Hamartia (1 of 2)
Hamartia
A Story in Six Sections of Unequal Length
i.
..introduction..
Sam gets out of the taxi and looks around, smelling salt air and sushi, sweat and beer. Having the cab drive off, leaving him standing alone with his duffel bags and backpack, he realises that this isn’t exactly how he envisioned his arrival at Stanford. He’s not quite sure how he expected this moment to be, maybe the Impala behind him and Dean next to him, maybe his dad already trudging ahead, gruff but getting ready to salt and ward his son’s new dorm room, maybe anything but the silent ocean surrounding him and a raw, aching gap in his mind and soul that he can’t quite work himself around. He’s there, no one else is, and this is all he has: two duffel bags and a backpack, himself, and Stanford. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if it doesn’t work out; he thought about that on the bus to San Francisco, because he can’t go back, not now.
Sam’s a Winchester, though, and so he takes a deep breath, picks up his things, and walks inside his new home. No turning back, this is where he is, this is who he is: Sam Winchester, freshman, from Lawrence, Kansas, checking in on a Thursday, first day the dorm’s open. He gives his name and admissions letter to the resident fellow behind the desk, who doesn’t ask any questions Sam won’t know how to answer but says, instead, “Your roommate’s already checked in, Sam. Welcome to Alondra and East FloMo.”
He walks up to 212, where the door’s already open and things are spilled across the floor. A blond looks up from where he’s crouched over a bed, unscrewing something, and immediately says, “Shit, you’re tall. Basketball?” and Sam finds himself smiling. “Geek,” he says, and the blond laughs. “Great! You can help me with math. Name’s Ben. Hope you don’t mind the beds, I’m flipping the springs. You have a side preference?” Sam aches at that, a deep and driving pain, shakes his head. “I’m Sam. And I don’t mind either way,” and sets his things down on the bed already flipped and with fewer piles hovering nearby. He looks around again as Ben finishes up with the bed, studying the rolled up posters lying haphazardly in one corner, the clothes strewn around the closet, the TV and microwave and stereo. Ben catches him looking, says, “Didn’t know what shit you’d be bringing,” and then, eyeing Sam’s things, “You got more on the way? Need help unloading anything?”
Sam says, “Actually…no. We lost pretty much everything in a fire.” The lie hurts, but it’s true at the same time, and the pity in Ben’s eyes clears when Sam flops on the bed, feet hanging off over the edge, and adds, “Besides, college. Fresh start, all that.” Ben rubs his hands together and says, “Sam, we are going to have so much fun.”
It takes Sam ten minutes to unpack the duffel full of clothes, as Ben’s trying to decide which poster goes where, and fifteen to take everything out of his backpack: notebooks, pens, duct tape, the laptop his dad bought for him last Christmas. Bought for the family, really, but Sam’s the only one who ever used it and no one said anything about it when he was shoving it in the pack. When he plugs the computer in and opens it, turns it on, the welcoming music is ‘Enter Sandman,’ Dean’s idea, and the desktop is a diagram of a zodiacal incantation, something Sam stumbled across while doing research on a mission in New England and found fascinating. Ben, studiously avoiding putting his own collection of band t-shirts and jeans away, looks over Sam’s shoulder, whistles and points at the names of the shortcuts: verbum, anticipo, imperium tabula. Latin. Sam wonders if everything he’s going to see or do here, in a new world, a separate world, will remind him of his family. “Just how big a geek are you, man?” Ben asks, and Sam coolly replies, “Full ride plus stipend.” Ben whistles again, claps him on the back, and finally picks up a pair of jeans, telling Sam more than he ever wanted to know about San Diego, Ben’s girlfriend starting up at UC-Berkeley this week, and Ben’s parents, who “swear to God, man, will be paying off the loan for this until they die.” Sam makes the appropriate noises in the appropriate places, and ignores his other duffel, still unpacked.
