Prologue
“What the hell are you doing?” a voice snarled through Samson’s open bedroom door. Samson froze midstroke, his pencil falling from the tips of his fingers. Dread Sheriff Jack was upon him before the pencil hit the floor. He grabbed the unfinished drawing from Samson’s hands and tore it in half, dropping it over him.
Then, in one smooth motion, he picked Samson up by the throat and launched him through the air. Samson’s spine bounced off the bare wooden bedpost with a loud crack. He landed with a thud, scattering a pile of comic books and pencil drawings across his bedroom. His back was on fire. Tears streamed down his face. Was that cracking sound the bed breaking, or his spine?
“The next time I tell you to clean your room, you goddamned well better clean it!” Dread Sheriff Jack roared, spittle flying in every direction. Samson’s eyes slammed shut the instant his feet left the ground. But the smell of putrid, beer soaked breath was a dead giveaway—the sheriff was inches from his face. The boy’s body went as rigid as the bedpost had been, before his spine left it a splintered ruin.
Don’t scream. It’ll only make things worse. Why wasn’t he leaving? Moments passed. Samson trembled. He tried so hard to hold it in, waiting for his attacker to storm off, but the pain intensified. A sharp moan betrayed his silence.
Samson yelped as the Dread Sheriff grabbed his jaw, tooth and bone grinding beneath his fingers. Fresh pain shot up the side of his face.
“You don’t know what pain is! Goddamned pansy.”
“Jack! Go easy on him, will ya?” a voice called out. Queen Isabella.
The pressure on his jaw relented.
“The boy’s gotta learn to listen to me, Izzy! If I told him once, I told him a thousand times.”
“This ain’t no way to make him behave, Jack.”
Their voices trailed off. Samson’s throbbing back and the bitter taste of copper seized him. Something hard caught in the back of his throat. He gagged, spitting it out on a river of blood and saliva. He caught it with a shaky hand—a blurry blob of white in a pool of glistening red.
“Great, you knocked a tooth out, Jack. How the hell are we gonna explain this one to the school?”
“Don’t start your shit! Kids lose teeth all the time, that one musta been loose!”
“Goddamn it!” Jack kicked at a pile of loose-leaf drawing paper, nearly losing his balance. “We scraped another body off the road today! Stupid kid ran a light ’n slammed into a semi.”
Samson probed with his tongue, finding the empty socket where the tooth belonged. He whimpered as his tongue slid over the raw, bloody mess. The tooth fell through his fingers, clattering across the floor.
“’Course he wasn’t wearin’ a seat belt! I hadda tell the kid’s parents! Drove there right after we cleaned up the scene. When I got back to the station, Wilson gave me shit over the accident report bein’ late. The fuckin’ paperwork, Izzy! Can you believe it? Instead of worrying about the damn school, how ’bout somebody worry about the dead guy’s paperwork?” Jack seethed. He leaned against the door frame for support. “Bottom line, I don’t need you crawling up my ass right now, okay?” He pointed a finger at Queen Isabella. She flinched.
“Clean yourself up, kid. I’m goin’ ta bed,” the Dread Sheriff slurred, dropping his bottle as he left the room. Footsteps echoed down the hall. A door slammed at the far end of the trailer. The walls shivered.
“What did you do?” Queen Isabella asked softly.
What had he done? He didn’t remember being asked to clean his room. Not that it mattered. Jack never needed a reason to take his anger out on Samson. All it took was a bad day at work, getting cut off in traffic, running out of beer, or even his football team losing. Anything that put Jack in a foul mood led to Samson paying the price.
Queen Isabella grabbed a shirt from his dresser and dabbed the trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth. “I got most of it. You can get the rest when you shower in the mornin’.”
“Why…” Samson stammered, his body shaking, his breath ragged. “Don’t… we just… leave? Run away, Mommy?”
“Keep your voice down, Sammy!” she hissed. The queen stared out the door, watching, listening. She rubbed a dull, faded bruise on her arm.
“Honey, we’ve been over this. Where would we go? I ain’t got money for a place to live. What would we eat?” She stared at Samson, as if she expected answers to sprout from his bloodstained lips. “Besides, bein’ a cop, you know he’d just find us.”
