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SHE’D GONE OUT THROUGH the ceiling. There weren’t any windows, so she made a chimney.
The sink and mirror were streaked with blood, the bar soap looked like a prop from a horror movie, and the towel she’d worn in—now blood brown instead of seafoam green—was in a wet wad on the floor. Next to all the debris.
She’d used the shower head and plunger as tools. Both were beaten up and broken, along with the chassis of the vent fan, two feet of ceiling joist, a lot of drywall and rotten sub-flooring, and a handful of badly damaged linoleum tiles.
She had carved a passageway through the ceiling into my upstairs neighbor’s bathroom and escaped through it. Naked. In under half an hour.
The cops seemed pretty sure from the start that I was an innocent bystander. Someone said, hah!, he’d let a pretty girl in a towel use his shower, too! All his buddies laughed in a way that made me feel gross, and then they left to file their reports.
I caught the first cop on his way out the door. “So, what’s going on? Who was she?”
He gave me a long stare, then shrugged. “Intruder. Caught in some family dispute. Can’t tell you much more.”
That reminded me that she’d mentioned a sister who was in danger. And some guy named Derrick.
He must have seen the reaction on my face, because he sighed and reached for his notebook. “You know something else, kid?”
I didn’t want to talk any more. I’d already lost half my Saturday to this. And I’d told the cop before that the girl and I didn’t interact much. I didn’t want to rouse his suspicions against me, or I’d be giving statements at the police station the rest of the day.
But I couldn’t let someone get hurt. I shrugged. “She said something about an ex-boyfriend named Derrick. Made it seem like he would hurt her sister.”
“Sister?” He frowned, scribbling in his notebook. “Derrick? News to me. Got any more to go on, kid?”
I shrugged again, and he sighed. “Got it. We’ll be in touch if we need anything else.”
“Is she going to be okay? Will you tell me how it turns out?” I felt stupid as soon as the second question was out of my mouth. He snorted without much humor, then let himself out. His cruiser woop-wooped and its tires crunched on old broken bottles and loose asphalt, and he was gone.
Then I was left alone in my apartment. Again.
And life just went back to normal. I ordered a burger and fries through Postmates and spent most of the afternoon trying to duct tape a garbage bag to the popcorn ceiling in my bathroom. I couldn’t imagine the upstairs neighbors would be using theirs until it was repaired, but I could hardly leave a gaping hole over my toilet....
In the end, I used a stapler. It took a lot of staples, but it did the job.
It still took all afternoon, and all that overhead work left my neck and shoulders aching. I was in no shape to code. I texted my buddy and told him to bring some beer.
Took him half an hour. He came through the door with a six-pack in one hand and his phone in the other. He had on a mask, but it was only covering his chin. He was oblivious, fascinated with whatever was on his phone.
I had to call out to snap him out of it. “Ben! Ben?”
He glanced my way, then back to his phone. Absently, he nudged the door closed with his heel, then (with obvious reluctance) turned off his phone screen and put it away.
He tossed me a beer. I dug around in my sheets until I found my bottle opener, popped the top, and passed the opener back to him. “What’s so fascinating on your phone?
“Just a new game platform. Sort of like Steam, but cheaper. Mostly text-based RPGs, but there’s a great selection, and most of them are free-to-play.”
I’d been all excited to tell him about my afternoon, but his description caught my interest. I decided to get that out of the way and tell my story later. “Text-based? Like Zork?”
“Some, yeah. There’s lots with the old 8-bit 2D RPG style, too. Like Final Fantasy. Zelda. The original Fallout.”
I knew those games. I loved those games. I sat forward. “Any of them good?”
“Yeah. Lots.” He pulled out his phone again to show me. He was playing a high school kid with stats like “Chad” and “Stan” and “Simp” instead of “Strength” and “Dexterity” and “Charisma.” He was in the middle of a turn-based battle against a Jock and two Mean Girls. He didn’t have enough Cool to cast Rap Battle, so his choices were Flex, Front, Throw Elbows, or Bounce.
I fixed him with my most withering look. “What is this?”
“It’s my game,” he said. “I’m just playing with the built-in assets, to see what all it can do. Cool, right?”
“Your game?” I asked.
He nodded.
I gaped. “You made this?”
He nodded again.
I shook my head. “When?”
“This morning. It’s mostly the base template. I just made up names for the enemies, the stats, the combat actions, and currencies. I can tweak all the math later, but it’s pretty cool.”
“You made this?” I asked again. I could barely process it.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m setting it in our high school. Your goal is to escape from campus without getting busted. It’s fun.”
“How?” I asked. “How did you make a game?”
He grinned. “It’s easy. Just sign up for an account.”
“Where?”
“Exelichai Game Arcade. Exelichai.com.”