Glitch. Part 18

And I had people to help me now.

I just wished they were a little cooler. It was easy to place confidence in James Bond. A set of gamer athletes not so much.

"When Commander Shepard does his taxes-" Lena began.

"Commander Shepard doesn't do taxes." Amrith cut in. "He's a Spectre."

"Shut up! This one's funny."

It'd be a long ride back home. I closed my eyes and thought about stalker men. And about violets made of light.

CHAPTER SEVEN: ALPHA GATE.

"This knife," I said to the woman at the booth. "Is it sharp?"

The woman at the engraving booth wrinkled her nose and adjusted her gold, bottlecap lenses. An open Nicholas Sparks novel lay face down on the gla.s.s counter. The woman took a long look at it, like an alcoholic looks at a misty bottle. Then she looked back at me.

"I think I need a sharp knife." I said.

"They sell swords in Chinatown," the woman said.

I nodded, dimly aware that this woman had just zinged me.

Around me, Square One shoppers bustled. Mall sounds replayed on an endless track: crying babies, clapping feet, and peppy store music.

Square One was the largest mall in Ontario. About seven years ago, it exploded onto Mississauga like a gigantic capitalist boil grown out of stucco. I didn't like it; most of the stores sold clothing, and you could find that at Wal-Mart. But I'd stepped the TEB Financial building overlooked the mall, and going downtown would take too much time.

I clocked out of work early this Friday to pick up a pocket knife. Josh told me to. More specifically, he'd messaged me on Facebook.

We meet haze at eight. Were going to lakesh.o.r.e first to show you something. Get a knife for your lesbian self. Don't make it one of the stupid red swiss ones.

I didn't know how to buy knives. I didn't know where to buy knives. For an hour I'd trekked through the consumerist maze before finding the booth called Things Engraved, an engraving booth that engraved stuff from their stock of picture frames, pocket watches, water bottles, pens, toy cars, statuettes and, yes, pocket knives.

The knife I pointed to was not a stupid red one. It was translucent blue plastic, like my first USB stick. A single silver blade cut through the plastic. A white Swiss cross stamped one end of the handle.

The price tag said $15.99. Not bad.

"I think I'll take this knife." I concluded. I took a twenty from my wallet and brandished it at the engraver lady.

The lady blinked slowly. "What do you want engraved?".

"I need it engraved?"

The woman pointed to the sign that read "Things Engraved." I realized I had been zinged yet again.

"... Alright, I know exactly what to do," I said. The woman raised her eyebrows and I gave her the inscription.

While I was supposed to be working, I'd instead searched the internet, googling bugs, glitches, and quantum physics. I wanted to grasp Level Zero. I wanted to know what it did-or what my new friends thought it did. But while I blazed through cypers.p.a.ce, I'd also found something else: a' a' a a a a a a B A The Konami Code: the grandfather of video game glitches. In an ancient sci-fi shooter called Contra, it turned the player's 2D s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p into G.o.d. The game was impossible to finish without the code. I figured the Level Zero crowd would dig it.

The lady handed me the knife in a blue polyester bag. I didn't take out the blade to check the inscription because something told me normal people didn't open knives in public. I pocketed the bag instead.

I left through the mall's west entrance. It was a cold out. For the past week we'd sweltered under sudden humidity with an unseasonal twenty-five degree heat wave. Now, the thermometer had swung down just in time to f.u.c.k everyone's weekend plans. I heard on CTV that Sunday would have a low of seven degrees. Complete bulls.h.i.+t.

My white Pontiac waited for me in the middle of a deserted lot outside the Zellers. No one used the lot, since it sat fifty metres farther from the mall. I beeped the car open as I approached, and noticed that my walk had more confidence in it. Was this the joy of knife owners.h.i.+p?

I yanked the car door shut, swore, and rubbed my white hands together. The dashboard still had some residual warmth left, and I pressed my palms against it.

When my hands had warmed, I pulled the blue bag out of my pocket and upended its contents on the pa.s.senger seat. The knife dropped out.

I picked it up.

It felt lighter than a knife should. I flipped it around in my hand. The knife was just a bit shorter than a pen. It felt like a toy.

I pulled the blade out with my thumb. A smooth, stainless-steel paddle emerged from the handle. The Konami Code shone along its side.

I folded the knife and slid it into my back pocket. I flung the blue bag into the well of the pa.s.senger seat and started the car. The engine hummed under the dashboard and hot air blasted out the air vents.

My eyes shone in the rearview mirror: cold, hard, icy blue. I looked away, and gunned the engine.

I spotted Josh and Lena outside the parking garage at my building. Josh sat on one side, Lena stood, stretching her calves against a wall, on the other.

I'd never told them where I live.

Josh spotted me first. He raised a hand, and called to Lena. Lena spun around, waved, and hopped onto the street.

I rolled down the windows. Josh pa.s.sed me without a word and pulled the pa.s.senger door to my car open. Lena took the shotgun seat.

"Took you long enough," she said. "Did you get the knife?"

"I don't remember telling you to meet me here," I said. I clicked the transponder clipped to my rearview. The door to the parking garage rose.

"Knife," Josh said. He held out his hand. I took out the pocket knife and slapped it into his palm.

Josh drew it to eye level.

"You got a Swiss one," he announced dourly. "So you're gay?"

"I got a single-blade like you asked." I said. I rolled into the parking garage. It was mostly empty this early in the afternoon: just claustrophobic concrete pillars and orange lights. I turned through the narrow lane-my s.p.a.ce was at the end of the garage, near the elevators.

"Not that it's bad to be gay," Josh continued. He pulled open the knife. "Ten percent of the world is-the f.u.c.k? What's this s.h.i.+t on the knife?"

"The-the Konami code." I said. "You've heard of it? Right? Lena?"

Josh held out the knife to Lena. She looked at it and shrugged.

"You people," I breathed. "What now?"

"Drop your stuff and get back down here. We're going to a park," Josh said.

I followed Josh and Lena's directions down the Queensway and onto Lakesh.o.r.e. They were leading me to a place called Bay Park.

I Google Mapped the place before I left. Bay Park was a tendril of land, shaped a bit like a runny inkblot. It jutted out of the city, splashed across the water, and quickly fell into the deep, dark blue of Lake Ontario.

We took Lakesh.o.r.e to get there. After a long drive, the neighborhoods dropped away. and we had a clear view of the lake shooting across the horizon. Just about the time we entered the outskirts of Toronto, Josh pointed out the park.

"Go up there."

I glanced over.

It always bothered me that any suitably large area of gra.s.s can be called a park. Bay Park was no exception-a peninsula of turf bordered by a thick copse of trees and lots of rocks to prevent erosion. A thin bridge of wooded turf connected the park to land.

I turned onto the bridge and the road became gravel. It curved gently towards the main body of the park. Pebbles pinged the underside of my car.