees.

  Hutch stopped to let the boy catch his breath, and Logan’s joyous expression turned into a scowl. He was looking past Hutch. Hutch didn’t have to look to know what-who-had sparked his ire. He mirrored Logan’s sour face and whispered, “You be nice.”

  “Hey, Dillon!” Logan called, too cheerfully. “Come on in, old buddy, old pal!”

  Hutch shook his head. He turned to see a pajama-clad Dillon staring with confusion.

  “Ready for bed?” Hutch said. He went to the other side of the room to a cot. He flipped back a blanket and sheet.

  Dillon slipped in.

  Hutch touched his head. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m glad I’m here. Finally.”

  “Me too. Good night.” He walked to Logan, squeezed his shoulder. “Night, son.”

  Logan rolled onto his side. “’Night.”

  At the door, Hutch switched off the light. The moon and a streetlamp conspired to keep the room well lit. He moved toward the window.

  Dillon’s small voice reached him: “Could you keep the blinds open . . . please?”

  “Oh, come on,” Logan said.

  Hutch paused, didn’t say a word.

  After a moment, Logan said, “Oh, all right.”

  “Night, guys,” Hutch said, and shut the door.

  Hutch looked in on Macie. The lights were out, and he heard rhythmic breathing. He was closing the door when she called to him.

  “Thought you were sleeping,” he said. He went in and sat on her bed.

  “I like them, Laura and Dillon,” she said.

  “They like you back, I can tell.” He pulled the blanket up to her neck.

  Her eyelids drooped. “Sing me a song.”

  “Scoot over,” he said, nudging down beside her. “‘Puff’?” he asked. She liked “Puff the Magic Dragon,” especially when he changed Little Jackie Paper to Little Macie and the land of Honah Lee to Highlands Ranch, the Den
ver suburb where they lived.

  She shook her head. “‘Sunshine.’”

  He began to stroke her hair and quietly sing “You Are My Sunshine.” Before the third verse, she was out.

  In the kitchen, Hutch poured two glasses of merlot. It was cheap stuff, but he liked it. He brought the wine to Laura in the living room. She was on the couch again, watching the fire, which had died to a few spindly fingers.

  He handed her a glass. “You seem to have found a favorite spot,” he said.

  “I like fire.” Her eyes sparkled in the glow. “It’s always beautiful.”

  “Unless it’s burning something you don’t want burned.”

  “Even then,” she said. “Socrates’ destructive beauty. Speaking of . . . this is a beautiful house.”

  “It’s a rental,” Hutch said, sitting beside her. “Best one I could afford. I wanted the kids to be in a safe neighborhood.”

  But that wasn’t all he liked about it. As a one-story ranch, it looked bigger than it was. The garage doors opened on the side of the house, so they didn’t mar the Mediterranean styling of the facade. And the driveway arced from the garage to the street, leaving a big front yard. Columns flanked the front porch. None of this truly mattered to Hutch, except that it rankled Janet to see him in a nice home and gave her boyfriends one less thing over which to stick their noses up at him.

  He held up his glass. “To you and Dillon.”

  “To all of us,” she said. Their glasses clinked. She shifted to face him. “I have to say, you look great, really fit.”

  He looked at the fire. “I got into working out a bit to burn off frustration. There’s been a lot of that, investigating Page.”

  She frowned. “Did that guy call back, the one who called you at the restaurant?”

  “Dorian Nichols. No.” He shook his head. “And he may be my best angle into Page’s crimes.”

  “How so?”

  “He was a lead psychiatrist at Outis. I’d spoken to him a few times, but he didn’t want to have anything to do with me. About a month ago, he quit. Three days ago, police found his family slaughtered in a rental house in Eureka, California.”

  Laura covered her mouth. “How terrible.”

  “Wife, two boys, a little girl. News reports said police suspected Dr. Nichols of the crime, but he’d disappeared. I figured he really had flipped out or Page had got him.”