Silence - eARC by Mercedes Lackey, Cody Martin Page B

desktop?”
    “Laptop,” she said, a little more certain of her ground. There wasn’t any accusation or hostility when any of them asked her questions. They actually seemed genuinely interested.
    He nodded. “Good, pretty much all of them have a phone jack in them. So all we need to do is hook you up to a dialup service. Fortunately there actually is one that isn’t a long-distance number from here; it’s over in the next town. You got access to a credit or debit card?”
    “Yes—”
    Seth didn’t wait for any explanations. “Awesome, that’s usually the big stumbling block. Twelve-fifty a month, I’ll come over whenever you want, set you up.” He sighed theatrically…and to catch his breath. “Obviously, nobody ever has to worry about exceeding their download limit on dialup, so it’ll never be more than that.”
    Since one of the first things she was going to do would be to email Dad that she was getting Stone Age net, well, this was a whole lot less than her cell per month, so she doubted he’d blink twice. She nodded.
    “Don’t start giving her the scenic tour of gimp-net until you’re sitting down at the lappie, Seth,” Wanda said, before Seth could start up again. “I don’t suppose you’re into RPGs?”
    “Or console games?” Jake said hopefully. “Or better yet, both?”
    “Uh—” She knew what console games were, though she’d never done anything but play Facebook games herself. But…RPGs? “I don’t really have much experience with any of that. But, I’m willing to learn?”
    “Good attitude,” Wanda said approvingly. “Look, here’s the deal. There’s not a hell of a lot to do around here. You can get together and watch DVDs. The movie theater is a joke; by the time it gets anything, it’s already out on DVD. If you’re a skater, there’s a parking lot…and whatever you can sneak to before the cops run you off. Have you seen the Burger Shack?” As Staci made a little grimace, Wanda nodded. “Yeah, you get it. So unless you happen to get touched by the Gilded Hand of Fate and the Blackthornes decide you get to be a hanger-on with the Elite crowd, there is not much left. Too cold to swim. Not enough wave to surf. Fishing around here is a job, not a sport. Nobody much who’s our age can afford a car, and since most people work here in town, a lot of adults don’t bother either. The school does nada for the kids, nothing in the summer because all the teachers have summer jobs at the cannery, and even in the school year they never have dances because there’s no money for them, and we lose every football or basketball game we play.”
    Staci looked at her in disbelief. “That doesn’t sound possible—it can’t be that bad!”
    “We’re that bad,” Riley assured her. “We get our own kicks, enough to make this place survivable. If you like fantasy or horror or sci-fi, you might like RPGs. They’re kind of like improv plays.”
    “With dice-rolling,” said Jake.
    “And heck, if you don’t like those, there’s mystery RPGs, and historical RPGs, and steampunk RPGs, and military RPGs,” Seth added, with enthusiasm. It was pretty clear now who was the “RPG expert” in this group. “Even superhero RPGs and an anime RPG. I’m pretty sure the rest of us would be open to trying those if that’s what you like.”
    Well…she did like anime. “Maybe the last?” she said hesitantly.
    “Great, I already have a copy of BESM still in the plastic,” said Seth. “I’ll scan and print up copies for everyone.”
    She sipped coffee and occasionally added something as the others talked. They seemed like a fairly close-knit group. Usually whenever Staci had encountered anyone like them in NYC, it had been hard to be accepted as one of them. Every group had its own initiations. But not this one. They had taken her in as one of their own almost immediately. Maybe they were all kindred; they were outcasts in their own town, and she was an outcast from out of town. Her