Lashbrook and Kevin took one room, the Matts taking the other. Before Lashbrook could even get his luggage up from the armored car, Kevin was seated on the edge of the bed playing Super Mario 64 on an N64 controller hooked to the TV itself.
“What the heck are you doing?” Lashbrook asked, leaning over him.
“Playing video games to calm down,” he replied, attention still fully focused on climbing Big Bobomb’s mountain.
“I didn’t think you had any systems.
“I don’t.”
“Then what the hell is this?”
“It’s part of the room.”
Lashbrook followed the controller’s springy cord back to a tiny box labelled “Lodgenet” attached to the TV. The connector looked like a phone jack, not AV cables like he’d seen prior, and it looked far too small to be a regular console. “I don’t get how it works.”
Kevin shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. It’s got games. That’s what matters.”
“And they just let you play it for free here?” Lashbrook asked, pensively stroking his stubble.
“Pfft, no, of course not. We’re getting charged a freakin’ fortune for this.” Lashbrook’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head, but then he remembered that the entire stay was being billed to Gerald Blackmore’s credit card.
“I see.” A rare smile stretched across his leathery face. “Well, carry on, then.” Lashbrook collapsed on the other bed and exhaled. “In fact, you know what? I believe I’ll order some room service.” He called down and requested a margarita be brought to the room.
“Do you think Cecilia will be okay?” Kevin asked.
Lashbrook pondered this for a moment. “I think she couldn’t have a better team out for her rescue.”
“So that’s a maybe.”
Lashbrook gritted his teeth. “That’s a ‘I’m not gonna’ make promises I can’t keep to preteen oprhans.’”
“I might be a teenageorphan, now,” Kevin replied.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. I might be thirteen now. I’m positioned in school like I am. No way to know.”
“There, uh, there isn’t?!”
“Nah.” Kevin kept playing, ignoring the blaring silence between them.
“Why not…?” Lashbrook finally piped up.
“Parents died when I was four,” he replied. “Dad was drunk, crashed into another car. Killed the other guy, and both of them, instantly. My crazy aunt got custody, beat the crap out of me if I’d talk or ask for the same food as her kids. She only took me in for the extra check. She didn’t know when my birthday was, she didn’t give a crap either, and I was too young to know when it was myself at the time my parents died. I finally ran away when I was about… ten or eleven, I guess? She couldn’t be bothered to follow me or put out a search, so it was easy to get away. Ran to Woodruck because I like the ocean, enrolled in school, and figured eventually I’d make my way into a house where I don’t get hit.”
“I see,” Lashbrook replied, turning away to hide his damp face. “That’s rough, kid.”
Kevin shrugged again. “Better than staying in that situation.”
“Yeah, I, uh… I guess so.” The old Detective sighed, leaning back in the bed and thinking through how fucked up everything had become. Wasn’t he technically homeless now too? At least Kevin came from parents, even if they were terrible. The memories driving Lashbrook weren’t even real. The shot little Japanese girl weeping on his leg and the birth of his own daughter were both equally real to him and equally fake. Lashbrook had sworn after the loss of his family to keep his distance from others, to never have a family again so he would never have to face the pain of losing them. But wasn’t that tenet, too, built on illusion?
“Kevin, where are you and Matt planning to stay, if we get through all this?”
Kevin shrugged yet again. “Nowhere, I guess.”
“If we get this all sorted out, you two can stay with me again.”
“Tomorrow night?”
“I mean, sure, but I meant… you know… indefinitely.”
This gave Kevin pause. A comfortable place to sleep? A shower whenever he wanted it? A TV? It sounded too good to be true. He’d learned to be suspect of such things… but he’d also learned to trust the old Detective. “I thought you didn’t have a place, now, since Omni knows where you live.”
“After tomorrow, Omni won’t be a problem anymore, one way or another.” The mental continuation of this sentence was “because one group is definitely going to die,” but Lashbrook politely refrained from saying this portion to Kevin. The boy knew, anyway.
“What do you want in return?”
“Wh-what do you mean?”
“Nobody offers that unless they want unpaid child labor or something even worse. It’s not practical.”
Lashbrook paused. What did he want in return? It took a lot to say it out loud, to make it concrete again. He’d already lost two families that didn’t exist. Could he do this knowing full well the chances were astronomical that they would all make it through the next day alive? “All I want,” he finally replied, “is to have a family. A real one.”
Kevin didn’t reply. It still felt suspicious.
