In Beta Page 4

  At the moment, Stevie Melbrook was at the keyboard, blocking his access.

  Like Jay, Stevie was overly fond of the class computer. Like Jay, she had convinced Ms. Rotchkey to give her first period every other day to use it. Unlike Jay, her interest ran deeper than games. She was teaching herself to code in C++ and had long ago earned a reputation as the smartest person in Bickleton High—a label that mattered to no one except Jay, who thought it should be his. She was small and pixie-ish, with thin glasses and a gratingly upbeat voice. Jay’s blood cooled to see her on the computer (during his time, no less), and he stalked over. The computer was hissing and clicking like an angry robotic cat, and Jay realized its modem was active.

  “What are you doing?”

  Stevie pulled a floppy disk out of the drive.

  “I’m backing up everything.”

  Jay pointed to the screen. A grainy video of a half-empty coffeepot played in the upper right corner.

  “Looks like you’re streaming that coffee machine again.”

  Stevie had recently taken to monitoring the Trojan Room Coffee Pot at the University of Cambridge. It was, she had proudly told Jay, the world’s first live video feed.

  “I’m doing both.” Stevie smiled. “Windows 3.1 glitches are already legendary. It gets ‘out of memory’ errors constantly, and I haven’t backed up anything yet, have you? Though,” she mused before he could answer, “the addition of real mode support and batch install are strides forward in—”

  “Yeah, well, it’s my day to use the computer.”

  “Okay, the next time someone pours a cup of coffee—hold that thought!” Stevie exclaimed. “I’ve got mail.”

  Jay leaned in, unable to help himself.

  “Who’d be desperate enough to write you?”

  “Dolos75. I met him in a Delphi message board. He lives in Sydney.”

  Jay squinted suspiciously at the screen. “How do you know? He could be in Czechoslovakia. He could live right here in Bickleton. How do you know it’s not Colin sending love letters?”

  Colin blushed a deep purple. “It wasn’t me.”

  “I’m just saying—”

  “And it’s no longer Czechoslovakia, Jay; it’s the Czech Republic and Slovakia,” Ms. Rotchkey called over.

  “I think it’s likely he’s from Australia,” said Stevie, who hadn’t moved from the computer. She read aloud: “‘Hey, Stevie. Sorry for the typo in the previous letter. This keyboard I’m on is barely useable.’”

  Jay looked at her blankly.

  “The spelling. USE-ABLE.” She pointed at the word. “That’s Australian spelling!”

  “Probably another typo.”

  “Jay brings up a good point, though,” Ms. Rotchkey interrupted. “How do we know this person is from Australia? Or, more broadly, how do we know anyone is from anywhere?”

  The class braced themselves. Ms. Rotchkey fancied herself a philosopher: there were thick tomes on the bookshelf with heavy titles like Twilight of the Idols, Being and Nothingness, and The Passions of the Soul. Nobody in Tutorial could master philosophy to Ms. Rotchkey’s satisfaction, and anyone who tried to answer her questions usually only got a frown of disapproval.

  “How do we know anything to be true?” she continued. “How do we know what I know, what you know, is true?”

  Jay sighed and slumped into his seat. He hadn’t meant for his bickering with Stevie to catapult them into a lesson on existentialism.

  Ms. Rotchkey peered over her glasses at her reluctant class. “Epistemology will be covered on finals.”

  Colin raised a hand.

  “‘Postulates are based on assumption and adhered to by faith. Nothing in the Universe can shake them.’”

  Ms. Rotchkey frowned, considering.

  “Show-off,” Jay hissed.

  The loudspeaker crackled, startling the students. “All students please report to the gym for an all-school assembly.”

  The students instinctively stood, and Jay followed suit, mournfully staring at the computer he wouldn’t get to use.

  Dark House

  It wasn’t a stench, but a lingering smell: a deep-fried medley, hardened by years of abandon. If you lived in the smell, like the Recluse did, you didn’t notice it. It was only when a window was opened, and the sweet Bickleton mountain air poured in, that the stagnation became obvious. But windows were rarely opened, and the front door was used as little as possible.

