Deviant by Adrian McKinty

isn’t it?” Tony said.
    â€œYeah, I guess,” Tom admitted. “Considering what happened to the Grand Army.”
    Danny had no idea what they were talking about, and this annoyed him. When you invited people to your home, you didn’t try to make them feel uncomfortable.
    They went inside.
    â€œYou want something to drink?” Tony asked. “Tom makes a famous hot chocolate.”
    Danny nodded. “Whatever you’re having.”
    â€œI’m having the hot chocolate. If you’re making it, Tom?”
    â€œ
Mais oui,
” Tom said.
    â€œFine by me, then,” Danny muttered.
    â€œYou take him up,” Tom said.
    â€œThis way to the attic,” Tony said, leading the way.
    Inside, the house was a bit of a mess. Books, records, and CDs were everywhere. Antiques and souvenirs from various camping trips or something: shells, signposts, Indian rugs, ceramic jugs, even some firearms. “What is all this stuff?” Danny asked.
    â€œTom’s mom is an antiques dealer. She has a little eBay business. You’d like her … Don’t know where she is today. She runs the Sunday school at the church. Are you going to join our church, by the way?”
    â€œThe faith temple thing?”
    â€œMetropolitan Faith Cathedral.”
    â€œUh, I don’t think so.”
    â€œMost of the Cobalt Junior High kids go there.”
    â€œThe second good reason not to go.”
    A wooden, uncarpeted staircase led to Tom’s room, which turned out to be the attic, the one with the turret. It was a big room with two old sofas opposite each other and at right angles to an enormous circular coffee table on which Tom had spread charts, newspapers, pens, pencils, and a laptop.
    Tom’s clothes were everywhere and the room had a teenage-boy funk.
    The posters on the wall were a couple of years out of date and hypergeek:
Iron Man 2, Battlestar Galactica
, Arcade Fire,
Star Trek XI
. Hundreds of DVDs, mostly classics and sci-fi classics:
Vertigo, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Them!, Rear Window, Casablanca, Forbidden Planet, A Matter of Life and Death
. The enormous bookcase on the far wall had maybe a thousand books in it. Danny had never seen so many books outside of a library. Who had the time to read all of those? There were also dozens of computers and computer parts all over the room. Old Commodores, Macs and PCs, and new laptops. The bedsheets were black, and next to the bed there was a picture of Tom with his older brother, John, on some fishing trip. Danny liked the room enormously—it was like a villain’s lair in a Bond movie.
    There were two other kids in the attic: Cooper and Olivia, both of whom were still in their school uniforms. Olivia hadn’t even taken her gloves off. Cooper was a skinny boy with wiry red hair and big jug ears that would forever condemn him to the role of comic foil if he everwanted a career in Hollywood. Olivia was a different kettle of fish entirely. She was obviously Spanish, with black hair cut into an old-fashioned bob, brown eyes, prominent cheekbones, and a rounded chin that reminded Danny of the stern end of his skateboard—high praise indeed. She was shy, and when Danny said hello she only nodded. She was very pretty, though—more so than Tony—more of a real girl, not a tomboy.
    Everyone finished saying hi and Cooper said, “Have you seen the camera obscura?”
    â€œThe what now?” Danny said.
    â€œNo, Cooper, Tom doesn’t like us messing with it,” Olivia said.
    Ignoring her, Cooper pulled shut the heavy curtains, took a lens cap off a box in the ceiling Danny hadn’t noticed before, and suddenly the world outside was projected onto the coffee table.
    â€œWow!” Danny said. But suddenly Cooper heard Tom’s footsteps on the stairs and, in a panicky rush, pulled open the curtains and put the lens back on the camera obscura.
    Tom appeared with five hot chocolates.
    â€œMy