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room.
    “She’s a keeper!” Uncle Marion said, whistling like a construction worker.
    “Marion!” my mother admonished.
    “I’m just sayin’. I didn’t think the kid had it in him.”
    “Marion!”
    “I guess we know he ain’t gay, right?”
    My mom looked like she was about to crack him over the head with something heavy. He gave me an evil grin. In my mind, I flipped him off, but in reality, I slipped back into my bedroom and closed the door, wishing I had a cyanide capsule in a hollow tooth. I sat down in my computer chair, feeling my face burning up.
    “What are you looking at?” I asked the sleek black case on my desk.
    I reached out and touched one of the strange-looking icons on the screen. A window opened up that had a gear wheel on it, and below it, the words “App Center.” I touched the gear, and the window shifted into full-screen, but went black except for a white search box in the middle, as if it were a generic, negative-Google. I touched the search box, and the cursor appeared. I thought for a few moments about what “apps” would be available for this… thing. And apps sounded like what we had on tablets and smartphones, which made me once again wonder exactly what kind of computer I had sitting on my desk.
    “Delta-9: Global Conflict,” I said aloud, just for shits and giggles. The game wasn’t due to be released until December 24th, just under a month from now.
    An old-style analog clock icon appeared on the screen, the big second hand winding around twice before the screen went back to the star field background, a seventh icon joining the other six on the desktop.
    “No fucking way,” I breathed, looking at the Delta-9 icon.
    I touched it, some part of my brain still believing that I was still dreaming, or that I was still the butt of some practical joke. The game started, going to the main menu within two seconds. I didn’t bother to set any options. I touched New Game and waited the one second before the cut-scene intro began. I sat stunned, unable to believe I was playing the game. Stunned that I hadn’t paid for the game. I was no stranger to pirated games and movies and music, but this wasn’t even piracy as far as I knew. My computer wasn’t even officially hooked up to the internet, as far as I knew.
    I barely paid attention to the dialog of the cut scene. It ended within thirty seconds, and my character was standing in a dusty Middle Eastern city, nothing but brown and tan in every direction. I jumped when I heard my door open, my finger that was hovering near the screen touching the projection. My character’s gun fired, the noise making me and Kassi jump this time. I touched the screen again, and again my character fired his gun.
    I brought my left hand up to the screen and touched it. My character moved forward, stopping when I pulled my finger back. I touched the screen again, but this time far to the left to see if I could get my character to turn left, but he only moved forward. I touched with my thumb this time, and he turned right. Middle finger was turn left, ring finger was jump, pinky was crouch. I experimented a bit, getting used to it quickly.
    I then checked what my right hand could do. Index finger fired the gun, middle finger aimed down the sights, thumb threw grenades, ring finger reloaded, pinky switched weapons. I forgot about Kassi as I spent another few minutes getting the hang of it. I’d been playing games like this since I could remember, but I’d never felt this much control, this level of response from my mouse or keyboard.
    “That looks crazy,” Kassi said from behind me.
    “Yeah,” I breathed, my fingers working in quick patterns as my character made his way to the first intersection.
    I crouched behind a burned out car, one that looked more like a real burned out car than anything I’d ever seen in a game. Even the sand that blew in the light wind seemed more real. I blinked and looked again, and noticed that the sand seemed to break