Why did Jack have to be a sheriff’s deputy? And not just any deputy, the assistant deputy to the sheriff himself. Jack was second in command in all of Clearfield County. Being that high up had its privileges. One time, the Dread Sheriff’s antics caused enough of a commotion that the neighbors called it in. Police cars showed up. Sirens, flashing lights, the works. Good ole Assistant Deputy Jack shook hands with the responding officers, flashed his badge, and answered a few questions while smiling and acting like nothing was wrong. They turned off the lights, filled out some paperwork, and everyone left. Jack didn’t get arrested. He didn’t go to jail. He didn’t get a stern warning. They didn’t even check Samson over for bruises!
A horn blared outside the trailer. Samson and his mother jumped.
“Momma’s gotta go, sweetie. Just stay outta Jack’s way.” She rubbed his head and ran out to catch her ride.
Damn her. Why won’t she do something? Some queen. From this day forward, she’ll be Queen Isabella, the Damned.
Samson yawned and tested his back with a careful stretch. It hurt, but he’d endured worse. He slowly pulled himself up onto his mattress, not even bothering to turn off the lights. The rickety bed frame wobbled with his every move. One final push, and his head was on the pillow.
Crack… thud! The splintered leg gave way, sending one corner of the bed to the floor.
Samson groaned. Of course. He considered propping up the fallen corner with a stack of books. But that would have required moving. Getting into bed hurt enough. Samson wasn’t keen on the idea of getting out only to have to crawl back in. He rolled onto his side, where his back hurt less.
Samson scanned the room. His gaze caught on half of the page he’d been holding when the Dread Sheriff attacked. The armored knight ripped clean in half. His shield lay sundered—the family crest, a ferocious lion, torn down the middle. He sighed and blinked away a tear.
Forever and a day, Samson whispered to himself, not for the first time. That’s how long he would have to endure the Dread Sheriff’s reign of terror. Happy ninth birthday, he thought.
Chapter One
Splashdown
“Cannonball!”
A torrent of water sailed through the air. Sam and Linc, lost in conversation, missed the war cry and took faces full of water before they could turn away. Sam spat out a mouthful of heavily chlorinated pool water and chuckled in surprise. Linc rubbed water from his burning eyes.
“Hey! Watch where you’re jumping!” A man rose from the adjacent hot tub. “Sorry, she gets carried away sometimes,” he continued. “But she won’t do it again! Right, Felicity?” He cast a dour glare in her direction.
“No worries, sir. She’s fine,” Sam interjected. The man’s face remained stern. “Really,” Sam said, managing a nervous smile, “let her have fun. A little water isn’t gonna bother us.”
The man scowled. “Just be more careful about where you’re splashing, okay?” He turned his attention back to Sam and Linc. “Thanks for being so cool about it. We’ve been swimming here for months now, so she feels like she owns the place.”
“Wow, that’s a long time.” Linc leaned on the edge of the pool. “What has you in a hotel for so long?”
“We don’t actually stay at the hotel. We live right here in Ashland. My company is renovating half our main building, so we hold meetings at the hotel. The contract allows us to use the amenities whenever we want.”
Pattering feet echoed off the concrete. “I’m a bird!” Felicity proclaimed to no one in particular. Seconds later, she splashed into the water, sending a wave through the pool.
“We’re here for work too,” Linc said. “Writing software for Helios, the new solar panel array. You might have read about it. It’s gonna be the state’s largest source of solar power.”
The man’s eyes widened. “Really? What a small world.” He looked between them. “You must be Sam Heller and Lincoln Kinkaid—the software engineers from Philly, right?”
“Yep. That’s us! Feel free to call me Linc, saves a whole syllable!” Linc said with a goofy grin, a drop of water still hanging from his nose. He shook out his mop of curls and slouched against the side of the pool.
“You’re here to write our user interface software!” The man flashed a smile.
“I’m a plane!” Another splash, louder this time—the wave, even larger.
