by Drew Hayes
“If you can’t tell whether the person you are Watching is aware of your existence then you don’t truly deserve the points,” Professor Pendleton explained. “All information gathering is an active process. You can’t just observe, you need to know if the person is aware you are observing. If they are then they could feed you false information. By the same logic, if you know that they know then you can twist the tables on them.”
“I’m confused,” Gilbert moaned from the back.
“He’s saying that a Watcher can screw a Spotter right back. Think about it: a Spot only counts if you successfully identified your Watcher and the time frame you submit consists of at least one of the three hours you were being Watched. If the Watcher realizes they’ve been seen, they can always elect not to turn in their notes on that tail, thereby depriving the Spotter of their point.” Tiffani Hunt drew many curious glances with her outburst, but the nod of approval from Professor Pendleton told her she was on the money.
“Well said. Identifying misinformation is even more important than obtaining information in the first place,” Professor Pendleton continued. “Now that we’ve covered how the game works, or at least as much as I’m willing to explain it, I’ll briefly touch on grading. Five points is the goal so it is an A. Four is a B, three a C, two a D, and anyone with one point or less will receive a failing grade.” A familiar hand shot up from the center of the desks and Professor Pendleton resisted the urge to sigh loudly. “Ms. Adair, I am not going to go back over how-”
“What if we get more than five points?” Alice felt a twinge of shame interrupting a teacher, but she wasn’t going to let a golden opportunity slip by.
“More than five points?”
“Yes. What if we exceed the goal?”
Professor Pendleton stared at her for a long moment, the wheels in his head turning so loudly some of the students near the front could make out a faint ‘click-clack’ noise. “If, and that is a mighty big if, you are able to get over five points, then you will receive bonus credit. Each point over will raise a previous assignment by one letter grade, at a maximum of ten.”
“And what if-”
“If you exceed ten then you have hopelessly too much time on your hands,” Professor Pendleton said, this time cutting her off. “But I’ll concede the possibility. Anyone who exceeds ten points will be invited to a special challenge session. Should someone come away from that session victorious they will have an automatic A on the final exam for this class.”
The class buzzed; HCP course finals were notoriously difficult. Jumping through all those hoops had to be an afternoon on the couch by comparison. Many students set their will to accomplish the impossible, despite the fact that less than a minute before they’d been wondering how they would ever pull a passing grade out of this assignment. Amidst it all, Professor Pendleton wondered about the curiosity of the fact that Alice, one of the class’s worst performers, was sitting at her desk with a smug smile across her face.
97.
“This wardrobe is wasted on you,” Nick said as he sifted through Vince’s closet. The bulk of the former wanderer’s clothes had been provided for him along with his dorm furnishings and monthly allotment. It was part of the “scholarship” that their program provided, along with tuition and class fees. The others hadn’t been provided with quite as much as Vince; then again, they hadn’t needed nearly as much, either. Nick had always thought of it as a form of payment for letting themselves become human guinea pigs, but given that the experiment had worked, he supposed the blood money arrangement worked out in their favor.
“Over half this stuff still has tags on it.” A tumble of clothes fell upon Vince’s bed as Nick cleared the way to view more options.
“I’ve never had many clothes. I just find what’s comfortable and keep wearing it,” Vince replied from his desk. He was doing some homework before heading off to Camille’s birthday event, determined not to find himself in the same kind of situation as he had last semester.
“That’s very Zen of you, but adding variety to one’s rotational ensemble isn’t always a bad thing. For instance, you might already know what to wear tonight instead of having me help you.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t expect it to be formal.”
“Funny how that works. You’re the one who put together Camille’s shindig yet you didn’t realize Karaoke Barn has a strict dress code.” Nick didn’t bother giving Vince the accusing glare. He’d no more believed his friend had organized this event than he believed Bigfoot was secretly in charge of The Masons.
“It’s called Karaoke Barn! Why would I expect that to require suits and dresses?”
“The name is ironic; it’s one of the swankier places in town. Private rooms, highbrow food, I hear they do a non-complimentary valet even though there’s tons of parking available.” Nick knew, of course, that the relevance of that last fact would be lost on someone like Vince. Really the only person in Melbrook who might have fathomed its significance was Alice, and Nick had already found himself a bit too fond of her company lately. He needed to put a little space between himself and his blonde teammate.
“I know that, now.” ‘Now’ had occurred when Vince showed Nick the jeans and T-shirt he planned to wear that night. It had not gone over well.
“Just be glad we did a pre-screen. It would have been mortifying if you’d shown up in those rags.”
“They aren’t rags.”
“They are compared to what you should be wearing.” Nick pulled back another section of clothes and revealed a piece that demanded he let out a low whistle. “And what you should be wearing, pretty much always, is this.”
Nick plucked free a three-button suit that was still bound in plastic wrap. It was the color of smoke and had clearly been fashioned with Vince in mind. His lean frame had put on a bit of muscle thanks to his HCP conditioning, but Vince would still fit strikingly into this outfit. Nick could already visualize it, and the image made him want to pick something a little nicer than what he’d planned for himself. Nick could deal with many things, but being drab, even if only by comparison, wasn’t one of them.
