Insignia

by S. J. Kincaid

  At one point, when Tom started rambling about Medusa’s victory on Titan, Medusa asked Tom whether he was stalking her.

  “I am,” Tom admitted. He even owned up to watching her battles 394 times.

  Strangely enough, his honest admission that he was unhealthily obsessed with her made her like him more, and let her own guard down. She started speaking in her real voice, so he started responding in his real voice.

  And Medusa? Yeah. She was definitely a girl.

  “What time is it there?” he asked her one Saturday morning, just so he could hear her speak again.

  “Five in the morning, obviously.”

  Tom knew that was a stupid question. They knew each other’s time zones. He didn’t care. “When do you sleep?”

  “When I’m not stomping you and your country.”

  Tom laughed. He was suddenly certain she was the most awesome person he’d ever encountered. “I had a six-year winning streak until I met you.” He adjusted the microphone so she could hear him over the background buzz in the public VR parlor. His avatar was a muscular blue ogre with a samurai sword that doubled as a phase gun.

  Medusa’s avatar was an Egyptian goddess with retracted, batlike wings and eyes that shot fire. “I had an eight-year winning streak when I met you. And I still have an eight-year winning streak!”

  Their characters were idling in the exploratory phase of their RPG. She’d been pestering him to make up a call sign, since his avatar’s name, Murgatroid, wasn’t doing it for her. Neither was the nickname he suggested, “the Troid.”

  “I’ve got one,” Tom told her. “Merlin.”

  Medusa didn’t like that. Her Egyptian queen turned into a large bat that flapped across the room, like she was going to leave. Tom’s ogre leaped up to block the window and stop her escape. She transmitted a sound wave of loud booing and shot some fire from her eyes.

  Tom’s ogre threw up his beefy arms to shield his face. “What’s wrong with Merlin?”

  “Too Camelot Company. You said you’re not in Camelot Company.”

  “What, you want me to come up with a name that’s anti-Camelot? That’s treasonous, isn’t it? It’s betraying my country to be anti-Camelot.”

  The bat fluttered around his head. “Isn’t this treason right now? You’re meeting with the enemy.”

  “It’s not like I’m giving you confidential info. And besides, we’re both meeting with the enemy here.”

  “Well, look, it’s not that bad. It’s not like we’re going to go fight in real life tomorrow.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what my fake call sign should be, then? It’s not like it counts for anything.”

  Medusa transmitted the booing again. “You have to come up with your own call sign.”

  “I’ve got a great one. Lord JOOSTMEISTER,” Tom joked. “All in caps.”

  Fire blasted from Medusa’s eyes. She didn’t like that one.

  Tom leaned back in the chair to avoid the flames. “How about Sir Roostag the Mighty and Free?”

  She considered that one a second. Then, booing.

  “Okay, okay. Serious one. Exabelldon.”

  Medusa zinged his ogre with the fire from her eyes. Tom’s ogre bellowed, and Tom laughed.

  “Now you’re trying to make up the worst names imaginable,” Medusa said.

  “Fine, fine.” Tom had been trying to do just that. “How about . . . Mordred? He destroyed the real Camelot.”

  Applause answered him. Medusa poofed back into an Egyptian queen and stopped trying to fly out the window or zing him with flames.

  “Fine,” Tom said. “Mordred it is.”

  Her Egyptian queen fluttered her long black eyelashes. “Mordred is a sexy name.”

  Tom’s cheeks grew hot, like there really was some girl in the room teasing him. “You think so?”

  “I know so.”

  Tom was still remembering that exchange, when he headed back to the Spire that night. She’d called him sexy. He felt like an idiot, standing there in the middle of the mess hall, grinning about something said by a girl whose name he didn’t even know. And then he found himself meeting Karl’s gaze across the crowded room, and the massive Genghis nodded his head toward the elevator.

  Karl disappeared into it but held out his hand to keep it open. Tom followed without deciding to. A sense of doom crashed over him during those few, agonizing steps to the elevator. Even though he knew something was very wrong here, he couldn’t stop himself from going inside and then walking behind Karl to an empty bunk in Genghis Division.

