Blinking rapidly to clear the tears from his eyes, Peter rubbed his face. The rubbery numbness in his cheeks faded slowly as he sat up in the darkness. Guilt gripped him, and he quickly sent a friend message to Warren and Pham - cursing that he still hadn’t asked Dani what her account name was.
Hey guys, sorry I left you there. I’ll catch you tomorrow at school. Could you let Dani know I’ll see her online, too? Thanks.
Climbing out of bed, Pete slid down beside it to sit on the cold, hard floor. He felt around in the darkness and his hand brushed against something fuzzy and for a fleeting moment he imagined it was DB, somehow escaped the digital realm to be here. Realising it was just his pillow sent his spirit crashing again. He grabbed the pillow and hugged it. He remembered the times his little buddy had been there for him in just the short time since Peter had first logged in as silent tears rolled down his face.
Dawn found Peter asleep on the floor, sandwiched between a pillow and the edge of the bed. As the alarm jolted Peter awake, he threw the pillow across the room as he flailed about in confusion. His mother came rushing in, took one look at the mess of the room and immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion.
“I don’t care if you don’t want to go to school today,” she waved an irate finger at Peter, “you’re not getting out of your last exam. Now clean up this mess and get ready. We’re leaving early today. I have a very important meeting and I refuse to miss it because of your nonsense.”
His mother left as suddenly as she had appeared, leaving Peter to grumble and stomp around the room in frustration. “Wasn’t trying to get out of exams,” he muttered under his breath. “I do want to go to school. Stupid Mum.” He threw his sheets up into something resembling made, then tossed his clothes for the day on top.
In the kitchen, the noises of two people dancing around each other could be heard. The awkward steps of the “I’m not looking at you but not making it obvious that I’m not looking at you” foxtrot echoed up the hallway as Peter pulled on the day’s clothing. Had he not been dealing with his own inner hell he might have noticed the aura of simmering tension that accompanied them. The passive-aggressive jangling of cutlery put away more forcefully than necessary played a cacophonous counterpoint to the dropping of crockery from just above the countertop as the words of the breakfast sonata were uttered most disingenuously. With a head full of cotton wool, Peter entered the room oblivious to the concert he was being treated to, but to be fair the players were uncaring as to whether he did notice anyway. He mashed his cereal-like food substitute into his face as he tried to wrap his mind around the concept that DB might be gone forever. The little rat shaped hole in his soul sucked all the light and sound out of the room rendering his parents performance moot. A vibrating and pulsing icon of a bus in the corner of his vision managed to grab his attention long enough for him to utter some vague goodbyes and leave for school.
Outside, the sky was the grey of a TV tuned to a dead channel. Not that Peter had ever seen a dead channel on a TV, nobody used radio frequency communications these days. Standing at the bus stop, Peter felt more disconnected than ever despite being surrounded by people. It wasn’t the cold tingling of the avatars’ state, he just couldn’t bring himself to care about anything. If the bus’s AI controller tried anything today, Peter couldn’t tell. He couldn’t recall if the lift had played silly buggers either. It all paled beside his need to find out where that portal led to. The whole trip to school he wracked his brain trying to think of a way to find out.
To Peter’s mild surprise, there were two people waiting for him at the front gate as he alighted from the bus. Looking nervous, Warren and Pham were chatting and casting side eyes at everyone who passed. Stepping onto the curb, Peter opened his mouth to say something but shut it again when Pham made a swiping motion under her chin in the universal “shut up” gesture.
“Not here,” she whispered, “the walls have ears.” Pham grabbed the handles of Warren’s chair and pushed it ineffectually, thumping into his back.
“‘Ere, give it a rest. The brakes are on.” Warren released the friction brakes and rolled forward. “She’s not wrong though, there’s something up. I can feel it in me water.”
Pham aimed a kick at the spinning wheel beside her but had as much effect as her ill-fated attempt at pushing. “You don’t have water,” she groused. “The closest you’ve come to drinking water as long as I’ve known you is putting ice in your whiskey.”