  Besides the Recluse, the only person who ever smelled it was Jim Hanky, the grocer. By arrangement, Jim delivered five full plastic bags of groceries to the Recluse’s house every Tuesday.

  “Who’s the guy in the blue house?” Jim’s coworkers would ask. Those who knew the Recluse, who’d done the route before, shook their heads. The Recluse never came out. He never spoke. He only nodded, pulling the bags in through the door, one at a time. He never opened the door more than was necessary, and he never made eye contact.

  On the rare occasion Jim got a glimpse inside the house, he saw rooms with boxes stacked to the ceiling and a small hallway clogged with boxes. The Recluse carefully labeled each box in neat handwriting: Time Magazines ’86, stacked above ’92–’93 Disney Movies, which sat on top of ’80s classics, Columbia House Music Catalog, and so on.

  The boxes continued into a small dining room and

  then into the kitchen, framing the fridge and stove. They squeezed the house’s livable space into a single, tiny corridor that wove through the rooms. Amazingly, no matter how claustrophobic the house was, little clutter lay outside of the boxes. Everything else was clean, even the boxes themselves; the cardboard was straight, bright, and new, the stifled air acting as formaldehyde.

  The Recluse liked to keep his house preserved. Others might call it a mess, but to him it wasn’t messy. After years of compromise, he finally had everything just the way he wanted it.

  All Students

  The Tutorial kids stood at the back of the line to enter the assembly. Jay instinctively looked for Jeremy, though he knew Jeremy would never be caught dead at the end of any line. Odds were Jeremy was up front, but Jay didn’t want to take any chances. Even with all the teachers around, he didn’t trust Jeremy would leave him alone. Especially not after he’d stood up to him. Jeremy would be looking to make an example.

  Jay looked through the glass door leading to C-Court. C-Court was smaller than A-Court, and it housed less practical classes, like art, band, drama, and gym. And then the center was crowded with lunch tables, for all the students in patchwork flannel and baggy jeans who lived off the school’s hot lunches. There was little room left for the meandering line of students pushing their way through the gym’s single door.

  Jay caught his reflection in the glass. The skin around his eye was still huge and puffy. The swelling had stopped, and he no longer kept peas pressed to his face, but it was still warm and sensitive to the touch.

  “I look like the Elephant Man,” he mumbled to Colin as they filed into C-Court.

  “It’ll be gone by prom.”

  Colin looked mournfully at the prom posters decorating the walls. Prom was Friday after next, less than two weeks away.

  “Not that that matters,” Colin muttered.

  “If we beat the Mantis Boss, we have to ask someone.”

  Colin shook his shaggy hair. “How’s that?”

  “It’s called rewarding milestones. Like that poster in the home-ec room. With the cat wearing sunglasses.”

  “‘Cat-titude is Everything’?”

  “Exactly. We just need the right cat-titude. Beat the boss, get the girl.”

  Colin scanned the crowd. “I’m not sure there are any girls left to get.”

  “Bad cat-titude.”

  The last of the students swept toward the red doors of the gym, and Jay and Colin crowded in behind them. As they entered, Jay caught a glimp
se of the parking lot, where the sheriff had parked at an awkward angle before the doors. Jay nudged Colin and they stopped for a moment, dread filling them. Jay had assumed the assembly would just be another meeting about prom. Clearly, there was something else going on.

  They filed into the gym, where the murmurs of four hundred students poured off the bleachers and echoed across the walls. Girls in bejeweled jean jackets and hyper-color scrunchies sat in rapt attention. The teachers were somberly aligned across the front row. The assembly had apparently already started, because Elmer Jenkins, the town sheriff, stood in the center of the gym, addressing the bleachers.

  “. . . spoken with several students who saw him walking. Two elementary school kids claim that Todd, or someone who looked like him, headed down into Jewett Creek. We have some evidence that he was hiking down there. We’re still looking into it.”

  Jay and Colin climbed to an open space at the top of the bleachers. Jay’s body felt stiff from his earlier beating, and he grunted as he sat next to a sophomore.

  “What’s going on?” he whispered.