The man glared at the girl, then introduced himself. “I’m Luiz Morgan, manager of the technical department of the Ashland branch of Solara Energy. Since I oversee all technical operations, you two will be reporting to me. So, after months of overplanning and useless emails, are you excited to finally be here?”
Linc’s grin grew even wider. “Yeah, looking forward to getting started tomorrow!”
“Good. There are a lot of eyes on this project, you know. Governor Strickland is planning to come to Ashland to announce the completion of Helios. He’ll get the honor of flipping the big red switch—on national television.”
A ringing phone on a nearby table interrupted the conversation. “I have to get that!” Luiz scrambled out of the hot tub with surprising speed for his imposing frame. He was a giant of a man, dark skinned, with a musculature that suggested some obvious time in the gym.
“I’m super dolphin! Seeking justice for marine life big and small!” Felicity leapt into the air and crashed down. Water rushed over the side, flooding the deck. Luiz scowled and covered his ear.
“What a coincidence, huh? Hundreds of people in our hotel, and we run into our boss,” Linc exclaimed. Sam grimaced. He kicked off the side of the pool and swam laps.
A short time later, Luiz ended his phone call, rubbed his short curly flattop, and called for Felicity to exit the pool. “This is my daughter.”
Felicity was bent over, drying her feet with a soft plush towel. “Hi, nice to meet you,” she said as she straightened. Her wide brown eyes met Sam’s. She ran the towel over her wild, wavy hair.
After a few minutes of idle chatter, Luiz mentioned that they needed to grab a quick dinner and then settle in for the evening. “See you at work tomorrow!” Linc called out as they exited the pool area.
“He seems nice,” Linc said.
Sam shrugged.
“What? You don’t think he’s nice?”
“I don’t know, Linc. We just met him. I’ve barely had a chance to get to know him.” Sam paused. “He looks like he could tear a door off its hinges. I bet his arms are as big around as my legs.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Linc asked.
“Well, nothing, I guess. He’s just a little intimidating.”
Linc shot him an odd glance. “This is the civilized world, Sam. I doubt he’s gonna rip any doors off the walls at work. Besides, big guys like that, they’re usually gentle giants. I bet he raises kittens, volunteers at the local orphanage, and sleeps with a teddy bear.”
Sam wasn’t buying it.
“He brings his kid to use the pool on a regular basis. That puts him in the running for father of the year, right?”
“Not sure I’m the best person to ask about good parenting,” Sam muttered.
“Right, sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up old memories. I just meant, he’s bringing her along. If I were a dad, I’m not sure I’d want my kid tagging along all the time.”
“Why not? Are you afraid of children, Linc?”
“Not afraid of them. I just wouldn’t want a roving band of tiny hyperactive humans annoying me all the time. That Felicity, she’s somewhat energetic. It’s gotta be exhausting. I try to keep life simple. Getting married, having kids, just slows you down.” After reflecting a bit, he added, “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with family life, I’m just too busy to be tied down right now. That’s why I’m not married.”
“Really?” Sam retorted. “I thought it was because you can’t stay in a relationship for longer than a week.”
Linc let out a low throaty chuckle. “Whatever, man. At least I’ve dated more than one girl since college.”
The two friends burst into a shared fit of laughter.
Still grinning, Sam replied, “I got lucky and found ‘Miss Right’ on my first try.” He made air quotes, highlighting the fact that his girlfriend Rhonda’s last name was Wright. A clever play on words he liked to exploit.
“Hmmm.” Linc paused for a second, then added, “That’s a matter of opinion.” He held his hands up. “Sorry! Let’s not get into this again. We agreed to disagree.”
“Agreed!”
Chapter Two
It's Defective
“The code works! It has to be something with the stepper motor controllers!” Sam said, pacing the narrow walkway, careful not to kick any of the test equipment scattered about.
