Chapter 1: Nerds

When my brother Pierce was little my parents thought he had Asperger's syndrome. I wasn't alive then so I didn't see firsthand what led them to such a conclusion but I have heard stories. People often confuse Asperger's with Autism which are not quite the same thing. My uncle, who is a doctor explained to me that Asperger's is on the lower end of the Autism spectrum. In other words it's a low level category of Autism that affects the social skills of an individual.

According to my mom and dad, Pierce had like, no friends. There was this boy named Roger I think but they really just met each other in the elementary school library and read books on submarines together. Too bad he moved away a year after they started being "friends". Come middle school and then high school, Pierce camped in the library during break times. He ate pretty much the same turkey sandwich everyday which, according to my dad, he packed himself in the morning. The recipe he kept on the fridge with a magnet is still there.

· Bread (preferably whole wheat or multigrain)

· Tomato

· Roasted Turkey

· Pickled Red Onions

· Mayo

· Mixed Greens

I'm too lazy for that sort of thing so I just buy lunch from the school cafeteria using money that my dad gives me every week. He thinks it's all used up by the end of the week, but the truth is I save up quite a bit of it by buying the cheapest stuff on the menu so I had money to buy video games. Usually it's a corn dog and a bag of Doritos Cool Ranch. If I wanted to change it up I would get a Korean instant noodle and a bag of Doritos Salsa Verde. The lines always takes forever, mostly because you can always count of some student chatting up his friend working at the counter or some guy buying like ten different items. Who the hell buys two Gatorades for their school lunch? The cafeteria charged 70% more than the local super markets, a grand robbery if you ask me.

For amusement I like to sit at the table that my second older brother Grayson used to sit. Even though we are four years apart, I was always close to him. Maybe it's because we are both total nerds and nerds must stick together for survival. I would show him pictures of cute girls from my school and we would rate them together. We stalked this girl from my middle school named Terry a lot on social media. He's a freshman in college now and I'm a freshman in high school. Before he left for school in the east coast he told me to tell him all about the girls in my year, which I was delighted to do.

It has been two months since school started and I've made two friends, Greg Sylvester and Dawson Briggs. Greg and I share four classes together which makes those periods that much better. Dawson doesn't share any classes with me and we also met because Greg introduced us. His hair is often greasy because he takes his dad's suggestion to their family to try and save water way too seriously. I don't really mind that much though since nerds like us don't really care much for fashion anyways. Most of the cooler kids like to wear t shirts from trendy brands like RVCA or Holiday while me and my friends just wear whatever our moms buy us from Target or Walmart, sometimes it's the discount fashion and lifestyle store near my house called Dandy's.

I scratched the triceps of my skinny arm before returning the hand to the mouse I was using to play Guild of Dragons Online with Greg and Dawson. Dawson's teachers don't assign as much homework and he doesn't have any extracurricular activities so he has loads of time to play and level up his character. The basement of our house of easily my favorite place to relax in the whole world. My mom and dad aren't huge on shopping so the basement which was used for storage by the previous owner of the house, had been given to me to use as I see fit. Naturally I filled it with old couches, books I liked to read, and video games.

"Hey Greg, what do you think of Shelley?" I said as I organized my character's inventory.

Greg covered up a burp and clicked furiously. "Which Shelley? There are two in our class."

"Shelley Little," I said impatiently. "The one with the long brown hair. She ties it in a ponytail often."

Greg shrugged. "I guess she's alright. Isn't she on the volleyball team? She looked nice in short shorts. Ok yeah I take it back. She's pretty hot. Do you like her?"

"No I....like someone else."

"Oh yeah...mmmm huh."

I frowned. I was hoping to get more of a reaction but I guessed he was more invested in the game.

"Hey Randy, you character specializes in spears right?" Dawson asked as he reached for one of five unopened cans of soda one the table we had placed our gaming laptops on.

I raised an eyebrow at him. "Yeah why?"

"I just got the Tharys Spear of Miracles. You want it? It's pretty useless on my cryomancer."

I did a quick google search of the item he had got to see if it was any good.

