Rod Wars

by D. J. Hoskins

  "I...don't know..."

  "Oh, come on." He pulled the door open and waved Alex in. "The dorm's got a view, living room, separate bedrooms; it’s the last good room left in this place...literally."

  The door shut behind them.

  Alex appraised his surroundings. Pre-furnished and blue themed, the dorm's most notable accommodations were its mini-kitchen and spacious living room, whose far wall, stretching from the main door to the first bedroom, was a glass window. Polished dark hardwood flooring covered the extent of the dorm from its identical bedrooms and closets to the tiny laundry room. Outside the window was a small balcony, its view highlighting a small plaza encircled by a garden. "So what do you think?"

  "It’s just...wow, is this really a dorm?"

  "Yeah pretty awesome, right? So how ‘bout it? You want to crash with me? The rule is two to a room, so it’s not like I could hog it to myself anyway."

  "Yeah, sure."

  "Awesome. Do you have your pass on you? I have to register it to the door."

  Alex handed it over and his new roommate left the dorm. Taking a seat on the couch, the youth plucked the remote off the coffee table. Daniel walked back in as Alex was about to turn on the flat-screen. His roommate returned his card before plopping down beside him. Alex ran a finger along the edge of the card absently, and Daniel taking advantage of his momentary distraction, swiped the remote from him.

  Alex shoved the pass into a pocket. "Hey—"

  "You know, you really should get a wallet or something."

  Alex made a grab for the remote. "Give it back."

  Putting the flat of his hand on Alex's forehead Daniel pushed him back, tossing the remote to the side.

  "Passes are pretty important,” he continued. The remote descended over the couch arm and skittered across the floor, its back popping and batteries spilling out. "It serves as your identity here and as a tier one, it gets you all sorts of privileges."

  Alex laced his fingers behind his head and raised his feet onto the coffee table. "Like what?"

  "At least take off your shoes."

  "Like what?" he repeated pulling off a shoe.

  "Like...getting priority over lower tiers in the library." Daniel grinned. "You can even cut them in the hold lines for video games and stuff. We get room service, banquets, special events and even invitations to high class balls where we're taught firsthand how to network. The people who attend are said to be anywhere from business tycoons to high officials and military to senators and generals. I heard once even the press—"

  "Why?" Alex asked.

  "What do you mean why?" Taken aback, Daniel sat up slowly. "We're tier ones, Alex, we're the elite. The people who step out of Corpus run things. Attending banquets is just the tip of the iceberg for us." He searched his companion's green eyes with his dark ones for a sliver of understanding. "Being special, being treated special, as a tier one, it's a right."

  "More like prejudice."

  "Prejudice? Oh please...the system's set up to benefit us because we're the best. It’s got nothing to do with prejudice."

  "That doesn't justify anything."

  "Huh? What do you mean? Of course it—"

  "Everyone who attends the same school should get the same education."

  "The same—you're just an oddity. What do you know about what's fair or not? You're just going off half-baked morals from another universe. Listen Alex, I don't know where you came from and I don't care—sorry, that was insensitive." He met his roommate's unwavering eyes squarely. "But in this world, or at least this country, we don't belittle overachievers, we praise them. We raise 'em up and propel them forward. And I'm not saying I totally agree with the system and its little underground rules, like the one where lower tiers aren't allowed to speak to higher ones first, but they're there for a reason. I mean look at the social classes. Despite what everyone says or does, a rich dude and a poor guy, no matter what anyone says, are still going to be treated and perceived differently. One's successful and the other's not. It’s the same concept here at Corpus." He smiled. "But just because the tiers don't associate with one another doesn't mean we can't. I for one have a ton of connections in the lower tiers."

  "Connections? Just connections...like associates?"

  "Well...yeah. Like a higher tier would make friends with a lower." He laughed but Alex didn't join him.

  "Not prejudiced...huh?"