Sam and Linc were in a long corridor unofficially known as the bunker. The half-underground area housed a massive installation of solar power electronics—arrays of stepper motor controllers, power conditioners, and conduits. The conduits held miles of wiring that connected all the components to the solar panels in the surrounding field. The room, if you could call it that, had an eerie industrial feel—poor lighting, the hum of motors and electronic equipment. It didn’t seem overly loud, but you had to raise your voice to be heard. Hours of talking over the noise had eroded their patience. There were no windows. The banks of fans existed to cool the electronics, not the people working on them. The stale, dry air was giving Sam a headache. Or maybe his head hurt because he’d spent the last three hours down here trying to figure out why the solar panels would be randomly pointing in the wrong direction. The error was small, but even a single degree could reduce the amount of power harvested from the sun by up to twelve percent.
“The code works,” Sam reaffirmed.
Linc stood up from the stool he had been sitting on for way too long, looked away from the laptop screen, and rubbed his eyes. “I still don’t like how the math is done! After the incident with the floating-point calculations last year, I just don’t trust these stupid controllers to get it right.”
“But we’ve run the numbers twice. Everything checks out. If there was a rounding error, we’d know,” Sam pushed back.
“What else could it be? The panels end up drifting two-tenths of a degree away from solar center for every twenty-four hours of operation. Sounds exactly like small but cumulative rounding errors! We’ve only manually calculated out to three decimal places. We should recalculate everything out to five places.”
Sam stopped pacing and leaned against an access panel on the wall. He zoned out for a moment, then blinked a few times to clear his head. “But only some of the panels are affected. If software were at fault, it would fail the same way everywhere. This has to be hardware! Maybe—”
A door opened on the far side of the corridor. The high-pitched squeak of dry hinges cut through the space. Sam flinched, his head snapping toward the noise.
“Gentlemen! How’s your first day going?” Luiz Morgan stepped in. “The guys in the office told me you were looking into Defect-10.” He chuckled, his eyes flicking to the test equipment. “You’re supposed to be writing our user interface code, not fixing our hardware problems. Did you feel like you needed a bigger challenge?”
“No, sir,” Sam responded. “Our code will make direct use of these controllers. There’s no point starting it until we’re sure they’re working correctly. Otherwise, we’d be completely unable to debug anything in our own code. When something went wrong, we’d constantly blame the controller.”
Luiz thought for a moment. “Yeah, that makes sense. Wow. I’m impressed! Most folks spend their first day getting coffee and wasting time talking to everyone on site. Here you are, tackling our biggest problem when it’s not even your responsibility.” He paused and then asked, “Do you really know what you’re doing down here? With the hardware, I mean? No offense, but you are software guys.”
“Don’t worry!” Linc interjected. “I minored in electrical engineering, and we’ve both been messing around with electronics for as long as I can remember. I’d struggle to design something like this, but I do understand how it works. I promise we won’t break anything.”
“Okay, it sounds like you’re fine then. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t ask. Have you made any progress?”
Sam resumed his pacing. “Linc suspects the controller’s floating-point logic is faulty. Small rounding errors in the angle calculations would eventually add up and become large enough to cause the problem we’re seeing. But not all panels are out of alignment. In my opinion, it has to be a hardware problem. Maybe a batch of bad capacitors—”
Luiz held his hands up as if warding off an evil spirit. “Whoa! No time for technical mumbo jumbo! I’ve got a meeting in a few minutes. We’ll get together later, and you can fill me in.” He paused briefly. “Be sure to go see John Greiner. His office is in the hallway at the back of the fishbowl. That’s what we call the engineering floor, because of all the glass. John’s the lead engineer. He’ll need to know what you’ve found. And always keep me updated. Especially in regard to Defect-10. It’s my job to know everything about Project Helios.”
“We’ll be sure to update you before we leave today,” Linc said.
Luiz shook his head. “I’m in meetings all afternoon, then I have to head straight home. My wife has a hair appointment. How about we meet for dinner? There’s a great Italian place across the road from the hotel. Meet me there at seven, and you can fill me in.” He grinned, then grimaced. “I’ll have my brat with me. If we’re lucky, she’ll just read her book and not bother us.”
“I’m sure she won’t be any bother. What does she like to read?” Sam asked.
“All kinds of silly stuff. Changes so fast I couldn’t keep track if I wanted to. Fairy tales, mostly, I think,” Luiz muttered. “How many kids do you have?”
“None,” Sam answered.
