Chapter 2

“Hiya, Nora!”

Trixie was perched on the steps up to the stage, waving enthusiastically. I didn’t answer her, beyond a quick stealthy nod, because I had some silly desire not to be committed to a quaint little asylum for the completely insane. I was the only one who could see or hear the ghost of the Palace. I knew she was real, but I had no expectation that anybody else would take my word on that.

She scampered up the aisle toward us, the shiny gold buttons and braid of her usherette’s uniform gleaming, her little cap at a jaunty angle on her bouncing blonde curls, her wide blue eyes taking in the boxes and the banners with delight.

“What’s all this? What are you doing? Gee, are we having a party?” She clapped her hands. “Oh, I love a party! Why, I haven’t been to a party in I don’t know how long!”

I gave her a warning glance. One that reminded her that I really couldn’t chat when there were other people around. She nodded and grinned, then mimed a zipper across her mouth.

Callie, Marty, and Brandon had hauled the cartons into the auditorium and were now doing the math to figure out how many of the theater’s seats were going to get a tablet.

“Thirteen boxes, not counting the one with the banners, with twenty-four tablets per box,” Callie said. “That means we have 312.” She glanced at me.

“There are 311 names on the guest list for tomorrow.”

“Ohmygod! Can I have the extra?” Brandon flushed with excitement.

“Sure. If we get to keep it, you can pick it up after the announcement.”

He looked at me like I’d slapped a cookie out of his hand. “What do you mean ‘after’? I’m going to be here for the announcement.”

“The meeting is at eleven in the morning on a school day,” I reminded him.

“What meeting?” Trixie asked me. “What announcement? It isn’t a party?” Her lip zipper hadn’t lasted long.

“You don’t think I’m going to miss this, do you?” Brandon protested. “S Banks! In this theater! Announcing his new—”

“He’s not going to be in this theater.” I slid a carton of tablets toward the teenager. “He’s going to be in some event space in Palo Alto. We’re just getting the live feed. You know that. You can watch it later online. After school.”

He stared at me, stunned betrayal washing over his face.

“Nora, who’s not going to be in the theater? Who are we talking about?” Trixie whispered loudly.

Callie, holding an armful of tablets, gave Brandon a gentle prod with her elbow. “Come on. Let’s get started.”

But even she wasn’t getting through to him. “Nora, you don’t understand. I have to be here. There’s no way to know what S Banks might do. He might be here as a hologram. He might be here as AR and these tablets might be the only ones in the world you can use to see him.”

“Um, Nora? What’s a hollow gram? Is it like a telegram?” Trixie asked. “I didn’t think people used those anymore. Is it something new?”

“This could be the most important announcement in the history of gaming!” Brandon was verging on the hysterical.

“Gaming?” Trixie said. “Like backgammon?”

“Well, I want no part of it,” Marty proclaimed. “Whatever this announcement is I predict nothing good will come of it.”

I ignored them both, regarding the rapidly disintegrating Brandon. “Listen. I’ll make you a deal. I need a call from your mom. Not a text—a call. I have to hear her voice telling me it’s okay that you skip school tomorrow morning for this.”

It was ridiculous how quickly hope surged back into him. “She’ll call! I promise! She will!”

“I’m so confused.” Trixie slumped into one of the aisle seats.

I saw a way to end her confusion and put Brandon’s nerd knowledge to work. “Let’s get cracking,” I said. “Brandon, while we’re at it, tell us everything we need to know about gaming, S Banks, and whatever the hell AR is.”

“Oh!” Trixie sat up and fixed Brandon with her attention. “I just adore hearing about new things.”

  

What we heard, at great length, was that gaming was the most important thing in the world, and that S Banks was the most important guy in gaming. I had a hard time swallowing this, because, duh, movies were the most important thing in the world. But I listened. After all, I’d signed us up for this gig.

“AR stands for Augmented Reality,” Brandon eventually explained. By this time Marty had removed himself to the far end of the stage to hang a banner. He’d made quite a production of putting his earphones in to drown Brandon out.

Callie, Brandon, and I had formed a production line of sorts. Callie unboxed each tablet, then passed it to Brandon, who fired it up and checked for the app that would allow it to receive data the next day. He then gave it to me to record the serial number and place it on a seat. Trixie supervised. Brandon talked the whole time.

“Do you guys remember that game that was everywhere about two years ago? The one where you chased virtual alien invaders in the real world?”

I vaguely recalled the craze. I’d been in LA at the time, managing Ted’s career and believing I was in a happy marriage.

“I mean, sort of,” Callie said. “Was that the thing where you used to see people all over town, walking around in clumps, staring at their phones?”

“Not clumps,” Brandon informed her. “Rebel alliances. In the game, Earth had been overrun by alien invaders, and only small bands of rebels were still free. We had to work together to overthrow the alien overlords.”

“Through reasoned negotiations and diplomatic outreach?” I guessed.

He stared at me. “By hunting them down and blasting them.”

“Right.”

Trixie’s head had been swiveling to keep up with the conversation. “Gee, that sounds fun!”

Brandon went on. “The app used your GPS to know where you were, and based on your location and sometimes on other things, like time of day or how many other players were around you, you could see the aliens.”

“What did they look like?” I asked, prompting Callie to send me a don’t-encourage-him look, but I was curious despite myself.

“There were over four hundred unique characters,” Brandon told us. “Some were green and slimy, some were purple with tentacles—all kinds of things. Different weapons worked on different ones. They were so cool!”

Trixie made a face. “I don’t know, Nora. Slimy and tentacles? Weren’t there any nice ones? And how do you see them, anyway? Were there film projectors hidden all over the place?”

I couldn’t answer her, but I could give Brandon a prompt. “So you saw them when you looked through your phone?”

“Right, the game used the camera on your phone. That’s the reality part. The augmented part is that sometimes you’d see a Thupolis in a doorway or a Vlaguard in a crosswalk or something.”

Trixie blinked.

“Like a cartoon?” I asked.

“Like CGI,” he said. “Way more advanced than cartoons.”

That was a shame. Trixie understood cartoons. I’d explain CGI to her later. Possibly with an editorial aside about how it had ruined movies.

“Didn’t I hear that a bunch of people died while they were playing that stupid game?” Callie asked. “Like, wandering into traffic and falling off roofs and things?”

“Oh, that’s terrible!” Trixie exclaimed.

“A lot of that was urban legend,” Brandon said. “I don’t think anybody really died.”

“I don’t know,” Trixie said. “Not all urban legends are fake. Look at me, for instance.”

I laughed, causing the two non-ghosts I was working with to give me startled looks. Trixie slapped a hand over her mouth.

I cleared my throat and changed the topic. “I wonder what the new thing will be.”

Which set Brandon off on a fresh bout of fevered speculation. I gave Trixie a quick grin, but she was listening to the teenager again, eyes wide with wonder at this unimaginable world he was explaining.

Right about that time I got my own little dose of technology, in the form of my phone chiming to remind me that I had an appointment. The four co-owners of the Palace were meeting, and I’d been invited to join them.

“Hey, guys, you’ll have to finish up without me. I need to head over to Monica’s for the owners’ meeting.”

Brandon’s head snapped up. “Will Tommy May be there?”

“That’s why I’m going,” I told him. “I finally get to see the great and powerful Oz.” So far I’d only exchanged emails and texts with the tech genius. “It’ll be good to meet him in person.”

A snort from behind me told me that Marty had come down from his ladder. “If he even is a person,” he said. “And not some sort of robot.”

“Technically, he’d be a cyborg—” Brandon began. I left before he could explain the distinction.