Peter looked around as the two bantered as good naturedly as they could, but there was a bitter edge to it. Like meerkats, the rest of the student body could tell when danger lurked. Every now and again one member of each clique would lean back or pop up, look around, then return to their original position. Never the same member twice. Never at the same time as another clique. The schoolyard instinct that kept most people out of clutches of the bullies. Peter wondered where his had gone. Surgically removed when they put the implant in, the thought as he scratched his scar. After a moment he found himself tucked into the lee of a building where they could speak uninterrupted.
“Are you listening?” Warren ran over Peter’s foot to get his attention.
“Ow! Can’t you just punch me like a normal person?” Peter hopped about clutching his toes. “And what are you talking about? I was listening. You’re a drunk, Pham’s a glutton. I’m a masochist. That about cover it?”
“Then why are you complaining about your toes?” Warren emphasised the point by running over his other foot. “Now pay attention. I think we’re safe until lunch. There’s one last exam this morning, then the results are posted on the big screen in the hall. If your plan has worked, that’s when Bully is going to know your perfect score plan has dropped him in it. Assuming you studied enough.”
Peter massaged his toes, alternating feet and grimacing. “I studied enough. So, what are you two going to do? Leg it for the office after the exam? How do you get home?”
Pham reached into the bag on the back of Warren’s chair and pulled out a device. It was a weird conglomeration of wires and tape with strange protrusions he couldn’t readily identify. “Whaddaya think?”
“Uh, is that bit Lego? Are you expecting them to stand on it?”
“No, doofus, it’s a shock trap.” She tucked it away before anyone else saw it. “I took a page from your book and learned how to make it in game. I had to improvise some parts, hence the Lego, but overall I think it worked. I’ve got a bunch of things in here to really ruin Bully’s day if he messes with us.”
“Before you ask, no they’re not legal and yes I’ve told her.” Warren pulled at something wedged down the back of his chair. “This is though,” he brandished a menacing looking seat cushion. It had two straps across one side where normally it would attach to a lounge so as to prevent it sliding off, or where an enterprising young man could slip his arm to form a makeshift shield. Warren rapped his knuckles on the outer surface, eliciting a noise not usually associated with a comfortable place to rest one’s buttocks. “At least until you pack an oven tray into it. Then it gets a bit iiffy.”
“We even thought of you,” Pham reached into the recesses of the bag, fumbling around up to her armpit. What she pulled out brought a warmth to his heart and a tear to his eye. It was a practice hockey stick, the sort that collapses into four even segments for easy storage.
Peter took the piece of sporting equipment and locked the joints in place and tapped the head on the ground like any hockey player would. No, this doesn’t feel right. He slung it over his shoulder, spun it around his neck, caught the handle with his other hand and with a whirling step, ripped the stick around in an arc. It’s not my scythe, but its damn close. “This is perfect. Where did you even get this?”
Warren frowned and muttered “I wasn’t born in this chair you know.”
“Youuu might want to ixnay on that, hombre,” Pham pushed the hockey stick down and behind Peter’s back. “Cos, A, peeps are watching and B, that’s a bit of a sore spot with Woz. Just say thank you and leave it at that.”
Stepping back into the shadow of the building, Peter folded up the stick and stashed it in his bag. “I’m sorry. Yes, thank you. I really appreciate it.” He scratched at his scar again. “So, is that what we’re doing? Looking for a fight?”
Warren stuffed the improvised sheild back into its hiding place and grunted. “No. We’re not Bully. But it’s better to have and not need, than need and not have. Remember how well that worked out for us last time?”
Peter and Pham nodded just as the bell rang. By unspoken agreement they made their way to the hall to join the assembly. Before they separated Peter held out a fist wordlessly. After a moment, Pham and Warren completed the gesture, pulling back and ‘blowing it up’. “Take care of yourselves, I’ll see you at lunch.”
“See you at the library. Try not to die.” Warren waved over his head as he rolled off but Pham took a moment to punch Peter in the arm.
“You’re a dead man walking. Stay in sight,” she pointed at a camera overhead. Peter gave her a tight lipped grin and a nod, then headed off to his class.