“Then you wouldn’t understand.” His brow furrowed. “They can be a huge pain in the ass! Felicity in particular. She has ADHD and gets hyper all the time.” He shook his head as if to clear unpleasant thoughts. “Anyway, I’m off to a budget review. See you boys tonight!” he blurted out as he made for the door.
The hinges creaked. The door slammed shut. Then silence. At least, as much silence as is possible in a steel-walled corridor of humming electronics. The boys packed up their tools.
“How do you like being told we’re going out to dinner tonight?” Linc asked. “What if we had plans?”
“What plans could you possibly have? We’ve been in town less than twenty-four hours,” Sam replied.
Linc paused and looked back at him incredulously. “Come on, man! We checked in behind that busload of dancers! Some of them must be single. I was planning on hanging around the hotel bar. Trying my luck.”
“Is hooking up with some rando always your number one priority?”
“No… but that accusation cuts deep,” Linc said, feigning offense. “Don’t be such a gray cloud. Instead of thinking of it as ‘hooking up with some rando,’ maybe think of it as exercising my wings, the social butterfly that I am!” He patted his friend on the shoulder.
Sam rolled his eyes.
They finished cleaning up and returned to the main building, making their way to their office. The site, being under renovation, was short on space, so Sam and Linc were forced to share an office. Well, not a traditional office with vibrant commercial carpet tile, bright lighting, and proper ventilation. Instead, the boys were stuck sharing what little space they could carve out of a half-empty storage room. It would have been fairly spacious if not for the rows of filing cabinets down either side. There was just enough room for two desks and a small trash can. The overhead lamps buzzed and cast a flat, colorless light.
Linc sat at his desk, meticulously redoing three pages of calculations using five digits of accuracy. He was certain he’d uncover the problem. That left Sam to give John Greiner the Defect-10 update.
Just outside the door of their storage room was the fishbowl. A hexagonal open-floor-plan area walled in on all sides by tall transparent glass panels. The two end walls contained door sized openings to allow passage. The corners and edges of the space contained various storage cabinets, workbenches, computers, and electronics tools. Spools of wire and other bulk supplies were stacked in neat piles wherever they fit among the fixtures. The center of the floor contained soldering stations and lab tables with seating for several dozen engineers. A massive ceiling-mounted computer monitor hung down from the center of the room. The perfect setup for delivering presentations to the whole team. Just past the fishbowl, on the back side, was a hallway of offices. That’s where John would be.
The tall, skinny man was sitting at his desk with his feet up. What was left of his hair was a light, faded gray. His attire, while clearly a decade out of style, was impeccable. His intense expression defied his advanced age as he studied a stack of papers, coffee mug in hand.
“Hi. You’re John Greiner?” he said awkwardly. “I’m Sam Heller, software engineer. I’m working on the interf—”
“Ahh! You’re the hotshot bit flipper who thinks he can waltz into the bunker and mess with millions of dollars’ worth of equipment without even asking permission!” John yelled. He swung his legs off the desk, set down his coffee, and discarded the printout.
Sam stared at John, stunned.
“What qualifications do you have to be poking around my equipment room?”
Sam didn’t do well with conflict. When confronted with hostility, he froze. He felt weak, shaky, short of breath. He couldn’t form rational thoughts or make complete sentences. Fight or flight? Sam only knew flight.
He hadn’t thought he was violating any of the dozens of rules and policies he had agreed to when he signed the paperwork. But given this man’s vicious reaction, he must have missed something.
“I apologize, sir. I… have some… electrical engineering,” Sam stammered. John’s gaze never wavered, never relented.
“We couldn’t start our work… was there a policy?”
John folded his arms across his chest. “To hell with the policies! I don’t know how you do things in Philadelphia, but here, we respect boundaries! I’ve got an entire team of engineers looking into Defect-10. They’re far more qualified than you and your partner are. My team is actually trained to work on this equipment. They helped build it! I hope you didn’t damage anything while you were down there playing detective. It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. Stay the hell out of the bunker unless you’ve got my permission to be down there!”
“Yes, sir. Perfectly clear. Sorry… didn’t mean to…” Sam forced out. He tried to calm himself with a deep breath. It failed. “Our interface code…”
“You can’t write it until we fix the drifting panels, right?”
