The three teen boys, in their cuffed blue jeans, slicked-back hair, and saddle shoes, ran through the haunted forest, their footfalls deadened by the soaked debris of old leaves. Dark trees, gray trees, barren trees reached out for them. Heartbeats, moans, creaks, and their steaming breath filled the night. Glimmers of the moon reflected off the puddles they splashed through. Mist crept along beside them.

Wood above them snapped, moaned, rustled down through other branches, and crashed across their path.

“Ahhhh!” Tapan let out a soft scream and jumped backward to stop. He looked up into the black, bent and crooked limbs crossing in front of the full moon.

Wisps of clouds drifting like bulbous monsters.

Tapan laughed. “Every time.” He pulled his high school letter jacket closed and snapped it shut.

“Is that good?” Richard asked undoing a button of his denim jacket.

“Hell, yes.”

Toby pointed to the other path forking off from where they were. “Old Holler’s Graveyard is this way. We’ll always arrive in time, but we gain bonuses depending on how quickly we can get there.”

Tapan nodded and started sprinting.

Shadows cast by the moon flickered along the rising walls of mist. Dark shapes drifted over the ground.

A strange electronic noise escaped Tapan. His avatar lost its texture turning into a statue of static. “LOS” appeared across his chest.

“Beyul, diagnostics,” Toby snapped.

“Beyul, freeze simulation,” Richard called.

Faint outlines of the millions of collision boxes floated around the trees of the forest, the puddles, and figures in the treetops. The wind and mist and reflections stopped moving.

Toby ran his fingers over the information screen floating next to the static on Tapan’s statue.

“What happened?” Richard asked.

Toby shook his head. “Beyul lost Tapan’s connection, signal, vitals. He’s nowhere in Beyul.”

“Beyul, where is the experimental suit? Beyul?”

“Richard, it’s gone. The suit and Tapan were in the middle of a strong signal zone. They’re just gone.”

“Beyul, can anyone see either Tapan or his suit?”

Toby lifted both hands, and a volume of outlines rose out of the ground with a blinking red figure alone in the middle of a park. “That’s where he was. No one else is in the park.”

“Back it up a bit.”

Toby made a different gesture.

Dozens of blue person icons snapped into being—running, jogging, playing. Then everyone vanished.

“Toby … what happened?”

Toby opened his mouth. His avatar turned into a statue of static with “LOS” emblazoned across his chest.

“Beyul 2.0 communication protocols have been compromised,” Beyul finally responded, “by parties unknown. External communication and signal vectors are erratic.”

“What the Hell?” Richard took a step back from the static statues. “Beyul? Exit. Turn off all overlay layers. Beyul!”

Richard’s avatar became a static-filled statue.

A strange, black, twisted creature — part dog, part monkey, part tentacled monster — landed in the midst of the three statues, sniffed at the static, raised its muzzle toward the moon, and unleashed a cross between a howl and a gargle.

The static faded until the avatars and their diagnostic screens were no more.

The creature jumped for a tree and used its prehensile tail and tentacles to climb into the dark, bent and twisted shapes against the moon.

Attila "Al" Dubois

Al followed the last round of box carrying, silver-sheened technicians.

At twelve-years-old, Al crawled up the stairs, or, more accurately, he dragged his body up the half-log stairs. His legs lifelessly followed and weighed against his efforts. When his pointless legs hit a step wrong, Al flinched at the pain. Enough pain to give others hope, so he needed to get better at hiding his reactions. He sat on one step lower and used his hands to roll his legs into a better position before continuing his climb.

At the top, he arm-crawled along the interior balcony beside the western log cabin rail with its polished, lacquered wood. And, inside Gus’s room, he climbed onto the bed.

Confident in his place on the bed, he bent over to drag each worthless leg onto the bed and then moved into position to watch.

Gus frowned down at him. “If you had asked —”

“I’m not incapable of getting around the house —” he plucked at the bedspread “— No matter what Alex says.”