  “Todd Hammond didn’t make it home last night.”

  Jay’s blood froze. Todd, who sat next to him in Tutorial. Todd, who they teased because he was never absent. The entire gymnasium was quiet, absorbing Elmer’s words.

  Elmer’s left eye twitched as he continued: “I’m not here to cause a stir or scare anyone. But we need your help. If anyone has more information about Todd, please see me following the assembly. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, but his parents are very upset. Until we know where he is, everyone, please, use the buddy system when walking to and from school, hiking, or going out at night. Mrs. Hammond would like to say a few words.”

  The room was dead quiet as Todd’s mom clicked across the gym floor. Even from a distance, she looked much like her son. She shared Todd’s red hair and freckles, his tall, gangly disposition. She took the microphone and turned to the student body.

  “Some of you know Todd better than others. A lot of you have been in school plays with Todd. A Midsummer’s Night Dream. Some Like It Hot. He loves to make people laugh. And he’s thoughtful. He would go out of his way to help me, or his sister, or the neighbors. Or any of you. I know Todd didn’t run away. So if any of you—”

  Mrs. Hammond’s voice broke. Jay felt a lurch of pain in his stomach and tears welling in his eyes. In middle school, Jay had been good friends with Todd. He used to spend the night at the Hammonds’ house. He’d eaten meatloaf with Todd’s family. He looked around the student body and saw that many faces were crying. His gaze landed on Todd’s sister, sitting with her sophomore friends, her face in her hands, her body shaking.

  “If you have any information about how or why he disappeared—”

  And she broke off again. Principal Oatman, who was not known for compassion, placed a gentle hand on her back and led her away. Then he returned to the podium and spoke blandly about safety. Jay shook his head, not listening. Todd had been at school only yesterday. And now he was gone.

  Mr. Oatman muttered something about prayers for Todd’s family, and then the assembly was over. Despite four hundred students leaving the gym, the only sound was the squeak of sneakers on the waxed floors. Jay and Colin pushed their way through the students filing out, breaking away from the crowd and slipping out the small rear door. They stood on the balcony that overlooked the baseball field.

  For several moments, they stared out over the sea of green grass. The sun was high over the strand of poplar trees that separated the school grounds from the surrounding pastures, eating away the frosty shadows. It was Colin who broke the silence.

  “You think he’s . . . ?”

  “No.” Jay shook his head emphatically. But he couldn’t think of anything more to say.

  Around the Bend

  If Jay had hoped Ms. Rotchkey’s second period would distract him from the awful dread in his stomach, he was wrong. The students took their seats in total silence. Nobody was in the mood for beanbag chairs. Minutes ticked by as the class waited for Ms. Rotchkey to return. Kids began to whisper. No one spoke. Everyone cast sidelong glances at Todd’s empty seat. Shayna and Marlene imperceptibly scooted their desks away from it. The silence was unbearable, and Jay was about to pinch Colin just to break it, when the door flew open. Ms. Rotchkey stormed to the front of the class. Her fingers were trembling as she flipped through a lesson plan and adjusted and readjusted her glasses.

  Jay had only seen Ms. Rotchkey furious once before, when Bill Winkler—a student she’d invited to attend Tutorial—

  turned out to have joined because of a dare from the Johns. Every time Bill came to class, he’d step in dog poop and intentionally grind it into the carpet. It was three days before Ms. Rotchkey caught on, and another week before she got rid of the smell. That day, she had carried Bill down to the principal’s office by his ear.

  Jay saw her anger welling up again as she mumbled to herself, face pink.

  “Second period. Second period we’re—”

  She snapped her lesson plan shut and paced back and forth. She wheeled around to face them.

  “Does this seem fair to you?”

  The class blinked. She continued. “Does it seem fair that I find out Todd is missing at the assembly? With the rest of the school? The same moment the school janitor finds out? They don’t have the courtesy to give me a call? I could be out there looking for him!”

  She slammed her lesson plan down and strode to the back of the room. She gave the class a warning look.

  “Stay put.”

  Then she burst out the door.

