Enemy In the Room Read Online Free PDF

picked
up another potato. “Dinner’s going to be a little late. My last
client hadn’t filed her taxes for years. After you change, go check
on Rob. I think he could use some help with a big history test
tomorrow.”
    “OK,” he said, heading toward their bedroom
and trying to remember what era Rob was studying.
    Ten minutes later he had changed into khaki
pants and was standing outside their son’s bedroom on the second
floor. He thought he could hear Rob talking. He knocked, but there
was no response. He knocked louder. Then he tried the door.
Locked.
    Inside the room, Rob was standing on a
special virtual reality floor plate. He wore a helmet and vest, and
carried a plastic gun simulator; all three were connected
wirelessly to his computer, and then to the Internet. Almost as
tall as his father, Rob’s helmet and vest made him immense; he
carried his machine gun with practiced ease. From inside his helmet
he peered around the corner of a virtual brick building in a burned
out portion of the central business district
    The street he looked down was wide and
deserted, with only a few nearly destroyed cars littering the way.
The late afternoon sun created shadows on the left side and bursts
of light on the right, reflecting off the few still unbroken
windows. One car was smoldering from an earlier fire. Rob looked
across the street to his right and nodded to his best friend and
partner, Justin Napier, also fifteen. Justin had taken cover behind
a building on the opposite corner. Crouched behind each of them
were the two newest members of their team. Rob and Justin edged out
into the street on opposite sidewalks, their machine guns at the
ready on their shoulders, training them back and forth across the
cars and the open windows of the adjoining buildings. Without
looking, Rob heard the new team members taking up covering
positions behind them.
    “I saw one of them run this way,” Rob said
into the microphone in his helmet.
    “Yeah, a little guy with a pistol,” Justin
replied.
    “There are probably more.” Rob made it to
the first car, which had apparently crashed into a light pole when
its driver was hit. No one was inside.
    Justin continued down the street, while Rob
paused, using the car as cover. Rob began to train his machine gun
over Justin’s head when out of the corner of his eye he saw a
flicker of light in a second story window on his side.
    “Upper left!” Rob yelled, and quickly turned
his machine gun toward the window, arcing out a spray of
bullets.
    But he was not fast enough. The gun barrel
in the window flashed. Justin went down as the fiery tracers hit
all around him.
    “Aagh! I’m hit,” Justin screamed.
    “I’m coming,” Rob yelled, running to his
right and continuing to fire into the window, while their comrades
came up and added firepower to the melee.
    “Watch our backs!” He made it to Justin and
began dragging him into an open doorway. As he did so, a grenade
floated across the street and landed on the sidewalk next to them.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Rob scooped it up and threw it back
toward the window where he had seen the barrel. Grabbing Justin, he
rolled into the doorway as the grenade exploded a foot from the
window, sending shrapnel up and down the street.
    “Come on,” Rob said, as he dragged his
friend inside. Justin was holding his upper leg. Blood gushed out
around his fingers. Rob pulled out his first-aid kit and applied
pressure to the wound. “I’ll get you out of here,” he said. “You’re
going to be all right.”
    A new team member—Rob couldn’t remember his
name—ran up, took one look at Justin, and quickly turned away.
    “I’ll cover the door,” he said.
    The door. Someone was knocking. What?
     
    David knocked again, even louder. The door
finally opened, and his son stood before him—baggy shorts, shirt
tail out, a virtual reality helmet on his head, the visor up. “Oh,”
came the greeting, as Rob turned and walked back to