37
Choices
When Rush woke up for breakfast, he still felt mentally drained, as though the half night’s sleep he had managed to get hadn’t done him any good at all. He forced himself to get up and go through the motions of his morning routine, but even turning the shower to cold didn’t manage to shake the dullness out of his brain. It just made his teeth chatter.
By the time he emerged into the suite’s living room, he expected to find Sketch either playing HRT Alpha or watching cartoons, as he had every other morning since they had arrived, but instead, he was still face planted on the couch, sound asleep.
“Hey, Sketch. Come on, man, wake up.” When he didn’t move, Rush finally shook him by the shoulder, only to be rewarded by a series of inarticulate groans.
“Uhhhhh…. gnnnn… lem… sl…”
“Sketch. Sketch, wake up.”
“Sud lumme slup.”
“Sketch.” Rush shook the boy’s shoulder again, harder this time.
“Said, ‘Lemme sleep!’” Sketch protested, grabbing his blanket, hauling it up over his head, and turning his face into the back of the couch.
“I know we didn’t get enough sleep last night, OK? I know you’re tired. But we can’t act like anything’s wrong. You have to get up and look awake, whether you feel like it or not, or else we’re all gonna get in trouble.”
But this was more than just a simple lack of sleep. Rush stayed up late gaming and then got up the next morning for school on a fairly regular basis. It never left him feeling as wiped out as he felt right now. He assumed it had something to do with the summoning the night before, but whatever the reason, they couldn’t afford to let it give them away.
“Good,” Sketch mumbled. “Let ’em ground us so we can go back to bed.”
“That’s not how it works, Sketch,” Rush insisted, chuckling a little despite his own exhaustion. “Come on, man. Get up.”
Sketch finally sat up, rubbing his eyes and looking sorrier than a stray puppy on the side of the road.
“I know,” Rush admitted. “I’m feeling it, too. But we can do it, OK? We just have to get through the morning, and then we can try to grab a nap at lunch.”
“OK,” Sketch agreed. He stumbled off the couch and headed for the bathroom.
Rush walked toward Daniel’s room to make sure he was awake, too, but he was only halfway through the kitchen when he heard Daniel’s alarm go off, followed by a defiant grunt. The alarm stopped, and after a few long moments he heard Daniel start moving around. It didn’t sound like he was moving very quickly, but at least he was making an effort to get up. Rush left him to it and headed downstairs.
When he reached the main lobby, Ammu walked over to him immediately, striding with purpose. Rush made an effort to stand up straight and look alert, greeting the professor with as much of his usual energy as he could muster.
“Morning, Ammu,” Rush said. “Something I can do for you?”
“Walk with me.”
“Sure.” Rush tried to keep his voice light, but this wasn’t good. He really didn’t feel up to a special session of Ammu and the Unconscious Mind at the moment, but he was determined not to let on just how tired he felt.
Ammu led him out the lodge doors and around the side of the building. At first, Rush was nervous that maybe they hadn’t done as good a job of cleaning up as they had thought, imagining that Ammu was going to walk him back to the workshop and ask him what he knew about the chalk lines on the floor or the stray gryphon feather he had found lying in the middle of the empty bay.
But instead, Ammu stopped in the gardens and led Rush to a simple, stone bench, sitting down amidst the flowers and inviting Rush to sit with him so they could talk. Rush managed to stifle a sigh of relief and sat gratefully next to the older man, doing his best to look alert and interested, rather than exhausted and guilty.
“I am afraid I find myself in an unfortunate position,” Ammu began. “I must present you with a choice I did not think you would have to make. Please understand, this is not what I intended. I did not know…” Ammu trailed off and fell silent. Rush had never seen the man at a loss for words, and a spike of fear finally managed to clear a bit of the mental fog away.
“You must choose, unfortunately,” Ammu said, apparently deciding not to finish his previous thought, “whether you would prefer to stay here all summer, by which I mean not going to your gaming competition but rather staying here to complete the program, or to leave now, in which case you would have ample time to prepare for your competition, but you would not be allowed to return.”
“Wait… what?” Rush said, trying to wrap his tired mind around Ammu’s words. “But you said I could go!”
“I know, and for this, I must truly apologize.” Ammu’s voice was deeply sorrowful, but he continued nonetheless. “It is out of my control. I have some influence over this program and its curriculum, to be sure, but in this case I have no say in the matter.”
So Grid was right, Rush thought, silently taking in what Ammu had just admitted. This really is a Homeland Security thing. Ammu isn’t in charge at all.
“Ammu,” Rush begged. “Please don’t take this away from me. If they were going to let me go before, there has to be a way they’d agree to it now. Something I can do, or something I can promise? It’s not just a game. It’s my career, Ammu. It’s my future.”
“I know,” Ammu replied gently. “You can still go. Your future awaits. You simply would not be allowed to return.”
“It isn’t really a choice then,” Rush said, slumping his shoulders forward and hanging his head. “If I go home early, my dad’s gonna think they kicked me out. He won’t let me go to the invitational anyway.”
“Ah. In that regard, at least, I can still be of some assistance,” Ammu replied, smiling sadly. “You would be sent home with an explanation that the first stage of the program has been so successful as to be redesigned, that you will be invited to participate in future stages during your bright college career, et cetera and so forth. You would not, of course, be under any such obligation, but it would suffice to appease your father, I think.”
“Really?”
“Indeed. It is in their best interest for people to believe that the program has been a success. For funding purposes, if nothing else. The ruse would be for the program directors as much as for you.”
A success, and completely normal, Rush thought. I bet there won’t be anything about summoning gryphons in that letter, either. But, of course, that wasn’t a thought he was about to share.
“As you can see,” Ammu finished, “the choice is genuine. If you go home, there is no reason why you would not be allowed to attend the gaming conference. You simply would not be permitted to return.”
“How long do I have to decide?” Rush asked, his head swimming.
Ammu stared at him for a long moment, and Rush knew the answer from his silence even before he heard him say the words aloud.
“You must decide now, before we return to the lodge. Even as we speak, our time is running short. I can not apologize enough for the situation I have put you in,” Ammu said, his voice clearly conveying his regret. “This was not my intention.”
Rush sat on the bench in silence, wondering how this could be happening. If they had offered him this choice even two days ago, he would have leaped at it. But now… now he wouldn’t just be leaving some weird kid named Roman and a five-star resort with no Internet. Now he would be leaving Sketch and Disco and Grid and Tick-Tock and Gears. He would be leaving the baby gryphon he could never see again, and who knew how many other magical creatures from Ammu’s book—a whole mystical world he would never be able to explore.
But gaming was all he had ever been good at, at least until now, and the ICIC was hardly a career plan. It was like Grid had said, this was just a government program—Homeland Security would use them for the summer and then send them home. Hell, they might even have to promise never to communicate with each other again. And then where would he be?
The answer came to him in a flash of clarity: he would be exactly where he was now, heading home, only it would be after the invitational, without any other future to look forward to. He would have the same damn hole in his heart he was feeling now, but with nothing else left to fill it.
“How am I going to tell the others?” Rush asked, the depth of his pain showing in his eyes. “How am I going to tell Sketch?”
Ammu smiled sadly, recognizing that Rush had made his choice. “We will tell them together,” he said, his voice somehow still gentle and reassuring even with Rush’s whole universe crashing down around him. Together, they stood and began the long, slow walk back to the lodge.