Sam nodded.
“I get it!” John pounded his desk. “We’re poring over controller code right now. The problem is obviously the controller software. The code! That’s why no one was in the bunker!”
Sam desperately needed a quiet place to calm his frayed nerves and collect his thoughts. He had started toward the door when he remembered his promise to update John on their progress. He stopped midstep, nearly stumbling. “Luiz asked me to tell you what we found,” Sam said, staring down at John’s shirt collar to avoid making eye contact.
“I fail to see how it’ll be useful, but by all means, go ahead.”
“Umm…” Sam faltered. He tried to recall exactly what he wanted to say. He had rehearsed this on the walk over. Why wasn’t it coming back to him?
“I haven’t got all day!” John snapped.
“Lincoln suspects the floating-point controller, but I was thinking it might be related to stray capacitance hiding somewhere in the system.”
“I could have saved you both a lot of needless work. We designed the circuit boards right along with the manufacturer, Nayama Semiconductor. We’ve both gone over the schematics and tested the boards. Several times. If there were a stray capacitance problem, we would have found it. We also have automated tests that prove the floating-point controllers are working fine. So, nice guesses. But no! This whole mess is a software problem!”
John’s eyes narrowed as he leaned over his desk. “That means some careless twit, like yourself, did something stupid in their code, and because of it, they’ve set this entire project back two weeks and counting! Twenty-two thousand dollars a day in wasted time and resources!”
John slapped the large stack of papers in front of him. “This is a complete printout of all the equations and routines that affect the panel angles. I could tell you all about half-angle identities and the theta reduction factor, but I’m sure it’s way over your head. Let me give you the short version. I’m working on it right now. You and your sidekick best find something else to do with your time. And just to be sure you heard me, the both of you are to stay away from my hardware!”
Sam nodded and made a hasty retreat from John’s office, embarrassingly running his shoulder into the door frame on the way out.
Shaken and unable to return to work, Sam searched for somewhere to escape. Off in a corner, he spotted a dark room, walled off with plastic. This must be one of the conference rooms being renovated. He pushed past the plastic and scanned his surroundings, using his phone for light. Sheets of drywall, buckets, and miscellaneous tools littered the room. Pieces of a large meeting table leaned against the far wall, waiting to be assembled. A pair of sawhorses adorned the room’s center. Impromptu furniture. He turned off his phone light and lowered his shaking body down, nearly tipping the sawhorse over in the process.
Just breathe. Sam closed his eyes. Deep breath in… hold… slow breath out. Again… again…
Clear your mind. There is no John. There is no defect. No work. More deep breaths. Take yourself somewhere safe.
A village in the forest. Several small, modest houses, all with neatly kept lawns divided by immaculately trimmed hedges and beautiful cobblestone pathways. Trees surround the little village. There is a family of squirrels skittering about, running off with acorns collected from the grass beneath the trees. A young boy is playing among the trees. A cheerful tune fills the air.
Deep breaths… find your center. Control. Balance.
Visualizing the peaceful scene helped Sam ground himself. A calming technique taught to him by one of the many therapists he frequented growing up. A combination of controlled breathing and mentally retreating to a happy place. Having very few happy memories of his own to fall back on, Sam relied on the fantastical world of a video game he played as a child. The scene was from the ending of the game, after the hero had vanquished the evil foe that threatened to unleash darkness over the land.
After a while, Sam’s heart rate returned to normal. He was no longer shaking. He stood, ready to rejoin the world—then checked his watch and gasped. Forty-five minutes. It was well past quitting time.
Sam left behind his solitude. After all the fun he had endured today, it was time for the encore. Dinner with Luiz.
Chapter Three
Spark and Ember
“Welcome to Romero’s!”
The greeting washed over Sam and Linc as they entered through a pair of mahogany doors, the eatery’s name etched across their frosted glass windows. The aroma of garlic bread, sweet tomatoes, and fresh cheeses filled the air.
Romero’s was a family owned restaurant, the menu thick with traditional Italian dishes.
