In Beta Read online

  She stared at him, taking another drag.

  “You remember you, um . . . you asked me to prom.”

  Liz looked mildly surprised, then muttered, “Yeah, I remember.”

  She turned her gaze to the sky.

  “So, is that what this is about?”

  Jay looked back at the library to see whether Ms. Shirell was around, in case Liz was about to have another breakdown.

  The doors to A-Court clanged and Jeremy strode out, with his sea of Johns following.

  “Liz!” he shouted. “Hey, Liz!”

  “That’s Jeremy,” began Jay, hurriedly. “You guys used to date, but you don’t like him anymore.”

  “I know Jeremy.” Liz lowered her cigarette and shouted, “What do you want?!”

  “What are you doing there? Why don’t you come eat with me in A-Court?”

  Liz didn’t respond immediately, but took another drag off her cigarette, eyeing Jeremy.

  “Come on. Come talk to me. Want to go for a ride in the Miata? Relive some old memories?”

  A few of the Johns snickered. Liz’s face remained unperturbed.

  “A ride where?”

  “What?!” Jay whispered. “Don’t go with him. He’s the worst.”

  Jeremy shrugged. “Wherever.”

  Liz tossed her cigarette into the grass and bounded down the steps. “Sure. Let’s go.”

  Jeremy glanced at the Johns, who shrugged in surprise.

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “Out of town.”

  The pod turned and headed to A-Court. Jay called after Liz, desperate to keep her from leaving. But they were already gone. Jay turned. He might not be able to follow them—but he could watch them just the same.

  Disaster

  Jay pushed through the Tutorial door right as the third-period bell rang. He froze. Stevie was hunched over the computer. Sandwich crusts and an apple core sat on the desk beside her. Her eyes were glued to the ViolaWWW browser.

  “Stevie. I need the computer.”

  “Did you know the new Pentium processors are sixty-six megahertz?”

  Jay eyed Ms. Rotchkey. She was reading a dog-eared copy of Naked Lunch and making notes in the margin. Jay lowered his voice.

  “I’ll give you my free period tomorrow, plus the day after, plus the day after that, if I can use the computer right now.”

  Stevie smiled, considering.

  Jay added, “And I’ll let you borrow a game.”

  “Wizardry 7?”

  “Yes. Fine. Deal.” Jay pushed Stevie out of her seat and climbed in.

  He pulled out The Build and felt a pair of eyes on him. He turned to see Stevie still standing there, beaming. He caught Colin’s eye and gave him a pointed look. Colin’s cheeks turned pink, and without looking at Stevie, he turned awkwardly toward her.

  “Game of chess?”

  “Oh, uh, sure,” Stevie allowed herself to be led her away.

  Jay loaded the game and Poopville appeared. He opened a search bar and typed in “Jeremy McKraken.” The screen jumped to where the trees followed a thin brown road and a small red car. Jay clicked on the car, and a window flashed up with the text miata. In the seats sat two pixelated figures.

  Jay zoomed out. They were next to Rock Ridge. Ninety percent of all Bickleton makeout sessions happened at Rock Ridge, if rumors were true.

  Jay felt a hurried desperation well up inside him. He clicked on Jeremy. Beside his statistics was a gridded inventory screen with icons: blanket x1. candles x3. boones farm x3. condom x1. Inside the parked car, the pixelated figures faced each other. Jeremy leaned in, and a small pixelated heart appeared.

  Jay’s heart raced. He had to do something to stop them. He moused around the screen, searching. He opened the menu and scrolled over to a submenu labeled disasters. A drop-down list read:

  fire

  flood

  air crash

  tornado

  earthquake

  monster

  hurricane

  riots

  Jay sent a tornado.

  Instantly, the Tutorial lights flickered. The window darkened, and a crack of thunder shook the room. Wind howled so loudly that kids leapt up from their desks and looked left and right over their shoulders. The pine trees outside whipped back and forth so fiercely, they scratched the glass panes with their gnarled branches.

  “Kids,” Mrs. Rotchkey said to the students who’d gathered around the single window, “get away from the glass.”