Tension and sadness knotted his stomach into a solid mass, somehow filled with butterflies. If asked later there was no way he could have recounted what the assembly had been about. A principal shaped blob make waffling noises, then something in a tan suit grumbled about something. Finally a vaguely female blob took the stage, physically this time as their high heeled shoes made resounding click-clack sounds on the stairs as she ascended. Peter tried to pay attention, someone in the administration being present was virtually a unique event, but he was completely unable to keep his mind on the message. He was caught in a whirlwind of half-plans and intentions. Between imagined pounding on a demons face and running from Bully, he gathered that someone had done a thing and someone’s parents weren’t happy about that thing. There might have been some suggestion that cheating was involved, but there were mandatory warnings about cheating throughout the exam period so his subconscious filed it under “ignore until someone is shouting” and went back to daydreaming about what he would do if he ever got his hands on… well, it wasn’t clear. Whomever his current enemy was this time.
Only the elbow of a passing classmate brought Peter out of his funk, causing a cold fist to grip his intestines once more. He scanned the board for his room assignment and ran, trying his best to remember what the test would be, struggling to get his head in the game, or out of the game as it were. Gotta focus. Pass this test and prove Bully’s scamming.
The actual getting to the classroom didn’t take long and soon Peter was sitting on an uncomfortable stool at a sterile bench desk from which protruded a pair of gas jets. It was clearly a chemistry classroom, but for now Peter found he had just been handed a PhysEd exam. For the next hour, he strained his brain to extract every last detail he could about the human body and cram it down on the page. Really could have used Woz’s help on this one. Nevertheless, by the time the bell rang he was confident he had answered every question. Most of the answers were even right. Certainly more than Bully could have answered, whatever test his mole was going to transpose these results into. Confident he had done all he could, Peter placed his paper on the desk and left.
Outside on the verandah it was quiet. Unnaturally so. IT had the calm-before-the-storm feel, complete with static on the skin tingling. Anxiety returning in a rush, Peter jogged the whole way to the library. To be on the safe side, he avoided the few students in his path to avoid being ambushed again. He let out an explosive breath on seeing his teammates loitering outside the doors.
“So, you can go two hours without offing yourself,” Warren greeted Peter as he approached, breathing heavily.
“Masochistic, not suicidal, remember?”
Pham giggled. “You’re messing with Bully, so the jury’s still out on that one.”
Peter frowned and unslung his bag. “Everyone talks like he’s some unstoppable force. Well, that ends today.” He pulled the hockey stick out but didn’t unfold it. “He’s a kid like the rest of us. I guarantee you whack him around the head with this, he goes down like the sack of turds he is. In fact, I’m proposing we never call him Bully again. He owns that name, it gives him power.”
“Well,” Warren shifted uneasily in his chair, “what do you propose?”
Pham put her hand up and waved it around the way an overeager teacher's pet would do. “Ooh, ooh, ooh, I know. You already said it, and it’s perfect.”
“Spit it out then,” grumbled Warren.
“We call him, wait for iiiit… Sack!” Pham bounced up and down excitedly.
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“That does have a nice ring to it. Teachers can’t up us for it, there’s no swear words in it. Peter?”
“Sack it is. To be fair, teachers can find something to yell at you for just about anything though.” He slid the stick back ino the bag.
“You know that’s right,” Pham agreed. “Come on. Let’s get to the hall and get the good seats for the show.”
“Don’t we have to sit with our classes for this” Peter asked as they made their way along the walkways to the hall.
Warren shook his head. “It’s the last session of the last day. Sure, you’re supposed to, but who’s going to cut into their own vacation time to watch you in detention?”
“Fair point,” Peter admitted. “So, where do we park our butts?”
“At the back, with all the cool kids,” Pham replied.
Peter looked in through the wide open side entrance of the hall. The roller door had been lifted for faster entrance and egress and to allow a cool breeze to blow through rather than turning on the aircon. “What cool kids? There’s no-one here but us yet.”
“You do realise that, by default, that makes us the coolest kids here? Thus we can pick any seat we want.” Pham strolled in, jumped up on the long bench seat, strolled to the centre, sat down and swung her feet up on the back of the row in front.
“Are you serious right now?” Warren rolled up to the end of the row.
“What? You don’t like me putting my feet up? What happened to you Woz? You used to be cool.”
“No, dumbass, how am I supposed to sit with you when you’re in the middle of the row?” Warren rammed the footrest of his chair into the end of the seat to drive the point home.
