Olympus: It's Not Just a Game

Chapter 3

Karl waited until Mr. Huber got home that night. Then he waited until he was in a good mood. That didn't happen until after dinner-Mr. Huber's business was important to him, and when things weren't going particularly well, everybody knew it. There was some big deal involving hydraulic activators that none of the family understood, except that they all wished it were over.

Supper was quiet. Mr. Huber spent his time chewing or muttering about Indonesian idiots and brainless bureaucrats. Karl and Jacob weren't speaking to each other. Their grandfather sat silently at the foot of the table in what was once their mother's place. But she had died of cancer years before, and Grandfather Huber had been unable to speak since Siberia.

But when his father went into the study to check out the computer equipment the Averys had installed, he was more than pleased-he was delighted with his new "Executive Battlestation." The fiber optic link and video camera enabled him to send "face mail" anywhere in the world while the combination scanner/printer made it just as easy to send and receive paperwork.

"What do you think, Karl boy?" he asked. Mr. Huber still had a trace of an accent. He and Grandmother Huber had escaped from behind the Iron Curtain back in the bad old days of the Cold War. "Now, this is a man's machine-not like that boy toy of yours in the basement."

Karl winced. This wasn't starting well.

"Now with this, you can be anywhere in the world. The real world," he emphasized. "You can use this to make money in Tokyo or make friends in London."

That looked like an opportunity. "I made a couple of new friends today," Karl said.

"Oh, really?" his father said. He swiveled his chair around to look at Karl. "That's good, Karl. You spend too much time locked up in that straitjacket of yours. You should get out more, see people."

"Yeah, right," gulped Karl. "Well, actually, I was going to ask you if it was all right to go out to the mall with these kids." He hurried on before Mr. Huber could ask for details. "You see, their father put in this computer. Their names are Noah and Nancy. They were here at the house while he was installing it. We got talking, and...well, Noah's a really cool guy."

His father raised his eyebrows. "And Nancy?"

Karl turned a little red. "Um. Well, she's pretty cool, too."

"Sure, Karl," his father answered, expansively. "It's about time you starting spending time with the young people." He smiled at his son-it seemed like the first smile in weeks.

Karl decided to go for the big gamble. "You know, Dad, I was thinking about a way to spend a lot more time with kids my age and maybe make some money, too."

His father looked interested. "Spend time with kids and make money? How's that?"

"Well," Karl continued, "I thought about, maybe, a small business for kids."

"Great!" applauded his father. "You've been spending all your money on that computer toy in the basement. It's about time you started making some again."

"Actually, I was planning to use the computer stuff in the basement as a way to make money."

Mr. Huber's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?" he snapped.

Karl hesitated. Maybe this wasn't a good time for this, after all.

"What is it?" his father demanded.

"Um, I thought I could buy a second cybersuit and open, like, an arcade in our basement." Somehow, just saying it out loud made it sound like the world's dumbest idea. One look at his father told him it was worse than that.

"No!" his father thundered. "Now, Karl, this foolishness has gone far enough!"

Karl flinched. "But, Dad," he objected. "Why not?"

"Because I say not, that's why!" Mr. Huber was never subtle when he was crossed. "First, you waste all your money on these toys. You have your lawnmower business, but you quit it to spend all your time at the arcade. Then your rider mower you sell!" Karl looked surprised. "Yes! I know of this! Then in the basement you stay all the time, like a mushroom! You are going down the tubes, Karl, on this fantasy world of yours! You may not throw good money after bad! I forbid it!"

Karl braced himself against the fierce flood of words. "Dad, it won't lose money-I promise!"

"Ha!" bellowed his father. "You think every kid is a dumbhead like you are!"

"I'm not dumb," Karl cried. "I know what I'm talking about. Lots of kids would pay good money to play Olympus."

"Then you're a pusher, that's what you are. You're a junkie, and now you want to make these other kids junkies. No! This has gone too far. No, you may not bring another suit into this house! And as for the suit you already have-I forbid you to play with it. No more of this game under my roof!"

"But, Dad!"

"No! This is my house. These are my rules!"

Karl stared at his father, distraught. When Mr. Huber laid down the law, there was no appeal. He was the father, and he always expected-and always got-obedience. Karl knew he would not change his mind, but he made one last attempt. "Just tell me why, Dad," he begged. "Just tell me why not."

"Why? Because this game of yours is a waste of time. And time is money! Look at me. I use each minute of my time; I don't waste it. Since I came to this country, I don't stop working. And look where it's gotten me!"

Oh, great. Karl rolled his eyes. The poor boy from Czechoslovakia routine. He was in the middle of getting yelled at, and now he was going to be bored to tears, too. He tried to force himself to look respectful.

