World Map
I was dreaming of rainbow racetracks looping through space, when someone shook my bed.
“Dammit, Soup,” I said, eyes still closed.
“It’s Fezzik.”
I jerked upright. I expected the dunes in the window to blaze with morning light, but they reflected moonlight instead. It was ten p.m. I’d been asleep for thirty minutes.
“Congratulations, adventurer,” Fezzik said. “You’ve unlocked star class.”
“Really? Rad.” I rubbed my eyes. “How many points is it worth?”
“Five thousand. But you should be more excited about what the Silver Lady has to teach you.” He gave the bed another jostle. “C’mon. Aurora and Meeki already headed up.”
Even though I felt exhausted right down to my bone marrow, I stumbled out of bed. Star class would bring my point gap down to three thousand.
In the corner of the Nest, Soup said, “Hmph.”
“Sorry, Soup,” Fezzik said, opening the door. “This is the cost of purposefully losing points. You stay a first tier.”
Soup grumped. Relieved, I waved good-bye and noticed he had a cross-stitch in his lap of what might have been a car wash. Sweet. It looked like the last 3,000 points might earn themselves.
Video Horizons was dark and green from the glowing exit lights. Our footsteps echoed down the corridor. Fezzik was not his usual jolly self. He was quiet. I assumed it was because of my performance with the Ping-Pong ball. If I was going to keep earning therapy points, I needed to get back in the guild leader’s good graces.
I scuffed my feet along the concrete. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. About warriors and wizards and healers and all that stuff, and . . . you’re right. I should work with my guild more.”
“Everyone likes a well-balanced party,” Fezzik said.
He seemed distracted, nervous even. He kept rubbing the back of his neck and clearing his throat. That was when I noticed he was clean shaven and wearing the most dapper attire one could find at a big ’n’ tall store. I relaxed a little. Maybe his silence wasn’t about me after all.
In the western corridor Fezzik took out a set of keys and opened a yellow door onto a staircase. As we climbed, I grew kinda excited. Not in a points way, but in an adventure sort of way. I’d completed the first level of a dungeon and was about to emerge onto . . . what? Something mysterious. Something new.
Fezzik’s ass in my face kind of broke the spell.
At the top of the stairs, Fezzik opened another door, and a desert wind rushed over us. We stepped onto the roof.
As a gamer, I had gazed on breaktaking skies—Skyrim with its endless constellations, WoW with its smoldering horizons, Halo with its galactic ring. But I’d never seen the real sky look like this. Out in the desert, beyond the streetlamps, porch lights, headlights, and computer screens, the stars could throw their light all the way to Earth. Thousands glimmered in the crisp, dry air, and the sand dunes bowed before them, blue with reverence.
I realized that if I had someone to share the grandeur of the universe with, I could leave those video game skies behind.
A handful of players watched the stars through telescopes. I recognized a few Sefs and Meeki. And what night sky would be complete without the lunatic light of Aurora’s white hair?
“No Master Cheefs?” I asked Fezzik.
“A couple of them tried jousting with the telescopes and were banned from the roof for a week.”
“Perfect,” I said.
The door creaked open, and the players hushed as the Silver Lady, the Sefiroths’ guild leader, stepped onto the roof. She was so thin and her hair was so light, she resembled a ray of star shine herself.
Fezzik rushed over to hold open the door for her.
Ah. So that’s how you keep the Emperor out of Arcadia.
The players sat on lawn chairs as the Silver Lady stepped onto a pedestal, the North Star shining above her.
“Good evening, stargazers,” she said.
“Good evening,” the players said.
It was so quiet, I could hear the wind carrying grains of sand across the desert.
“ ‘Why does disorder increase in the same direction of time as that in which the universe expands?’ ”
I leaned forward in my lawn chair so I wouldn’t miss a word. I imagined Gravity bathed in the warm glow of Mandrake’s. She would set down her fork to stare and listen as I unraveled the mysteries of the universe.
“This is a quote from Stephen Hawking,” the Silver Lady said. “It challenges us to wonder why as time moves forward, everything falls into chaos.” She looked at the stars. “The objects of the universe are always moving away from each other. More and more quickly.”
My excitement was overshadowed by a feeling of loneliness. But instead of the regular old loneliness I was used to, it was an expanding loneliness.
“Objects in space must move away from each other,” the Silver Lady continued. “And they must do it more and more quickly. Otherwise, each object’s gravitational pull would draw in the objects around it, and the universe would crunch back together in one big intergalactic crash.”
I thought of the people who had moved away from me. My mom leaving when I was eight. Girls from my high school accidentally texting mean things as they fled. Being torn away from Gravity. Was this how the universe worked? Was I doomed to sit in the middle of my existence and watch as everyone expanded away from me?
“Of course, there are objects in the night sky that try to reverse this process,” the Silver Lady said. She turned her back to us and opened her hands to the sky. “Stars start their lives by expanding. They are an explosion, always pushing outward. But eventually, after billions of years, the star runs out of matter to burn, and it crunches up as easily as a soda can.”