“Damn, son. You’re right. My bad.” Pham swing her feet back down to the floor and joined the other two at the end of the row. “It doesn’t feel as cool now. Just sayin’”
They sat in the hushed hall making sporadic small talk. The bech squeaked rhythmically as Peter’s knee bounced with his nervous energy. The hall began to fill, students filing in whispering to each other as they took their seats. As predicted they sat anywhere they liked and many seats were empty from students ditching altogether. Billy and his cronies entered near to last, pushing behind the bench Peter and Pham were sitting on. They were laughing and shoving each other and ‘accidentally’ bumped into the back of the seat hard enough to lift the back legs off the floor and tip Pham onto the floor, folded up like a weirdly shaped pocket knife.
“Hey!” The muffled protests from ankle height were almost entirely drowned out by the raucous laughter. Peter struggled to help her as the gaggle of goons carried on their way. Their buffoonish antics were almost vaudevillian, comically overloud and ridiculous like theatrical rogues in a childrens television show. They threw themselves into the back row on the opposite side of the room, some of them rolling over the back of the chair commando style, others piling ontop and laying all over the seats. Several students who had been in the seats and rows around them got up and moved, leaving the gang a sizable buffer. Even as the projections of the principal and rest of the teachers pixelated in they continued to roughhouse and mess about.
“Good morning students,” the principal’s hologram began. “I trust you all had a fun and enlighenitng term. It has certainly been quite the ride for some of you.” The digital ghost on the stage bunced on the balls of his feet and clasped his hands behind his back. He started to pace as he rasied his voice. “Unfortunately, that ride is about to come to a screeching halt. As you recall from this morning’s assembly Mrs
The whole hall errupted into furois whispering. Everyone looked this way and that, trying to see who had been caught cheating. Some students started to pray, some looked smug, some looked like they were going to run. One quiet corner of the room was stunned into shocked silence.
“Billy Tomlinson. Would you please make yourself known to the proctors? We have some questions for you to answer.”
Billy shot to his feet. “Peter! I’m going to kill you!” The brute began climbing over his comrades, stomping any who weren’t fast enough to get out of the way. “I know it was you. You and your little nerdy friends. You did this to me!”
Warren backhanded Peter in the chest. “Oi, quit staring. Move!” He unclipped his brakes and hauled on the handles of his wheels. The chair shot down the aisle beside the rows of bench seats as students who had stood up threw themselves out of the way, Peter and Pham following in his wake.
Pham caught up and grabbed the handles, pushing the chair along while Warren extracted his improvised shield from behind him. “What do we do now?”
“Survive,” Peter answered as he drew alongside. “We just have to hold them off until the proctors arrive. The office isn’t far and if the principal tipped them off already they’ll be on their way. What we need is a space to make our stand.”
“Outside?” Pham suggested, pointing Warren’s chair towards the closest roller door.
“No, there’s too many of them,” Warren took control of the chair back and pointed it towards the front of the hall. “We need a chokepoint. Get me up on the stage. There’s enough room for me to roll, Peter to swing and you to, well, do what you usually do in combat.”
“Elevated, defensible, clear lanes of sight.” Peter pulled the hockey stick out and snapped the pieces into place. “Good call. Pham, can you push Woz to the accessibility elevator over there, and drop a few of your thingies along the way? I’ll keep Sack’s attention on me for now. Go!”
While the trio had been headed for the front of the hall. the rest of the student body had been streaming out through the doors. Nobody wanted to be caught between and enraged Billy and his quarry. Suddenly the room grew darker and someone screamed. The doors had dropped, trapping the stragglers in the hall and crushed a student’s arm. Billy halted and slowly turned to where the dogpile of his gang were still trying to disentangle themselves. From the depths of the scrum two hands shot up, one holding a tablet and one with a raised thumb. Billy nodded and left them to it.
“Come on if you think you’re hard enough!” Peter banged the butt of the hockey stick on the floor, the crack echoing around the hall. Apart from the whimpering of the student trapped by the door, the room was silent. The holograms of the principal and teachers had winked out when the doors dropped. Billy’s crew had sorted themselves out and were stalking down the aisles with wolfish grins.
