The Intuitives(27)

“Be sure to be downstairs in the main hall by 9:00 a.m. for breakfast and orientation,” Miss Williams said on her way out. “I’ll tell the girls on my way to bed and make sure they’ve settled in OK.”

“Thank you, Miss Williams,” Roman said politely. “We’ll make sure Rush knows.”

“Thank you, Roman,” she replied. “You remember where my room is? In case you need anything? Please don’t be shy about waking me up. It’s my job to make sure you kids are comfortable here.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he affirmed.

“Well, all right. Good night, then,” she said, casting a moment’s worried glance toward Rush’s bedroom but then smiling warmly at Roman and Daniel, who had reappeared after depositing his guitars and amp safely in his bedroom.

“Good night, ma’am,” Roman replied.

“Good night,” Daniel echoed.

“Oh,” Miss Williams said, obviously just remembering something, “and Roman, the food in the kitchen? That’s budgeted, too, like the airport food. OK?”

“OK!” Roman agreed. The door hadn’t even closed behind her before Roman was rummaging around in the kitchen, just to see what was there, while Daniel slid past him and disappeared into his bedroom for the night.

Once Miss Williams was gone, Rush reappeared in the living area with a gaming console that he set beneath the television. Roman watched from the kitchen as Rush began to run his hands along the edges of the screen and then placed his face as close to the wall as he could, trying to see what was behind it.

“Miss Williams said we have breakfast and orientation downstairs at 9:00.”

“I heard,” Rush said.

“What are you doing?”

“This,” Rush replied, without further explanation, but he centered himself in front of the television and pulled it gently away from the wall, having discovered that the set was on a swiveling wall-mount, as he had hoped.

Roman just stared at him in amazement.

“How’d you know it would do that?” Roman wanted to know, but Rush just shrugged.

He disappeared into his room again and came back with two controllers and a headset. He hooked the headset and the console up to the television and then pushed the screen gently back against the wall. Next, he pivoted the console table and found an electrical outlet. He plugged in the console and then moved the table back again. He turned everything on and fiddled with the remote until the picture from the console appeared on the screen.

He grunted, satisfied, but when he tried to go into the system’s network options, he hit a snag.

“Damn,” he said under his breath.

“What’s wrong?” Roman wanted to know.

“No Internet. What kind of five-star resort doesn’t have Internet?”

Roman just shrugged.

Rush disappeared again and came back this time with a small, flat box. He hit a button on it, and a green light started flashing, but after a few moments Rush frowned and disappeared one more time.

He cursed then, loudly, and he reemerged from the room with a scowl on his face. Roman watched him carefully, but no bees came peeking out of his ears, nor did any of his beautiful silver armor start glowing red, so he decided it was safe enough to try another question.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the box.

“Hot spot,” Rush said, and then, seeing Roman’s hopeful expression and relenting a little, he added, “It takes a cell signal, like for your phone, and turns it into an Internet wi-fi that other things can hook up to.”

“Really?” Roman asked, impressed. “Like for your game?”

“Well, it’s supposed to, yeah. Only, it’s not.”

“Why not?” Roman wanted to know.

“No cell service.” Rush held up his cell phone. “No signal, no Internet. I swear, we must be in freaking Timbuktu.”

“Where’s that?”

Rush chuckled a little. “I don’t know. Someplace really far away.”

“Oh,” Roman said.

“Well, a place like this has to have some kind of Internet,” Rush said, mostly to himself. “I’ll ask them about it tomorrow. Meantime, I’ll have to play offline, I guess.”

Roman just shrugged and kept looking at him, having nothing else to say.

“You want to play?” Rush asked.

“Who, me?”

“Yeah, you. Why not?”

“I don’t really know how to play,” Roman admitted. He had tried it once or twice when his mother had made Marquon share the system, but the bees had been so angry that Roman had handed the controller back as soon as she had stopped paying attention.

“That’s OK. I can teach you.”

“OK,” Roman agreed. “I won’t talk, I promise.”

“What?”

“I won’t talk to you while you’re playing. So I won’t make you die.”

“Kid, listen, not to brag or anything, cause it’s just fact, but there are very few people in the whole world who could kill me just cause you said something during the game.”

“My brother gets mad when I talk. He says I get him killed.”

“Well, nothing against your brother, but if talking gets your brother killed a lot, then he’s not very good.”