Edgar

SEPTEMBER 6

I TORTURED MYSELF OVER thoughts of the game Savage, wondering whether I would be captured or shot and killed. I wondered how many others had died in this place. Jackson and Lyle wanted me dead, I was convinced. I started to panic, then. I wore myself out imagining I was dodging bullets, running down alleyways, crouched between buildings. Bombs, explosions, pistols fired. I pictured myself near Devil’s Bridge, being exposed to radiation and covered in mud while men in gas masks questioned me about whatever they wanted to know.

For a while I felt the urge to vomit and sat over a wastebasket with a finger down my throat, gagging myself. But I wasn’t able to vomit, only dry heave, which made my eyes water. I tried to relax in my bed. I told myself to stay calm, stay civil. It had rained all night, a steady rain for a while. Outside the window I could see branches of the oak tree waving in the wind. The thunder woke me up a few times with flashes of lightning, and I was coughing, which made me worry about my health, so I didn’t sleep well. I thought about that projection of Ray-Ray. I looked out the window and saw puddles around the tree and in the road. I saw trees with low-hanging branches in the distance, white clapboard houses beyond a rickety fence. Everything appeared dreary, as usual, the world gray-blue in a darkening land. It rained hard for a while and then tapered off.

Time started to feel heavy. Lying there, I started to think about my mother and all the weight of her responsibilities, having to care for my dad. My thoughts turned to images. A memory of when I was six or seven years old, and she pretended to cry when I said I was going to run away but didn’t make it farther than the fence out back. I don’t remember why I made the threat or where I said I was going, only that I was running away from home, from her. I stood there for what felt like a long time, listening to her sniffles, her fake cries. I felt terrible about it. All these years later I still felt bad about it, threatening to run away, even though I knew she was only pretending to cry. I stayed in the backyard and played with our dog Jack, rolling around in the grass with him. We played tug-of-war with a twig until it snapped. I let him chase me around the yard, and eventually I forgot about running away. My mother must’ve watched the whole thing from the back door, because when I came near the back porch, she was pretending to cry again. “I don’t want you to run away,” she said, putting her face in her hands.

Jackson stepped into the room and said my days were numbered. I sat up in bed, and he walked out. I got up and followed him into the kitchen.

“What does that mean?” I said. “My days are numbered.”

His back was to me. He was stirring his coffee cup with a spoon. “I’ve been trying to create these augmented realities,” he said. “This whole place is an alternate reality. Just look how many pillheads live here. People coughing, sick from decayed lungs, craving an alternate state of mind. We all overdo it.”

“What are you talking about?”

He turned to me and took a sip of his coffee. “We’ve been using you to develop our gaming here. Now your days are numbered. It’s an expression.”

“I know the expression.”

“We’ve got images of you all around town, Chief. People filmed you last night at the warehouse. It’s a live shooting game.”

“Fuck you.”

His eyes widened, but he didn’t say anything. It felt good to lash out at him. I could feel myself wanting to go on and on. I couldn’t take him any longer.

“Another thing,” I said. “I saw Ray-Ray’s image last night in the projector downstairs. What the fuck are you doing?”

He waited for some time, thinking. “You saw whose image?”

“Cut the bullshit.”

“Oh,” he said. He looked at me and blinked slowly. “The machine projects images I feed it. I feed it images I get online all the time. I use Facebook photos or whatever, and I included photos of you and Ray-Ray and your sister.”

“You’re pathetic, Jackson. You deserve to be alone. I’m getting out of here.”

“I wouldn’t try to leave if I were you, Chief. You’re the star of another game I’ve been working on. It’s called Savage.”

“Yeah, I saw the manual, scumbag. Another dumb failure.”

“That’s what you think,” he said. “We’re beta-testing it now. People use real guns to shoot Indians. That’s why people act so weird around you. That’s why I took video of you.”

“What a cruel piece of shit you are. I can’t believe I felt sorry for you.”

“Maybe you should just leave,” he said. “When people in town see you, they might assume you’re a hologram and shoot. But you could take your chances, right? I think I’ll just kick you out.”

“Fuck off. I’d rather die out there than stay here with you.”

He set down his coffee mug and stared directly at me. It was a look that took time, an attempt at intimidation, but it wasn’t working. Jackson was deceptively strong, but not very tough. For as long as I knew him, he had never been tough but had always pretended to be. In school he was always getting into fights and never winning. I started to walk away, but he pushed me. I turned and struck him in the chest with the palm of my hand, and he grabbed my arm. We started to grapple right there in the kitchen. We wrestled like teenagers. Neither of us threw a punch, but we were telling each other off, wrestling. Finally I hit him on the side of his head, and he crouched down, crying out. I could see he was in pain. He held his head with one hand and started swinging blind with the other, but I moved back and went into my room and shut the door.