  "I'm not,” Daniel said firmly. "I'm better than—why do you care about the lower tiers? You're a tier one, you can't relate. You couldn't if you tried, so stop pretending. There are better things to do than worry about them. I mean like, they're not starving, and no one's hurting anyone. The relationship between tiers is normal. It’s what it should be, just like gap between first and third class on planes. Pay more, get a better seat. Have more titus? Get better stuff. That's the way things work and it has been that way since titus was first realized. Heck, we're not even worshiped like the monks of the Viate Order and you're here acting like every tier one should apologize or something..."

  "I never said—"

  "Look Alex, I've never felt bad about being important. And—and you shouldn't either. Some people are born to win, others to suck. That's just the way the world works. I mean like no one asks a CEO why his salary and the salaries of his corporation’s bottom feeders have a mile-long gap. No one—"

  "All right." Alex held up a hand and pulled back out the pass. "I get it. This is important."

  "Huh?"

  He waved the card. "This is what launched all this, right?" He glanced at it reproachfully almost as if seeing it in a new light. "Who knew it carried so much weight? Anyway, I'll hang onto it."

  Daniel brightened. His easy smile returned as he leaned back against the couch cushions. You're still missing my point about that wallet, man."

  Alex could only smile. These people, I swear... he thought. Melissa...Daniel, they're so quick to make excuses.

  "But seriously,” Daniel added, “don't lose it. You only get one a year."

  A knock on the door drew their attention and two packages were pushed through the door's large mail slot.

  Daniel grinned and flew to his feet. "Finally!"

  "What?" Alex turned as his roommate dashed to the entrance.

  Clapping his hands together, Daniel touched his plant necklace and coaxed out a root. Curving it into a small makeshift blade, he broke it off and took it to a package. By the time Alex had made it over to him, both packages were open.

  “Yes!” Daniel exclaimed. “That's what I'm talking about. Brand new laptops! Look, even your uniform's here. Damn, don't you just love this school?"

  ~*~*~*~

  "Alex...Alex...Hey, wake up already!" a shrill voice hissed in his ear.

  "Wah-ahh!" Alex jerked up with a start, smacking heads with Melissa.

  "Ow..." she whined, recoiling as he fell back to the bed with a groan. "Why'd ya do that?" She dropped the hand on her head. "Well, at least you’re finally awake. You sleep like a log—"

  He sat up with a start. "Why are you in my room?!"

  "I let her in,” Daniel admitted from the doorway, coffee in hand. "Should I not have?"

  "What do you think?"

  Daniel sipped the drink, unabashed. "Well, she said you were friends."

  Melissa and Alex exchanged glances. His dubious, hers hopeful.

  "You're lucky I came in," Melissa said and glancing away, she tucked a few strands of hair behind an ear self-consciously. "With—with Daniel as your roommate, you'll always be late for class."

  "What? What time is it?" Alex threw off the covers, his eyes flicking to the alarm clock. He looked at Daniel pointedly.

  His roommate shrugged. "I hate mornings."

  ~*~*~*~

  "Get dressed fast Alex,” Melissa said and pulling out his black dress pants from the uniform package, she laid them out on the bed beside his dark blazer. "We have to be downstairs in time for breakfast."

  "I know, I know,” he said pu
lling out a clean shirt from his closet.

  She headed for the door. "Thanks to Daniel we're already running late." The door clicked shut behind her.

  He turned back to the closet and changing his shirt, his green eyes fell upon the dark uniform with a tight expression. He had mixed feelings concerning that dark grey blazer. It was as simple as it was sharp in its design. Gold buttons lined its middle, and two rows of higher and lower pockets decorated its sides, but it was the deep crimson strips crossing the shoulders and the uniform's buttoned back cuffs that bothered him.

  Red, crimson. The color of blood. The identity labeling the privileged, the elite—the exalted tier ones.

  He crossed the small space between the closet and bed. Leaning a knee lightly onto the furniture, he grasped the blazer's soft fabric and drew it up before him. Once he donned it, he'd join a class he'd so criticized...but it wasn't so much the over-privileges that induced him to speak against the tier. No, his anxiety rooted itself in the origins of doubt, fear and pride.

  Doubt...I know nothing of this world. How then am I supposed to keep up with my level? Those freaks have been eating and sleeping titus concepts since before they could crawl. What's the point in struggling when I'm bound to fail? Maybe I should just save face and quit. To hell with Wilson, I'll find another way to get back to my dimension.