“Table for two?” the hostess asked. Linc explained they were meeting a colleague.
“Right this way, please.” The hostess led them to a table.
Luiz had already arrived. He was sitting on the longer side of a rectangular table. Seated beside him, his daughter Felicity held a book in her hands. She appeared completely absorbed in her reading, never taking her eyes away from the pages as Sam and Linc exchanged greetings with Luiz and seated themselves on the opposite side of the table.
“How did your meeting with John go?” Luiz asked, staring at Sam. A wry smile crossed his face.
“Not great. He was quite upset that we were in the bunker. He told me to leave Defect-10 alone and let his team handle it.”
Luiz wasn’t surprised at all. Had he known John would be upset?
“Hey. You gave it your best shot,” he replied. “There’s no shame in steering back toward calmer waters. You guys impressed me today. Anyone else would have just sat back and waited for someone else to solve the problem.”
“But, how can we make progress without fixing the panel drift?” Linc asked.
“You’re smart, figure something out. That’s why we pay you!” Luiz boomed. He nudged his daughter, pointing down at the menus on the table.
Sam picked up his menu and quickly settled on the chicken parmigiana. A few moments later, the waiter appeared, ready to take their orders.
“I’ll get that right in for you folks,” he said, walking briskly toward the kitchen.
“So, tell me about yourselves,” Luiz said. He gestured at Sam.
“Uhh…” Sam froze, not sure where to begin. Linc caught Sam’s panic and stepped in.
“Not a whole lot to tell, really. We both grew up in a small town about an hour north of Philadelphia. We went to the same high school, then the same college. I majored in software engineering with a minor in electrical engineering. Sam majored in computer science. We both loved playing around with electronics and tearing things apart. I started working for Solara Energy right out of school. I’ve been with the company for about three years now. Sam joined a year after me. I recommended him! We both spent two years writing an interface for wind turbine management.”
Luiz nodded. “Great. That experience will definitely help you. The hardware is different, but the interface requirements are actually quite similar. Enough about work. Surely, coming from Philadelphia, you two must be huge Eagles fans?”
“Hell, yeah!” Linc lit up. “Football is my second life!”
“I just won a pile of money betting against the Eagles. Go Browns!” Luiz threw his arms in the air. “How ’bout you, Sam? Got a favorite quarterback?”
“I’m not really into football.”
“Not into football? In Philly? How’s that possible?” Luiz guffawed.
“I guess I just never cared for sports, sir.” Dread Sheriff Jack would often get drunk while watching football. The negative association had soured him on ever liking the sport. All sports, actually.
“What do you do for fun then?” Luiz asked.
“I like cycling. I play video games sometimes. I read a lot.”
Sam loved to read. Books were his escape from all of life’s chaotic situations. He lost himself in the myriad of stories and fantastic worlds presented within the pages. He’d often pretend to be the characters in the stories, asking himself what he would do in their place. When things got really bad at home, escaping into a good book helped Sam survive.
Luiz nudged his daughter’s arm, jolting her from the page. “Ya hear that, Lissy? Sam here likes to read too!”
“Neat.” Felicity half smiled, returning to her story.
“What are you reading?” Sam asked.
She paused, peering over her paperback. Then she held the book up, showing off the cover.
“The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins! It’s about a girl named Katniss who fights other kids in a contest called The Hunger Games. Her sister Prim was chosen, but Katniss takes her place! They’re supposed to fight to the death! She meets Rue, a girl from another district. A boy named Peeta ends up falling in love with her. Have you read it? This is my third time!” Felicity paused to take a breath.
“Easy there, Lissy! He just asked what you were reading. He didn’t want you to recite the entire book. Am I right?” Luiz laughed.
Felicity’s brow furrowed. She glared at her father out of the corners of her eyes, then lowered her head, returning her attention to the paperback.
“No offense meant, Sam.” Luiz winked. “But when I think of how many hours she spends reading these… these fantasy land stories! It might be different if she were reading something useful!”