  The class stared at one another, mouths agape. Ms. Rotchkey was usually the one talking the students down. Jay leapt up, rushing the computer.

  Stevie slammed her palms on her desk. “You’re gonna play video games?!”

  “Hey, it’s not like we can leave and go look for Todd right now.”

  Jay cleared the free trial disks for CompuServe and America Online out of the way, then powered up the screen and pulled Serious Gamer out of his bag. He stuck the blank disk into the drive and double-clicked the A: drive icon. A small window popped open, and there was a beautiful pixelated background of serene mountains at sunset. A small sign in the foreground read The Build. Loud synth music played the song Jay had already heard twice that day.

  “It’s playing . . . ‘Happy Birthday’?” Jay questioned. “Did you guys do this?”

  From her desk, Stevie squinted at the screen, then shook her head. Colin shrugged.

  Jay turned back to the load screen. The song was playing on a loop. Jay clicked and the music stopped. Another window popped up: enter the name of your town.

  Jay reflexively typed in “Poopville,” after the town he was building in SimCity.

  The screen flashed again, and he was looking down on a pixelated swath of land. In the center of the screen was a brown patch of land filled with little roads and houses. Tiny cars puttered up and down the streets. Encircling the tiny community was emerald-green forest. Jay frowned.

  “It’s just a SimCity rip-off,” Colin muttered.

  “With worse graphics.” Jay consulted his Serious Gamer magazine. “That’s it? What a waste of a floppy disk.”

  Colin squinted. “It’s greener than SimCity.”

  Several heads swiveled at the sound of footsteps coming up the ramp outside. Jay leapt from the computer, expecting the wrath of Ms. Rotchkey. But it was Derek Deckford, the thin sophomore who always wore a bow tie when he worked the front office.

  “You guys get to go home early. Ms. Rotchkey says. Extenuating circumstances. Come back tomorrow and call if anyone hears anything about Todd.”

  Proposition

  Jay and Colin decided not to go to the Ramirez house, considering Colin’s mom would likely be home. Instead, they drove aimlessly around Bickleton. The sun was out, caressing cho
colate lilies and miner’s lettuce in golden warmth. After two disappointing laps, and talk of whether Æon Flux was better than Ren & Stimpy, they puttered up the gentle hill to Midtown Park, which held the library, community center, police station, and a small public pool that was closed indefinitely. What was open was the Bickleton Creamery.

  Like A-Court, the ice cream store was the domain of the Bickleton popular crowd, and normally off-limits for geeks like Jay and Colin. But with the rest of the school still in class, Jay and Colin saw an opportunity.

  They sprawled out on the grass, Jay fiddling with his Frogger watch while taking bites of his triple fudge. The park sloped down to look over the roofs of Bickleton, and the Skookullom River and Cascade Range lay just beyond. The Skookullom was blue with haze, and Jay saw small trees high up on its ridge, blowing in the wind.

  Colin slurped a strawberry milkshake while rambling: “. . . and finally, Totoro shows up at a bus stop with a big leaf protecting him from the rain . . .”

  He’d been talking for several minutes in deep, rumbling breaths, pausing every few sentences to laugh softly at his own jokes, his tree-trunk legs impossibly crossed in the lotus position.

  Jay sighed, not really listening, urging his LCD Frogger up through traffic. He was familiar with most of Miyazaki’s movies, not because he’d seen them, but because Colin was so fond of recounting them.

  “Ya gotta see it,” Colin chuckled, shaking his head.

  “Ya know, when I eat ice cream”—Jay examined his cone—“I try to train all my senses on it. Really get the full experience. We’re gonna be old someday. When we get old, we lose synaptic connections. We’ll walk the same mental pathways, over and over. Ice cream will never taste as good as it does right now.

  “To be young”—Jay raised a finger prophetically—“is to truly experience life.”

  They were silent a moment.

  “You think we should go look for Todd?” Colin asked.

  “Yeah.” Jay nodded. “But you know, I’ve been thinking. He probably skipped town? Had the same idea we had, just beat us to the punch. In fact”—he gave Colin a sidelong glance—“we should go after him.”