  Leaves and pine needles were ripped from the forest floor, blowing past the window at an alarming rate. Jay turned to the computer screen. A small brown funnel appeared over the trees of Rock Ridge. As it moved, it turned them into patches of barren ground. Jay watched the pixelated versions of Jeremy and Liz rush out of the Miata and dash up Barnett Road. There was a pop as the tornado lifted and then touched down on Jeremy’s Miata. The car disappeared.

  “Oh my God,” Jay whispered.

  Colin bustled over to Jay and saw Jeremy’s and Liz’s avatars hurry into the forest.

  White flashed over the walls, followed by a bright burst as the lights shut off. The computer went black, and the kids began to scream in the dim light. Ms. Rotchkey was ushering them under their desks. Then she was behind him, pulling him away from the computer. Jay popped out the play disk and crawled underneath his desk. Outside, the wind screamed louder, and the door to the classroom shivered as if someone were trying to burst in. Ms. Rotchkey yelled over it.

  “It’s okay. Just a storm. I’ve got some candles in my desk.”

  Colin’s tremendous head and shoulders stuck under his desk. His eyes were wide as saucers.

  Jay shrieked over the wind, hands on his ears, “What is on that disk!?”

  Dark House

  The Recluse was just settling into one of two padded chairs in his dining room when a wave of sound blasted the walls of his house. Deep, pounding bass and the squeal of guitars shattered his quiet world. His face turned red, and his breaths came short and ragged as he shot a worried glance down the dark hall to his computer room.

  He forgot about his lunch and stomped over to a curtain-draped window in the living room. A table with a mess

  of VHS tapes—Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Backdraft, the fourth season of America’s Funniest Home Videos—stood before a dusty GE television, rabbit ears bent sideways.

  The Recluse carefully lifted the curtain. Blinding sunlight spilled over the shaggy carpet. He squinted at the yellow Mustang in the neighbors’ driveway. Its windows were down, its frame jittering and vibrating with each squeal of bass. A pear-shaped buffoon peeled himself from the driver’s seat, and a second man, taller and covered in tattoos, strolled from the garage door. They exchanged a complicated handshake.

  “Idiots!” the Recluse hissed. His neighbors disappeared from view.

  The Recluse stood, shaking with rage. Since his neighbors had moved in six months ago, their noise was constant. The cardboard boxes that lined his walls weren’t enough to dampen the sound. The neighbors partied late into the night, laughing, terrible music molesting him until the wee hours of morning. It was unacceptable. If there were someone to complain to, he would have complained. But the town’s lazy sheriff didn’t seem to care about such simple things as law and order.

  He watched the Mustang vibrate with every blast of bass, then let the curtain fall back into place. He waited for his eyes to readjust to the darkness. His mind raced with a dozen ways he could punish his neighbors, humiliate them. He would figure out some strategy. He always did. He was smarter than everyone in Bickleton. He would have his revenge. If there was one thing he’d learned, it was patience.

  Aftermath

  Nestled in the Cascade Range, Bickleton had ice storms, floods, and occasional volcano warnings. But there were no r
ecords in the town archive of the town ever experiencing a tornado. Tornados were something to be watched on news channels, wreaking havoc in far-off states like Kansas or Oklahoma.

  The whole incident had lasted no more than ten minutes, when a wind funnel touched down outside La Dulce Vita trailer park, beating a trail of destruction through the Jewett Basin and into Rock Ridge, knocking over power lines, destroying Jeremy’s car, and disappearing as suddenly as it had arrived.

  Jay had left school early to find his house without power. Mrs. Ramirez had been there helping his mother pack so Jay and Kathy could spend the weekend at their place. Now, safe in Colin’s basement with the screen flashing through glimpses of Secret of Mana, the boys were free to discuss what had happened.

  Jay went over it again and again, probing Colin’s perspective.

  “Could it be a coincidence?” Colin shrugged.

  Jay felt like throttling his friend.

  “Yes, it’s a coincidence,” he replied sarcastically. “The storm just happened to hit the moment I clicked.”

  “If it’s not a coincidence, then what is it?”