"Jesus, one hundred and thirty percent more damage to undead creatures?! Meet me in The Falcon's Castle and give it to me there."

"Yeah let me just kill a few more vampires first."

"Ok."

We kept playing for a bit with Greg helping to kill an ogre boss in the Forgotten Woods. I could hear the sounds of my mom and dad cooking dinner together upstairs. In my mind I hoped that Greg and Dawson's parents would let them stay the night. It would be our first sleepover.

"Say your big bro's in the military right?" said Greg suddenly.

I got caught off guard by that question and lost focus on the game. "Yeah my eldest brother Pierce. Why?"

Greg shrugged. "I was watching Tears of the Sun last night. It just made me curious."

"How did you even know?"

"Remember when Mrs. Cornelison asked us if we had anyone in our immediate family that was or is in the military? Well you raised your hand. I know your other brother Grayson is studying English in college and your dad's been a software engineer since he was twenty. Your sister's an eighth grader so by process of elimination I concluded that it was the remaining brother."

"What does he do in the military?" Dawson asked.

I shrugged and tried to refocus on the game. "I was never close to him with the big age gap and all. He was in the Green Beret but I think my dad mentioned that he transferred or something."

At this, Dawson looked up with eyes wide. "Dude you know that Green Berets are like the Navy Seals of the army right?"

"He in Afghanistan?" Greg asked, getting up to grab some more pizza from the snack table behind us.

"I don't know where he is right now. But he was in Africa for at least a year."

"I wish I had a cool brother like that," said Dawson. "I could get points with the ladies that way. Girls love a man in uniform."

"Which means they would love him and not you dumbass," said Greg with a snort. "Honestly I want a girl who can play Operation Flashpoint with me. A body like Shelley and is into books and games? I would marry that in an instant."

My heart sank a little when he said that because I knew that girls like Shelley were probably into football playing jocks who wore board shorts every day, and hair like he spent most of his life surfing in Australia. It was a weird way to put it but it was the best way I could explain the type of guys girls typically went for.

"Say, your brother would be good at Operation Flashpoint right?" said Greg. "Yeah, a realistic military shooter like Operation Flashpoint would be close to what eh trained for. He'd stomp noobs and beat all the missions without breaking a sweat."

"Maybe you can ask him if he ever comes back home," I said, a little irritated. "Do you know if you guys can stay tonight?"

"I can," said Dawson. "We should watch a scary movie."

"How about Blue Well?" Greg suggested. "I heard it's solid."

I googled the movie and saw that it had a low approval rating on most of the movie review sites that came up. "Reviewers say it licks balls."

"Never mind then. I'm drawing a blank. What other good horror movies are there?"

"Is Blade Runner a horror movie?"

"The hell?" said Dawson, giving me a funny look. "I mean yeah, it's R rated but is a science fiction action movie, not horror. Get your facts right scrub."

I chuckled. "Ok then what do we watch?"

"How about Alien?" said Dawson. "The original 1970's one."

"Yesssss," said Greg. "I been meaning to watch that. But I hate watching movies by myself and my parents don't really like scary movies. We should get your sister to watch it with us Randy."

"Ilia thinks I'm gross," I said. "That means she thinks you're gross to."

"She never even met us!" said Dawson. I saw in the chat feed that he had logged out of the game. "I will have you know that I use conditioner, shampoo, and this high quality bar soap that my mom got from Germany. I lotion my body well with this peach scented body cream too."

"That last past sounded really wrong bro," said Greg. "Anyways, what does she find gross about you? Sounds like you got a mean little sister problem."

I scratched my head and recalled the few real conversations we had about my lifestyle. "I believe the word she used was crusty."

"Crusty?" said Greg, making a face.

"Crusty," I repeated.

"Maybe if you worked out more, wore coolers shirts, and got a decent haircut your sister might actually look up to her older brother."

"What's wrong with my shirt?" I demanded. I logged out of Guild of Dragons and stretched my arms.

"Bruh it's too big," said Greg. "Loose shirts make people look dorky. Your belly button also gets exposed when the wind catches under it."