Gus picked up Al’s feet and tucked them closer to Al. Gus sat down. “Look half-bro, I missed my chance to carry you around.”

Al glared at Gus. “You wouldn’t say that about anyone else in our class.”

Gus rolled his eyes. “What about our half-bro, Alex? My dad always said it was the job of elder siblings to carry the younger. If we grew up together, I think I would have carried him every chance I got. Being a bit bigger and stronger would have helped.”

“You know he hates it when you call him that.”

Gus gave an I-don’t-give-a-shit shrug. “I know. My step-bro will hate me no matter what. It’s his job. So, I might as well have fun tormenting my itty-bitty, baby step-bro.”

Al imagined Alex’s ugly expression at being called ‘baby step-bro’ by Gus. He laughed.

Gus watched the technicians.

Al wondered, Gus and Alex treat the rest of us the same way — a way they don’t want us treating them. Is that the problem? Gus by right of a few months gets to treat Alex that way? Instead of voicing those thoughts, he asked, “How is living here working out for you?”

Gus shrugged. “It was just dad and I. Homeschooling, taking me to work, museums, vacations, everything. Mom-and-I is hard — she’s a stranger who wants something I’m not sure I can give. You guys are classmates — kinda friends — something different. This is like an odd sleepover that doesn’t end. There are times, especially with Alex, when I miss the quiet, the separation.” He shook his head. “Don’t take this wrong. I want to go home.”

Al frowned. Something inside of him was breaking, but he tried to keep it from his voice. “This is home.”

Gus flinched just a bit.

Al chastised himself for not hiding his pain well enough.

“Yeah,” Gus said. “I have to tell myself that every day.”

“You want to leave?”

Gus looked at him and shook his head and rubbed his forehead. “When your dad is off to Tae Kwon Do or Kali tournaments, you miss him, right?”

“Yeah. I used to go with them. Alex and Sissy go too. And you’re getting good enough to join them. Now —” he poked his legs “— everyone goes without me.”

Gus just gave him a stony expression and refused to be derailed into pity. “It’s like that. I miss my dad. The difference is, your dad, Alex, and Sissy always come back. My dad’s not going to. That makes it harder.”

Al mulled the pieces over. There were so many ways those pieces could fit into the adolescent minds of his half-siblings. He needed more information. “Is that why you don’t want this?”

Al watched the pieces of the Beyul workstation come together.

More Beyul connection orbs than he had seen in any advertisement were neatly lined up in drawers in a tall stack. Monitors and old-fashioned keyboards filled the desk. A pair of fully loaded, liquid cooled server racks squeezed into the corners of the room. And a spine-curved chair in the center connected to the desk by a floor rail.

“No,” Gus said. “This is different. This is work. Yes. As long as it wasn’t here, I was vacationing. Visiting. This didn’t have to be home. Now, Beyul reminds me I can’t go back … to the way things were.”

“Why don’t you ever wear a Beyul connection suit?” He bobbed his head toward the silver-sheened technicians.

Gus frowned at Al. “Beyul is for work.”

“But the games —”

“Look, if you want to play the games, I’ll order you a suit.”

“But you have so many —” Al pointed at the rack. At least the argument hadn’t started with Al being too young — being below the magic age of fourteen. He’d graduate from high school before he could legally drink, vote, drive, have a Beyul account.

“Those are …” Gus hesitated. Then he became serious. “Some Beyul connection orbs can fail to detect your injury and fail to adjust the gameplay appropriately. Leaving you crippled in-game without any assistive devices. If I’m going to take you to work with me, I want you to have the most fun possible.”

Al leaned back, crossed his arms, and stared. “That isn’t what you were going to say.”

Gus folded his arms and frowned to mirror him. “Confidentiality, Al. There are lots of things about Beyul I’m not supposed to discuss. So, I’m going to err on the side of silence. Okay?”