My head felt heavy so I rested my chin in my hands as I gazed up. I sympathized with the star. Being committed in a video game rehabilitation center due to uncontrollable forces didn’t feel too different from being crushed by the nothingness of space.
The Silver Lady lifted her hands in a circle and began shrinking it. “The star’s matter continues condensing and condensing, becoming heavier and heavier until the equivalent of three hundred thousand Earths fits into a space the size of this desert.” She turned toward us, the circle between her hands no bigger than a pinprick. “The star becomes so heavy that it breaks through the fabric of the universe, falling out of time and space as we know it.”
Falling through the world, I thought.
“Where does it go?” Parappa, the nerdcore kid, asked.
“Exactly,” the Silver Lady said. “Where does it go?”
To video game rehab.
I felt so heavy and depressed, I thought I might break right through my lawn chair.
“All astronomers know is that the immense gravity of the dead star begins greedily sucking in every object around it, trying to draw the universe back in.” She looked at the sky again. “We know black holes are out there. But we can’t see them. We can only hope to find their presence by the way light bends toward the blackness.” She smiled at us. “Grab your telescopes, stargazers.”
And so we spent the next fifteen minutes searching for nothing.
When I couldn’t seem to find any black holes, just eyelashy blotches of light, I grew antsy and wondered if I was fighting hard enough against the crushing nothingness of Video Horizons. The surrounding desert seemed to grow vaster every day. What if I tried to walk back, but the dunes just kept popping up, endlessly rendering beyond the horizon?
I shifted my focus to the grounds nearer the facility. To the east was the Coliseum. Above it, I imagined a flag with an M for Miles: Dungeon complete.
But there were dungeons still to come.
To the north was an alien landscape of bizarre, blocky shapes, like a giant melting chess set. To the south was a stretch of compact sand with arching spray-painted lines and a lumpy blue tarp. And to the west was the parking lot with G-man’s car, which, if I won, would drive me home, triumphant.
There was no possible way that the next two days could go as well as the first two.
“Stargazers?” the Silver Lady said. She passed out star charts and mini flashlights. “For each planet or star cluster you identify, I will award you five hundred points.”
Yes, I thought, before remembering I never went outside and that every light in the sky looked the same to me.
“You may pair up with a partner,” she said. “Four eyes are better than two.”
The star chart looked like someone had sneezed white paint across a black piece of paper. If anyone wanted me to show them how to get the best ending in Mass Effect, I was their guy. But when it came to identifying stuff in the real sky, I needed help.
I scanned the faces in star class while Navi swirled to life around me, lighting my shoulders with fairy dust. Didilingdingdingdingding. She fluttered across the roof to . . . the spaciest person up there.
“Hey, Aurora.”
“Hello, Miles Prower.”
“You wanna be partners?”
“Partners in what?”
I pointed upward. “Finding stars.”
“I like stars.”
I smiled. “I thought you might.”
I waved to Meeki, who narrowed her eyes at me and then teamed up with the nerdcore kid.
I laid the star map on the wide railing of the roof and squinted at it. “Okay, Aurora. You think you can spot everything on this chart?”
“Oh, I prefer stars’ mythological names.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you want me to tell you your fortune?”
Oh God. I’d picked the wrong kind of spacey.
“I’m not bad at them,” Aurora said, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“Listen,” I said. “We need to work on this assignment. I need these points for—”
She ignored me and searched the stars. “I could tell you whether you’ll get out of here in time for your date or not.”
“Um, isn’t astrology kind of”—I looked at the Silver Lady—“anti-astronomy?”
Aurora tilted her head toward the sky. “Objects on the edge of the solar system can influence Earth’s orbit. The moon changes girls’ periods. Isn’t it possible that gigantic glittery objects in space can have some sort of effect? Even if it’s in a billiard ball sort of way?”
“No,” I said, remembering my physics class. “I have more gravitational pull on you than Saturn does.”
Aurora bashfully pulled a strand of hair across her face. “You flatter yourself, Miles Prower.”
“I wasn’t trying to . . .” I sighed. “Fine.” I crossed my arms. “Shock me.”
Aurora bent over, lifted the hem of her long wool skirt, and pulled a smooshed dandelion puffball from her sock. I gave her a look like, Where in the hell did you get a dandelion and how did it survive in your sock? She didn’t notice and held the puffball up against the night sky.
“The dandelion is the flower of the cosmos,” she said. “The yellow flower represents the sun, the white blossom the moon, and the scattered seeds the stars.”
“Do they collapse and fall through the universe?” I asked sarcastically.
“Sorta.” Aurora handed me the dandelion. “Hold this up so the blossom covers the moon. It works better if the moon’s full, but this should do.”
Why the hell not? I could use a good fortune right then. I closed one eye and lifted the dandelion so its sphere of white seeds nearly fit inside the moon’s light.
“Blow,” Aurora said.
I blew. The white seeds anticlimactically tumbled right over the roof’s edge. Aurora looked upward, though, as if they were swirling among the stars. She stared into the sky so long, I swore I could see the Milky Way flow.
My knee started to jitter impatiently.
“Orion,” she finally said.
