Sam watched, fascinated as the lead boy tapped a large projected red button on his screen. The holo-board sprang to life as a strange, highly detailed fight sequence began to play out with five-inch holographic representations. Quite unique, the scene reminded Sam of the old classic Kung fu movies that were filmed before the rise of the Jade Empire. Sam watched as the main combatant did some impossible acrobatics including flips, kicks, walking on walls, and jumps of incredible height. Ordinary physics, including gravity, didn't seem to be an issue for the little avatar. But these impossible feats paled in comparison to his odd ability to seemingly pull weaponry out of nowhere. Blade weapons thrown with deadly accuracy, hand-held explosives, and strange concussive shockwaves ravaged groups of energy-blaster wielding guards.
The man's actions made Sam's mouth go dry. She refocused, zeroing in on the depiction. He was taller than the other little holo men and appeared to be very strong, as evidenced by the way he was cutting, shooting, and burning up assailants left and right with little or no hesitation. Something about him seemed surreal, like he was a work of fiction or part of some sci-fi adventure. His single-minded action was captivating.
The man's battle culminated in a fevered chase where the hero tracked down a second holo-man. Sam struggled to make out this part of the action. The holographic scale really didn't include infrastructure, making it hard to understand the venue and environment. It didn't matter though; the more she stared at the figures and the boys watching them, the more she could not help herself. She wanted to know what was going to happen. The culmination of the scene came abruptly with the brutal destruction of the main character's target. While this made her cringe, it made the boys at the table cheer.
Sam shook her head, partly because of the violence and partly because she couldn't shake the feeling that she knew that man. She looked back at the table as again the main character stood triumphantly in the middle of the board. Sam decided then and there that she would take the old school 2D players any day of the week. This was too real for her.
A second clumsy bump into another chair and a sharp pain in her leg brought Sam back to reality. She hadn't even realized she had been walking. She really was a klutz.
"Sorry about that," said Sam in an embarrassed voice. "I didn't mean to, well, you know."
The boy in the chair turned to address her, both anger and milk dripping down his face. He was going to yell at her, she could tell; he was going to verbally assault her in the middle of the cafeteria. His mouth opened and she waited for the fireworks to come, but then nothing. It didn't happen. He didn't yell at her but instead opened and shut his mouth like a mute attempting to kick the silence habit. After a bit of a struggle, he found his voice and was able to mumble, "Uh…it's ok."
He turned back to his friends, who were all staring at Sam. She scratched at her head, confused. An awkward silence followed, during which the group of boys watched her with bug-eyed disbelief, an expression that baffled Sam. With nothing else to say, she slowly turned and walked towards a far table. The boys stared on, the seconds seemingly snowballing into minutes as Sam continued her sluggish pace. Behind her the boys appeared to get over whatever was ailing them and their conversation resumed.
"Charles, I'm telling you, this is the most likely hypothesis for the types of wounds inflicted, the compounds found, and the evidenced fighting style."
"You're explanation has about as much potential validity as your thesis on android women. There is absolutely no conceivable paradigm in which this representation is accurate."
The boys' conversation dwindled as she walked farther from them. Not that she really understood what they were talking about anyway. Richard would probably know. Maybe she would ask later if she remembered. The boys at the table weren't the only ones staring at her, however. Now that she thought about it, lately she seemed to be getting a lot of attention wherever she went. Just like when she and Cammie had gone shopping the week before for dresses. Now that had been a trippy experience. Cammie had been right; those guys had been looking at her. The changes over the last few weeks had been subtle. She had hardly noticed, but something was different. She was different. She felt it now, standing in this lunchroom with all these people. The knowledge that something was different made her feel very alone.
But it wasn't just her; others seemed to notice a change as well. People that she had never talked to or even seen before were starting conversations with her for no apparent reason. It was totally bizarre, and not in a good way.
"Hey Samantha."
The voice startled her, notwithstanding the incessant amount of noise in the room. Sam turned to face a burly boy with long black hair. Moses Rair stood smiling not a half-meter in front of her. She didn't know what to say. What was the most popular guy in school doing talking to her?
He spoke again, his voice deep and accented. "Samantha, how do you do?"
"Umm…hi, Moses. Umm…I…I do fine, and how do you do?"
Moses beamed. "You know my name, I'm flattered."
Sam's eyebrows compressed. 'You know my name, I'm flattered'?, Sam thought. Moses Rair is saying this to me?
"Oh my yuck, Moses," came another voice from just behind him. "What are you doing talking to someone from Partial Palace?"
A girl stepped out from behind Moses and struck a pose as if she expected the lights to dim and spotlights to shine. Another person Sam knew of, but until now had not really seen in person. High Tracks debutante Sariah Grey switched between incensed anger and demure pouts as she looked back and forth the between Sam and Moses. "Come on Moses, they have the fat-free, sugar-free, taste-free chocolate pudding today. I want some."