--
He stumbles into his room at some god-awful early hour of the morning, that time of day he’s only ever associated with hunts or nightmares. Ben’s giggling, hanging onto Sam almost limply, and when Sam finally closes and locks the door behind them, Ben laughs, staggers forward and collapses on his bed, somehow kicking his shoes off on the way. “Oh, fuck, Sam. Was that not the fucking best party you’ve ever been to?” Ben asks, whistling through his teeth, and as Sam’s dizzily trying to decide how best to answer, Ben starts snoring. Sam leans over his desk, powers up the laptop, opens his email server. “Yeah,” he says, and deletes the junk mail. He stands up straighter, wobbling a little bit, and looks at the computer for ten minutes before taking the unpacked duffel out from under his bed and setting it on the chair. He opens it, shuts his eyes and catches his breath, feeling a liquor-loosened knot of bone-deep unhappiness start to travel up his throat. He doesn’t cry, but it's close for a moment, then he reaches in the bag and takes out a box of salt. This is when the duct tape comes in handy; no one will question a strip running by the door and another by the window, and so Sam sticks the salt to the tape, then the tape to the floor and sill, whispering the words of a protection spell while he does. Ben’s posters are everywhere, covering the walls, so Sam lifts a corner of each, lightly pencilling a warding rune before sticking it back down. That done, the salt put away, Sam looks at the books in the duffel and leaves them there, rests his eyes on the box holding the knives his father gave him for his sixteenth birthday and the bottle of Holy Water Dean gave him as a graduation present, and then turns away. The duffel gets shoved back under the bed, in the far corner, and Sam goes to bed. He doesn’t sleep until the sun starts to rise and he dreams of fire.
--
Sam spends Friday making sure his money’s come through and then promptly uses up a large portion of it on books, clothes, getting a bank account set up as well. It feels permanent, feels adult and responsible, but normal most of all. Normal and safe, and he’s got things of his own now, new things, all sharp and glittering in shrink wrap, with the price-tags still on, never worn or used by anyone else. The books have nothing to do with hunting, the clothes aren’t practical or utilitarian, the snacks aren’t healthy or good for long stake-outs, and Sam has never stepped so far out of his comfort zone. He thinks, putting everything away, waving off Ben’s invitation to another party, that he might actually enjoy this if he didn’t feel so hollow inside.
--
Saturday comes and Ben drives off in his little foreign car, heading for Berkeley and his girlfriend, who apparently Sam “would love, man, you’d love her. She’s smart like you, you’d spend all weekend fucking around with, I dunno, rocket science or shit, so maybe it’s a good thing you aren’t going now, but man, you’d love her.” People are all over, so it’s not like it's quiet, Sam’s new housemates stopping by to introduce themselves, and he misses the way silence feels when his dad’s checking the crossbows and Dean’s cleaning the guns and he’s polishing his knives, misses the stillness and premium of movement needed for a hunt. His next-door housemates come through at one point, two kids from the same small town in Texas and taller than him, here on basketball scholarships, and Sam’s not sure whether to feel sorry for Ben, who’ll laugh off being the shortest guy around, or ignore thinking of Dean, who wouldn’t.
Before he realises it, Sam’s sitting at his desk, email server open and ready to compose a new message. He types in Dad, then stops. He doesn’t know what to say, what he should say, if he even wants to say anything, echoes of Don’t come back ringing in his skull, so he just sits there and stares at the cursor.
“Hey, you got a hanger?” Sam almost jumps out of his skin at the sudden question, hand reaching for a knife before he has time to remind himself that he’s at college and the knives are under the bed, locked away. There’s a girl standing in the doorway smiling at him and chewing gum, eight miles of leg, as Dean would say, but Dean’s not there and so Sam says, “Just the plastic kind. Why?” She huffs, blows a bubble. “I locked my keys in the car. Was kind of hoping I could spring it with a hanger, but…” she trails off, shrugs, and Sam looks at the laptop, the blinking cursor. He stands up, stretching his legs and hearing them pop. “Got something better," he says, and the girl grins.
“Awesome. I’d hate to call my dad. He's so worried something awful’s gonna happen to me and I just wanna tell him to get a life sometimes, y’know? Oh, I’m Jessica, but call me Jess. Anything else, I'll kick your ass," she says, sticking out her hand. "Sam," he says, taking it, feeling warm and soft skin underneath his. "You been here long? Got more stuff to bring up?" she asks, peering around him, and Sam feels his heart break again. If you walk out that door, don’t come back. "I pack light," he says and shrugs. She looks at him, really looks at him, the way Dean does sometimes -- did, Sam, Christ. You've left. It’s over. Remember? -- and he thinks that maybe this girl will turn out to be trouble. "Well, c'mon, Sam-who-packs-light. Let's go get my keys."