  “We’ve done this before,” Tom realized as the door slid shut behind them.

  “We sure have. More than once. And this?” Karl waved a neural chip tauntingly, “Is your last personality update, Benji.”

  “And then?”

  “Then some of the software that’s already been installed gets triggered, and bam—you’re gone, Lassie. The little punk I know and hate is wiped. The best part is, I get to be the one to do it. I owe Dalton for this big-time.”

  Tom stood there in the middle of the bunk, watching Karl set up a video camera, and felt like he was going to be sick. He wished suddenly that Vik or Wyatt or Yuri were nearby—anyone to stop this. He’d even take Blackburn.

  Karl flipped the camera on, trained it on Tom, and then settled back in a chair. “Any last words, Fido?”

  Tom’s blood pulsed up in his ears. “Drop dead, Karl.”

  “That’s not very nice. Kind of hurts my feelings, Raines. How about you make it up to me? I know. You can get on all fours like a good little dog, and bark.”

  Tom closed his eyes. Listen to Karl and get your update warred with Disembowel him. Disembowel him now. The vise around his head was back because Karl was telling him something and he was trying his hardest not to listen.

  “Drop. Dead. Karl,” Tom choked out, fighting everything inside him trying to force him down.

  “No, get on your hands and knees, and bark. Do it, Raines. Do it right now so I can film it.” Karl leered at him over the camera, his jowled face shadowed in lamplight. “You think I don’t get you? You wanna be the big man in charge here. You think you’re the alpha dog. But you’re not. I am. So you’re going to do this right now before I eradicate you.”

  “I hate you.” Tom’s limbs trembled with the dual effort of trying to force himself back out the door while something else tried to force him down on all fours.

  “I hate you, too,” Karl said. “Now hands. Knees. Bark. Consider it an order.”

  Something about that sequence of words did it, and then Tom was on the ground, barking, while Karl’s laughter filled the air around him. By the time the wire clicked into his brain stem, that second voice in his head had already fallen silent from the sheer horror of it all.

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  .....................................................................

  Chapter Eighteen

  “WHAT IS WITH you?”

  “What do you mean?” Tom said to Vik. He was gazing into his new mirror in his bunk, very intent on gelling his hair before morning meal formation. It was long enough now that he could do something with it. Mr. Prestwick had given him a credit card and instructions to go clean up, starting with a two-hundred-dollar bottle of hair styling cream so he wouldn’t look like a street rat anymore.

  He was trying very hard to ignore the way Vik was gaping at him, like he’d just walked naked into morning meal formation. “You realize you’ve been preening in front of the mirror for half an hour.”

  Tom frowned, then stopped, knowing frowns made people wrinkle, and it was important he protect his youthful good looks. “You’ve told me a dozen times you’re hoping to make Camelot Company one day. Well, I hate to break it to you—but appearances matter if you want to get somewhere in life, Vik.”

  “Gosh, I’m sorry, Tom. Did you displace your Y chromosome somewhere? I hope it’s not on the floor where someone might ste
p on it.” Vik made a show of looking around.

  “I’m sorry you don’t understand the value of presenting yourself in the right manner.” Tom felt bad for him.

  A few weeks ago, he’d have told the world Vik was his best friend. But Vik was getting weirder by the day. He kept treating Tom like he was a freak of some sort. He sniggered when Tom started exercising in the mornings before classes or when he was the first to raise his hand with the civilian instructors or when he volunteered to escort a committee of senators and business leaders on a tour of the Spire.

  Tom didn’t get what Vik’s problem was. This was how a guy got ahead in life. He connected with the right people, conducted himself well enough to give a good impression, kept up his appearance, and leaped upon opportunities as they neared. That’s what Mr. Prestwick said, and everything Mr. Prestwick said was true.

  “I DON’T UNDERSTAND him anymore, Mr. Prestwick,” Tom told him Wednesday night, when Mr. Prestwick took him to get fitted for an eleven-thousand-dollar Italian suit. Dominion Agra executives were holding a soiree on the following Saturday night at the Beringer Club, and after a month of downloads, Tom had been deemed ready to be introduced to everyone.