Sariah pulled on Moses, who followed, though quite reluctantly. He watched Sam as he walked away.
The two left, leaving Sam speechless. First the super-hot transfer student Adam talked to her and now Moses Rair stopped her in the lunchroom. Why was this happening? A thought struck her.
"The box!" she said aloud. "Could this have anything to do with that weird noise?"
That couldn't be right. She had just found that box this morning, and though it was weird, it couldn't account for the changes she felt. Still, the box pulled at her mind in a strange way, and she didn't have any idea why.
Sam shook her head. Of course this didn't have anything to do with that silly box or that--that scary noise. Sam pushed it out of her mind.
She found Richard sitting at a table, eating an array of particularly unappealing food. A range of uncooked vegetables, artificial soy protein, and supplements went one after another into Richard's mouth. He chewed unenthusiastically as he read a book.
"Hey Richie." Sam sat down next to Richard. "I can't believe you're still reading those things. You know you can get just about any book you want on Vii Space, right?"
Richard didn't say anything, causing Sam to sigh a little louder than was necessary.
"Still not talking to me, huh?"
Richard looked up from this book and swallowed. "Actually, I wasn't talking at all. This tendency towards silence has a proclivity of transpiring when someone, i.e. myself, has half-masticated artificially enhanced protein in their mouth. However, if you are asking whether I am willing to engage in average everyday small talk with you, the answer is still an unequivocal no."
"Come on Richard, I don't even know what I did."
"You not knowing something is shocking, I assure you."
Sam ruffled his hair. "Don't try that crap on me Rich, it's not going to work. Now tell me what is bothering you."
"Ignore him Sam, he's just pissy."
Cammie and Coda, coming from different directions, plopped down next to Sam, which instantly made the situation comical as Cammie shot daggers at Richard and hearts at Coda. "Dick over here is just pissed at how you got all goofy with Adam earlier."
Cammie angled her body, giving Richard a view of her profile; the move highlighted a severely snotty look. "I thought you said that jealously is an ill-redacted instinct, Dick."<
br />
Richard put a hand to his forehead, rubbing the length of it. "Ill-adapted, Camille. Once again your burning intellect leaves us all in admiration. And for your information, I didn't get jealous. I do not get jealous. I was just surprised that Samantha's instinctual biological predisposition to 'hot guys' was as devolved as the rest of yours. I could scarcely conceal my absolute and utter disappointment that she was not using higher cognizant functions in developing her surreptitious romantic infatuation."
Richard paused, leaning forward so he and Cammie's faces were uncomfortably close. He studied her vacant expression. "Surreptitious means secret, Camille."
"Ahhh, I see. Continue, but hurry and get to the 'however'."
"However," cut in Richard again sounding annoyed, "it is neither my function nor desire to orate on the discombobulated capitulations of female/male mating instincts. Suffice it to say that while I hold certain informational privileges as Samantha's best friend-" Richard paused and then nodded towards Cammie. "Yes, Samantha told me you were demoted."
Cammie swore. "Oh my George W. Bush, Sam!! You actually told him he was the best friend?"
Richard continued his discourse, ignoring the comment. "While I have those certain informational privileges, it would be arrogant for me to comment on the adequacy or inadequacy of any particular suitor Samantha may or may not be interested in. I do not have to comprehend nor approve her decision. I accept it regardless of whether it offends my gag reflex or not."
Sam's face blazed scarlet, a repeat of her encounter this morning. They all knew he was talking about Adam, and doing it like she wasn't even there.
"You know, now that you're freely discussing this Rich," said Coda, who was playfully poking and watching the resulting jiggle of a sizable tower of Jell-O, "what I don't understand is why you dislike Adam. On the last competence testing he took like second in the school, right after you. He was behind you by like 10 points or something, if I remember correctly."
"14.134 points actually," snapped Richard. "And only because of the influenza virus I caught."
"Not the point, Rich!" exclaimed Coda. "What I am getting at is Adam is smart, handsome, and kind – yes kind, Rich. Bet you didn't know that he was the one that told me to save your chubby butt this morning, huh? Speaking of which, how was it that Dyson didn't knock your head off? It was like he just missed. Who seriously just misses? Anyway, to my point, which is Adam is a nice, smart guy, and Sam likes him. Why don't you like him, besides the fact that he almost beat you on a test?"
Richard pulled out his tablet. He centered it in front of him and cracked his knuckles.
"Oh no, I know that look," whispered Sam. "Remember what you promised? No hacking into government mainframes."
"That was an unfair promise. 90% of nets are government. I didn't know what I was agreeing to."
"Are you kidding me?" spouted Coda and Cammie at the same time. "Sam got a concession from the mighty genius?"
