For real?”
“He’s short a guy,” he says, his voice low.
“How did that happen?” I say.
Lee does a quick circle with the flashlight, making sure nobody is close enough to overhear us.
“One of his bodyguards had to leave.”
I think about the soldier from The Program. He was in this same camp four months ago, and now he’s dead. Could this have anything to do with what Lee is talking about?
“This bodyguard,” I say. “He wasn’t doing a good job?”
“He wasn’t loyal,” Lee says, his voice turning cold. “So he was dealt with.”
I don’t say anything.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” Lee says. “I’m just letting you know there’s an opening.”
Lee turns his flashlight toward a medium-sized square building set apart from the other structures. “We’re here,” he says.
The front door is locked, and Lee flips open a metal plate next to the door to reveal a digital keypad.
He moves to block my sight line with his body. I back up like I’m giving him his privacy, but I shift subtly so I can see over his shoulder. He holds the flashlight under his arm and types in a four-digit code.
He turns the handle, and the door opens.
“This is where you’ll sleep,” he says.
“I get my own place?”
“Pretty cool, huh? I’ll get you settled, then I have to get over to the meeting.”
“I hope you guys have cable,” I say.
“We’ve got better than cable,” he says.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“ARE YOU A GAMER?” LEE SAYS.
We’re standing in what looks like a hotel room at a three-star property. A stripped-down space, but clean and obviously designed for guests. There’s a large bookshelf filled with titles, but that’s not what Lee is referring to. He’s pointing to a sixty-inch LCD screen that fills the wall in front of us. It looks enormous in such a small room.
Even better is what’s on the shelf underneath it. A state-of-the art gaming system, its wires running back through the wall and up out of sight into the television screen.
“ ‘Gamer’ is a little bit of a stretch,” I say. “But I play once in a while.”
I’m thinking of Zombie Crushed Dead!—the MMPORG game world where I meet Mother for emergency conferences, the anonymity of thousands of players serving to obfuscate our operational communications. In fact, if I can get online here—
“I’ve got a game going right now,” I say. “Can I log in and play it?”
“You mean out in the real world?” he says, pointing up and out. “No can do. It’s an intranet setup. We only play each other.”
“That’s how you guys spend your time? I’m surprised your dad lets you play games. Mine hates when I do that.”
“It’s not just a game. It’s training,” he says. “I helped to design the whole thing.”
“You programmed it?”
“Not myself. But I supervised the programmers. And I’m the one who came up with the idea behind the scenarios.”
“So it’s like a flight simulator?”
“That’s a good comparison. It develops hand-eye coordination, strategic thinking, and familiarity with military maneuvers. ‘Serious play,’ my father calls it.”
“So you go back to your rooms and play each other?”
“Only some of us have them in our rooms. But we have a couple game centers in common rooms around the property.”
“Sounds awesome.”
“Actually, it’s a trade-off. We don’t have computers, iPhones, or tablets of any kind.”
“But you’ve got this.”
“We do. Everyone in the encampment has a profile programmed in. Our characters have physical attributes and skills based on our real-world talents. As we train in real life and get stronger, our characters get stronger.”
“Sounds amazing,” I say.
“You have a profile, too.”
“I do?”
“Preprogrammed, based on your application. And a few other things we know about you.”
What do they know about me?
Lee says, “The game tracks your score and compares it to everyone else’s in the encampment. Ranking is everything here. You’ll see.”
“I can understand why you guys want to live here,” I say, smiling.
“Not yet, you can’t,” he says, suddenly serious. “But I’m going to show you. If you’re interested.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“You’re here,” he says. “In fact you’re guaranteed to be here at least until morning.”
“What does that mean?”
“I have to lock you in tonight. Standard operating procedure. Sorry.”
“No problem,” I say. “I can’t see shit out there anyway. Where am I going to go?”
He laughs.
“See you in the a.m.,” he says, and goes out.
I hear him walk down the hall. The exterior door opens and closes, accompanied by the sound of a lock clicking shut.
As soon as I’m sure he’s gone, I take out my iPhone.
I move around the room looking for any indication of a signal, trying different angles and heights, testing the limits of the jamming system. The phone stays in search mode, unable to connect to a cell tower, to Wi-Fi, to anything.
No signal of any kind.
I look at the sixty-inch screen mounted on the wall. If I can’t explore Liberty tonight, I can explore the game they play, acclimate myself to the culture. Maybe kick some online ass in the meantime.
I power on the system in my room. An avatar appears on the screen—a generic boy, roughly my height and size, rotating in space. On the back of his shirt is written DANIEL X, as if he’s wearing a sports uniform with his name stitched there.
I click the character, and I’m presented with a series of game scenarios:
I think about where I’ve seen phrases like this before, and it only takes a second for me to remember. The Art of War, Sun Tzu’s classic text of military doctrine written in the second century BC. I studied it as part of my training.
I’m guessing this game is based on the military principles in the text.
I click to open LAYING PLANS, and I’m presented with a colorized map. I study it for a few moments, and I realize I’m looking at the planning schematic for the encampment. I see the main road coming in through the mountain where I drove with Francisco. Camp Liberty is designed as a large oval shape surrounded by mountains. One main road coming in, and a smaller service road exiting from the side. There are two main buildings, a long rectangular house dead in the center of the configuration, and another building that I haven’t seen yet, set far back from the other structures, neatly tucked into the side of the mountain. The main building is surrounded by several smaller structures set at random intervals around it. I try to determine which structure I’m in, but it could be one of several.
I study the map more closely, and I see notations for defensive positions set up around the encampment.
This scenario represents the positioning of forces to maximize the defense of the encampment. But why would they need to defend a camp for kids? Defend it from whom?
Maybe I can find out.
A dialogue prompts me:
I press Y, and the map races toward me in 3-D, like I’m being beamed down from space. The world of the encampment comes alive around me onscreen. My avatar stands in the area near the main road. I hear him breathing in a way I never breathe. He is winded, his breath ragged.