Alex’s dad reached the school. He was running late, so he pulled too fast into a far spot and fumbled with his keys. The school towered in the distance, a vast tan building. He felt overwhelmed. For all Alex’s troubles, what teacher had taken the time to call Bao in? The teachers had all written Alex off years ago. Bao couldn’t say why it was happening now, so late in the game, but it seemed hopeful. It made him see his son a little differently.
He checked his watch and cursed. His manager had held him late, despite his pleadings that he had to meet a teacher for his son. It was humiliating, to be a grown man taking orders at sixty-five. Mr. Dinh wouldn’t have argued with Alex about that. The thing Alex never asked himself was why Mr. Dinh subjected himself to such humiliation. For whom?
Bao half walked, half ran toward the front doors in the distance. The windows were filled with students counting down for the bell to ring. He imagined poor Alex, alone in those massive crowds, and suddenly felt such tenderness for him. He wished he could sweep his arms around Alex and protect him from the world.
But Bao knew he couldn’t.
This was paradise, compared to what Bao had known. But it was all Alex knew, and it hurt just as bad, Bao realized now, seeing it.
So Bao Dinh went to find Alex and reminded himself to say something kind.
The virus was dead and the Watchers were everywhere, laughing now.
Their canned laughter, audience participation, was echoing in the Aziteks.
The Game showed the thousands of players who had come to witness the destruction of a school. Mr. Dinh was walking up the front steps, surrounded by them. Charlie and Kenny exchanged glances.
“Why is his dad here?” Charlie said.
“Is that why the players all came?”
“To see what? Is he going to hurt himself again? In front of his dad?”
“Or…” Kenny couldn’t bring himself to say it.
But Charlie knew what he meant.
Everything that happens now is your fault, Alex had said, sending a chill through Charlie now. “He’s not going to hurt himself. Not just himself.”
“His dad?”
“Maybe more?”
Charlie shouted at the Game screen, “Where is he?”
The Game ignored him.
“You said I’m a Watcher now. You said I earned it. Show me where he is.” The Game complied. It put the map on the screen and showed where Alex was.
The dot for his father was moving into the building. Whatever was going to happen was happening. They jumped up and went to the door, but it was locked from the outside. Charlie rammed against it and smashed it open, the lock bursting. They ran down the hall, passing the rooms filled with students, but ahead of them, the Game triggered one of the fire/panic doors the school had added last year, Wi-Fi enabled. The pins dropped and the heavy doors slammed closed, locking into place. Charlie rammed against them, but they were solid and he crashed off them.
“Come on,” Kenny said. They ran back the other direction, but at the end of the hallway the Game triggered another safety door, slamming shut and blocking them in.
On their Aziteks, the Game said:
All Must Die
“Run,” Charlie yelled.
A teacher came out from one of the rooms to check out the crashing noise, but they ignored her yells and ran back into 333. The Game sent overvoltages to lights above them, the fluorescent tubes bursting open with sparks. Charlie went to the window and opened it. The ground was thirty feet below them, but a Dumpster was below one window that might lessen the fall.
Kenny looked at him, gulping. “You can’t hack gravity.”
They jumped together, slamming into the top of the Dumpster, which buckled a little, absorbing some of the impact. They jumped off and ran for the basement. In the hall along the way, Charlie pulled a fire alarm, trying to warn the school that something bad was happening—Get the fuck out!—but the Game didn’t let the alarm go off.
They ran down the basement hall to the boiler room and pounded on the door, yelling, “Alex, Alex, it’s us.”
On their Aziteks, the Game gave them an X-ray view through the door, a mocking tableau: in tears, eyes haunted and lost, cradled by Christ, Alex knelt before the bomb.