“Oh yeah, I forgot about that,” Vince said, rising from his desk. “I saw it the first week I was here. Didn’t know where I’d ever wear it to.”
“You knew it was here, yet you let me spend half an hour rooting through the dregs of your closet?”
“I forgot.” Vince shrugged like only the truly innocent and the truly idiotic are capable.
“Of course you did.” Nick thrust the suit to his friend, who accepted it gently. “I’m going to leave while you try it on. Add the accoutrements, too; I’m helping you itemize all afternoon.”
“Accoutrements?”
“Yeah, you know: shoes, belt, rings, watches, all the periphery shit.”
“I don’t think I have that.”
Nick jerked his thumb toward the now ravaged closet. “Go dig. If there’s a suit then there’s at least a matching belt and shoes. As for watches, what about that pocket watch you keep on your bedside table?”
Vince didn’t glance toward where Nick’s eyes were looking; he already knew perfectly well what watch he meant.
“I don’t really wear that out.”
“And with your usual clothes you shouldn’t. With this suit, on the other hand, it would be a welcome addition. Tell you what, get dressed and I’ll show you how to run the chain, then you can decide for yourself.”
“I guess I could do that,” Vince agreed reluctantly.
“Then hurry. Some of us have to get ready too, you know.”
* * *
When a room is thoroughly disheveled the phrase ‘it looks like a bomb went off in there’ is frequently used. This description, while popular, is wildly inaccurate. It ignores the fact that most bombs civilians are familiar with are not designed to create craters; rather they use a controlled amount of explosives to send fragments and shrapnel as projectiles. It also fails to take into account that even if the first conditio
n were not true, such a situation would invariably leave scorch marks as collateral damage to the area in question. So, Camille Belden’s room certainly did not look like a bomb had gone off in it. It did, however, look as if a team of specially trained agents had scoured through it looking for illegal contraband. Unfortunately for Camille, neither of these were the case.
“Try these on next,” Violet demanded, setting a pair of heels Camille was certain she’d never bought onto the bed. Camille didn’t buy heels; she’d never even worn a pair. These must have been included in one of her mother’s care packages. She was always encouraging Camille to dress more lady-like.
“Oooooh, with the green dress,” Stella chimed in.
“Love it!” Violet agreed cheerfully.
It was a strange thing, Violent Violet and Stella Steel, as they were known in their respective hometowns, setting aside their usual rough demeanors and getting bogged down in the intricacies of hair and makeup. This was not, as some might speculate, because all women are predisposed to such passions regardless of their personality type. It was simply that people are complex creatures, and the joy of burying a fist in someone’s skull does not exclude one from also enjoying the ability to turn heads when walking into a room. Besides, bad as one might assume these girls were at such pageantry, Camille was infinitely worse.
The duo had been at this for hours, fully aware that if they didn’t go the extra mile to make Camille look irresistible, then she certainly wouldn’t do it herself. It was a testament to how much she wanted to go to a party she believed Vince had thrown for her that the small girl was tolerating such abuse. Normally she would have slipped away in some moment of confusion, and she certainly wouldn’t have allowed her housemates to wreak such havoc on her normally well-kept room.
“I can’t walk in these,” Camille said as she turned over the new set of heels in her hand.
“HCP training spends a lot of time on balance, I bet you’re better than you think,” Stella told her.
“Plus, heels will help close the height distance between you and Vince. The boy is kind of tall,” Violet added, resisting the urge to share a conspiratorial wink.
Camille let a sigh die in her chest and began putting on the heels. Denying the truth was as useless as resisting these two. They were relentless, and she was their favorite pet project. At times she wondered why they didn’t put as much effort into their own love lives, but it was a question Camille would never ask. Even if they could be annoying at times, she knew that all this effort came from a sincere love for her, so the last thing she wanted to do was say something hurtful. Besides, in the deepest part of her heart, Camille had to admit she wouldn’t mind standing even a few inches closer to Vince’s lips.
It bears saying that she made it all of ten steps before taking her first tumble, a tally which Stella and Violet mutually agreed had to be a first time heel-wearer record.
98.
It was a good thing Karaoke Barn offered private rooms, because the turnout for Camille’s party couldn’t have easily fit in some obscure corner booth. Her team, along with Thomas and the girls, were there, but also in attendance were some unexpected additions such as Chad, Shane, Britney, Julia, Jill, and Sasha. All of them were trimmed in appropriate apparel, though Julia and Sasha’s necklines were treading dangerously close toward defying that definition, and they piled into the large room stocked with several tables and one moderately-sized stage at the center.
People began taking seats where they were available with little consideration of who they were next to. Everyone here was, if not friends, cordial enough to tolerate for the night. Vince noticed he seemed to be herded into the seat next to Camille, one he would have thought her closer friends might have prized. He accepted it with his usual blissfully-ignorant demeanor, turning his attention to the groups of people ambling in as they arrived.
“I thought Will would have come with Thomas,” Vince said as he noticed his hyper-intelligent friend was nowhere to be seen.