"You two don't even have sisters. You don't know what it's like."

Greg shrugged. "Well I was just trying to be inclusive. You parents are pretty chill so I wouldn't want to hurt their feelings by excluding Ilia."

"Ilia has plenty of friends ok? She doesn't need our company."

"Alright whatever. So are we down to watch Alien or not?"

Dawson raised his hand high as he put the last slice of pizza into his mouth. I hoped that we still had some coupons for Nigel's Pizza. They were easily the best Chicago style pizza place in the city. Being the only one in the family who liked spicy food, I could only order spicy sausage and mushroom when my friends were over.

My mom was nice enough to let me and my friends take our dinners down into the basement. I had easily one of the coolest parents a kid could have. When I told them we were watching Alien my dad just gave me a stern look and asked, "Is there any sex?"

"No," I honestly answered.

"Oh ok then I guess that's fine."

Violence in R rated movies flew with my parents but they bring the hammer down when there's too much nudity and or too many raunchy scenes.

"Did you ask Ilia if she wanted to watch?" my mom asked as I was just about to step away from the dining table.

"Uh....not yet. It's kind of a scary movie though."

"Well it's up to you."

With a great sigh I went down the hall to where her room was, which was right across from mine. The cupcake sticker she put on the doorknob in first grade was still there and I wondered if it would stay there until the house was remodeled before I knocked.

"Hey Ilia you wanna watch a movie?"

I heard the sound of Ilia jumping off the bed and rushing to the door. A second later it swung open. Now, even though we were just one year apart we were never really that close. I guess I would have preferred having a little brother that would look up to me. I would show him the ropes of life and be that super chill older brother who let his little bro play with his toys and video games. We would level up in Guild of Dragons together all day.

Ilia stood there at the doorway with a white t-shirt that had a deer on it. She had on those black cotton short shorts she always wore in the house because they were comfortable.

"What movie?" she asked impatiently.

"Alien," I said in a bored tone. "It's a classic. A horror movie."

"Yeah I know it," she said thoughtfully. "Are Dawson and Greg still here?"

"Yeah we are going to watch it together. Wanna join us?"

She shrugged. "Sure why not. I don't really have anything better to do anyways."

As Ilia came down the basement steps with me I could have sworn I caught a glimpse of Dawson giving Ilia's legs a quick look. I trusted him to adhere to the bro code though and I could relate anyways. My eyes passed over the short shorts of girls in our grade all the time. Besides, if Ilia wasn't my sister it wouldn't be too weird for him to hit on a middle school girl since they were only one year apart.

"Gross there's like a piece of dried food on this DVD case," said Greg as he popped the movie into the player. The rest of his took seats on the old couches. I made sure to position myself between Ilia and the other two so they wouldn't try to creep on her while she was distracted by the movie. Even though we weren't close and the only major thing we had in common was brown hair color and family, I still felt protective towards her. I guess it's a sort of big brother thing that comes naturally to us.

As the opening scene came on Greg cleared his throat like he usually did when he was about to show off his divine nerd knowledge or intellect.

"Look at the way this scene is shot," he began. "The ominous music really gives you like this sense of loneliness and despair as you face the blackness of space. You know what I mean?"

"Yeah it's kind of creepy," said Dawson. "Movies these days need softer, more subtle scores. Silence sometimes speaks louder."

"Shhh!" Ilia hissed and crossed her legs.

As the film went on I thought about my brother Peirce. I wondered how someone like him would react he if he was thrown in the same situation as the crew of the Nostromo, encountering a hostile alien species. I was certain that I would have been the first to die to the alien and piss my pants the whole time. I didn't even have the courage to make eye contact with people I passed in the hall. Halfway through the film I glanced over at Ilia who seemed to be pretty into the movie.

If someone did try to hurt Ilia or my older brother Grayson though, I was sure I would go through hell and high water to keep them safe. I laughed at myself on the inside. Where were all these silly feelings of heroism coming from? Maybe it was just the movie. Maybe it was something Pierce had somehow passed down to me.