She’s driving a beat-up old Ford, parked on the grass outside the closest door. All the windows are all the way up, all four doors are locked, and her keys are sitting right there, on the driver's seat. He crouches, bouncing a little, and pulls a Swiss Army knife from his pocket. “Are you serious?” she asks, leaning down to watch him. Sam looks at the lock, opens the knife, and jiggles it in. “Just wait and see,” he says, and before he counts to ten, the lock's sliding up. She looks at him, raises an eyebrow. “Wow. You're good.” Sam laughs and carries her last box upstairs.
--
The first month passes by in a blur, Sam falling into a routine of classes, essays, study groups, parties with Ben, dinner down in the FloMo dining hall or coffee in Tressider with Jess, her roommate Becky, and one of the basketball players, called Danny. His life is a mess of statistics that he doesn’t think Ben will ever understand, history classes he could almost teach, SLE classes taught by the most insane graduate student that ever lived, and he’s mostly happy, content, in a way that he’s never felt before. People here are noticing him, making friends with him, and it’s all right if his history prof’s willing to let him into an upperclassmen’s lecture before he’s filled the requirements, all right to try and talk to the people who look interesting, all right if he laughs a little bit too loud and drinks his coffee a little bit too sweet at the CoHo at midnight on Thursdays, all right if he pops the locks of people who leave their keys in their rooms, cars, lockers. It’s starting to feel normal-he’s starting to feel normal, going to Mass with Jess and Becky, drinking beer with Danny and Ben, finding out who he is away from his dad and Dean.
Still, he knows he’s not normal, not yet. A few people found out about the fire and he’s made up a story about a mother that died in childbirth, a drifter older brother, a Marine father who couldn’t deal with retirement and so drives the country, aimless. He keeps it consistent, never says anything he won’t remember later, and soon Ben’s making jokes about if his family could see him now, showing up a senator’s kid in class, getting tapped by three fraternities. He doesn’t like the jokes at first, feeling a prickling under his skin at hearing people who don’t understand talking so glibly about things they can’t comprehend, but he forgets why, after a while, when he still hasn’t gotten an email or a phone call and some deep part of him feels vindictive.
They should be proud of him, he thinks at night, years of sleeping not enough, too lightly, odd hours keeping him away until the sky starts to lighten. They should be happy for him, excited by the opportunity he’s been given, and he feels betrayed that they don’t when he meets Ben’s parents, who instantly accept him as one of their own, or when he sits in the library and watches classes change, eyes falling on other students who’d kill to have what he’s been handed. He feels betrayed and then he starts reading again, or writing, or searching for references for his paper, before he can wonder if they feel betrayed by him. It would hurt too much to admit that his chance was taken despite such a high cost, even if he already knows that’s how they viewed it when he told them he was leaving. And they’re both Winchesters like he is-four weeks is not enough to make a difference in the way any of them thinks.
ii.
..attraction..
Hallowe’en approaches too fast for his liking and he gets jittery as the day marches closer, jittery and jumpy and anxious. Sam tries not to think of other Hallowe’ens, other hunts, all the things that can and do go wrong on such a supernaturally-charged night. He can’t sit still for long, not unless he’s in class and barely even then, so he goes running, miles and miles every day, two and three times a day, besides the compulsive studying, the work, as if he can distract himself in ancient history. Nothing happens, the exercise doesn’t help and the studying doesn’t sidetrack his attention, but he’s more focused now, like he’s hunting something but he’s not quite sure what, not yet.
As he’s sitting in Alondra’s lounge on October 29, trying to concentrate on Cato, he feels it again, that creeping sensation of something getting closer, hunter’s instincts waking up, flaring, as if he can’t decide whether he’s the predator or the prey. Sam stares unseeing at the book, words blurring together as the hair on the back of his neck stands straight up. It passes while he’s trying to focus on a sight-sigil, and he swears under his breath.