“Oh, he told us he was going to be late. He had an early evening lab,” Camille supplied as she pretended to browse through one of the monolithic song catalogues littering the tables. She would sooner square off against one of the professors in combat to the death than get on the stage to sing; however, the book did make a useful prop for avoiding looking at Vince. The small tolerance she’d grown thanks to working with him all year seemed to have dissipated when she saw him in his suit. The boy cleaned up well.
“Yeesh, I’m glad I don’t have to take any science classes.”
“You, me, and the entire chemistry department,” Nick agreed, pulling out a chair and plopping down at the table. He was dressed closer to Nicholas than Nick, what with his dapper button-down and midnight-black suit. He’d purposely avoided combing his hair too expertly or getting this particular jacket tailored, at least. They were meaningless details unless you were looking for them, and Nick assumed someone was always looking for them.
“I don’t think I’d cause too much damage,” Vince protested.
“Vince, you’re a dear friend, but you screwed up making iced tea,” Nick countered.
“He did?” Camille looked up from the songbook.
“He just didn’t know that the machine needed a filter,” Alice defended, making her way over and settling in next to Nick. Her red eye glitter matched the sparkling of her form-fitting red dress that showed just a touch of cleavage. It was beginning to look like this table would be filled only by Team One members, but the last two seats were quickly scooped up by Violet and Stella. Neither of them saw the unhappy look on Sasha’s face, but she had no one but herself to blame for being too slow.
“I’d never used one of those things before; I thought it was built in.”
“Needless to say, the tea was thrown out and we haven’t really let Vince mess around with advanced appliances since,” Nick concluded.
“Too bad. Most girls dig a man who can cook,” Violet pointed out.
“Lord knows I do,” Stella agreed. “I hate that domestic shit, I want to come home and have my meal hot and waiting for me. Maybe with a nice martini on the side.”
“So you want to be a man, in the fifties, in a sitcom?” Nick asked.
“Pretty much.”
Nick turned the idea over in his head a few times. “You know what, I can actually see the appeal there.”
“I am able to cook,” Vince protested, getting his words in at last. “I’m just not good with fancy technological stuff.”
“Items you would find an abundance of in any science lab setting, circling back and proving my original point,” Nick replied.
“So who’s going to sing first?” Violet tossed out, trampling over their repartee.
“My money says it will be whoever is drinking the heaviest,” Alice wagered.
“I don’t know, some people actually enjoy the spotlight and the attention.”
“Oh, if it’s about being an attention whore then Nick will probably be up there before we even order our food,” Alice predicted.
“Funny. Sorry to disappoint, Princess, but not even a river of booze could get me up there. Being genetically tone-deaf means I can’t carry a tune any more than Vince could use the popcorn setting on the microwave.”
“I feel like this is getting mean,” Vince objected.
“Wait, so the diva of Melbrook has one outlandish activity he won’t engage in? No, no, now I’ve got to hear you sing.” Alice plucked one of the books from the table and began rifling through it.
“Flip the pages as fast as you like, there’s no way I’m getting up on stage,” Nick reaffirmed, turning his attention to a menu rather than a book.
“Oh, come on, do it for Camille. It’s her birthday.”
“I’m actually okay with people not singing if they don’t want to.” Camille felt it important to establish this precedent early in case attention was later shifted to her own lack of performance.
“Look, you want me to make an ass of mysel
f, it’s going to have to be tit for tat,” Nick said.
“I’ll go sing,” Alice agreed immediately.
“I know you will; we’ve all heard you belting out top forty hits in the kitchen when you forget you live with other people. That’s not a fair exchange, because you wouldn’t be embarrassed by singing. You should be, but you wouldn’t be.”
“No need to be snippy,” Alice said with a glare. “Fine, if me singing wouldn’t get you up there then how about something equally degrading?”
“I’m listening.”
“I’ll clean the boys’ side bathroom and lounge tomorrow.”
Nick raised an eyebrow. “Why exactly would that be a fair trade?”
“Because you always call me Princess, and nothing would cheer your vile little heart more than seeing someone you consider high society doing menial labor.” Alice shot him a pointed look with a light smirk underneath. She might not be as good as he was, but she still knew a thing or two about what a man’s temptations were.
“I expect a professional-level job. Plus I get to pick the song.”
Alice contemplated the addendum to the bargain then shook her head in a motion that sent her blonde hair bobbing about. “It’s a deal.”
“Good. Mind if I at least order my food first?”
“Don’t you need to look for a song?” Violet pointed out.
“I’ve got a good inclination of what I want to do already,” Nick replied. “I'm quite confident they'll have my choice. That can be confirmed in a moment; the first priority here is selecting something to fill my cavernous stomach.”
The rest of the table took a lead from his good idea and began pondering their dinner options.
99.
Glenn was about fifteen minutes away from Karaoke Barn, forced to come separately from Jill due to his late class, when the stereo on his car dissolved into static. He let out an obligatory curse word and began to fiddle with the knob, paying traffic only a passing nod of attention. No matter how he switched through the stations, everything came in with the same crackling pattern. With a grunt of annoyance he turned off the volume and put his attention back to the road. This was not a good start to the night; he could already feel the agitation growing within his belly.