Al nodded. “Thanks for not always treating me like your bothersome five-year younger brother.”

“Almost six.” Gus shook his head. “Al, it isn’t what you think. I went from having no one. Now I have a pair of half-sibs the same age as me, and three half-sibs in the same grade as me. I don’t know how to treat anyone.”

Al practiced his friendly, supportive, innocent smile. Then I should assist you. Teach you how to interact with us. To start with, I should treat like I treated my other half-siblings.

He studied the way the parts were assembled. Then he concentrated on keeping his smile the same. I know. You and I can play my favorite game — the one my other siblings no longer play with me — ‘Attila! I’m going to kill you!’

Al nodded, “Okay. I'll stop asking questions you shouldn't answer.” You are my elder half-brother, and it is the job of all younger brothers to expose the secrets. Besides, I already know your Beyul passwords. Aren’t brotherly boundaries meant to be tested?

Attila "Al"

Again, Al was alone in the house. Like the times before, he was determined to play ‘I’m going to kill you!’ with his half-siblings. But since the accident, his half-sister Sissy and half-brother Alex refused to play with him — no matter what he did. This time was going to be different. He had a new playmate — half-brother Gus.

Gus was a challenge. He hid his buttons well. Not even Alex had been able to push them despite having a dinner made entirely from grapefruit — a food Gus could not eat.

Al remembered the aftermath which demonstrated that Gus had a slow, cold fuse. Later that night Gus pulled a Glock squirt gun on Alex. After a few squirts and some quiet words, the two parted bitter enemies. Gus hadn’t even gone for the childish shots. Al really wanted to know what was said.

With a few hints, his siblings were trying to find Gus’s buttons again. Sissy and Alex had invited Gus to go hunting with them. They were excited about Gus bagging his first ever snipe. With shotguns and sandwiches and burlap sacks, they were sailing for the hunting grounds.

Perhaps Gus had acted a bit too naïve and smiled a bit too innocently, but their success didn’t matter for Al’s plan — only their absence.

Al dragged himself up the half-log stairs and over to Gus’s drawers of Beyul connection orbs. He tapped in Gus’s 20-digit access PIN. A photographic memory has to be good for something other than collecting school trivia. He tugged on a drawer.

The drawer opened via its own motor-driven mechanism. Seven gleaming, liquid metal orbs — three on one side, four on the other — cradled in their recharge ports in the bottom of the drawer.

Al touched one of the orbs.

The nanorobots unfolded themselves from their spherical shape and climbed along his skin, under his clothes, over his face, and joined together to form a Beyul connection suit. It asked for a username and password.

Al gave it Gus’s account login credentials. My half-siblings are so careless with their various account logons.

Gus’s Beyul account information opened.

Al took it all in — blackmail was useful in the ‘I’m going to kill you!’ game … and could be used as a ‘Get Out Of Beating’ card, too. This was going to keep Gus dancing to the tune of Al for a long time.

He did his best I-am-wicked-and-you-can-do-nothing-about-it smile.

Beyul asked, “Do you want to test Beyul 2.0 at this time?”

So, that is Gus’s big Beyul secret.

He had enough on Gus to torment his elder half-brother. He could just put the orb back and play the long game. Or he could gamble and strike pure ‘I’m going to kill you!’ game gold. Or he could spam the big red Gus button.

Al stared at the Beyul connection suit’s exit option.

There were subtle ways to ease under Gus’s skin. Close everything up but lose an orb under Gus’s bed, or better yet, put the orb back in its packing material. Too bad the orbs weren't labeled — he could have swapped labels.

Or he could go for the brass ring — get the free ride.

Or he could go for the more insidious ‘all of above.’

Al climbed into Gus’s chair, pulled his useless legs into position and surveyed Gus’s domain. He rubbed his hands together and nodded and said, “Yes, the long insidious ‘all of the above’ game will work, for now.”

The world went black.