“What was that?” Jess asks, plopping down next to him on the sofa, curling up her knees to her chin and giving him a look. “I didn’t think you knew how to cuss,” she adds, wearing an angelic smile. Sam laughs, dog-ears the corner of his page, and says, “That’s not true,” as if he’s offended she would think something like that of him. “You hear me swear all the goddamn time.” She laughs, then, and lays her head on Sam’s shoulder, and a moment later he makes a big show of moving her flyaway blonde hair away from his mouth. “Sam,” she says, and he groans, hearing the tone. It’s the same tone that gets him into trouble every time she pulls it out and he doesn’t need to miss another lecture or forego studying for the next exam or go scope out the coolest new club in ‘Frisco. “Whatever it is, Jess, no. A thousand times no.” But then she pouts and makes this little keening, whining noise, like she’s a puppy who can’t hold it any longer, and he cracks in seconds, asking, “What is it this time? Not that I’m agreeing.” Jess stops, sits up and beeps his nose. “Not yet,” she says, “but just wait. You got major professorial permission for this one,” and damn if that doesn’t intrigue him.
“You’ve heard of the Game, right?” she asks, and Sam rolls his eyes. “Okay, okay,” she says, “stupid question. Have you heard of the all-frosh Game?” Sam looks at her like she’s insane, says, “Jess, I don’t know what planet you’ve been on, but that’s all Becky’s talked about for the past two weeks and you are on her team. Give me a little credit for listening when your roommate talks.” But then Jess says, “And you know Danny agreed to be on her team, but he’s got a game down in San Diego?” Sam starts to nod, then stops, studies Jess’ face, and starts shaking his head instead. “No, Jess. Absolutely not.”
She pouts, and, not for the first time, Sam wonders if he looked anything like she does when Dean accused him of doing the same thing. Not for the first time, Sam has to physically shake his head to dispel the thought, the image of his brother. “Jess,” he sighs, and she pokes him in the shoulder. “Sam, come on. Becky’s already asked crazy Kate and she said it was all right if you missed lectures the next two days, and you already know the history department’s all over this one.” She stops long enough for him to say, “Jess,” again, resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose in an appeal for patience, but she starts right back up. “We all know you’re a crazy-insane genius and Danny said if anyone could fill his place better than he can, you could, and they only didn’t want to ask because you’re, like, insanely superstitious, but please, Sam, Becky and I need you; we’ve only got Roger and you know what he’s like and if you don’t say yes then we’ll have to ask Ben and he can’t even do his own laundry.”
She stops, looks at him sideways, and asks, “Why d’you hate Hallowe’en, anyway?” It’s not a huge leap in the topic, but Sam’s thrown-off track enough to say, “I have a bad relationship with the day. Shit’s always going down,” before he can stop himself. Jess narrows her eyes, looks at him again, as if she’s trying to see through his skull to read his mind and it makes him think Dean before he can stop himself. “Don’t you wanna be with your best friends if it goes down this year?” Jess asks quietly and Sam exhales, focused on her and not Dean. She’s got a point, fuck it, her and Becky and Roger would never survive a black dog or were or spirit and he’d be damned if he’s going to let any creature intrude on the life he’s painstakingly carving out for himself here. “Yeah,” he says, “okay. I’ll do it,” expecting her to smile and leave, mission accomplished, let the countdown begin, but she doesn’t. Her eyebrows draw a little closer together, one corner of her mouth tilts down, she murmurs, “What happened before to make that argument work?” and the two of them sit in the lounge, not speaking, until Becky and Danny come down to find them for dinner an hour later.
--
Sam never realised, even after hearing everybody talk about it, that the Game was such a big deal, but as soon as everyone finds out he’s on a team, people are congratulating him, giving him tips, glancing his way. Becky admits at dinner that she already submitted his name as a qualified replacement to the History Department, who’s apparently the visible Game Control, and Danny laughs when Sam turns a glare on Becky. She quickly changes the subject, beginning a crash course intro to the Game while Jess flings peas at Sam.
