Chris Rogers, Author

Invite the Devil In by Chris Rogers

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I stare at my melted keyboard and blank monitor and the CPU humming nonstop, and I don't dare unplug it. I'm not sure what would happen, but it would be ugly. Somewhere early on there might've been a bail-out point. The best thing I could've done - and jeez, I never thought I'd hear myself say this - was listen to Mom. She hates it when I flip on the computer after midnight and cruise the electronic highway until dawn.

"A growing boy needs his sleep," she says.
"If I needed sleep, I'd be sleepy."
"If you slept at night, like a person's supposed to, you wouldn't fall asleep in history class and maybe you'd make better grades."
"My grades are fine," I say, "in the subjects I like. History is boring."
"Sometimes life is boring. I Like sorting coffee mugs eight hours a day? We manage the boring parts so we can get on to the good stuff. For that, you need your sleep."

I can see where this argument's going, so to break the loop I mumble something about trying harder. A loop is a string of words that ends up where it started. Like the old camp song Mom sings when she's working in the kitchen, "Sweet violets, sweeter than the roses. Covered all over from head to toe, covered all over with sweet violets, sweeter than the roses ..." It can drive you crazy. In computerese, a loop is a string of commands that ends up where it started and locks up your PC so it can't do anything. Sounds like I'm rambling, I know. But I'm going somewhere with this. Trust me. This particular night, nobody interesting was online, so I downloaded a new game, "Antigrav," and started playing. It was cool enough, requiring gravitational calculations to determine how hard and far your weapons would go on the warring planet. But the novelty wore off fast, playing alone.

Then suddenly, I wasn't alone.
The "second player" light winked on and someone countered my shot.
"All right!" I said - soft though, so I wouldn't wake Mom.

The other player was good and had obviously played before, but math is my best subject, one I don't fall asleep in. I stomped his ass.
The screen blanked, and a message typed in:
"NICE GOING, KID. THINK YOU'RE PRETTY SMART?"
"Smart enough to beat you," I typed back.
"THEN HOW COME YOU'RE FAILING HISTORY?"
How'd he know that?

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