Free Night Betrayed by Joss Ware

who didn’t need anything from her.
    But maybe tonight . . . maybe she’d just have fun. Drink a little wine. Relax a little.
    Maybe she’d even drink a lot of wine. For some reason, her gaze wandered back to the window. She knew what would happen if she drank a lot of wine. It had been a long time . . . she searched back in her mind . . . Three years? Four?
    No, good grief—Six! Six years, because it had been Sam’s tenth birthday party, the last time she’d let herself relax. Have a good time.
    No wonder she was a little tense.
    And so . . . maybe tonight. A night where she could just do . . . what she wanted.
    Selena couldn’t help glancing toward the window again. Would it be so bad to flirt a bit with a guy younger than her? Especially one who looked like Theo? Plus he wasn’t from here; surely he wouldn’t be around much longer anyway.
    “I’m going to ask Theo if he wants to go,” Jen was saying. “He can sit with us.”
    Selena pulled her attention away, her light thoughts deflated. Right. He’d fit in perfectly with the group of friends that Jen normally interacted with. Young, vibrant, and filled with energy.
    She turned away. It had been a while since she’d felt like that.
    Young. Vibrant. Filled with the joy of life.
    Since he’d gotten the news that this was Brad Blizek’s place, several things had occurred to Theo. Aside of the realization that there could be some awesome plans or even prototypes of some of Blizek’s unmanufactured brain children (which he fairly salivated at the thought of getting his hands on), he had to believe there would be a state-of-the-art NASA-like technology setup somewhere.
    Maybe even still viable.
    So, as soon as he finished helping Frank with a variety of chores in the yard, he asked about it. And was rewarded by the old man trudging him up two flights of steps to what he said they called the arcade.
    Theo was conscious of holding his breath when he entered the space, and it took long moments before he expelled it.
    Holy gearhead’s wet dream, Batman.
    It was like the Bat Cave meets Tony Stark’s lab meets NASA .
    The space was long and open, running the entire length of the ranch. Tinted transom windows kept the glare of the sun from messing with computer or video screens. The left half looked like something from an old ’80s movie: it was lined with old arcade video games—Pac-Man, Centipede, Galaga—along with some from Theo’s generation, as well as pinball machines. But on the right, the large room was a fantasy. Massive computer touch screens built into the walls, clear acrylic countertops and keyboards, a clear glass electronic whiteboard, and projector screens and webcams. Theo saw a data glove and headgear for AI work. He could hardly form words to thank Frank—for he’d learned that the man had kept the space clean, dry, and powered up.
    And yet . . . the stairway to the arcade was kept boarded up and inaccessible.
    “Keeps the damned snoot outta here,” Frank said, eyeing Theo sharply.
    “The snoot?”
    “Bounty hunters. They take this stuff. Take anyone who’s got it too. No one knows it’s here, so you shut your goddamn can about it to anyone.”
    And that was all Frank would say on the subject . . . but Theo didn’t care. He just wanted to get to work. He didn’t even spend much time wondering why Frank trusted him enough to give him access to the secret room.
    The first thing he did was set up an access point, or NAP , to link into the Internet that he and Lou had been trying to create. Despite the fact that Envy, which of course was the cornerstone of the network, might be as far as a hundred miles away, Theo figured he could find the equipment here to build a receiver strong enough to tap into it. Aside of that, he, Lou, Sage, and Jade had spent the last two or three years setting up NAPs in a roughly fifty mile radius around Envy, and hopefully there would be one close enough that he could link into.
    It took him