  Jay didn’t respond. He’d been thinking of nothing else for the last five hours. The idea that it could be a practical joke no longer fit: there was no one in Bickleton who possessed the programming power to pull something like that off. Back in his sophomore year, he’d been obsessed with A Book of Dreams, which he’d found on a shelf in Tutorial. It detailed the process of cloudbusting, and how government officials had tried to harness the power to control weather. Was it possible that The Build had been created by the government as an attempt to control the weather? To control reality itself?

  He could hear his mom’s voice upstairs. He laid down his controller and crept to the base of the stairs, training his ear to the murmurs.

  Nobody had died, it seemed, which was a relief. And though he couldn’t figure out how it’d happened, Jay couldn’t shake the feeling that he was responsible for the storm. The thought of people dying at his hands was too much for him.

  The destruction was bad enough. The east end of La Dulce Vita trailer park had been entirely destroyed, the tornado having peeled the roofs from some mobile homes and completely flattening others. The family’s wooden skiff had been lifted from their front lawn and hurled through the parlor window of the Davises’ house.

  He focused his attention on the moms’ conversation when it turned to Todd. Had Todd still been hiding down near Rock Ridge? Could he be an unconfirmed casualty of the storm? Ms. Rotchkey’s search for Todd was being joined by the official efforts of Sheriff Jenkins.

  Jay beckoned Colin to the base of the stairs. His chest felt tight. “What if Todd was down there? What if I killed him?”

  Colin sighed. “You didn’t cause that storm.”

  They arrived at the Morning Market parking lot ten minutes before noon to find it swarming with people. Ms. Rotchkey emerged with a mug of steaming coffee, and five other Tutorial kids in tow. Sheriff Jenkins stood with a map spread out across the hood of his car, surrounded by two dozen of Bickleton’s most prominent families. With a touch of resentment, Jay noted that neither Jeremy nor the Johns were present.

  Someone blew a whistle, and then they were marching back behind the Morning Market to where the big leaf maples extended their fresh canopy over Jewett Creek. As they headed down the steep hill, the trees quickly gave way to sunshine, and the search party stared in awe at the devastation.

  Poplar and alder trees had been ripped straight from the muddy spring earth. Jewett Creek was half-buried in branches and ran brown with mud. It looked like something out of the trailers for the upcoming movie Gettysburg. The dense group pushed forward, shouting Todd’s name. Jay held back, staring at the apocalyptic landscape. Was Todd’s body lying under one of the fallen trees? Had he just been hiding down there the whole time? And if he’d died, was Jay responsible? Colin was standing next to him. His face registered none of Jay’s turmoil.

  From off to the left, someone whistled. Surrounded by charred branches was the burned carcass of a car. It lay on its side, away from any road, as though it had been flung through the woods. Both of its doors were gone, and its paint was burned so that its frame was a mix of white, red, and black. All its glass was missing. The searchers pushed forward, some caressing the blackened frame with their hands.

  This had been what Jay wanted when he clicked the button. The destruction of Jeremy. And he’d come so close to succeeding. Jeremy had nearly died, and Liz along with him.

  “Todd!” Jay bellowed, picking his way through the wreckage, shaken to his core.

  The Hack

  That no sign of Todd was found in the destruction brought Jay little relief. His every thought was consumed with The Build. He was next to certain that he had caused the tornado. But how? Should he tell Sheriff Jenkins? Or would the sheriff react like Colin, and think Jay was crazy? Of course he would. It was crazy. But then, how could it all be explained? It couldn’t be a coincidence, no matter what Colin said.

  It was Sunday night and half the town was still missing power, including the school. Which meant Jay had to suppress his burning desire to sneak back into Tutorial and boot up the disk. His mind ran in circles late into the night.

  The next morning, the power—and school—were back on. His mom insisted on swinging by their house, so she dropped Jay and Colin off moments before the second bell. Jay rushed Colin straight to the Tutorial computer, tilting the monitor so no one else could see what they were doing.

  Jay scrolled to Tutorial, where his tiny pixelated avatar sat at the computer.

  He lifted his hand. A moment of lag ticked by, and then his onscreen avatar lifted its tiny arm.

  “Does it work?”

  Jay was startled to see Stevie standing over his shoulder.

  “Yeah, the computer’s fine,” he grunted, annoyed.