  Fear...what if I fail? What if, as Wilson had said, there was no way to cross back over? What if I'm stuck here, in this world, this dimension, forever?

  Pride...My inheritance’s waiting for me. There on the other side of the rainbow, through that damn haze. I can't fail. I can't accept failure, will not accept failure. If I don't put this uniform on, then I will be forever the first one to step away. I didn't chose to come here but that doesn't change the fact that I’m here now. There’s no way I can let those millions slip away when I’m only a year from turning eighteen.

  A sharp knock hit the door springing Alex from his thoughts with a start.

  "Hey Alex?!" Melissa called from the other side. "You done yet?"

  The knob began to turn. Dropping the blazer, he leaped forward and grabbed the doorknob, holding it in place.

  "No! No, I'm—I'm still changing!"

  "Oh...well, hurry it up."

  The knob relaxed in his hand and turned back slowly. Picking up the blazer, he pulled it on and buttoned it up.

  "Alex's taking his own sweet time getting dressed,” Melissa said. Leaning against a wall beside Daniel, arms crossed she tapped her foot impatiently and pulled out her phone to check the time. "Just one variable after another. At this rate we're going to have to skip breakfast. That's why I texted you the night before not to drag your feet in the morning."

  Daniel lowered the cup from his lips and returned her pointed look, unabashed. "If I'd really been dragging my feet, I wouldn't be standing next to you right now."

  "The cafeteria's probably packed by now."

  "We're tier ones, calm down, we can just cut the lines."

  Melissa glanced at her phone. "I don't think it matters. We don't have enough time.”

  The door opened and Alex stepped out.

  ~*~*~*~

  Filing into the classroom along with the rest of the freshman tens, Alex took a seat beside Melissa, at the back. Daniel trailing after him pulled out a chair beside his sister.

  "You skipped breakfast,” Katelyn accused pulling out an ear bud.

  Daniel took one of the classroom tablets off its metal charger. "I had coffee."

  "So...what? You're planning to wait out the next three hours in the restroom?"

  "At least one of us plans ahead."

  "This term's going to be full of fluff anyway,” Melissa said and began to fiddle with her stylus.

  Katelyn leaned back in her chair and fixed Melissa with a sideways glare. "You told me you sent him a text."

  "I did."

  "I saved you a seat in the cafeteria but you never showed up. So what happened? Did that slow you down?" The dark haired girl's eyes flicked to Alex and he flinched.

  Smirking she sat up and returned Melissa's flat purple gaze with her own frosty grey. "Playing fetch is desperate but going after an Oddity is just plain sad. When did your standards drop so low?"

  A shadow fell over Melissa's eyes and they darkened to a deep violet as she leaned into Katelyn. Half a head taller, Melissa’s attempt to look down on her roommate would've succeeded if not for the red flare scaling her neck and tinting her cheeks. Alex was not just an oddity. He meant something more, was something more, he was...he was...someone. He was an individual not just a pathetic waste of space who wouldn't recognize titus if it hit him. How dare Katelyn judge him.

  "Shut the—"

  "Hell up? You first, you incompetent bitch."

  "At least I'm not fawning over a sibling like a purposeless sheepdog."

  Curling a hand into a fist, Katelyn jabbed it forth. Dipping her head to the side the blonde scarcely evading the blow went after her assailant with hooked nails.

  "Now, now..." Daniel standing, circled and eased them apart. "Break it up you two. You have a whole year to—"

  "Get out the way Daniel!" Melissa ordered. “I need— “

  The bell rang and Mrs. Quill walked in, a thin tablet in her hand. Daniel removed his hand from Melissa's shoulder, gave his sister a sideways glance and returned to his seat, expressionless.

  Alex blinked. How anti-climactic, he thought as he leaned away from Melissa uncomfortably. This chick, no... Both of them are so damn confrontational. Ugh, that would've been such a good fight and I had a front row seat.

  "Today we'll be covering the theory of object creation,” Mrs. Quill said as she ran a hand across a large black screen that faced her students at the center of the wall. The user interface appeared on the board and the remaining conversations died as the class began to retrieve their tablets.