  The tailor stepped out of the dressing room, and Mr. Prestwick occupied himself by flipping through a rack of designer ties. “Perhaps it’s time you had new friends, Tom. They don’t sound like the type of people we want around you.”

  “I like my friends.”

  “We’ll see if you feel that way in a download or two.”

  “I don’t want to lose them.”

  Mr. Prestwick strolled over to him. “Now, Tom, everything we’re doing is for your own good.”

  “I know.” Tom didn’t know why he knew that, but he was sure of it. A strange giddiness washed through him with that certainty.

  “Then you know better than to question me. Try this on.”

  Tom took the tie. He looked it over. He could call up references to sixty different types of knots, but there was nothing in his neural processor about tying a tie.

  “Ah, of course. Never bought a suit with your old man, I wager. Here we go.” Mr. Prestwick looped it around his neck, then tied it into place, standing in a way so Tom could follow his movements in the mirror. He stepped back and surveyed it. “There. I think that’s a good choice for you. Makes you look like you’re worth something. Put it on your credit card.”

  They don’t sound like the type of people we want around you. . . .

  The words echoed in his head later, when Mr. Prestwick sent him a leather case with his next software update. He sat with the closed case in the mess hall, baffled by the strange urge not to hook it into his brain. He’d been updating himself for a couple weeks now. The new updates were small: manners, etiquette, suggestions for self-improvement. He knew it was a privilege that Mr. Prestwick allowed him to participate in his reeducation. He’d be abusing Mr. Prestwick’s trust if he didn’t download this.

  Still.

  He watched Vik and Yuri, in animated conversation with Wyatt near the entrance to the mess hall. He trusted Mr. Prestwick. Mr. Prestwick was always right. But his stomach churned at the very possibility he’d plug this in and eradicate everything that mattered so much to him a month ago. His first real friends. He felt sick at the very thought of losing them, but Mr. Prestwick had as good as told him that was about to happen.

  A heavy footstep behind him. A hand clasped the back of his neck, and someone leaned down and whispered in his ear: “Go upstairs and use that, Old Yeller.”

  Tom sighed. “Yes, sir.”

  Karl strode off. Tom closed the case with infinite care, then rose to obey the command. Two pairs of hands on his shoulders shoved him back into his seat. Yuri and Vik slid dropped down onto the bench on either side of him, and Wyatt took the seat across from him.

  “What was that?” Vik cried.

  Tom frowned. “What was what?”

  “You called Karl sir!”

  “So?”

  “Thomas Raines,” Wyatt said, folding her hands on the table, very formal. “We feel it is imperative we discuss your recent conduct with you.”

  “Come on, Evil Wench,” Vik snapped, “this is an intervention, not an excuse to start talking like a robot.”

  “Well, it’s not an excuse for you have such delicate, tiny hands, either,” Wyatt retorted, glaring at Vik.

  “What?” Vik said, confused. “What about my—” Then he shook it off. “Look, Tom, we’ve discussed this at length and concluded that in recent weeks, you’ve become an embarrassment to manhood.”

  “Not just to manhood,” Wyatt said. “I’m embarrassed for you, too, Tom.”

  “All right, I’m not—” Tom said, shrugging off Vik’s grip. He tried to rise, but Yuri shoved him back down.

  “Sorry, Tim,” Yuri said, regret in his voice. “Normally I would not push you around, but I must because you have become such a pansy.”

  “A pansy?” Tom cried.

  “The Tom Raines I know,” Vik said, “is not supposed to spend a half hour primping his hair. You’re not supposed to call Karl Marsters sir. And you haven’t even been giving Elliot Ramirez crap in Applied Sims. He actually came up to me today and asked me whether you’re depressed and need the social worker. Come on, Tom. Elliot of all people has remarked on the conspicuous absence of your spine!”