They’re starting at Tressider in the morning, six am, and Becky says they’ll be meeting Roger just outside. She and Jess are excited, if not a little nervous, with kick-off in a measly eleven hours and Sam can’t muster up the same enthusiasm. He goes to bed right after dinner and his dreams are filled with a fire he almost thinks is real when he wakes up at three. After a moment of blind panic, Sam catches his breath and stops groping under the pillow for a knife or gun. Ben flops over, muttering something about the Chargers and starts snoring again, the light whuffing noises that Sam’s learned mean a deep sleep he could scream at but never scratch the surface of. Another thing Sam envies about his roommate, but he tries not to dwell on it as he showers and dresses quickly, taking a granola bar and leaving.
He goes off-campus to the Catholic church and slips in quietly, hunter-silent, crossing himself with Holy Water before finding a pew and sliding in. He kneels and begins to pray, feeling the weight of silver crosses in his pocket, silver knives on his legs, tucked into his boots, his favourite curling against the small of his back. “Our Father,” he whispers under his breath, eyes closed, “who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.” He whispers the prayer ten times over, pausing at, “Deliver us from evil,” every time, pausing and stumbling and meaning the words with his whole heart. When he opens his eyes, the priest is at the altar and he beckons Sam forward, who obeys and kneels at the front. The priest begins the ritual of exhortation for departing soldiers and when Sam finally looks up to receive the Host, the priest’s eyes are wise and knowing. Sam swallows the wafer, drinks the wine, and stands up to receive the blessing. When the priest is done, Sam says, not at peace but feeling more prepared, “Thank you, Father,” and his voice is strong.
At a quarter to six, he’s sitting outside of Tressider, wide-awake and trying not to laugh at his three yawning, stumbling teammates, who glare at him when they see how awake he is. “Batshit in-fucking-sane,” Becky says, poking him in the chest with a finger, and Sam can’t stop the cheerful tone when he says, “So who’s ready to not sleep for the next fifty hours?”
iii.
..romance..
There are seven teams of four people each, all freshman. Sam’s history professor is standing at the front of the conference room with a steaming cup of coffee, looking through a sheaf of notes. At six, he clears his throat and all twenty-eight Game players stop talking and turn their attention to the front. “Welcome to the All-Frosh Hallowe’en Game,” he says, and then, “No, it would be far too easy to make this a Hallowe’en theme, so you’ll have to think sideways from that.” Sam, used to deciphering his father’s cryptic lessons and run-around-the-topic texts, remembers the odd wording.
The professor explains the rules, tells them they have thirty-eight hours, start to finish, to decipher all twenty four clues and then the theme clue, in time for the after-party. Each team’s already been assigned a number and they’ll be given the first clue in numeric order, in twenty minute increments. Becky’s already checked their package, signed out the laptop and GPS-enabled phone, gone through the references to see if any of them can suss out a connection, and they’re the fourth team to get the first clue.
As they’re walking out of Tressider, to Jess’ car, Becky hands the clue back to Sam and Roger. Sam looks it over and starts laughing, says, “Ramos Park.” Becky and Jess, in front of him, stop and turn around, Becky’s hands on her hips, Jess’ eyes narrowed. “What,” Becky says, and Sam hands Jess the paper. “As I know not whence I come, so I know not whither I go. I know only that, in leaving this world, I fall forever either into annihilation or into the hands of an angry God, without knowing to which of these two states I shall be forever assigned. Such is my state, full of weakness and uncertainty,” he quotes, and Becky’s gaping as Jess tilts her head to one side and asks, in that quiet tone she gets sometimes when Sam’s presented her with a mystery about his past with no ready answers, “What?”
Sam says, “It’s the quote with all the blanks filled in. Section 193 of Pascal’s Pense És. Except look,” he says, and points at the clue-sheet. “It’s from section 193, not 27-46-1-39-8. And if you add the right section number together, which is four, and translate the section to French,” Roger cuts in here, says with dawning comprehension, “And then take the fourth letter corresponding to the section number they gave us.” He trails off and the two girls exchange glances. Becky snorts, shakes her head, presses the clue in Jess’ hand, and turns around to continue the trek to Jess’ car, Roger following at a steady jog, while Jess holds Sam’s gaze and the clue-sheet both. “Why did you memorise Pascal?” she asks, and Sam half-smiles, replies, “I didn’t,” so she says, “Why did you memorise that section?” His smile falls but his gaze doesn’t, and she studies that before asking, “And why the French?” He shrugs and opens his mouth to remind her that Pascal was French, but feels the strange sensation of being watched and knows that the prickling crawling up his spine’s not caused by another human. “Let’s go,” he says, already moving and placing one hand on the small of Jess’ back to get her going, as the other hand hooks into his pocket and curls around one of the crosses. “What?” Jess asks, and Sam nods at the car, idling in the parking lot, brights flashing. “Becky and Roger are waiting for us.”
