Roadside Crosses

me.”
    “What it is, I was worried about Travis,” Jason told them wide-eyed. “You don’t know what it’s like seeing somebody who’s in your family getting attacked like he was, in the blog.”
    “Your family?”
    “Yeah. In the game, in DQ, we’re brothers. I mean, we’ve never met or anything, but I know him real good.”
    “Never met?”
    “Well, sure, but not in the real world, only in Aetheria. I wanted to help him. But I had to find him first. I tried calling and IM’ing and I couldn’t get through. All I could think of was hanging out at the arcade. Maybe I could talk him into turning himself in.”
    “With a knife?” Dance asked.
    His shoulders lifted, then sagged. “I figured it couldn’t hurt.”
    The boy was skinny and unhealthily pale. Here it was summer vacation and, ironically, he probably got outside now far less often than in the fall and winter, when he’d have to go to school.
    Boling took over the narrative. “Jason was in the Lighthouse Arcade when I got there. The manager was a friend of his and when I asked about Stryker he pretended to go check out something but instead he told Jason about me.”
    “Hey, I’m sorry, man. I wasn’t going to stab you or anything. I just wanted to find out who you were and if you had any idea where Travis was. I didn’t know you were with this Bureau of Investigation thing.”
    Boling gave a sheepish smile at the impersonation-of-an-officer part. He added that he knew she’d want to talk to Jason but he thought it best to take him directly to her, rather than wait for the city police to show up.
    “We just jumped in the car and called TJ. He told us where you were.”
    It was a good decision, and only marginally illegal.
    Dance now said, “Jason, we don’t want Travis to get hurt either. And we don’t want him to hurt anybody else. What can you tell us about where he might go?”
    “He could be anywhere. He’s really smart, you know. He knows how to live outside in the woods. He’s an expert.” The boy noted their confusion and said, “See, DQ ’s a game, but it’s also real. I mean, you’re in the Southern Mountains, it gets like fifty below zero, and you have to learn how to stay warm and if you don’t you’ll freeze to death. And you have to get food and water and everything. You learn what plants’re safe and what animals you can eat. And how to cook and store food. I mean, they have real recipes. You have to cook them right in the game or they don’t work.” He laughed. “There’ve been newbies who’ve tried to play and they’re like, ‘All we want to do is fight trolls and demons,’ and they end up starving to death because they couldn’t take care of themselves.”
    “You play with other people, don’t you? Could any of them know where Travis might be?”
    “Like, I asked everybody in the family and nobody knows where he is.”
    “How many are in your family?”
    “About twelve of us. But him and me are the only ones in California.”
    Dance was fascinated. “And you all live together? In Aetheria?”
    “Yeah. I know them better than I know my real brothers.” He gave a grim laugh. “And in Aetheria, they don’t beat me up and steal money from me.”
    Dance was curious. “You have parents?”
    “In the real world?” He shrugged, a gesture Dance interpreted as meaning “Sort of.”
    She said, “No, in the game.”
    “Some families do. We don’t.” He gave a wistful look. “We’re happier that way.”
    She was smiling. “You know, you and I’ve met, Jason.”
    The boy looked down. “Yeah, I know. Mr. Boling told me. I kinda killed you. Sorry. I thought you were just some newb who was dissing us because of Trav. I mean our family—well, our whole guild order—has been totally dissed because of him and all the posts on that blog. It’s happening a lot. A raiding party from the north traveled all the way from Crystal Island to wipe us out. We made this allegiance and stopped them. But Morina was killed. She was our sister. She’s come back but she lost all her Resources.”
    The skinny boy shrugged. “I get pushed around a lot, you know. At school. That’s why I picked an avatar that’s a Thunderer, a warrior. Kind of makes me feel better. Nobody fucks with me there.”
    “Jason, one thing that might be helpful: if youcould give us the strategies Travis would use to attack people. How he’d stalk them. Weapons. Anything that might help us figure out how to outthink him.”
    But