  “Elliot’s misreading the situation, and so are you—HEY!” He saw Yuri examining the leather case that held the neural chip, and snatched it from his grasp. “That’s mine. You should respect other people’s property! And as for Karl”—he turned on Vik—“it may have escaped your notice, Vik, but he’s a member of CamCo. He outranks us. He deserves our respect. That’s why I call him sir. If I remember correctly, you talked to me about this exact same thing the last day of the war games.”

  “I was talking about Lieutenant Blackburn, not Karl!” Vik cried.

  “Do you even hear yourself, Tom?” Wyatt said. “You’re being weird and very creepy.”

  “I am not being weird or creepy. And you are no one to lecture me about being weird and creepy!”

  Yuri gripped the back of Tom’s neck so suddenly, Tom gasped.

  “You do not talk to her like that,” Yuri warned him, and Tom was suddenly aware of how much larger the Russian guy was than him.

  “Yuri, it’s okay,” Wyatt said.

  Yuri released Tom.

  Tom rubbed the back of his neck, trying to gauge his chances of escape.

  “I think Lieutenant Blackburn should give you a system scan,” Wyatt said. “There might be some worm in your processor, messing up your personality.”

  Tom clutched the case closer. “Ludicrous. Absolutely ludicrous.”

  “Ludicrous” wasn’t a word he’d ever used in his life, but it was among an array of eleven possible responses that jumped into his brain as responses to any accusation regarding neural tampering. The next action his processor suggested was flight, removing himself from the situation.

  Tom rose to do just that. “I think I’ve heard more than enough—” he began, but Yuri shoved him back down with a murmured apology about the “pansy” thing. “What is wrong with you people? You can’t keep me here against my will. This is assault! Consult the regulations in your neural processors if you don’t believe—”

  “That’s it,” Vik announced. “New approach.”

  He whapped Tom across the back of the head hard enough to jolt his vision.

  “Hey!” Tom cried, rubbing his head. “What are you doing?”

  Vik nodded. “You need another.” He raised his arm to hit him again.

  Yuri grabbed Vik’s wrist. “I do not like this approach.”

  “He needs a clobbering!” Vik ripped his arm from Yuri’s grip. “Maybe it’ll jar him out of this!”

  “Maybe you—” Tom stopped before he could threaten, “need a clobbering.” Because public displays of temper did not become him.

  “Maybe I what? Maybe I what?” Vik spread his
arms, the crazy-eyed look back, his grin gigantic, challenging.

  Tom glanced around at the other trainees in the mess hall. “Maybe you should calm down. You’re drawing a lot of attention to us.”

  Vik groaned. “Ugh. That’s pathetic, Tom.”

  Tom looked between the two guys flanking him, at the girl perched across from him, and saw exactly why Mr. Prestwick thought they were a bad influence. They were all wrong. Dead wrong. They didn’t understand that nothing was the matter with him. He was learning, that was all. He was improving.

  And if they didn’t understand that, then Mr. Prestwick was definitely right about them. He needed to be done with them forever.

  TOM REMAINED JUMPY long after his intervention. He kept opening and closing the case with the neural chip, knowing this was the one thing that could fix him, that could prevent him from caring what they thought of him ever again. But whenever he looked at it, a feeling settled inside him—a low, churning sickness. The case burned in his grip and he wanted nothing more than to smash it for an absurd instant.

  He was contemplating it again when someone overrode the lock on his bunk.

  Vik! Tom stashed the neural chip under his pillow, and tore to his feet, ready for a confrontation. The door slid open.

  It was Wyatt.

  “How did—” Tom began, wondering how she’d busted through his lock. His voice died in his throat, because Lieutenant Blackburn filled the doorway, right behind her.

  “Mr. Raines,” he announced, pulling a neural wire from his pocket. “You’re in luck. Ms. Enslow here wants to learn how to perform a system scan, and she volunteered you to be her guinea pig.”

  Tom’s eyes flew to Wyatt’s. She bit her lip, obviously a bit guilty about siccing Blackburn on him. He knew what this was about. She was using Blackburn to try to search his processor for that worm she’d accused him of having.