The feeling skitters over his neck and shoulders until they get in the car and Sam finds out that he’s been given the laptop and cell phone in the backseat. “Come on, crazy genius,” Roger says from the front passenger seat, holding a map, “call Game Control and confirm,” and as Sam dials, Jess finally asks, “Why am I not driving? This is my car.” Becky, pulling onto El Camino, looks in the rear-view and says, “Because you and Sammy-boy picked the lousiest shit piece of time to have a heart-to-heart,” and then flashes her most angelic smile. Jess rolls her eyes and Sam closes the phone and opens the laptop, double-clicking on the spreadsheet application. “Control says we’re the first to check in,” he says, concertedly not looking at Jess, “and we’re on the right course. Also said to document everything, so I’m…going to document,” and then the laptop catches a wireless signal that holds. He eyes the Internet Explorer icon in the quick-start menu, then ignores it, names the spreadsheet ‘game1’ and starts inputting.
--
It’s still dark when they get to the park, dark but lightening, and Sam calms down a little with every bit of red and gold threading the horizon and stretching into the sky. Roger finds the clue, a CD, pops it in the computer which Sam’s lugging around like a life-preserver, and a music program automatically opens and plays three minutes of a painful choral song. The four team-mates look at each other while the music plays, and then afterwards. “Right,” Becky says after a moment. “Ideas?” Sam frowns, taps the play button, forwards the song a minute and a half in. He lets it play for twenty seconds and then pauses it and looks at Roger, who, for all of his geekiness is a classic rock buff whose ear could put Dean to shame. Sam’s jaw clenches as he forcibly doesn’t think about what Dean would say if he knew his baby brother was playing a stupid game on two of the most dangerous nights of the year, and he misses what Roger says. “Sam,” Rogers says, and Sam looks at his teammate, eyebrow raised in question above eyes expressing apology. “AC/DC,” Roger says, and Sam groans. Of course, the ‘Back in Black’ album, one of Dean’s favourites. No wonder it sounds familiar; he’s only listened to it eight zillion times.
They play the file again and Sam and Roger argue about which track plays in which order, Becky typing what they agree on while the guys have their eyes closed and their fingers are drumming on the hood of the car. After they’ve decided on a final list, Sam shakes his head. “No clue. It doesn’t make sense.” Roger looks at the list a bit longer, but shakes his head as well and the next team arrives to pick up another copy of the CD. “Come on,” Becky pleads, “come on, come on, come on. We’re losing our lead here. You guys have to know this.” Jess asks, “What’s the file name?” and Sam and Roger look at each other and sigh almost in unison when Becky says, “Tau lepton.”
“Get in,” Roger says and Jess steals her keys back, going around to the driver’s side as the other three pile in haphazardly. “Where am I going?” she asks, and Roger laughs. “Menlo Park,” he says, “the SLAC,” and Becky asks, “Why? Care to explain it to those of us who don’t listen to hair metal?” Roger lays it out and Sam types in the details, trying to figure out the connection between Pascal and AC/DC, between seventeenth century French theological philosophy and rock music, and comes up empty-handed apart from Dean.
--
Sam doesn’t want to get out of the car, but the others jump to the pavement with no problem, so of course he has to follow. The feeling of ‘paranormal’ is stronger here, so strong that Sam’s eyes are flicking around, trying to see whatever’s behind the odd crawling sensation before anyone else does. His three teammates spread out over the parking lot, Sam flanking them, watching their backs with one hand on a cross and the other ready to reach for a knife. He thinks it feels like a spirit, like fingernails grating on a chalkboard just outside, underneath, the range of audible sound, rather than a were, and none of the more complicated creatures would be able to resist four college kids, not for this long. A wendigo or unhcegila would have come after at least one of them by now, the sun’s out now anyway and vampires don’t even exist.