One of the goons managed half a shout as his muscles locked ridgid, then he fell over.
“What the hell was that?” Billy demanded.
From on the stage Warren gave a cheer. “Your doom, ye daftie!”
“Peter, you hold aggro, we’ve got the minions!” Pham had her own tablet out and was tapping away at it and occasionally tossing objects out into the hall.
Two cronies had learned from their downed fellow and climbed over the seats, avoiding Pham’s devices on the floor. They split up, approaching Peter from opposite sides, hesitant as he made no move to avoid them. As they lunged forward to grab him, Peter ducked and grabbed their shirts, pulling them so that they ran into each other. Their heads met with a resounding clunk and they slumped to the floor, out cold.
“Is that all you’ve got?” he taunted.
Off to the side, one of the smarter members of the crew took off his shirt and threw it over one of Pham’s devices. He picked it up, insulated from any possible taser effect. “Hey girlie, you dropped this!” He wound back to throw the device on the stage, but Pham hit a button on her tablet and the thing burst in a cloud of noxious vapour. The shirt caught some of the gas, but the boy inhaled enough that he started coughing uncontrollably, laying on the floor and holding his chest in pain.
The crony with the tablet shouted from the back. “The proctors are locked out, but I can’t crack her network. Watch out!”
Billy smiled. “Then you three,” he pointed at the guy from the back and the last two of his minions, “get up there and break her fingers. She can’t use the tablet without ‘em.” He began advancing on Peter again. “You hear that Scar-boy? No-one’s coming to save you. It’s just us. Now, put down the stick and we’ll just break your arms. It could be worse you know.”
The three indicated climbed over the seats as well, keeping an eye out for traps and rushed past Peter towards the stage. Peter took a swipe at them as they entered his reach, but missed all three. They vaulted onto the stage, but the first up was met by Warren’s shield-cushion coming the other way with his entire weight behind it. The boys feet shot out from under him and he was catapulted back into the first row of seats to lay there groaning. The second and third tried to flank Warren and get at Pham, but he twisted the chair, running over toes and punching for the groin. As the boy folded in half Warren shield-bashed him in the head and laid him out cold.
“You ok back there?” Warren checked on Pham.
“Mostly,” she squeaked. “I think he’s still breathing.” While Warren had been dealing with his assailant Pham had simply ducked and then stood up as hard as she could, headbutting her attacker in the stomach, winding them. then stuffing a device up their shirt and activating it. “Kinda seeing spots here and down to my last device. It’s pretty expensive and I was hoping not to need it.”
Warren watched Billy approach Peter. “Yeah, I think we’re going to need it. Set it and have a lie down. It’s over, either way.”
Pham took the advice and with a few taps on the tablet and the flick of a wrist, she released the device and laid down on the stage. It was in Peter’s hands now.
Down on the floor, Peter squared up to Billy. “Your friends are all done. Pack it in, you Sack.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Billy rolled his head, cracking his neck. “What makes you think they were my friends? They were useful.” He rolled his oversized shoulders. “Until they weren’t. Do you really think I need help to pulp you?”
“You’re not going to pulp anyone anymore.” Peter spun the hockey stick expertly, assuming a fighting stance with the sick behind his back. “We’ve proved that you’ve been cheating. We’ve taken down your gang. The proctors will be here soon and all they're going to find is your unconscious body.”
Billy bellowed and rushed at Peter swinging haymakers. Mindful of his footing, Peter stepped lightly around the charge and gave Billy a boost with the flat of the stick as he passed to slam into the edge of the stage. Billy gripped the edge for support as he shook his head, but Warren brought his shield-cushion down on Billy’s fingers. The effect of the pan inside the cushion cover was softened by the pillow, but Billy still yelped and pulled his hands back. Peter stepped in to deliver a stinging blow to the back of Billy’s knees and received a bell-ringer of a backhand to the jaw for his efforts. A few weeks ago it would have seen him black out from the pain, but not anymore.
Peter wiped a thin trickle of blood from his chin with the back of his hand. “You hit like a goblin.”