Richard sneered. "She made a 1950's Chicago-style deep dish pizza and then made me promise not to hack any government systems before she would serve me any. Thick crust, real mozzarella cheese, fresh tomato sauce just tantalizing me. I would have agreed to Lamarckian evolution as a viable scientific theory at that point. But we digress in the conversation, which lacks relevance to the actual topic at hand. What I was preparing to do, Samantha, was show you something on the school's network."
After a few lazy taps on his interface, Richard brought up the school's vid-net. Various live feeds displayed in neat little boxes stacked across the screen. The others moved in around Richard, once again amazed at his resourcefulness. Richard was talented, and they all had grown accustomed to his unique brand of ingenuity, but even with this conditioned behavior they could not help once in a while feeling astonishment at Richard's innate ability to pretty much do whatever he wanted when it came to technology.
"Rich," asked Coda, sounding awestruck but eager, "is there any way that you can set me up one of these feeds?"
Cammie scratched at her head. "Why would you want one of these feeds, Coda?"
"I would have thought the answer to that question would have been exceedingly obvious." Richard tapped on one of the windows marked Changing Room.
The image blew up and a feed loaded the live image of a girl about to change into a school issued swimsuit.
Cammie gave Coda an extremely dirty look.
"What?" he said innocently. "It's for research, for a book I'm writing."
"What's the title?" asked Sam with a slight giggle. "Pervert 101: How to Get Caught in Voyeurism?"
Richard tapped the tablet again and the feed diminished and darkened.
"Richard," said Sam sternly. "I don't want to think that you are spying on girls while they're changing."
"Come on Sam, we've already had this conversation!" cut in Cammie. "Richard doesn't li--"
"I'm going to cut you off right there, Camille," interrupted Richard, talking over her. "I appreciate your feeble attempts at humor as much as the next imbecile, and I understand you have the attention span of a precocious two-year-old, but let's return to the task at hand."
They all closed in around the screen.
A second feed blew up to show the very lunchroom in which they were sitting. The view of the camera was scanning the many doors that led into and out of the lunchroom, panning on a prescheduled routine. Richard tapped out a few more commands and the camera stopped on a single person.
Sam spoke with more than a bit of breathiness. "Richard, I know that you are trying to show us why you dislike Adam, but wouldn't it be easier to just tell us? Do you really need to highjack the vid and watch him?"
"Hush, Samantha," replied Richard. "Hush and watch."
Adam Smith's presence was captivating. Strikingly handsome, his sandy colored hair and fiery eyes gave off a feeling of warmth that was almost feminine. Not that Adam was feminine by any stretch of the imagination. He was actually quite athletic and excelled in all the physical education classes and defense training. His stoic attitude, refined beauty, and quiet nature were almost magical and made him extremely popular with all the girls. He was in fact so popular that a few of the younger girls had started an Adam Fan Club.
Surprisingly enough, at this particular moment his massive group of followers had yet to notice his presence. He stood just inside the door, looking slowly from his left to his right and back again. His normally casual attitude seemed absent as he surveyed the room with what felt like practiced motions. He did this twice more before he walked fully into the room and was instantly mobbed. Richard then closed the feed, looking satisfied.
"There," he said smugly. "Now you know why I cannot trust him."
"You can't trust him because he's more popular than you?" asked Cammie. "If that's the case, all I can say is well, duh."
"Cammie, if only abortion hadn't been outlawed decades ago. Your parents would have greatly benefited from the institution."
He looked to Coda and Sam. "Did you catch it?"
Coda answered thoughtfully. "That he's popular? Yeah totally, but we already knew that. Well, I didn't know he was that popular. Umm…you don't think he's more popular than me do you?" Coda leaned back slightly, interlocking his fingers behind his head. "If so, I can see why you don't trust him, Richard. Anybody who's more popular than me can't be trustworthy. I mean, who transfers schools in their last year of generals? Really, who does that, and how could they not be suspicious? "
Sam rolled her eyes. "Coda, didn't you transfer schools in your last year of generals?"
"Technicalities, my dear."
A ringing sound silenced any further conversation, and a loud voice echoed around the lunchroom. "All students please report to your pod. This is a code three. Please report to your pod."
The atmosphere instantly changed. Men wearing dark uniforms walked in and started to escort the students to reinforced lockable classrooms that were more akin to bomb shelters than places of learning. The conversation about Adam w
as instantly forgotten.
"Rich, what's going on?" asked Sam as they were pushed with the flow of students. "Why are we going to the pods, and what's a code three?"
"A code three means that there is some kind of danger that could be threatening the school. Security is to heighten their alert level, though even this seems excessive."
Sam wasn't given the opportunity to ask more questions as suddenly the very group of boys that had been watching the holo-board earlier surrounded Richard and her. "Richard! Sir, Richard please. We need you. Will you help us? It's about him, we need him, we need you, we--need --answers--"
"Mackie, handle yourself more appropriately. What is it? You are rambling incoherently."
Harmonics: Rise of the Magician (Harmonics Series Season One) Page 5