“So those government folks still won’t let you get out there and take care of business, eh?” Gramps asks as he steps back to take his seat. The pins clatter at the other end of the lane, another strike.
“Yeah,” I tell him, “but I’m starting to think that we can’t wait any more. I don’t know what the government task force is even doing. For all I know they’ve just given up and are feeding me fake reports to keep me busy and out of their hair. And we’re not waiting for anything on our side anymore either, the dev team is done with all the upgrades we needed and the younger sibs with interfaces all know what they’re doing now.”
“Are you sure they’re all ready, Noah?” Grammy gets up to take her turn. “Some of those kids seem so small to be off to fight.”
“They’re only a year younger than I was when I went to ‘Nam, Helen,” Gramps reminds her.
Her ball thunders down the center and leaves a 7-10 split, but she picks up both of them on her second throw.
“I know that, Frank,” she says, returning to her seat, “but you lied about your age and nearly got yourself killed.”
“Still better than staying in my father’s house,” he says gruffly. A pained look flashes across his eyes. “You’re up, Noah.”
I wonder if he’s ever told me about his childhood. If he has, I have no memory of it. Doesn’t sound great though. I grab the heavy, polished swirl of black and red by its three holes and step up to the lane. My body remembers the motions even if my conscious mind couldn’t describe them if my life depended on it. The ball thunders down to the pins for a strike.
“You’re not cheating there, are you honey?” Grammy asks in her nicest voice. “With your little robots?”
“He’s not,” Lin assures her. “I thought he might be after the last two, so I checked.”
“I can have a good game now and then,” I say defensively. This might be the first time I’ve ever had three strikes in a row. Not that I’d remember if I ever had. It’s definitely the first time since bowling came to the campus.
Lin looks so cute getting up to bowl. I carefully don’t laugh as she spreads her legs, bends over, lowers her ball in both hands, and drops it too early so that it thuds between her feet rather than going down the lane.
“Your girl ever going to learn to bowl?” Gramps whispers.
“Probably not,” I whisper back.
Lin picks up her hot pink six pounder from the ball return and tries again. I suppress a chuckle as she grannies it into the gutter again.
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Gramps nails another strike and dusts his knuckles off on his shirt as he returns to his seat. If he hadn’t had that spare in the second frame, he’d be heading for a perfect game. He’ll top the weekly tournament as usual, but he stopped counting himself and Grammy in the competition after the first week.
“Wow, Noah. You’re doing awesome.” Marc leans over from the lane to our left.
“Thanks, Marc. How’s the new implant treating you? You’re all done with the calibrations now, right?”
“Yeah,” he says. “It’s so good. Louise did such a good job setting it up for me.”
“I’m glad to hear it. No headaches or anything?”
“Nope. It’s been great. Check this out.” A stream of multicolored balls materialize in the air and start doing rotations around his outstretched hand. They work their way along his arm to his shoulder in an extended helix and float up to spin around his head. I half expect the balls to collide with his face, I still have the account of something like that during one of our first meetings as part of my daily read. Instead they gracefully form into a halo above him then wink out of existence with a pop.
“Very nice.”
“We’ve got training again in the morning right? Testing out that last batch of upgrades that the devs did for us?”
“Right. Remind Louise too. She hasn’t tried the latest updates yet either. You two can partner up.”
“Hey, Louise!” he calls out across the alley. “You and me tomorrow!”
“OK,” she yells, then goes back to her turn. I don’t think she realizes what she just agreed to, but that’s all right. She’ll find out tomorrow.
“I’m getting a soda,” Grammy says. “Anyone else want one?”
Lin and I both raise our hands. I take my turn and break my streak with a seven-ten split. Oh, well. I get back to my seat just in time to take the ice-cold drink from Grammy. Lin puts two more balls in the gutter. At least she looks hot while she’s doing it. I wonder if she’ll score at all in this game. Not that it matters. It's just a game.
I hear Evan swear from the lane to our right. He’s shaking a shiny green ball from his hand, but I think that his fingers are stuck. I thought he had a custom ball so this wouldn’t happen. And yes, he does. There it is, the same exact color as the one in his hands, still sitting in the ball return. He must have jammed his fingers into Valerie’s matching ball. I laugh, even though I know I shouldn’t.
Mom, help me be a better brother.
I get my bots up against his fingers and chew away enough plastic to help him get loose. His fingers pop out and I fuse the tiny plastic chunks back in place.
To Evan: You OK man?
From Evan: All except my pride.
To Evan: Maybe don’t do twin balls with Valerie? Or put some kind of a mark on yours?
He nods from across the lanes and I see the lime green of his ball take on some swirling dark stripes as his bots do some quick adjustments. He picks up the right ball this time and manages to knock down six pins.
I flub my next frame and only get nine points, but I glance over and see that I’m still close to Andrea’s score. And we’re both way ahead of all the other siblings. If she screws up and I get my mojo back for the last couple of frames I might still win.
And then she throws a strike. Oh well.