Dread Sheriff Jack never cared for Sam’s reading habit. One time, Sam hadn’t immediately come to the dinner table when he was called. He had just wanted to finish the last few pages of his chapter. The Dread Sheriff took the book from him and tore the pages out, scattering them on the floor! Sam wept and pleaded for him to stop. His pleas went unanswered. To make matters worse, the book belonged to the school library. Because Sam couldn’t pay for the lost title, he wasn’t allowed to borrow another book for the rest of the year.
The book had been one cruelty among countless others. His stepfather would berate and punish him for imagined slights and minor offenses. When Sam would beg his mother to intervene, often with tears in his eyes, she would always take Jack’s side. Her advice? Just stay out of his way. Don’t make him angry.
Dinner arrived, interrupting Sam’s thoughts. The waiter doled out oversized plates. Sam’s chicken parmigiana steamed under a blanket of molten cheese. He picked at his meal. Luiz and Linc resumed their football talk, leaving Sam and Felicity on the sidelines. She’d buttered a thick slice of Italian bread and was now heaping forkfuls of spaghetti onto it.
“Spaghetti sandwich!” she announced, briefly making eye contact with Sam before returning her attention to her culinary creation. She folded the bread in half, pressing down on the edges in a vain attempt to seal the heap of pasta inside. The edge of the sandwich split open. With a shrug, she picked up a fork and hacked away at her sandwich.
“I’ve read The Hunger Games. It’s one of my favorites. For me, the best part was when Katniss shot the apple out of the pig’s mouth because the Gamemakers weren’t paying attention to her,” Sam said.
Felicity burst out laughing, earning a sideways glance from her father. “I loved that part! It was so funny!”
“What was your favorite part?” Sam asked.
Not needing further invitation, she dived into conversation.
“I don’t really have a favorite part! But I really like how Katniss is a protector. She protects Prim by going to the games, and she tries to protect Rue during the games. Rue’s the girl from District 11. Oh! I also really like the three-fingered thing. You know.”
Felicity tried to mimic the gesture from the book.
“I guess it could mean a lot of things, but I think it’s a sign of friendship! Katniss uses it to tell Rue that she was her friend.”
“Wow, you really know the book! I never would have remembered what district Rue was from. Are you sure you’ve only read it twice?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, so far. I’ll probably read it again when I’m done.”
“The Hunger Games is book one of a trilogy. Do you know what that means?” Sam asked.
She thought for a second. Her eyes widened. “A trilogy is three! There’s really two more books? This is so exciting. Wait! Have you read them? Are there more games? Katniss has to be in the next book! What about Peeta…” The girl stopped suddenly. “Sorry, I got carried away.”
“No worries. It’s fun seeing someone excited about reading. You’ll have to read the next book and let me know how you like it. It’s called Catching Fire.”
Felicity grinned. Her head bobbed up and down. “Yeah, that sounds awesome! No one wants to talk about my books. Oh! Have you read the Percy Jackson books? Percy has—”
“Felicity!” Luiz scowled at his daughter. “Sam, is she bothering you again? She can talk forever. It’s a side effect of her ADHD. She’s not on her medication right now, so she’s apt to go off the rails. It’s okay to tell her you’ve had enough.” Despite Sam’s reassurance that Felicity was no bother to him, Luiz insisted she leave him alone to talk ‘with the adults.’
Felicity’s smile receded into a frown. She tossed herself back in her chair, shoulders slumped, slowly twirling some stray spaghetti noodles around her fork. The excitement retreated from her eyes, leaving a dull, lifeless stare.
Sam recognized a hardness in her expression. He’d worn it himself. His heart sank.
“Sorry she had to tag along. I didn’t have time to pick up takeout after work, so this was the only option. Besides, her mother hates it when I leave her home alone.”
Luiz shifted the conversation back to work, wanting more details on the day’s efforts to uncover the cause of Defect-10. Sam let Linc lead the discussion, only offering up a detail here and there. After a while, Linc was doing all the talking.
Sam looked across the table, waiting to catch Felicity’s attention. Eventually, she lifted her head to get another bite to eat. He held his left hand up, keeping it close to his chest to avoid drawing unwanted attention. He made the three-finger gesture from The Hunger Games. The corners of her mouth rose. Slowly, her hand popped up from under the table, returning the gesture.