Jodi Picoult - Between the lines

For a moment, Oliver gets very quiet. “So you’re in a house,” he sums up, “with a guy who looks just like me, but who’s real?”

I think of what Jessamyn said about Edgar. “He’s not you,” I state simply.

Whatever Oliver says in reply is drowned out by the strangest sounds coming from the room next door to mine. There are high-pitched screams and whistles and weird sirens.

“Well?” Oliver says. “What do you think?”

“I didn’t hear what you said…” Now, in addition to all the crazy noises, I hear a voice: “I’m going to get you, you bloodsucking, boneheaded monster!”

“What the-?” I look down at the book, careful this time not to slam it shut. “Wait here,” I tell Oliver. I get up and walk into the hall, then knock on the door beside mine.

There’s no answer. This isn’t a surprise, because who could hear with that racket going on? So I turn the doorknob and peek inside.

Edgar is sitting in a strange reclining chair at floor level, holding a game controller in his hand. On a computer screen in front of him, there’s an asteroid explosion in a galaxy. “Take that, Zorg!” Edgar hollers, and he punches a fist in the air. Letters roll over the screen:

HIGH SCORES

EDGAR… 349,880

EDGAR… 310,900

EDGAR… 298,700

EDGAR… 233,100

I wonder if Edgar’s ever even played his video game against another person.

I remember what Jessamyn said about him being a loner. “Hey,” I say. “You want company?”

He whirls in his seat. “Who told you I was in here?”

“I could pretty much hear everything through the wall…”

Edgar narrows his eyes. “Have you ever played Battle Zorg 2000 before?”

“I can’t say that I have.”

He digs around in his desk for a second controller. “Then I suppose I’ll have to teach you.”

He fumbles through the opening screens of the game to set it up for two players instead of one. “I usually play solo,” he says casually. “I’m actually sort of legendary, in terms of scoring.”

I let Edgar explain to me about the Galactoids from Planet Zugon who are coming to take over Earth. “Our job,” he says, “is to kill them before they plant a mind-control ozone bomb in the San Andreas Fault, or create a force field of incineration that burns everyone to ash the minute they come in contact with it.”

It makes me think of the Pandemonium.

“If you can get past the foot soldier Galactoids,” Edgar continues, “you can be admitted into the Astrochamber, where you have to complete fourteen tasks in order to face Zorg.”

“Who’s Zorg?” I ask.

He snorts. “Only the biggest, baddest robot-android hybrid in the Aphelion galaxy!”

I gingerly take the controller and press a button. “No!” he shouts. “Not until we’ve set up your avatar!”

With a few clicks, I become Aurora Axis, a geophysicist from Washington, DC. I follow Edgar’s avatar through the levels of the game, getting knocked out almost immediately by a low-flying asteroid. “Shoot!” I say, angry at myself. “I should have been able to see that.”

Edgar grins. “It takes a little bit of practice.”

For three-quarters of an hour, we battle aliens with an array of weapons. I get killed more times than I can count. Finally, just when I think it’s virtually impossible, Edgar and I double-team an Amazon made of starlight who is shooting electromagnetic radiation from her fingers, and we manage to drown her in a micrometeorite lake. Just like that, we are admitted into the Astrochamber.

“Yes!” we both scream as the door to Edgar’s bedroom opens.

“Edgar!” Jessamyn cries, “have you seen-Oh!” She looks at me, and then at Edgar, and then back at me. “You’re here.”

Edgar pivots in his chair. “She wanted to learn how to play.”

I grin. “Turns out I’m a natural with a neutrino ray.”

Jessamyn seems surprised-by my comment, and maybe by the fact that her son has made a friend. “Good!” she says. “Can I get you two anything? Cookies? Milk?”

“Privacy?” Edgar suggests.

Jessamyn backs out of the room, and Edgar lifts his controller again. “Awkward,” he says. “Now, where were we…”

“About to kick some Zorgian butt,” I reply.

Edgar lifts his controller and points to the screen, but the computer blinks a steady neon green. “Shoot,” he mutters. “Not again. ”

“What’s the matter?”

“Stupid old computer. It freezes up all the time. I just hope our game saved…” He starts pushing buttons and rebooting the system. “My mom won’t let me load my games on her new computer because she says they take up too much of the memory, so I have to work on this total dinosaur.”

“It doesn’t look that old to me-”

“That’s because it was state-of-the-art when my mom was still using it to type her books. But believe me, I had to upgrade this puppy with major video cards and speakers just to get it compatible with Zorg 2000.”

I sit up, alert. “This used to be your mom’s computer?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Do you know if her old files are still on it?”

“They’re there,” Edgar says. “She won’t let me delete them.” He rolls his eyes. “Every time I go to start a new game, I see that dumb fairy tale. Between the Lines . It’s listed right below Battle Zorg 2000, alphabetically.”

I lean forward. “You don’t like that story?”

“Hate it,” Edgar says. “How would you feel if the whole world knew your mother thought you were a loser?”

“I’m sure she doesn’t think-”

“She wrote that idiotic prince character wishing I could be more like him. But me, I’m not going to catch a dragon and talk it into getting its teeth cleaned. I’m not quite the fairy-tale type.”

“The reason I came here is because your mom wrote that book,” I tell Edgar. Taking a deep breath, I blurt out, “Can I ask you something that’s going to sound a little strange?”

“Okay.”

“When you play Battle Zorg 2000, does it sometimes feel like you’re a part of it?”

Edgar nods. “Well, sure. Otherwise I couldn’t score as high as I do.”

“No… I mean, do you ever wish you were inside the game?”

At first I am afraid to look him in the eye, but when I do, I find Edgar staring at me intently. “Sometimes,” he admits quietly, “it’s like I can hear the commanders talking to me, telling me what to do next.”

I put my hand on his arm. “Edgar, can I show you something?”

I run to the room next door and crawl onto the guest bed. The book is still open to page 43, and Oliver is lying on his back, snoring. “Oliver,” I whisper, leaning close to the binding, and then I shout, “Get up!”

He startles, smacking his head on a low branch jutting out of the cliff. Rubbing it, he winces and looks up at me. “Just for clarification, when you say you’ll be right back, then you mean sometime in the next millennium?”

“I got distracted. But Oliver, listen, there’s someone I want you to meet.” I grab the book and carry it toward Edgar’s bedroom.

“What? Do you really think this is a good idea? No one ever sees me, and it just makes you look even more insane.”

“Thanks,” I say sarcastically. I turn the corner and enter Edgar’s room again. “I have a gut feeling about this.”

“About what?” Edgar asks.