  Before each chair dipped a shallow black metal groove in the tables. In them laid a silver tablet cradled within glowing spiral lines. Glancing over at his own device, Alex pulled the technology from its charger. The soft glow faded and disappeared.

  "You know...now that I think 'bout it," Daniel said as he fiddled with his tablet. "I should’ve eaten breakfast."

  "Can't do anything about it now,” Katelyn replied. Plugging in her earphones she folded one arm over the other on her portion of the table. Dropping her head on them, she closed her eyes.

  "Three hours to go..." Melissa said with a heartfelt sigh. "I should’ve just ditched." Propping her elbows on the desk, she entwined her fingers. Her eyes at half-mast, she rested her chin on the back of her hands and looked on with an impassive expression. A glance quickly lengthened to a stare as Alex lowered his tablet to the table. Her eyes were distant, he noticed. It was as if...she was seeing something else.

  Was she daydreaming? he wondered. Or recalling a memory?

  Reaching out hesitantly, he waved a hand before her face. Violet eyes refocusing, her head snapped up. Her eyes fell upon him with a sour glare as if to say: what are you looking at?

  He dropped the hand with a sheepish smile.

  Inserting her own pass into the device, Mrs. Quill laid the tablet face down into the groove of her desk and swept her crimson eyes over the class.

  Talent across the board. This year's workers were in the front and the slackers in the back. Overall? A cluster of undisciplined brats, a herd of ignorant freshman. This was her class, another thirty of Kaiga's best and brightest.

  Brushing a finger over one of the groove's sensitive buttons, she connected the tablet to the board. Retrieving it, she opened up Creation 101 and readdressed the class.

  "Turn to page 89 of your textbooks."

  "Text—textbooks?" Alex whispered, looking from his tablet to the board and back again. What textbooks?"

  Mrs. Quill, stylus in hand, began to write on the note side of the board's interface. "The theory was first put into practice by..."

  I'm going to fail. I'm being left behind. Thi
s world...I'm—if I don't master this thing, I'm going to be trapped here forever. Alex took a breath and glanced at Katelyn. She's listening to music. Her eyes are closed. What—what about Daniel?

  Alex saw his roommate tap the send icon on a messenger app. His brow furrowed and frown deepened. His initial disappointment was overshadowed by the dark clouds of despair.

  He's texting. Alex clenched a fist as he returned his gaze to his tablet's dark screen. Ugh...what type of people am I sitting next to? Aren't they supposed to be smart? He began to run a hand around the device's edges feeling for the power button. No, that's not it. They're not lifting a finger because they are smart. They're not like me. They don't need to study, at least not right now. Didn't Melissa say that the first term was all review?

  Resting his elbows on the table he put his head in his hands. They're not the only ones slacking. His eyes drifted across the room. A fair share of the tablets didn't match the text on the front board.

  Katelyn and Daniel aren't the only ones not following along. I didn't think this out. I should have thought this out. In one term I have to catch up. I have to memorize the basics. First thing's first... He stared at his tablet's blank screen. I have to turn this on. He glanced up. What is the girl in front of me doing?

  Peaking around the curls of strawberry blonde hair, he stared at his classmate’s screen. Unlike a few of her peers nearby, she was on task.

  Creation 101. Ah, so that's the textbook? Alex did a double take from his black screen to her glowing one. Wait...how did she turn the damn thing on?

  His eyes drifted over to Melissa.

  "Huh...?"

  Alex jumped as a jolt of electricity shot up his spine. Her tone was inquiring, somewhat demanding with a dash of confusion. He met her baffled look casually.

  Nosy. The word crossed his mind without a second thought.

  Raising her head, she stared at him openly. "Alex, what are you doing?"

  "Paying attention?"

  "You haven't even inserted your pass yet."

  He fished out the card. "I was getting to it."

  "Hmm..." Resting her cheek on her palm, she watched him fiddle with the tablet for a moment before reaching out tentatively. Alex recoiled slightly as her fingers skimmed his and guided the card into the thin slit in the tablet's side.