Becky starts shrieking and jumping up and down in frustration, and Sam wants nothing more than to take her by the shoulders and shake her, tell her they have more things to worry about than finding the clue, but the feeling of wrongness grows until it's almost too thick to breathe, and then breaks, disappears. Sam’s left standing there, listening to nothing except Becky, who’s still shrieking, and Jess, who’s trying to calm her roommate down. “It’s only the second clue,” Jess is saying as Sam jogs over to them, “and we have hours and hours to figure this out. Give it a few more minutes and then we’ll call Game Control.” Becky huffs but calms down and by the time Sam’s standing in the circle again, she says, “Why are we here again?” Sam opens his mouth to make a smart-ass comment about manipulative friends and beds back in the dorms that they should all be in, but Becky glares at him and so Sam smiles innocently and says nothing.
“It was AC/DC,” Roger says, “their ‘Back in Black’ album. All the songs from the album were on the file, but out of order. The file name was a key, and using that to count every third letter and rearranging them, the words were ‘Menlo Park,' with the initials for the Stanford Linear Accelorator Center left over.’” Sam frowns, says, “First Ramos Park, then Menlo Park, and now we’re in a parking lot. Connection?” Jess pipes up, says, “Actually, the guard sent us to a parking unit, didn’t he? I thought that was an odd term, but maybe it was part of the clue.”
Becky’s eyes narrow as she murmurs, “Ramos, Menlo, unit,” a few times, and then goes back to the car for a piece of paper. She writes the letters down as the other three watch, then crosses out the reoccurring letters. What’s left doesn’t make any sense, not until she gives them numbers and Sam puts a couple of commas in the mix. “Co-ordinates,” he says, and Becky searches through their reference pack for a map. They plot the points, Sam and Becky, while Jess and Roger look on, Becky marks an ‘x’ and Sam double checks it before nodding. “Right,” Becky says, rubbing her hands together and sporting a very wicked grin. “Let’s go.” As they pull out of the Center, they pass two other teams just arriving.
--
By eleven that night, they’re a third of the way through the clue-set. Becky’s had a nervous breakdown every half-hour and is beginning to show signs of fatigue, though she’s already had five cups of coffee in the past hour. Jess and Roger are about to kill their team captain, Sam knows, noticing the way Jess has become less sympathetic to Becky’s hysterics and taking in Roger’s clenched jaw. The way they’re sitting, Roger driving now, Jess sitting next to him, Sam and Becky in the backseat, makes Sam think of long days of moving, leaving town, after long nights of hunting, all those times when he sat in the back and complained while his dad drove, white-knuckled and silent, and Dean looked out of the window, face tight and posture radiating fury.
He wonders, one arm around Becky, why he’s thought so much about his family over the course of the day, but as he uses his free hand to scroll through their typed notes, he smiles to himself. This is a hunt as well, just of a different sort, one his dad and Dean would find impossibly academic but which he prefers, no killing, but it’s also a hunt like the ones he’s been on since he was nine-something is out there, getting stronger as the moonrise on All Hallow’s Eve draws nearer. It’s a spirit, he caught a glimpse of ghostly white earlier, and he’s been trying to find out what or who might have a reason to haunt this area, using the computer when he has the chance, but he’s not sure why the spirit’s coming out now or even how it managed to attach itself to their group.
--
The most recent clue they solve sends them up to Berkeley, and Roger notes it’s a good thing it’s so late, so there won’t be as much traffic, but when they arrive and head to Clark Kerr Campus, the car brakes suddenly and all four gape. There’s obviously something big going on, based on all the cars parked outside, and Sam’s stomach is sinking at the thought that the people those cars belong to are all somehow connected to the Game. Jess pulls out their Game pass and leaves it on the dash as Roger just parks at the curb and the four go inside. A girl’s waiting in the hallway, one of the history department’s graduate students from Stanford, and as Becky’s eyeing the table of coffee and donuts, the girl says, “Congratulations, team four. You’re the first to arrive.” That gets Becky’s attention and she snaps into proud team captain mode, says, “Thank you,” and “We’d hoped we were leading.” The girl smiles and says, “Fortes Daedalos adjuvat,” and then gestures to the four closed doors behind her. “Your team captain will choose one of the doors and the four of you must stick together. If you successfully reach the end, you will receive your next clue.”