“What the hell does that even mean?” Billy blinked, confused. It had been so long since anyone had openly defied him, let alone a trio of geeks, that this was an all new experience. He didn’t deal well with confusion, so his did what he always did in this sort of situation. He got angrier. “You little buttwad. I’m going to rip off your arms and beat you with the soggy end.” He lumbered forward, opening and closing his fists.
Peter danced away, delivering weak, rapid strikes to Billy’s ankles and elbows in an attempt to get him to back off. Instead, they only incensed him further, spurring the lummox to lunge forward and grab Peter by the shirt. Peter was hefted into the air by the straining fabric and he experienced a moment of deja vu. He dropped the hockey stick to clatter on the ground.
“You are so dead Scar-boy,” Billy growled.
“I have died more times than you can imagine, you Sack,” Peter choked out as he flailed mid-air. “You’re nothing special.”
Up on the stage, Warren fumbled at Pham’s tablet. He pointed the camera at the pair on the ground floor and pressed a button. An aggressive buzzing from the ceiling changed pitch, Pham’s last device screamed down out of the rafters. Without even looking, Billy stretched out one oversized mit and snatched the device out of the air. He crushed it with one swift clench, sprinkling the pieces over Peter’s head. “Is that all you got?”
“This is all I got!” Peter punched the inside of Billy’s elbow, causing him to reflexively bend his arm. Grabbing Billy’s collar, Peter pulled as hard as he could, smashing his forehead into Billy’s nose.
The bone shattered with a satisfying crunch. Billy dropped Peter, where he scrambled around on the ground until he gathered up his stick. With a rising revengeance strike Peter stood, bringing the blade of the stick up with the follow-through. Right between the uprights.
Billy clamped his hands to his jewels as his eyes crossed and he dropped to his knees. Peter brought the stick around in a tight arc and Billy’s lights went out.
Ten minutes later, when the proctors finally broke in, they found Billy and his crew trussed up with their own clothes, held in place by the feet of one benches upon which sat Peter and Pham. The proctors gathered up the unconscious and merely semi-conscious and took them away. The heros were escorted to the office while the IT guy tried to bring the hall systems back online.
Sitting in the foyer of the office as the lights flickered and the drones at the desks randomly cursed and slammed their mice on the desks and slapped the monitors, the three waited to be picked up. Clearly the effects of the hacker were still causing issues. Eventually someone must have gotten through to their parents because a dejected woman arrived and stood outside.
“That’s me,” Warren said, rolling to the door. “I’ll see you online tonight.” He pressed the button to open the door. “Mum, it’s ok. We’re the good guys this time.” His voice trailed off into the distance as he explained what had happened.
“This time?” Peter leaned in to Pham.
“Yeah, Woz had a bit of an anger problem after his incident, remember?”
“Had?”
Pham punched Peter in the arm. “He was worse. Ask him about it some time.” An older asian man opened the door. “Oh thank goodness. Hi grandad! It wasn’t my fault.” She leapt up and hugged her grandfather. “Petey, I’ll see you. We’ve got a demon to kill and a rat to rescue.”
A bolt of cold shot through Peter’s core. “Oh no! I forgot about DB! How could I?”
“Well, someone trying to kill you tends to have that effect. Catch ya!” Pham skipped out the door followed by the kindly old man who hadn’t said a word.
Peter sat in the foyer as his aches and pains made themselves known as the adrenaline wore off. The IT guys came around and one by one reset the terminals, restarted the environmental controls and building lighting management system. People filed in and out, whispering to each other and glaring at Peter.
Red and blue flashing lights heralded the arrival of the authorities and EMTs, but still Peter sat and nobody came for him. Three o’clock came and went and Peter fell asleep on the uncomfortable pleather of the foyer seating.
“Oh my God Peter, are you okay?” Peter’s heart nearly lept out of his throat as he was shaken roughly awake. His mother’s alarmed face swam into focus. “What happened to you? Have you seen a nurse? Have you seen anyone?”
“Wha? Mum? What’s going on?” Peter rubbed his bleary eyes. “No, I haven’t seen anyone. Where were you?”
Peter’s mother gripped him by the upper arm and pulled him up to his feet. “That doesn’t matter. We’re going home. Now.” She hushed him then turned to the office at large. “We’re leaving, but you will be hearing from my lawyer!”