“Matt never had parents. You lost yours. I lost my wife and child and some Japanese girl who was nice to me and who I apparently shot in the head. It’s all from the world of false memories Omni put inside my head, but it feels more real than everything that’s happened since. I’m tired of running from the past, trying to fill the void of a life that never existed. I want to start over. Not as a gacha, but as a grizzled old guy with a family.” He smiled a little and added, “and you two are about as tolerable as teens could ever be, I guess.”
Kevin didn’t reply. Not because he didn’t want this more than anything, but because he too had grown accustomed to a life of nothing but loss. His dream girl had finally been within his grasp, even crushing on him herself, and she’d been whisked away by a teleporting, memory altering maniac that popped out a gumball machine. His surrogate big brother had been kidnapped and almost murdered by his dream girl’s brother earlier that same day and had only survived by eliminating dozens of other sentient beings in one fell swoop. God only knew how much more dangerous the battle against Omni could be, or what would ultimately become of gacha in such a strange world. This was the worst time and place to add more people to care about and to risk losing.
“Don’t worry about it for now,” Lashbrook solemnly added, his gravelly voice fading. “It’s not the time, I’m sorry. I know you have more important things to worry about.” He looked for any twinge of emotion behind Kevin’s eyes, any sign he had even considered it, but the boy just stared straight forwards at the TV still. “Enjoy your game, and then, for the love of god, make sure you get some sleep. We’ve got a big morning tomorrow.” Lashbrook set the alarm clock, called the front desk for another wake-up call, took and chugged the margarita from the houseman at the door, and fell asleep himself, lulled to dreamland by the lilting soundtrack of Bobomb Battlefield.
In the Matts’ room, things were significantly less low-key. Ultimatt had used the TV’s entertainment features to access paid music channels. Thank god for Lodgenet, and for Gerald Blackmore’s MasterCard! The TV was currently playing Smooth by Carlos Santana, still top of the charts after debuting earlier that summer. Telling the front desk he was William Blackmore, Ulti had even swindled them into bringing a tray of ice-cold Corona Extras to the two 18 year old gachas. Ultimatt expected Matthew to bashfully decline, but he popped the first top and chugged it like a pro, surprising even Ultimatt.
“What?” Matthew laughed, tossing the bottle to the trashcan across the room and getting a perfect basket. “You didn’t think old Willy paid enough attention to any of us to care if we drank from the gameroom fridge, did you?”
“I guess I saw you as more… you know… proper.” He took a sip and then plopped down on the bed stomach-first beside Matthew, laying across it.
“Don’t mistake empathy and wealth for propriety,” Matthew replied, winking. “That leads one to mistakes like thinking these gloves are purely intended for fashion.”`
“They are pretty fashionable, though,” Ultimatt replied, tracing a finger up Matthew’s hand and forearm. “I wonder how they feel.”
“Like chunks of diced up flesh awkwardly writhing beneath a sausage casing with no precision or dexterity,” Matthew replied in a faux-seductive baritone.
“Hey, I was trying to be sexy,” Ultimatt playfully quipped, pulling his hand back. “Go fuck yourself.”
Matthew rolled him over and lightly pinned him to the bed by his wrists, looming over him and licking his lips. “That was the idea.”
“No way,” Ultimatt playfully replied, rewinding Matthew back to laying on the bed and leaning over him in the same fashion. “I’m not getting manhandled by a one star.”
“Are you certain about that?” Matthew replied, licking his lips and using a quick sonic blast to flip them over so he was, again, pinning Ultimatt to the bed. Ultimatt turned bright red, his heart pounding. Matthew felt so strong over him, looked so dignified, so confident with his crooked smile. Ultimatt reached up and grabbed a fistfull of his hair, pulling him down to passionately kiss him. Matthew moaned into his mouth, overcome with ecstasy, and in moments their tongues were wrestling, the Matts rolling back and forth in the queen-sized bed feeling each other up and down and tasting each other’s lips.
“Ulti?” Matthew interrupted, briefly pulling away from the kiss.
“Y-yeah?”
“Listen… before we have too much fun and I run the risk of it sounding… influenced by certain potential near future events, I want to say something.”
“Yeah?”
“I… I think I’m in love with you, for real. And I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. I know it’s a fate that we can’t avoid... that even if we don’t storm the headquarters, Omni’s going to bring the fight to us regardless. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t just a little tiny bit completely and utterly terrified. But I want you to know--no matter what happens, I’m glad that I met you. I’m glad that we got to spend one of our first five days together. And--”
“Yeah yeah, love you too. Now shut up and kiss me.” And he did.