Ascending the Boneyard by C. G. Watson Read Free Book Online Page A

they dash past me through the opaque tunnel and around a set of turns. Once they’ve lost the others, one of them takes his penlight-wand device and taps out a pattern on the bricks, and I swear on the Scrolls of Turk that a secret passageway opens up right there. I rush to the computer, grab the mouse, follow as the soldiers hurry down a narrow hidden staircase. The last one turns his head before he disappears into the passageway, shoots a look straight at T-Man, and gives a single nod.
    T-Man stays on their heels up the stairway and through a tunnel opening, spilling out onto a completely different highway. A fat yellow car is already running, waiting, puffing exhaust straight at my toon until he’s swallowed by dense gray smog. The commandos look around, hop in the car, and take off.
    The slam of the front door rocks me like a five-hundred-volt shock.
    I dart into the hallway, but it’s not the old man and Devin coming toward me.
    It’s Haze.
    My gaze drops to the manila envelope in his hand, the crushed green drink cup, the ziplock bag with the dead bird inside.
    â€œI found this stuff out front,” he says. “Thought you’d want it.”
    I don’t want it. I wish I’d never seen it. Any of it.
    â€œSo what’s—” He stops short, locks on to the computer screen. “Tosh.”
    â€œI’m not playing,” I tell him.
    â€œThe hell.”
    If I weren’t so supremely grateful to see another human being at this point, I’d kick his ass for constantly riding mine about the game.
    Haze holds the bird carcass out to me.
    â€œWhat’s this about?” he asks.
    â€œSouvenir.”
    â€œWhat are you doing with it?”
    â€œI’m supposed to bury it.”
    My insides scream blood and fire, leeching molten sweat out of every inch of my skin.
    I wasn’t supposed to bury it. I was supposed to save it. That was the mission. I already killed that bird once, on my twelfth birthday, and it was the catalyst, man, the catalyst for everything. And here I am—I mean, I bought the expansion pack and it gave me a second chance to nail the mission, to earn my Ascent Credits by saving the bird, only I’m such an ass-nugget, I blew that, too. What a fail.
    Unless . . .
    Unless giving it a proper burial is the way in. That’s what the commandos told me to do.
    The baggie dangles from Haze’s fingers as the buzz of an incoming text message derails my train of thought.
    â€œYou gonna get that?” he says.
    I’m jackhammering. I take out the phone, tap the mysteriously resurrected screen, brace for the cockroach picture I’m sure will be there.
    But it’s not.
    It’s a plain text, no image.
    You will see things.
    â€œTosh?”
    I follow my own line of vision back to the Relic, to the Boneyard. My toon has hitched a ride with the three commandos who have parked the yellow car in a wooded area and are digging a hole in the ground. One of them throws something into the pit, and even though I can’t see what it is, I know.
    Okay, so I bury the bird, so what? Do I get my Ascent Credits? Do I level at that point?
    Not to mention, the commando who said I could be of service to them did an abrupt about-face two seconds later. So I hope they can understand my skepticism regarding this quasi-message they’re showing me from the Boneyard.
    You must not question the mission.
    â€œTosh—”
    The catch in Haze’s voice grabs me. I turn, see the way he’s eyeing me . . . like I’m—
    â€œI don’t care what you say, man. I’m not crazy.” I push the goggles up off my face because they’re too sweat-fogged to see through.
    He makes a face but doesn’t answer. In fact, neither of us says anything for a while. He comes over, sits on my bed, starts fiddling with the gizmos on his mask while I fake key the words “save it” over and over again on my