"Look at me, Karl. I'm not the little poor boy from Prague anymore. I'm a man-a successful man. But you-you play in your fantasy world. I know all about fantasy worlds. I was born in a fantasy world. It's a trap! Big words, big promises-but all you get is the big lie or the bullet.

Dad's losing it, Karl thought to himself.

"It's a trap, Karl. The only thing that works is work. Hard work! In your fantasy world, nobody works. Under the Communists, nothing worked."

I knew it, Karl thought. Somehow he had to get to the Communists.

"I saw it with my own eyes! The government built all the apartments. From seven until three every day, these builders would tap away with their hammers. Why should they work hard? If they did nothing, they got paid-in useless paper. If they did a lot they got the same. Why bother? They had a saying. 'We pretend to work and the government pretends to pay us.' The houses they built were rotten-rotten!"

"What does that have to do with Olympus?" Karl protested.

"You listen!" Mr. Huber could see it in his mind's eye. "I still remember when my family moved into our apartment. We had waited years-since I was born-to get an apartment. Then we moved in, and everything was wrong. There was a drawer for the forks and spoons. The drawer was too short for the spoons!" He held up his gnarled hands. "The drawer was this long!"

Now he was really getting hot. "But these workers-they didn't do this by accident, these short drawers and things, when they built these rotten houses. They built them wrong on purpose!"

Karl rolled his eyes, involuntarily. Everything's a Communist conspiracy to Dad.

"As soon as we moved in, my Papa says, 'This drawer we must fix.' He goes out to the builders, working on the apartments next door. He asks them, 'Is there anyone of you who can a drawer fix?' Yes, yes, half a dozen of them say yes. They will come after three, when their work for the government is done. And they do come. They fix everything-the drawer, and a closet door that won't close, and everything else they built wrong on purpose. Only they make us pay them under the table-on the black market, you know-and in American dollars."

After all these years, Mr. Huber still felt the injustice of it. "Then they worked hard! And we paid real money for it. That's what matters, Karl. Don't get caught in this game!"

Dad's really reaching, Karl mentally groaned. Everything he doesn't like is just like the Communists. When will he learn that communism was history? "A grand social experiment," his teacher at school had called it. To hear Dad talk, you'd think it had been an evil empire. He wanted to yell, "Dad, look at the map! Wake up! There isn't even a country called Czechoslovakia anymore!" But he didn't dare.

"Everybody promises you fantasies. But they all lie! You can't get anything in this world-this world, the real world, not your pretend world-unless you're smart or rich. When Olympus makes you rich, you come back to me and talk. Until then, don't let me hear that word in this house!"

Karl looked whipped. "Yes, sir!" he said, bitterly. He stumbled through the door and almost tripped over Jacob in the hall. "Get out of my way," he hissed.

Jacob waited until the door was closed. "Whoa, brother," he whispered. "That was a hot one!"

"Oh, leave me alone," Karl snarled. He fled down the stairs to the basement. The dim red glow of the watchlight was on, but most of the light came from the video monitor that peered into Olympus. The forest fire had burned to ashes with only occasional coals glowing in the darkness. It was night there, but an enormous moon flooded the ash-covered landscape, bathing the basement with soft silver light. Karl stared into it, and hot tears blurred the moonlight.

The basement door banged, and Jacob slithered down the stairs. "So, what are you going to do now?"

"What can I do?" Karl fought back tears. "Dad has forbidden me to play Olympus anymore." He stared at the floor. "I guess I'm going to call Noah and Nancy and tell them we can't go to the mall tomorrow."

"Oh, I wouldn't do that," said Jacob lightly. "He said it was fine for you to go to the mall with Noah and Nancy."

"What-were you listening the whole time?" Karl demanded angrily.

"Well, didn't he?"

"Yes...I guess he did." Karl thought about it. "But so what. What do we do when we get there-stare into the monitors? I can do that here," he intoned bitterly.

"No, you'll play Olympus, just like you planned."

"But Dad said I couldn't," answered Karl.

"No, he said, 'My house, my rules.' The mall isn't his house."

"That's not what he meant," grimaced Karl. "He meant I couldn't play any more."

"I didn't hear that," argued Jacob. "He said, 'When Olympus makes you rich, you come back to me and talk.' How can you do that if you can't get into Olympus?"

Karl considered that. Jacob was normally a pain, but for once he seemed to make sense. "You mean," he said, slowly, "if I can find a way to play Olympus-outside the house, of course-and can make money at it...."

"Then you'll have done just what he told you to do," concluded Jacob.

Karl thought about that. Finally, he exclaimed, "You're brilliant!"

"Not brilliant," Jacob answered modestly. "Just logical. As long as you're in this house, Dad is in charge."

Karl stared into the screen, deep in thought. "Yes, that's true. And once I'm out of the house-"

Jacob stood in the shadow close behind him. "Once you're out of the house, Karl, anything can happen," he whispered. His eyes glittered in the dim red darkness.