  “I was worried the storm might’ve caused a power surge.” Stevie squinted at the screen. “Is that Bickleton?”

  Jay flushed with annoyance. “Yes, this is the simulation I’ve been working on.”

  The last bell rang, and the class shuffled to their desks. Stevie remained rooted where she stood.

  “Take your seats,” Ms. Rotchkey called.

  “Go on.” Jay waved her away. “Take your seat.”

  Stevie smiled. “I can’t. You’re in it.”

  Jay stared at her. Then he remembered: he’d promised her the computer.

  “Uhhh,” he stalled. “Yeah, gimme a sec.”

  Colin shifted behind him. He could feel the class waiting on him. He clicked around.

  “Jay . . .” Ms. Rotchkey called from the front.

  “Just a sec!”

  “Give Stevie the computer.”

  Jay clicked a folder. Dozens of other folders popped open, and he stared. There were vehicles. Weapons. Houses. He didn’t have time to register everything. He clicked back, searching for something else to do, some other proof that his theory was correct. He clicked on a dollar sign icon at the top of the screen. Dollar amounts floated above everyone’s heads in the room. $45.32 above his own. $739.11 above Colin’s. $231.67 over Stevie’s.

  “Jay!” Ms. Rotchkey was marching toward him. “Leave that computer!”

  “Just a minute!” Jay protested.

  “Now!”

  He clicked on his avatar and highlighted the $45 above his name. It was everything in his bank account. Below him, he felt the computer shiver. Ms. Rotchkey, he saw, was under the desk, grappling to unplug the power cord. He mashed a bunch of number keys and clicked save. The screen spat back a message: saving . . .

  He felt another tug and the cord popped from the wall. The computer went black. Ms. Rotchkey stood up, her face red. Jay could smell stale coffee on her breath. Jay quickly ejected his disk.

  “What has gotten into you today?”

/>   Jay took a deep breath. He had to tell her; he had to confess.

  “Ms. Rotchkey, that storm on Friday—”

  She cut him off. “Yes, and we don’t need any more distractions. Now sit!”

  Jay sat, his heart pounding. Stevie settled into the computer seat behind him, and he heard the computer boot back up. Ms. Rotchkey returned to the head of the class, shaking her head. Jay leaned close to Colin, his voice excitedly rising: “Don’t make plans for lunch. I’ll show you it wasn’t a coincidence.”

  He searched Colin’s face for a reaction, but his friend stared straight forward, as if he hadn’t heard at all.

  The Mark

  Jay took a deep breath outside the Morning Market.

  It was Bickleton’s only grocery store, and one of two restaurants. It stood on the far end of a dusty parking lot, next to the town’s library and single-lane bowling alley, its exterior chipped and yellow, with a faded sign of hand-painted letters. It had five aisles of canned beans, Twinkies, and potato chips, two produce islands, and a tiny meat market. If you ordered food from the cashier, there were tables and chairs toward the front to sit and eat, though mostly high school kids took their food to go. Everyone in town referred to it as “the Mark,” and at lunchtime on a school day, the tables were packed with every kid who had a car.

  Jay approached the storefront cautiously. He hadn’t seen Jeremy or Liz since the tornado, and even though he’d heard they were both fine, he didn’t want to run into either of them. He tried to peer through the Mark’s windows, but they were covered in a faded poster of Arachnophobia and homemade signs.

  “$200 reward for any info on the guy who stole my power sander. —Fred.”

  Jay stepped through the swinging front doors. His skin blossomed into goose bumps at the frigid air-conditioning. The Mark was as loud and bustling as A-Court, with the screams of unbound testosterone. Two kids pushed past Jay, and he saw Mindy Schultz sweating as she rang up jojos and beef sticks as fast as she could. A group of skaters sat at the nearest table, stoned and smirking. He passed a magazine rack with front pages screaming stories of Princess Diana and Prince Charles, Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, and a Time magazine with the headline “The Info Highway: Bringing a revolution in entertainment, news and communication.” He saw four Johns at the deli counter. Jay slunk over to the ATM in the back corner and slipped in his Skookullom Credit Union. A prompt popped up onscreen. How much should he withdraw?