Boy Robot CHAPTER 1 ISAAK Another running dream. They happen more frequently these days. For a few moments I lie in bed, stare up at the ceiling, and try to grasp at the last remaining fragments. The more I try to recollect it all, the more it pours right out of me. Such is the way of dreams: enveloping your entire being through the most vulnerable parts of your unconsciousness, but attempt to illuminate the shadowy transpirings and even the most significant plot points become shapeless craters where mountains once stood. I''m scrambling around the edge of one of those craters now. This time someone died. I can still feel the loss, like an explosion within me.

My cheeks are still wet with tears. I throw off my covers and step onto the thin brownish green carpet. The floorboards creak beneath my feet, the sound of another morning getting underway. Mary, Mother of God, watches from her plastic perch above my dresser as I open it and get dressed for the day. It''s one of the many chintzy Catholic relics strewn about a room that isn''t mine to redecorate. A gilded, bloody Jesus, who more closely resembles an oatsy, white, folk-music artist from the sixties, stares up toward the ceiling in a cry of perpetual agony. I spare a moment to read the words scrawled below him. Pro Omnibus Hominibus.

That painting, hanging above the dresser, used to terrify me and keep me up at night as a child, but now I just find it bizarre. Black jeans and a red hoodie will do--my standard uniform. All these years spent in this house--all of my years, period--and I still feel like a guest. An unwelcome guest. It isn''t that my parents don''t love me, since I''m sure they do, but they''ve never wanted me. There is a difference. I''m grateful to have a home in the first place, as they''ve made it clear that I''m on my own after graduation. It wasn''t a surprise for me--I''ve been told I was nothing more than adopted since before I even knew what the word meant--but it''s still left me feeling abandoned and alone.

In front of the bathroom mirror, I run my fingers through my hair, notice bags under my eyes, and wonder what the hell I''d been dreaming about. I just can''t remember, but somehow it seems important. I finish getting ready as quietly as I can, then head into the wood-paneled hallway. Dozens of faces fill old black-and-white photos that line the hall. Faces I''ve never been told much about, other than not-so-subtle reminders that I am not, in fact, related to any of them. I pass the kitchen, with its nearly ancient appliances and its linoleum floor with the looping ivy patterns. I go down the stairs past the kitchen, through the basement, and step into the garage, where the pungent smell of gasoline, oil, and mildew always chokes me a bit. I grab my rusted old bike, step through the side door, take a deep breath of the early mist, and push off.

The little red house sits near the top of a hill, right up against cave-filled woods, but here in the Ozarks there are a lot of hills and a lot of caves. Pacific, Missouri, is probably one of the tiniest towns to have ever been called a town at all. A relic of another America--one that had been built by trains and industry--the town now exists as a flicker on the way to St. Louis if you''re going up I-44. Small, dilapidated houses line the streets, where grandchildren buy one of the dilapidated houses just down the street from their grandparents and renovate it to fill with children of their own. The population here never really grows; about five thousand people always seem to stick around. Maybe a new generation will have a spurt of children and push it up to 5,255 or so, but somehow just the right amount of people decide to leave or die and it always evens out around five thousand. Chilled air from a cave pours down the hill behind me.

I imagine it would be strange to feel that for the first time, the way a cave releases a constant stream of cool air. Like it''s breathing. I feel it against my cheek, where the first rays of the late-springtime sun are now beaming. At the bottom of the hill, I take a right on First Street and pedal off toward school. At Walnut, I take a right and start up another big hill. I do this most every morning, except when it rains, and sometimes even when it does. The hill leading up to Blackburn Park is enough to get my blood pumping, and I think of it as the last step in my process of waking up. I have to get up a little earlier to make the detour every morning, but the view at the top is worth it.

Once the hill crests, I take a path that leads to the towering flagpole at the edge of the limestone bluff. There, the town''s giant American flag stirs in the morning air. Towns like these usually display flags this large in used-car lots, but Pacific has hers placed atop her highest hill. I park my bike next to a picnic table and walk toward the chain-link fence, the only thing separating me from the two-hundred-foot drop down to the road below. I loop my fingers into the rough metal and inhale. With the breath I take in the endless trees, the never-ending hills, the infinite sky, all of it. Standing up here on the cliff at Blackburn Park, the entire town beneath my feet, is almost what I imagine standing at the edge of the ocean would be like. I''ve never seen it myself, but I''ve seen it in movies and on TV, and from what everyone always says, standing next to the ocean is awe-inspiring.

That the sheer scope of it can make humanity itself feel insignificant. I like that feeling, like there''s something greater out there than the sum of my own existence. Pacific, Missouri, Pacific Ocean . almost the same thing. The sun bathes the entire valley in a golden orangey pink, burning off the morning dew. Like clockwork, the cicadas begin their day-long, droning cacophony--the sound of summer''s impending arrival. The buzz melds with my thoughts, striking a chord as just another layer of my morning, my being. I drop my backpack to the ground and pull out my plain black leather journal and a pen, then sit atop a picnic table and look out onto my very own Pacific Ocean.

I write Morning comes again Sometimes some things are simply inevitable Some things that never will change But change is itself inevitable And yet here I sit, yearning for the inevitable change to pass me by To lose track of time Forgo my progression Progress me down Down the hill, down with all the others All the others who do not take the time to climb the hill And breathe in the morning And contemplate change The change that is inevitable Sun, stop rising higher Don''t remind me, please Another trip downhill awaits Another day is here Another try to test the fates And somehow persevere I''ve written poems and thoughts and whatever words came into my head since I was old enough to do so, but this one was especially emo. I laugh and draw a big X through the words, gather my things, and head off to school. For real this time. * * * "How is she?" I ask. The hallway buzzes, packed with students like a hive. Worker bees filing down the corridor in chaotic order, prepping for the day. The metallic rattle of dozens of combination locks being undone fills the air, and the scent of gas station coffee wafts over me from somewhere nearby. I pull a world history book out from my locker as I go through another ritual with my best friend, my only friend, Jonathan.

"Fine. Seems to be taking to the new stuff they put her on." Jonathan''s eyes linger, looking beyond the space of his locker. "That''s good." We only talk about it like this--briefly mentioned, almost like an insignificant remark about homework before class. His mom is the only family he has, and I know how much she means to him. I don''t want to pry. I just want to make sure my friend is okay.

Jonathan Conner is a good head taller than me, with sandy brown hair he keeps at a buzz, eyes to match, and shoulders broad enough to show how much more he''s grown than the other kids already. He volunteers at the fire department, loves hockey and going to Blues games, and is probably one of those most likely to get that house for sale down the street from his mother''s come his twenties. He''s pretty good-looking too, though I''d never actually tell him that. We''ve always been polar opposites, but I think that''s why we became friends in the first place. Spending time with someone who sees the world differently than you can be comforting. It can also be frustrating at times, but I think that''s half the appeal. I know he will always have my back. "So what''re we doing tonight?" Jonathan asks, just as one of the varsity hockey players crashes into me accidentally.

My books and papers fall to the floor and scatter as he and his buddies take their Neanderthal horseplay farther down the hall. "What the fuck, dude?" Jonathan yells, immediately outraged. He shoots through the crowd, grabs the guy who collided into me by his collar, and slams him into the lockers. "I know you think you''re better than everyone else, but you''re not." Jonathan boils with a deep rage as a crowd draws around. His temper has always been bad, but he''s had a hard time keeping a lid on anything these days, much less when provoked by the school''s.