I looked at the only constellation I knew—three stars in a glittery belt. “What does that mean?”
I wanted her to say, You are going to get out of here Thursday night, right in the nick of time, having earned one million points by being a badass in all events—physical, mental, and emotional alike—proving to your dad and G-man and Casey and all the girls in your high school that you have more talent in the real world than they ever could have imagined, and then you’re going to go on your date with Gravity, and you are going to charm the pants off her. Only, not at the restaurant. That part will happen later.
“Orion is a warrior,” Aurora said.
“That sounds good,” I said, crossing my flabby arms.
“He slays beasts and has a huge ego.” She pinched her finger and thumb together. “But then he gets killed by a tiny little scorpion.”
“Oh.”
“In another version he tries to win over this girl, but her dad blinds him.”
“Ugh.”
I hadn’t even thought about Gravity’s parents. Having one terrifying dad was enough.
“The story I like,” Aurora said, “is the one where he’s trying to catch these seven sisters, the Pleiades.” She pointed to a cluster of stars to the right of Orion’s belt. Then she traced a few inches left to a triangle of stars between the two constellations. “But the sisters are protected by the bull, Taurus. Orion believes he’s a hero, going after these girls.”
“Isn’t he?” I asked.
Aurora shrugged. “He probably could have defeated the bull, but then there was the catasterism.”
I winced and crossed my legs. “He gets castrated?”
“No. ‘Catasterism’ means the girls transformed into stars.”
Why was everyone transforming into stars and expanding away from me?
“Orion will be chasing those sisters for the rest of eternity,” Aurora said with a sigh, as if the idea brought her peace.
We fell silent. The star chart bent in the wind.
I don’t know what made me say what I said next—Orion chasing something he could never catch, Aurora’s trying to connect to a boyfriend who didn’t care about her, the ever-expanding universe . . .
“My mom’s an addict,” I said.
Aurora looked at me, attentive as the moon. I stared at my shoes.
“She used to wake me up in the middle of the night and we’d play Dr. Mario until four, five in the morning. I didn’t know why she couldn’t sleep. I was just excited because I got to stay up all night playing games.”
I scuffed my feet and remembered those late nights snuggling up by her side, flipping multicolored pills onto dancing viruses.
“My parents got divorced when I was eight, and I stayed with my dad,” I said. “When I was nine, he flew me out to see her, but . . . she didn’t show up to the airport. I waited with the flight attendant for ten hours, staring at strangers’ faces, hoping each face would be hers. She never came.” I got that burning sensation in my eyes and blinked it away. “When I got home, my dad told me why my mom acted the way she did. He told me horror stories about drugs and alcohol so that I would lead a more disciplined life like he had. And for a while it worked. I always studied, always read, always cleaned up my room. I never drank or smoked pot. I was afraid that whatever addiction had gotten my mom would get me too. So I played video games instead. Ha.” I kicked at the gravel on the roof. “I think that’s why he sent me here. He doesn’t want me to become like her.”
“Do you want to become like her?” Aurora said.
I kept my eyes on my shoes. I was afraid if I looked up, I’d start crying. “My mom’s the nicest person I know. In, like, a she’s-my-best-buddy sort of way.” I cleared my throat. “There was this feeling . . . when I was eight. I loved my mom so much, it hurt. And that’s the feeling she left me with. It’s never gone away. I’ve only seen her three times since. My dad is the one who decides when that happens. And even then, yeah, sometimes she’s too messed up to show.”
The stars wavered in unspilled tears. I felt like my insides were unspooling.
Aurora suddenly stomped on the roof between my legs. “Got it!”
I jumped. “Augh! What?”
She grew bashful. “I was pretending to step on a scorpion for you. Never mind. It was just pretend.”
“You’re weird,” I said. I pinched my eyes and tried to lose that vulnerable feeling. “So.” I cleared my throat again. “What does Orion mean for my future?”
Aurora stared at the roof for a beat. Then she threw her head back with a sniff and examined the night sky again, her eyes shining.
“You’re going to be here for a very long time, Miles Prower.”
I scratched my arm, annoyed. I had poured my heart out to this girl; the least she could have done was give me a good fortune.
I tossed the empty dandelion stem off the roof. “I preferred the science where stars were being crushed to death.”
I walked over to the Silver Lady.
“Do constellations count for points?” I asked.
The Silver Lady gave me a teacherly look. “Constellations aren’t science.”
“Yeah, I know.” I looked at the sky. “Sucks that space is trying to extinguish all those beautiful stars.”
“Actually,” she said, following my gaze, “it isn’t space that does it. Stars are crushed by their own gravity. They’re fighting against themselves. Sorry if I wasn’t clear.”
Huh. Maybe I didn’t sympathize with stars then.
I handed the Silver Lady my empty star chart. “We found zero.”
I got my scroll stamped and was on my way downstairs when Fezzik “casually” ambled up to the Silver Lady and set his giant frame on the end of a lawn chair. The whole thing tipped forward, and he instinctively grabbed her arm, practically ripping it out of its socket.
Smooth move, Emperor.
Still, I wished him luck. Someone had to get something out of star class.