She steps to the side, then, and Sam’s teammates turn to him. “Daedalus favours the brave,” he says, before they can ask, and then adds, “But that’s not right, because Daedalus was a Greek myth, not a Roman one.” Jess swats him on the arm and says, “Oh, you idiot,” with some amount of fondness, which makes Sam look at her in surprise, raising an eyebrow. “Daedalus built a maze for King Minos, and we’re meant to be brave or bold.” Becky asks, “A maze?” and Jess grins. “This time of year? I’d say haunted house, and we were given instructions as well.” Roger says, “Stick together, right? And Daedalus, too, having to tie the wings to himself and Icarus, tying the wings together with thread and wax.” Becky points at the three other Game-players, tells them, “Find tape or rope or something so we can tie ourselves together-stop smirking, Roger-while I go and drink every cup of coffee on that table.”
Ten minutes later, they’re walking through the fourth door in single file, Sam first, and half of the coffee behind them’s gone. It’s pitch black inside, but where his three teammates are starting to panic at the lack of light and the smell of smoke, Sam inhales and listens. Movement ahead and to the left, and Sam lets his hunting instincts and years of training flow to the surface and dance across his muscles. He leans back enough to whisper to Roger, “Someone ahead, on the left, and further on down on the right.” Roger whispers, “How can you hear that?” Sam shakes his head, turns around, and smack’s Roger’s head with his free hand before leading them right to the person waiting, wearing black and a skeletal mask. Sam’s pleased to see it is actually a person, though he’s puzzled by what the person says. “Scylla or Charybdis?”
Jess, behind Roger, mutters under her breath, “Yes, Ulysses, we get that,” and Becky elbows her. “Oh, come on,” Jess whines, “Daedalus? Scylla and Charybdis? What’s next, Penelope?” The woman dressed in black laughs and then quickly stifles her giggles, but Sam’s hearing noises and smelling ozone. He half-turns in the darkness and sees quicksilver movement out of the corner of his eyes, like the afterimage of sunspots. His fingers flex in the duct tape and he’s so tempted to take the tape off, because the ghost-spirit’s still here, still close, but Becky’s come around to his side, leaving Jess and Roger to complete the forced circle. “So. Think Ulysses,” Becky says, and they shuffle forward to the next person, who’s holding a ring of keys and an oar. “Left Bank or Right?” he says, and Sam says, “Charon?” Roger frowns, says, “But that’s Paris, not Dublin,” and Jess says, “Joyce went through Paris. But it could be choices, couldn’t it? Scylla and Charybdis, left or right, the option of which door, how to stick together.”
There’s one more person to find, but it takes them what seems like hours. They find themselves running into walls, dead ends, and Jess keeps saying, every time Becky or Sam says left or right, “Choices.” The last person’s wearing all white, complete with wings and a halo, and asks, “Yes or no?” Jess laughs again and this time says, “Oh, God. It is Penelope!”
Another ten minutes and they’re blinking in the sudden light of the hallway, having successfully navigated the labyrinth. A different girl than the one from before is standing behind another table covered in coffee and six types of strudel. Becky goes over as soon as she smells the caffeine and the other three stumble along at the unexpected action, all wearing various expressions of amusement. “We did it,” Becky says after inhaling two styrafoam cups of heavily-sweetened coffee. “Give us our clue.” The girl smiles and says, “Zurich or Trieste?”
They drive to Arastradero Preserve and hike Acorn Trail after Jess gets Becky to agree that that’s where they’ll find the next clue. Sam calls Game Control on the way, who says that they’re on the right track and only have nineteen hours left to solve the remaining clues, and Sam doesn’t tell Becky that, only that Jess is right. She’s driving and he and Becky are in the back, apparently the current agreed-upon seating arrangement, and Jess looks in the rearview mirror and winks at Sam, says, “Of course I am.”
Part Two